psychophipps

Not a bad late-90s list. One error I found. The Ruger P97 magazines are 8+1 (carried it back in the day).

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours as well, Rocky!

 

There's always Cyberpunk 2077

 

Well, I was in Afghanistan 2008-2009. Since then I have become the corporate security director for a Japanese Wall Street firm, so I am basically living CP2020. I played City of Heroes until they shut it down. I'm on Star Wars The Old Republic now and again. I was addicted to World of Tanks for a year, but finally gave it up cold turkey. I'm staying away from computer games until BioWare Andromeda comes out. I've also been doing this thing where I 'read books'. How are you and everyone else?

Cyberpunk 2077 had it's last blog post almost four years ago. If the latest Duke Nuke'em is any indicator, that's not a very promising sign.

Great to see that you seem to be doing well, sir!

Also keep in mind that social media has taken the place of forums for most folks. They are more intuitive, easier to do "cool" things with, and you can post of selfies!

Having not run a CP game in over a decade, and having pretty much zero interest in running a different game with the aging-poorly dice engine, this has by an large become a "Let's see how the homies are doing over here" kind of thing. Sad certainly, but since the computer CP RPG fell through, 3rd was utter garbage, and all too many of the tropes are reality as Stray has pointed out, it was pretty much inevitable.

It never exactly induced nipple twists for me, to be frank. I saw the City Gun(?) in Chromebook 2 (IIRC) and immediately saw what a steaming pile the concept was, let alone any gun that actually used the tround concept. The tround shape might prove interesting in a caseless weapon, however.

Total bummer, Dog. Closed I'd gotten to that was a dislocated rib from a bad spill on my bicycle that was causing spasms now and again. Took to good lick in class one night and it popped back into place for me.

Yeah, I got #2 kiddo baking in the oven. I tried to get them to cook the twins during my CT and MRI scans so I wouldn't have to worry about #3, but they wouldn't hook me up...

Try about $60K in the hole...without insurance.

Had my Gall Bladder out last year and it took almost a week for my Pancreatitis to die down enough for them to give it a go. I was fighting my Gall Bladder, and the horrible back spasms and nausea it caused me off and on, for 4 years or so before the doctors wised up. Worst week of my life as they had to take my Fun Button away as it was slowing down my stomach. I basically went from Superfly TNT shot to sleep for and hour to an hour and a half to waking up at pain level 3 of 5 to a very rapid ramp up to 5 of 5 until I got my next shot 4 hours after my last one, if the nurses weren't completely swamped and I got it two hours late. Nothing like being a grown-ass man and crying in a hospital bed waiting for the sweet release of narcotics.

Last month I went in for Appendicitis and came out with about 3/4 of a full-on Seppuku scar, including the hardasses-only vertical cut. Typical two-day turn-around for the surgery turned into over a week in the hospital (would have been at least 24 hours longer if I didn't get pissed at the doctor dragging his feet and take out my own NG tube in the middle of the night). Can't go into details of the goatrope for obvious reasons, but I can say that the second I woke up CYA was in full effect and I have yet to hear the true blow-by-blow of what happened.

I don't think we have any South PRK members anymore. Maybe Eraser, but I thought he lived further North.

Too bad the $59.99 Mosin Nagents are long gone unless they're so tore up from the floor up they're barely functional, eh? My friend got a nice one and I have to say that it's actually fun to shoot.

That's some realio-dealio shit right there.

Pretty much the same sort of thing is done with any gray/shadow economy. You need to be paid but you can't go busting people up right off the bat (no pun intended) because then they can't do the work to pay the debt. Cartels just south of me (as in 25-30 miles south) they can straight up pop someone off for any old thing because there is so much money in what they do. No matter how bad the individual hit, they make it back in a week or less (usually much less).

The thing about here is the fact that eventually everything trickles down to the cartels (and it's getting to be the case more and more everywhere). Bootleg discs, prostitution, car boosting, kidnapping for money, etc it all, in one way or another, is part of cartel business. As the US pumps up the heat at the border, they diversify to keep the money coming. DEA chief in Chicago on Drugs, Inc. was talking about how the cartels are gaining major footholds there, and Chicago is 1,400+ miles away from the border. He then went on to say these cartel guys make Al Capone's methods and crew look like a bunch of candy-asses.

I love how he consistently shows that the impossible is certainly possible. He "started slow" and still got six into the target with an anti-material rifle in under a second.

I love how he consistently shows that the impossible is certainly possible. He "started slow" and still got six into the target with an anti-material rifle in under a second.

My fav was the target with a backstop of everyone's cars and a building. Yay for safety!

Congratulations!

We already have them, Rocky. I think it was Liberia, IIRC, that hired that semi-famous South African mercenary to help police their waters from being overfished by everyone else.

Happy birthday, bro!

My issue with your logic, Gomiville, is that Martin responded to the personal affront with what even trained police officers consider lethal force. There is a high likelihood of grave injury (concussion or even worse) when getting your head beat into concrete via your face so a lethal force response was indeed justified.

It would have made an excellent claim of self defense if Zimmerman hadn't lost Martin, and Martin hadn't decided to head back from the safety of his porch to Zimmerman to take care of their "unfinished business". I can see where being followed by a random would piss someone off (I'm not one of them, but I can see it from another's perspective) but being pissed off isn't even approaching a valid legal, or moral, reason to double-back and assault someone.

The store thing has zero bearing in this situation as well. If Santa Clause just came back from giving all the good boys and girls toys, mounted Zimmerman to pound his head against some concrete via his face, and got the good news for it...well, tough titties for Ol' Saint Nick. Martin lost 100% of the innocence and credibility once he left his porch and sought Zimmerman out to vent his frustrations.

We are obviously on different sides of this case and see things quite differently as to: Being followed by a random at night = Attacking that person is Ok. That's fine. Neither one of our opinions will make any changes to any laws or change the ruling of the courts.

Just saw another story, btw. Apparently one of the jurors caved to the highly skewed view that people that watch the news thinks is the mass public opinion about the case and now says that she freely admits that she helped a murderer go free. Funny how perception can change once you're no longer looking at just the facts of the case, eh?

You're absolutely correct, Gomiville. I messed up the timeline of the burglary tool and the stolen jewelry. My apologies.

However, the paranoia caused by criminal behaviors doesn't dissipate immediately after you get home. If you get confronted later on, all of the sensations I described above are all to prevalent as you mentally wonder if they know, how much they know if they do know, and so forth. This is actually one of the main reasons why criminals are commonly described as standoffish to strangers but people that have known them for a while say that they're often great people to be around, just like everyone else, etc.

It will finally become a problem when a Congressman is killed by a techoterrorist or some similar type of high-profile situation. Businesses are as reaction-based in their thinking about security as anyone else when it comes right down to it.

To be honest, I'm confident enough in my position in this world that someone following me wouldn't freak me out. In fact, I would stop and ask the person following me if there was something I could help them with (a great way to initiate any contact with an unknown person as it's non-threatening and non-accusatory, btw). Having actually been "the guy in the hoodie" in the past, the contact went very well for both sides as I explained that I was on my way home after a long night at work. They thanked me after I thanked them for double-checking "because you never really know" and went back to their home without incident.

Amazing how these situations go much better when you don't have stolen property and a burglary tool on your person, isn't it? When the person behind you is just a concerned citizen asking about a stranger at 2 AM instead of being a constant threat to your freedom because he might have a cell phone to call the police and tell the responding officers that a black man of X height in a hoodie was last seen in X neighborhood walking in X direction leaving the place you just burgled. Where every step is telling you that they think that you're up to no good, that you really are a complete asshole for breaking into that other person's house, and by God you're gonna make that motherfucker pay for making you afraid and for reminding you of what an asshole you are.

So yeah, I have a pretty damn good idea what was going through Martin's mind at the time because I've heard the story from other criminal interviews. I can absolutely guarantee that the thought process wasn't "Gee, I sure hope this white guy behind me isn't going to randomly erupt a shot at me from his concealed weapon" because you don't assault armed people when you're unarmed unless you're an idiot.

Martin played a stupid game and got the correspondingly stupid prize. Complete tragedy is pretty much always found on both sides of that particular fence.

The issue, Gomiville, is that your argument doesn't hold up based upon the report from Zimmerman that he lost Martin. If you're following someone, and then lose sight of them, you're not following them anymore. If you purposefully turn your back on a person's previous verified location and walk away from it towards your vehicle, you're not following that person any longer.

Furthermore, if you are at the safe location of your porch without someone effectively following you and then proceed to search for that person that was previously following you then you are initiating a fresh contact with that person under the law. You can't assault someone two hours, or even two minutes, after you had them disrespect your Mama right to your face and claim a "fighting words" defense. Once the initial contact is broken for any reason then any further contact legally happens as if the first contact never happened in most jurisdictions. This fact is what keeps getting gangbangers claiming self defense busted when they cap down someone that threatened their life earlier. Yes, the threatening party might have indeed killed more people than cancer in the past and represented a completely legitimate threat, but that doesn't mean you have the legally defensible option of slitting his throat while he's passed out drunk later that night.

That said, I completely agree that this was a tragedy. I feel for both Zimmerman, who lost his previous life in this as well because you're never the same after you have to kill someone, and the Martin family for the loss of a son/cousin/loved one. It was senseless on both sides, but the legal reality is that Martin acted in justified self defense and that legal finding is based upon the moral authority of the right to self defense as well.

Last I checked one definition of "Professional" (see 2-C) is someone that is doing something for financial gain. Chances are Martin wasn't looking to add to his Random Stolen Jewelry scrapbook so...

Excellent point, Gomiville. If we find someone with a scabbed lip, a lighter, a well-used pipe, and crack rocks in a baggy in their pocket it is obviously completely unreasonable to assume that this person is a crack user.

Martin was found with a large screwdriver, a common burglary tool, and stolen property, a crime in and of itself whether he committed the burglary himself or not. What kinds of conclusions should we reaching other than the ones stated earlier?