Splosion

While it does seem like an extremely excessive response there is reasoning behind it. Law enforcement organizations like SWAT rarely get deployed outside their general routines which mainly consist of large scale drug busts. So anytime there is something above typical police calls it's basically running a drill for them. Think of it more as the 6-10 officers necessary there + anyone else who could be spared doing a field drill. There was a similar event in my neighborhood about 4 years ago where a neighbors toaster caught fire. Not the house, not even the kitchen, just the toaster. It didn't do any real damage but caused enough smoke for the people living there to flip their shit and call 911. The response for this flaming toaster came in the form of: 2 full sized fire engines 1 fire marshall cruiser 2 ambulances 1 fire paramedic 2 police cruisers All that for something that could have been solved by unplugging the toaster and dousing it. Any "emergency service" worker will tell you that jobs like that generally come with a ton of down time in between actual emergencies so when there is an opportunity to get out and put their skills to use no matter how small they will generally hop on it.

What if a robotic woman is holding the sign? http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBQl_KEz0II

Really content providers need to suck it up and learn that you can't win the fight against piracy. It's next to impossible. What they can do is provide a better service than the pirates. Take South Park studios for example. The took the indie dev approach to there content. It's all online 100% free. All you have to do is sit through two ads per episode (none if you run adblock) then take a look at shows on HBO like Dexter and Game of Thrones. Without pirating you have to pay out the ass to access these. Full cable package, premium channel upgrade, xfinity internet TV subscription, all this just to watch a few shows legally or you can just google a stream. TV has been on the decline for years as people are switching to their PC's to watch things and with the change in our habits companies need to start adapting to this. I have absolutely no problem paying for content as long as it's done in a fair and reasonable manner whether it be a dollar here or there or a few ads.

Hooray for windstream. Now excuse me while I go continue to not pay for anything ever.

So as many of you may know, if you consume too much alcohol, you will eventually vomit. Needless to say in all my years I have seen many many people party past their limit and I've done so myself on more occasions than I care to admit. A few years at Dragoncon there was the very rare occurance of Zakk exceeding his inhumanly high limit, and of course I was called in for help. That one time Zakk partied too hard. It's a well established fact that during conventions Zakk becomes more liquor than man, but power like that takes focus that can't be maintained 100% of the time. One year I received a call while I was at a party from convention security. At the time I didn't personally know anyone who worked security so this was not a good sign. Luckily they were only calling me to inform me that they had Zakk on the 15th floor puking his guts out and his choices were to either get picked up by someone, or go to the hospital. Lucky me, I was the only person who's phone number he could remember so drunksitting duties were thrust upon me. I started walking the 15 flights of stairs to get to where he was and when I started getting close I heard shouting. As I got closer I could make out what was being said. "CUP YOUR HANDS!" "CUP YOUR FUCKING HANDS!" I reached the floor Zakk was on and discovered he was the target of this screaming. Standing above him was a woman who was as much twinkie as Zakk was liquor at the time. Zakk was hunched over on a bench puking into his palms as security had ordered him to when there was a trash can not 5 feet away. I gave the woman an angry look and informed her I was there to take him home. I told Zakk I needed to get him out of there before they shoved him into an ambulance he couldn't afford and he agreed. His attempt to stand was a glorious failure as he stumbled backwards and caught himself on the wall and smeared the puke in his palm all over it. The bitch from security saw this and started screaming again and Zakk quickly jerked in the opposite direction again only to once more lose his balance. He stumbled backwards and made a futile attempt to stay standing by grabbing the shoulder of the woman from security. I burst into the most uncontrollable hysterical laughter you have ever heard at the sight of this woman getting exactly what was coming to her. The look on her face when Zakk had smeared the puke all down her shirt was beyond priceless.

So this little gem is having a free weekend. If you've never tried it give it a shot. The trailer may make it look a bit bland but I can vouch for this game. It is absolutely fantastic. If you enjoyed FTL then you'll probably fall in love with this as well. Steam store link Also if you plan on shelling out the $3 for this, the galactic conquest DLC is pretty much a must have. It adds a fantastic campaign mode to the game very similar to the old galactic conquest game mode from Star Wars Battlefront 2.

Well, I doubt there would have been much damage. If the sumomen event taught us anything it's that doors are immortal and vengeful. I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight after what I let happen... :tin:

We were afraid of minicriting the door and having to pay to repair it.

Remembered another good one I've yet to share and I think this is one everyone's going to love. That one time Zakk wouldn't wake up. During conventions people tend to pass out. Not your typical "Dear god I've been awake for 30 hours I need sleep now" type passing out but more along the lines of "CONSCIOUSNESS OFF NOW!". Zakk is incredibly susceptible to this kind of heavy sleeping as we can see here from a few years ago. No one could ask for a better target when playing decorate the drunk. A few years ago when Zakk entered one of these hibernative states the timing could not have possibly been worse. It was 10:30 AM monday morning and we had just arrived back in our room to pack our things after a very long all nighter, we needed to check out of our hotel NOW! As soon as we entered the room Zakk laid down on a bed and fell asleep instantly. I decided Chris was better suited to the task of waking him up and let him go for it. Chris started by shoving zakk a bit, then eventually slapping him in the face and so on with no luck. He resorted to full on punching zakk in the nuts and that finally did the trick. Zakk sprang up and sat there asking us why his nuts hurt. "We need to get ready to leave, NOW!" I informed him. Zakk told me that after he had one cigarette he would be ready to leave and pulled his lighter from his pocket. He then held up his two fingers thinking he was holding a cigarette and lit his lighter. Well the imaginary cigarette wasn't lighting so Zakk continued to move the lit lighter closer and closer to his face until it was close enough to ignite his hair and burn his fingertips. He screamed in pain for a moment while rubbing the singed portion of his scalp and fell backwards back onto the bed and went back to sleep in seconds. I told Chris to get him up again. This time Chris decided we had wasted enough time and went to his bag for the lightsaber he had bought during the con. Now the wasn't one of those $20 plastic folding lightsabers you get from walmart. No this was a $250 fiberglass movie prop replica and when you got hit with it, it FUCKING HURT. Chris took the Sabre in both hands and reared backwards before bring it back down on Zakk's nuts. Zakk woke up once more, again confused as to why he was in pain, and said that he'd pack his things after we let him use the bathroom. Chris and I watched as he got up, walked down the hallway, and stood in front of the front door of our room for a moment. Well somewhere between "get up" and "piss" Zakk had forgotten a step, namely going to the bathroom. He then unzipped his pants and pissed on the front door of our hotel room. Once he had finished he started poking at the door handle in an attempt to flush our front door. A moment passed before he gave up and fell asleep while still standing and fell flat on his back. After Chris and I confirmed he wasn't dead we decided to just pack his things ourselves and loaded our things onto a luggage cart then placed zakk on top of the luggage...

Try out Galactic conquest. It's by far the easiest mode to jump into the game and has more of an RTS feel to it than the standard mode.

Seriously guys, we should direct all new members to the good threads.

Welcome! Our introduction list is currently under renovations but here it is.

My collection could put this to shame. I took 3 years of kendo and 1 in fencing. I've got at least 2 dozen swords scattered about my house and about 7 of them are high quality "live" weapons. Also in my collection is a halberd, a naginata, 2 sets of nunchuks, a one handed axe, a compound bow, 4 kendo sticks (one unbroken!) and a bunch of random knives here and there. [insert list of TF2 swords here]. Does shaving my chest hair into the shape of australia count as well?

No...

[insert pc master race fanboy rant here] Even Nintendo barely gets enough exclusive games to hook me into buying a console anymore. I am however very excited for the witness since I almost loved Braid as much as To the Moon. I really hope Jonathan Blow does his whole "pop up mysteriously whenever someone who doesnt get his game speaks" thing happens again. Not saying Braid wasn't brilliant, but that little habit he got was hilarious.

We need a Caktus and Cubie vs. Cactus and Cube death match.

For the first time in over a year it seems, there is no daily deal on steam... Is this temporary or are they getting rid of it? :tin:

It's very simple. 1. Seek attention. 2. Get rep. That is if you're one of the proud few who doesn't leave this forum forever after 13 posts.

Welcome! I'm Splosion. I tell hilarious stories about my life and delinquent kids. As for everyone else here's the list.

Like I said in my earlier post, maybe my brain chemistry is just off but I just don't really hit that neutral "meh" feeling. People tell me all the time that I need to do X with my life. Get a better job, get a better education, blah blah blah. Why? I almost never feel that constant "want" that so many people do. I guess maybe I've channeled it into my cooking. I create something each time with knowledge that next time I can improve. My "want" is all poured into finding that perfect spice blend for a dry rub on barbecue brisket, finding that fish that will finally get my girlfriend to enjoy seafood, working over a grill until I know it so well I can play it like a violin. And no amount money thrown at a problem like that is going to make it happen any faster because here there is no perfect. Here there is always room for improvement. At the same time setbacks and failings don't send me into crippling depression. "Oh no I forgot a seasoning in this sauce! FUCK MY LIFE!" I'm fully aware that 5 years down the road my life is going to be far from glamorous. I'll probably be working in a restaurant and making double minimum wage in a best case scenario as a head chef and Caroline will either still be in college or teaching at a university not making that much more than me. Caroline is a lot like I am in that it doesn't take much for her to be happy. If it wasn't for me I'm fairly sure she'd lock herself away and read herself to death. Also I don't think anyone is capable of being sad when waking up next to this.

Did I forget the part about the dead puppy? There was probably a dead puppy too.

Sorry to show up late to the depression party here. Just wanted to throw in my two cents and give a bit of my outlook since we're all sharing. I've read a bit about the supposed "emotional equilibrium" and maybe I'm some kind of mutant but I just never really felt like it applied to me. I consider my life pretty great and in general I'm blissfully content with it. The secret? Relativity. If it wasn't painfully obvious from all the stories I've shared on these forums I had an incredibly rebellious, and often horribly depressing childhood/teenage years. Those years of continued depression and horrible circumstances made the typically mundane and average joys of my later years that much more special. When I was 17 I felt like I was on top of the world. My band got signed to a local scouting label and things were looking very promising and we were almost a shoe in for a contract from Hellcat records. I had my girlfriend of the time who I had been dating for over three years. I dropped out of school since it was looking like I had my career all set in stone. I was even on my way to owning my own house. And what happened? Napster, Myspace music, the age of information had warped the music industry seemingly overnight. My band was dropped by the scout label and Hellcat signed The Heart Attacks instead of us. My band which consisted of myself and 3 friends I had known literally all my life broke up and stopped speaking to each other completely. After that when I no longer had a job or any hopes of finding a decent one I had to move back in with my parents. That Christmas my girlfriend at the time flew down and Christmas morning told me that she had been sleeping with another man for over a year. Needless to say I kicked her ass out then and there. I fell into a deep depression, and one night did one too many drugs and woke up in a holding cell where an officer informed me I had gone apeshit on a parked car and broken several windows. That was my turning point and harsh wake up call. I burned my bridges with the terrible friends I had accumulated over the years and started moving on. It was a very hard few years getting over my life basically but in the end coming out of things that horrible, it made everything absolutely incredible by comparison. Now I love my future "crap job". I'm looking forward to my "crap apartment" this summer when my girlfriend finally graduates and we FINALLY move in together (Fuck all girl schools right up the ass ). All I need in my life, is the good friends I have left, to be able to wake up each morning and see my girlfriend happy, a decent kitchen, and a convention every once in a while to vent that bit of party animal left in me and I am perfectly content. When I was about 12-13 I spent 14 hours of every Saturday, 8 hours of every Sunday, & 6 hours of every Wednesday playing MTG, Pokemon, and D&D in a crappy little card shop with friends. I was the poster boy for latchkey kids and my parents would go out of town for a week or more at times. I always loved this time alone because it meant I got to cook for myself. When I turned 15 I left all that behind me. I started playing DDR for nearly 10 hours a day sometimes and lost a ton of weight. When I entered high school, girls started to notice me. I was single for the first week of school and only single for about a month before I left. Popularity had tarnished what I wanted out of life. I am a geek that belongs in a kitchen. It took me a long time to remember that. I never want to "party like a rockstar" ever again. It brought on some of the worst times of my life. Being the "popular jock" may seem appealing, but the next time you feel tht way pick up a D20 and never let go because dear god it is so much better on this side of the fence. If it weren't for my geeky side I never would have met Caroline, my current girlfriend, and that alone is worth far more than a million dollar record contract.

I've been saving this one for a while now. This is the single greatest story of my life as well as being the single greatest night of my life, well the best night of my life that didn't involve a woman. I would post this is my main story thread but it's good enough to get it's own. Speaking of which, if you haven't read a good portion of Story Time you might want to. Not that the events there set up to this in any way but it helps when hearing this to know what kind of people I'm about to describe are involved. Everything in the following story is 100% true. In no way was any of this a hallucination or an exaggeration. I have retold this hundreds of times and to this day remember these events in perfect detail. And remember kids. DRUGS ARE BAD DO NOT DO THEM!!! That one night my life became a Hunter S. Thompson novel. 6 Years ago I remember getting a phone call from Zakk. He said to come to his house one Friday night because his brother brandon had gotten his hands on a new designer drug called 2C-I. Aster some convincing I decided I would try it and started walking to Zakk's house. Upon Arriving the typical gang was there. Zakk, Chris, EY, and Brandon were all there waiting on me. I gave Brandon my $15, and he gave me the little white pills that would start a chain of events that are nearly beyond explanation. The five of us were in for a very weird night. We all downed the pills and started up the PS2 in Zakk's basement while we waited for it to kick in. Thirty minutes of Burnout: Revenge went by with nothing happening. An hour later chris had stuck a porn DVD into Zakk's ps2 and started blasting the sound as loud as he could with the video off while we all laughed at the confused looks of neighbors as they walked by the house. Another 30 minutes passed and we were all watching a strobe light in dead silence. 15 minutes passed until the silence was broken by the sound of a phone ring, which at the time sounded horrifying. We all screamed at this intteruption and Chris dove behind the couch for safety. EY got his wits about him first and picked up the phone. He stared at the caller ID for a moment and then resumed screaming. "What the hell's happening!?" I asked. EY screamed back, "IT'S A CALL FROM THE FUTURE WHAT DO WE DO!?" "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard it can't be a call fro..." I stopped speaking as soon as I saw the caller ID. Zakk asked me who was calling and I replied "Tomorrow night is calling us...". Chris who was a bit more sober came over and confirmed it and all of us resumed screaming. (the next morning when trying to understand the night before we checked the caller ID again and found that a business partner of Zakk's mother named "Tamara M. Knight" had placed several calls to the house) After freaking out for another good 20 minutes we all became aware that Brandon had been nowhere in sight for almost an hour most of us seemed alright with this but Brandons judgement when sober is shaky at best so after a good deal of convincing I sent Chris to find him. The rest of us stayed in the basement and smoked a bowl of weed while chris was gone. EY had managed to drop the glass bowl on the concrete basement floor and shattered it without Zakk noticing and I watched him sweep the shards underneath the couch. About ten minutes later Chris returned to let us know he found Brandon. I asked why Brandon wasn't with him if he had found him to which Chris replied that he was taking a nap in the middle of the road. I looked out Zakk's basement window and saw Brandon sprawled across the road staring up at the sky in the middle of a rainstorm. I was too high to notice this and really stupid behavior. After that had gotten sorted out everyone but Chris decided to go back to watching the strobe light. At the time Chris was frantically darting around the room with the bag of weed and a lighter until he finally stopped and started gnawing on a nugget of marijuana. "THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?" I asked to which Chris screamed back "WHERE'S THE BOWL!?" Without thinking I recalled and told him it was under the couch and he immediately stuck his arm underneath it. Chris pulled his hand back out to find glass shards stuck into his palm. A steady trickle of blood started falling from his arm and we all took a good minute to stare at this. After a minute of gazing at his bloody palm Chris let out this hysterical laughter and ran outside. I poked my head out and saw him give Brandon a high five... Things calmed down once more and we convinced chris that a towel slept with his mom and got him to try and choke it death in an effort to stop his bleeding when the phone rang again. We all found hiding spots and started screaming once more out of fear of time travelers. I sheepishly looked at the caller ID and told everyone it was just Brandon's friend boon. I picked up and Boon asked if I could give the phone to Brandon. I peeked out the window and saw him still laying there and said that the phone porbably wouldn't have a single where Brandon was and that Boon should call back later. To this day I'm fairly certain that a side effect of 2C-I is superhuman hearing because a few minutes later Brandon came into the basement... THROUGH THE GOD DAMN WINDOW ABOVE THE STROBE LIGHT WE WERE WATCHING... Our screaming picked up again while Brandon just stared at us holding a beer he somehow managed to not spill while diving through a window. After we stopped screaming Brandons eyes got wide... He did not look at the phone. No one had told him Boon had called. He JUST KNEW. He got visibly excited and said, "BOON CALLED! I'M GONNA GO FIND BOON!" and he darted out the door at lightning speed. We sat there dumbfounded for a second until I realized that Brandon was on the loose stoned out of his mind (he had taken 4 pills while the rest of us only had 2) "GO AFTER HIM RETARD HE'S GOING TO DO SOMETHING STUPID!" I barked at Chris. Chris flew out the door after Brandon and the rest of us went back to watching the now broken strobe light. About 15 minutes passed before Chris came back into the basement. However he came back without Brandon and he was crying his eyes out. I asked him where the hell brandon was and I'll never forget how terrifying what he said was. In between sobs Chris managed to say "Brandon just jumped in front of a moving car on Sandy Plains road!" We LOST OUR MINDS! I started yelling at Chris, "YOU IDIOT! Is he hurt!? Why didn't you stay with him!? What the hell were you thinking!?" but Chris was crying too hard and I started to assume the worst and started tearing up myself. We all assumed brandon was injured or dead in the middle of the road and started a heated argument on how we should call an ambulance without getting ourselves in trouble. A good ten minutes of screaming at each other passed when Brandon burst through the door still holding his beer. I went off on him. I started screaming a him calling him and idiot and when I asked him why he jumped into traffic he said simply with a smile on his face, "I FOUND BOON!" Sure enough, I looked into the driveway to see Boon's beat up blue pickup. It turns out that Brandon had jumped in front of Boon's truck on one of the busiest streets around. Boon walked into the basement and grabbed a beer and told us all about how he nearly ran over Brandon. We all caught our breath and Brandon grabbed the rest of the beers, a full dozen bottled, and managed to fit them all into his pockets and pant's legs as Brandon was famous for. Brandon let us know that he was leaving with Boon and his two friends to go buy another half pound of weed. Now remember boon had a crappy pickup which means the only place for Brandon was the bed of that truck. Also keep in mind that there was still a pretty nasty rainstorm going on. I asked Zakk if there was anything we could do to keep Brandon here and he told me that short of elephant tranquilizers there really wasn't. I watched the 4 of them drive off while Brandon popped a beer and knew this wasn't going to end well but we all managed to calm down and go back to finding fun things to stare at. A few minutes later EY started puking into a glass. After he finished he was visibly confused and asked zakk what should be done with a tall glass full of puke. Without even a seconds hesitation Zakk replied, "Two doors down the right of the road, in the bush directly to the left of the mailbox". EY didn't even question it and started walking. I decided "Solo stoned adventures" had been ending badly enough all night and escorted EY to this mysterious bush. He stared at the bush for a moment and then dropped the glass into it. We heard glass breaking and in our confusion decided to take a closer look. Upon parting the branches we discovered at least half a dozen moldy drinking glasses broken near the roots of this bush. This wasn't the first time this had happened. We had one solid hour of peace and the pattern of this night repeated itself when we got another phone call. We were starting to get sober enough to where this wasn't frightening and I picked up after I saw the caller ID. Boon was calling... This was not a good sign... I picked up and the first thing I heard were multiple blaring police sirens and the distinctive sounds of cruiser mounted megaphones ordering a vehicle to pull over. Boon started screaming into his phone, "Hey I just wanted to let you kids know that uh... well Brandon kind of jumped out of my truck... He might be ok but I was going about 70 MPH at the time, I'd slow down but there's cops on my ass." "HE, WHAT!?"...

That's because you apparently don't have a soul.

DAILY DEAL!!! If you haven't played it BUY NOW!!!! GOGOGO