Agamemnon

rule 1): avoid the terms "demon", "devil", "hell", "heaven" and "gods". use eupheisms like "lower planes", "powers" and so on and so on...

rule 2): emphasize the positive aspects of the game, the teamwork perspective and the chance to "be someone else"

rule 3): be polite, dress subduedly, leave the pentagram jewelry at home

rule 4): try to find Christian endorsements of RPGs. I know there are some in the Net, including a few from actual Roman Catholic priests.

rule 5): let them see the rulebooks, dice and such (maybe not the Book of Vile Darkness, though), or if possible, arrange a demo game.

rule 6): be prepared for the "suicide-causing" theory. Drawing a parable to the Son of Sam might be helpful. Just because he went nuts because of a dog, must dogs be banned?

rule 7): emphasize that it's only a game.

--

No, I'm not entirely serious, but many of those are IMO quite valid. Having them see a game in progress would probably be the best course of action. The more crazy superstitions you can refute, the better.

let's see... uh, a 13-inch b&w monitor, keyboards, a 2-gig SCSI drive with a controller but sans cable, a warking 300 mhz p2 mobo + cpu, a broken p75 cpu, two dismantled 20-meg Seagate disks, a black computer case and two broken power sources.

I consider music a memetic phenomenon. The memes of western music culture are infinitely more well-entrenched, supported and spread by the machine that in any situation of conflict, it is more likely to reign over the opponent. Our music and art flows in, and theirs flows back, yes, but ours is the stronger wave.

This is not homogenization, this is dilution. You cannot take the sounds of Japan from Japanese music, but you can dilute them. The globalization of communication is more likely to downplay sharp differences than alter the map in other ways.

Similar phenomena can be found in languages, where dialects and local jargons have been, by varying degrees, assimilated or fallen out of favor by the influence of larger dialects. A slightly rarer thing has been the death of an entire language under pressures from another language, often the one used for commerce. This can be likened to the death of an entire genre, or a subculture. The more well-established the genre, the less likely its demise.

Rock will not die, not as such. It will rather mutate slowly into another shape until finally there are only the faintest links with the original.

I can keep at this all night, you know, making comparisons between music and language, but I dare say you're either bored already or well aware of the point I am trying to get across. What ought to be borne in mind is that we cannot really say what will happen in such a long time period. The phenomenon that is popular music is relatively new and new innovations might have a drastic role in its future (much as the music video did). The best way to find out about the future is simply by staying tuned.

I got bored the other day and started watching the John Waters movie "Cecil B. DeMented". It was a rather nifty way to spend an afternoon and it got me thinking about the chances of a similar subculture forming in Cyberpunk.

After all, the likes of Net54 spew out probably hundreds of terrible movies and docu-dramas each month and whatever quality pictures get made are drowned under the sheer dross that is mass-marketed onto the public view. What is the motion-picture idealist going to do about it, in the conflict-torn world that is Cyberpunk 2020?

That's right, start a war against movie theaters that show crap like "Forrest Gump 5" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer XXI", the industry that produces them and the media giants that orchestrate the whole defilement of the artform.

Hey, just another pack of loonies fighting against Big Brother, eh?

I don't see why globalization and near-instant communication would lead to the prevalence of marginal phenomena like African of Asian music, more like the other way around. I'd wager that within 20 years, American and European music is the norm, all over the world.

I suppose I am also way more sceptic about the power of independent or purely artistic groups to penetrate into the public consciousness. In the urban decay that is Night City, I'd imagine survival and pure escapism overshadowing any artistic values in making and listening to music.

In my "vision", Rockers in cyberpunk are musicians in it for the money, not political dissidents and certainly not artistically-inclined progressives. They stick to what they know will land them steady gigs, instead of veering off into new avenues. It's hard to be a music revolutionary when all you're eating is dirt and kibble. On the Edge, any chance you take could be what tosses you over it, onto the bodybank slab.

I suppose one of the reasons I liked cyberpunk was the fact that I have always loathed punk, grunge, techno and dance music of any kind and Cp2020 was painted as a sort of a Rock'N'Roll future.

There is no power on heaven, hell or on earth to convince me to onsider techno anything but noise with all the aesthetic value of modem signals. I want my ashes to be scattered to the winds by the sounds of "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" by Meat Loaf. I suppose I feel profoundly unstuck in time, longing for something I can never have, and thus reject what is called the future. I don't want music to change. Te same way people think news are a good thing, they think change is for the better. But what people really crave is "olds", the affirmation that things are as they have always been, in the Good Old Days. The same is true for music, for some people.

I suspect the value of music as entertainment or as art will diminish in the coming years, with the record companies pushing the envelope to remain on the nebulous cutting edge of public tastes. Whatever shreds of political awareness and profound meaning there have ever been shall be forced out in the service of profit. Evolution will go on, of course, and "new" things will be accomplished, but it'll all be hollow, without meaning.

What it all boils down to is that when you open the radio 20 years from now, what you hear is the dying wail of music as we know it. There'll still be guitars, I suppose, and some semblance of familiarity, but it won't be what we call Rock'n'Roll.

All right, a bit of a tricksy questione, this.

The Volt Pistol is a perennial favorite, due to the cool factor of shooting lightning bolts. I had some fun with the net launcher, too, as well as the web bombs from Chrome 1.

My dragon-exotic character is thus far the only person ever seen carrying the Kenshiri-Adachi flamethrower.

I have a nagging suspicion that my soul is worth about 20 cents...

Indeed it was. I loved it (and started said thread, too).

The funny thing is the translated title here in Finland. It's called "Cubic" on the video/dvd release. Some translation vermin ripped the name off his arse, 'twould seem.

In my case the case is simply the chronic bad cash situation that every student suffers from (I hate having to beg money off my folks, as they provide me with a place to live and warm meals as it is) and the difficulty of utilizing online payment services sans credit card.

I will, however, endeavor to facilitate my purchase of CC in the near future.

I like Joe's idea of taking extra time. I think it makes sense in most circumstances. And of course some things are just not flat-out possible without the skill, period.

Heh, the full gamut of the bizarre and the fashionable was easy to see in Ropecon. wearing a t-shirt and jeans was actually a way to stand out instead of blending in.  

I wish I had worn something flashier... Well, mayhaps next year.

Yeah, the Mummy flicks are high on my list, too. They're mindless entertainment and thus good.

The world is hell. #### it.

Sometimes i feel that mankind's evolution from protozoa was the mistake of all creation.

I thought of a few more.

- almost all Robin Hood movies ever done

- The Three Musketeers

- The Man in the Iron Mask (mostly for Irons and Depardeu playing their roles so well)

Is that some kind of a Zen thing?

uhm, I do hope you're not serious.

Fifth Element was just an amazing visual experience, but as a movie it fell short of the mark.

Why am I not surprised that someone immediately started figuring out game statistics?  

I do not like seeing one blobal super power, but having two would be worse in all respects. Also, as a part of the United States of Europe, Finland would lose the shreds of independence we still have.

The day Europe becomes a superpower is the day mankind will take one giant leap towards the worse. The beginning of the end, as it were.

Aye, someone ought to teach him the real meaning of the phrase "excruciating agony"

Heh, I liked Hudson Hawk when I was littler, the exclamation about "reindeer-goatcheese pizza" was somehow funny... o, silly me...  

So, since this place needs more life to it and since I'm bored, I'll kick off this here thread, about movies that we've secretly liked but do not like to admit. Basically, really bad movies that have nonetheless been fun.

My list (well as much as I can remember of it at 12pm, which really is not much, actually) is as follows

- Airplane (utterly insane comedy, still brings a smile to my lips)

- Man and the Naked Gun (the 'concrete manhood' scene is still upproarishly funny, after all these years)

- Mel Brooks movies (Men in Tights, Young Frankenstein, pure comedy genius)

- Pirates of the Caribbean (swashbuckling swordfights, Johnny Depp and a gorgeous young lady in a corset, what's not to like   )

My characters have always gone for the wrist (vehicles and guns) or the Frankenstein-variety (for cybermodems).