When I was a little kid I had a friend who couldn't figure out how to unlock doors. I would follow him into the bathroom, flip the door lock, and then leave the bathroom, rendering him unable to escape. He'd bawl like a baby until my mom unlocked the door with a key.

:( jesus christ I was a mean kid.

Quote from: Shinra on April 10, 2013, 10:31:19 PM

Quote from: Mongrel on April 10, 2013, 01:54:03 PM

Yeah, I mean, sheer volume means you can't discount them; they'll do some damage for sure. But expecting efficacy that rivals a competent professional modern army seems like a bad bet here.

FWIW, you don't need good efficacy when you have an army of 3 million infantry and six thousand tanks. I think SK would be in for a serious hurt if the North decided to roll out tomorrow. Seoul would fall overnight, though I think that the south could eventually draw them into a stalemate long enough for the US to land troops to reinforce them.

There's no ground war scenario based out of south korea that isn't a nightmare, though. Even if we are outgunning them ala Iraq, the NK army is fucking huge. Unreliable equipment and poorly fed soldiers don't mean much when you have 3 million of them and a good percentage think, literally, that their leader is God and the only reason he experiences suffering is the enemies he is fighting right now.

Does this scenario also assume that South Korea has no army and afterwards NK comes over to America and kicks our asses too?

though I think that the south could eventually draw them into a stalemate long enough for the US to land troops to reinforce them.

I suspect this originally started as posturing. But I think we are past that point. The only thing we can hope is that if he does launch an attack, it either fails spectacularly or takes a minimum of human life.

A personal pet theory I have is that as soon as NK launches an attack, China invades and annexes the country. South Korea would probably make a huge stink about it, but I think the EU and America would breath collective sighs of relief at it not being their problem. NK has apparently been sitting on a lot of natural resources for years that they can't really do anything with, not to mention a relatively docile people who are already accustomed to treating the Chinese as allies. What might take decades of work for other countries could take a few years for China.

While it would suck for the NK people to go from one communist regime with no respect for human life to another, I don't know what kind of alternatives there would be. I think the reason we haven't seen war so far already is how much of a fucking nightmare it would be to get involved in a conflict with them. It's easy to write off the North Koreans as backwards dirt farmers, but they have one of the largest (if not the largest) standing armies in the world. They have nearly two thousand tanks on par with the Abrams and have spent years preparing for a ground war on their own soil. A ground war with them would be a fucking nightmare, their countryside is bristling with anti-air batteries, and I don't think anyone wants to nuke them.

Multiplayer impressions:

Swarm Hosts are the best unit in the entire game.

 

I spent all night last night in the hospital. They weren't able to figure out what was wrong with me, but the most likely culprit is a gall stone. I guess I had to pay some price for losing 60 pounds in five months. :(

Just some perspective on what it felt like for anyone who has never had this happen before: they gave me a shitload of morphine on an IV and I was still in some pretty unbearable pain. It's the kind of pain that makes you nauseous it's so intense. I really hope this never happens to me again.

So I got some amazing stuff this year from Shinra, but I keep waiting on my gift from Roger to post pictures. Unfortunately it's almost February now and I've seen neither hide nor hair of anything from him. In a year where 'extras' got sent out to people it's a little frustrating to have this happen, especially seeing as how I stay broke all the damn time and still manage to send out 2 or 3 packages a year. But yeah, Shinra: he is awesome.  I'd love to know how he and TedBelmont liked the presents I sent to them.

I cannot for the life of me remember what I sent you, except for some really shitty cookbooks and the venture bros. I know there was some pulp fiction in there? Maybe an erotic vampire romance novel????

I loved everything you sent me, I'll need to post pictures. I've been kind of low effort for the last few months. Winter is always downswing time for me. D:

Quote from: Joxam on February 11, 2013, 09:55:41 PM

Ask her point blank what she thinks you need to improve on and put together some actionable plan to do so along with clear checkpoints for you to show you're making progress.

Ideally that is the way to proceed, in case you are surrounded by honest and reasonable people. If the manager is just a douchemo though, that's pretty much asking to be slapped with some vile "doesn't understand the demands of the job" or "needs constant handholding" BS.

Is tricky.

Yeah, I wouldn't do this for the latter two reasons. I've seen that go down way too much in an office environment. ESPECIALLY if you are expected to set your own work pace - if that's the kind of job we're talking about here, asking for that kind of planning would be a poor career move to say the least. I would, however, go to your boss and say 'Hey, this lady is harassing me for stuff that has been established as acceptable in the work place'. It's my experience that managers in office environments don't like it when other people swing out of the rafters to manage their people. Pulling rank on someone else's employees is a horseshit thing to do and it hurts morale and productivity across the board. I've never been in a functional workplace where this was allowed, and if this kind of thing goes on constantly where you work Ted, it's probably time to brush up your resume. That shit isn't worth it, unless they're paying you a hell of a lot of money (and if this kind of shit is tolerated where you work, they're probably not)

From what this sounds like to me, the project manager is a 30-something who has spent their entire life doing bullshit work and now that they have some modicum of power they use it to bully people around them. Having once worked as a project manager in an office full of project managers (that was a weird {also: awful. Never do this profession} fucking job) these people are a constant in the profession and the best way to deal with them is to put up with as little of their bullshit as possible. 'I am above you on the totem pole' does not give someone a license to set workplace expectations for you, unless you're that person's direct report. (and even then, I would argue that a job that micromanages so much you can't have toys on your desk is a job not worth fucking working)

TBF Quentin Tarantino can't spell at all. Read some of his manuscripts sometime.

TIL: an inner lip tattoo is more damning to a federal military career than major surgery, shingles, potential drug abuse, or a criminal record.

AKA: it was an instant disqualifier once the tattoo report was looked over.

You could apply for another branch and just not tell them about the lip tattoo, maybe?

It's been my experience that loosely attached government organizations rarely, if ever, compare notes.

Saw Close-Up: The Musical, today. You may also know it as Les Miserables.

Seriously, the camera man needed to back the fuck up.

Late to the party here but after watching it in the theater today the wife and I were both unimpressed. The cinematography and camera work were the worst I have ever seen in a large budget film, the casting was mostly awful, and costumes and makeup were horrifically bad. We're supposed to buy that Jean Valjean has aged nearly 20 years since getting out of prison in the second half of the film, but he looks younger than he did in the opening scenes of the movie - I get that Hugh Jackman has a certain draw by being a hot dude, but couldn't you guys at least give the man a fully gray wig or some wrinkles? I think this was a movie with a great story and great musical numbers that was marred by horrible execution, and as far as I can see it's coasted by on reviews by virtue of being a (completely rote, btw) movie adaptation of a classic musical.