Selfsurprise

I do enjoy spicy food, but only to a certain degree (< joke intended :3) So long as it isn't going to cause my face to bleed, I'll try most things. I do like Jalapeno's, especially when pickled. (I'm inordinately pleased you know what Donk music is x3) Which country has the leastt interesting flag in the world?

Recently I watched a documentary about Eltz Castle, a remarkable late-gothic fairytale survival housed in the Rhineland-Palatinate state of Germany. I was toying with the idea of a Fallout setting in that region of the country, with Eltz Castle being some of notable stronghold in the vein of Diamond City in Fallout 4. Post WW2 it was once French occupied region when Germany was split into various administrations by the allied forces, and geographically it's home to hilly forests, several mountain chains and of course the tributaries of the river Rhine. I was thinking about the kind of landscape elements, communities and enemies one might find in a post-apocalyptic western Germany. I imagine ruined yet strangely abundant trees aping a kind of wrecked hinterland vibe, whilst numerous ramshackle hamlets (both alive and abandoned) dot the ravaged hills and woods. Rad-resistant wild boars (or even the occasional lynx) are an ever-present hazard, fattened by decades of unfussy omnivorous eating - though even these beasts have the sense to flee from the fearful giant Dire Boars. I recall reading an excellent article in the Fortean Times regarding the urban myths conconcted by America occupational soldiers, and the rumoured remnant Nazi "wehrwolf units" specializing in shapeshifting guerrilla warfare - a potential sinister power group in the setting. I quite like the idea of Fallout in this context, feel free to add anything to my ramblings if it so pleases you to do so. Rhineland-Palatinate coat of arms (just picture the lion with two heads ;p)

Blinky already summed up a lot of what I was going say, especially in regards to people over-identifying with a hobby, franchise or some general creative endevour. In the past I would of been fairly critical of gamers and "one genre" demographics, but I'm less certain if I'm in a justifiable position to complain about their conduct. I don't have a particularly hectic social life and I really hate the idea of defining myself by my job - I work in retail. So in a sense I am a sum of my collected interests. Whether its modern art, obscure literature, unusual music, my steady love of computer games or even Dungeons & Dragons, I guess aside from my love for my family foremost I am a creature of my geeky obsessions. I guess what differentiates me (and other eclectica-heads) from the sort of people you are referring to is the kind of behaviour that makes outsiders dislike a particular subculture. Gaming and black metal music are two distinct subcultures that, in my opinion, suffer from lamentable reputations due to the conduct of an unpleasant and vocal minority diminishing the otherwise more moderate and open-minded aspects of each demographic. In general those who over-identify with a past-time or franchise tend to view others indifference and constructive criticism towards their chosen item of veneration as a personal and deliberate insult, instead of simply being a subjective opinion. Secondly, because they lack the confidence or desire to be more pluralistic in regards to new things, they go to excessive lengths to justify their intolerance due to the seemingly obvious "superiority" of their chosen vestige. I probably should just say for the sake of balance, I'm generalizing people based on past experience. Not everyone who is exclusive to a particular thing is necessarily an arsehole. That's no more true than the implication that people with varied tastes are all lovely and enlightened. Gaming currently has the potential of reverting back into a reviled subculture, and this time gamers won't really have the excuse of others ignorance of their lifestyle to fall back on. Any casual trawl through the comments of any play-through or blog post regarding computer games will invariably dredge up the kind of politically suspicious, misogynistic, homophobic mental toss that one associates with the most base elements of society. When one witnesses Youtube users advocating po-faced holocaust denial on Cinemassacre's Angry Video Game Nerd videos, you know something has gone terribly wrong with a community.

8/10, seems like a legit way of running a country... ;p "Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic god. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on to him and they still give him much trouble at times." - Sigmund Freud

^ Species: Yeebelf Planet: Anomaly #BE56L, a vast floating mass of space-borne oxygenated soap. Classification: Aurolimus ("flying slime mould") Personality: Simultaneously over friendly and alarmingly panicky. How do they reproduce? Yeebelf (singular, see below) pops upon physically contacting another life form. The liquid molecules of it's structure is absorbed into the pores of the contactee's skin, who eventually sweat out innumerable miniature clones of the original instance of Yeebelf, which eventually expand and grow to the size of the adult Yeebelf. All individual "Yeebelf's" are in fact the same multitudinous individual copied innumerable times, so in a sense Yeebelf isn't a species, but a multi-bodied unique personality. ~ Species: Planet: Classification: Personality: Who (or what) created them?

I'd like to think I'd have the foresight to select the C option, but in all honesty I doubt I'd have the presence of mind that early in the morning so I'll go with A. What imaginary genre/sub-genre of music ought to exist, in your opinion?

A highly uneventful film set on a dull Sunday afternoon after the starring family dog's birthday. A Field in England

Gnomish (it was the first thing I could think of, looking at your avatar)

8/10 Is this what Ross called a Consecatrix, in his Game Dungeon episode about The Secret World? [/perversion]

I honestly believe a lot of an individuals personality traits are culturally informed rather than biologically imbued. It's an unquantifiable blending of nature and nurture, and the former probably depends solely on varying hormonal levels. I'm in the LGBT friendly camp though, so my view s somewhat biased and hardly authoritative. It's interesting that you bring the subject of male death up. Universally men pay for heightened levels of testosterone, and I've even read interesting articles that describe how simply having male sexual organs can remove years of a persons life. It's well documented in literary and encyclopedic archives that eunuchs (certain countries practices on servile classes, sex-mutilating religious figures, Italian "castrato" boy singers, to name a few examples) tended to have longer than average lifespans for their historical context. The more tragic and contemporaneous point you bring up about men killing themselves reminds me of the harrowing statistics for suicides in the UK. Since about 1985 to the present day, roughly three-quarters of suicides in the country are men under the age of 45. There seems to be something about British male identity that prevents those with depressive and suicidal potential seeking help.

The Last Right by Be Persecuted I'm slowly starting to discover that China has some really good metal bands, particularly of the depressing and atmospheric black metal variety.

^ England already is a futuristic dystopia. And I'm allowed to say that because I'm from there! ;p The oldest building of any substantial standard in Tamworth is our castle. Tamworth Castle can trace it's origins to Mercian lineage of royalty and since Anglo-Saxon times was the site of a defensive proto-castle burh. The more recognizable castle-like structures came about after the Norman conquest of England, and extensively rebuilt and regenerated by the aristocratic Marmion family and various notable tenants since the 12th century. That being said Tamworth has a lot of estates that were originally the sites of much older hamlets and villages. Whats the strangest event in your home town/cities history to have ever occurred?

I had a lecture on Black Metal in my final year of Uni, and there was segment talking about that particular Mayhem. All I can really say is: They don't make Black Metal like they used to. Good lord. When you say "lecture", did you actually really mean a screaming diatribe against those rotten kids and their crazy disco music? :3 I especially enjoy bringing up those particular theories to aggressive musical elitists. Its a strange behavioural trope, which I can only assume develops in an individual when they over-identify with a genre because they need to compensate for a sense of social and cultural alienation.

It does look rather fun. Is it actually a worthwhile game in of itself? I don't doubt the narrative novelty of it, but is it actually a good playing experience?

Anticipation. I've only got three days left at work until I'm on seventeen whole days worth of paid holiday leave (sans my usual days off, obviously) What, in you opinion, is the worst looking building you've ever seen?

I suppose it's situational. Music comment sections can get pretty bad, especially when you get into people comparing two completely different artists. That become a popcorn fest itself. The way Last.fm archives its users listening habits has the unfortunate downside of conflating all songs by a particular artists/bands name onto one profile, even there are several or more bands with the same name. I guess one could avoid that with cunning annotations relating to the bands nationality (i.e. if you've got two bands called Goatbummer, call one Goatbummer (UK) and Goatbummer (USA) in your iTunes or whatever) but then at the last minute I realise that I'm expecting internet users to not only work this out, but to then implement it purposefully. Take the band name Mayhem, for instance. It's profile details and "scrobbles" song streams that include two separate black metal bands (one of those is a pretty famous band, especially if you listen to black metal! How does something like this happen?!), a thrash metal band, a hardcore punk band and an electronic artist with a shark furry alter ego. The shoutbox has and probably still does resemble a mass grave for human hope and sensibleness.

Depends how much of a rush I'm in. If I absolutely have to get out of bed and have a five minute shower, I can. But I usually work evenings, so I sort of have the luxury to wake up early and stop in bed until I feel like getting up. If you could have any artist in the world (dead or alive) do your self-portrait, who would you pick and why?

Black Glass! I break easily, but I make up for it by being edgy as balls.

If real life was like The Shadow over Innsmouth, it actually wouldn't be all that different from the town I currently live in. I'd probably feel right at home.

Due to fan pressure Konami reverse their cancellation of Silent Hills. Because Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro are no longer involved in the games production, the title is currently undergoing a revamp by Michael Bay and a licencing contract with Disney Interactive.

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Panama Girls Francis Picabia, Drill, l'homme singe ("Drill, the ape man") J.B. Murray, Untitled

Your settlements don't have to be built at all... The settlers never die unless YOU shoot them. Not always true, I've found. Ironically, the only settlers I do see die are usually named settlers. Which is a shame, because they at least have a little personality compared to the nameless rabble of ordinary settlers you usually get. And yeah, I'm a bit surprised to hear that the settlements system are the biggest problem with the game for you (Meelis13, I mean), especially considering that they are largely optional. Honestly, it's probably my favorite part of the game, but then, the biggest appeal of the post-apocalyptic genre for me has been the concept of rebuilding, so this did really well to scratch my itch. Granted, I do agree that it could use a lot more added to it to flesh it out (which I kinda expect to happen through a DLC, actually). I'd like to see it transition more into a broader nation building before long. Perhaps as post game content with your chosen faction, but I digress... You should see my attempts at building. I tend to only construct anything if I absolutely have to, in order to fulfill a quest or something, and even then I have little sense of a sites feng shui - just dumping generators on the dirt whenever they flash green. I agree with you though, I'm not sure why some people are so hung up on the settlement features, you rarely have to do anything with them if you don't feel like it. Speaking of named NPCs being inconsiderate by dying - when I installed the Dawnguard DLC for Skyrim, pretty much everyone who was remotely useful in Whiterun were killed by Vampires within an hour.

Nobody takes the EDL or BNP seriously though, I'm not even sure their members even understand what it is they espouse. I think they have less constituencies than The Monster Raving Loony Party... :3 Despite all the venomous discourse on the left and right in England, I suspect the English lean instinctively towards cautious centralism.

If you are listening to music on Youtube (which I do a lot) I wholly recommend ignoring the comments entirely, unless you want to thank the uploader for putting it there or say something nice about the song. Sometimes you might be surprised a find a civil conversation about related subjects and music going on. Sometimes. As for the whole phenomena of musical defensiveness and elitism, it's one of those detestable human failings that goes beyond music, or even the internet. Because I've spent a lot of time on last.fm's broken forums and horrid shoutboxes, I think I can explain the often disastrous results of meetings between various fans of genres. On one end of the spectrum, you have avid followers of a rather specific subgenre or movement, something they have bought into, heart and soul, and as a result when they congregate it creates a narrow-focused community of people who all end up espousing the same thing in an identikit attempt at being "different". On the opposite end of the spectrum are those individuals whose entire life is dedicated to a cynical and willfully ignorant attempt at being risible, and the internet providing the perfect safety barrier between them and the peoples whose ire they unfathomably want to inspire.

@ Jeb: I'm still pretty new here, but you seem like a lovely person who didn't warrant such ill treatment. I hope you get your confidence back soon and realize the guy and his gobshite friends don't warrant either your affection or sadness.