The Off Topic Topic

[Tamas]

What I remember about EU1 is that you couldn't play as any country you wanted - you had to download and run a 3rd party hack to enable you to play as anyone.

Well the series went to hell once people started demanding that Vietnam can WC as well so...

[Maladict]

I got EU1 through the piracy networks at school and uni where I got all my games from. I think EU2 came out not much later and I got hooked.

[Valmy]

It seemed like only about a year after EU1 released that EU2 was announced.

[Syt]

EU2 was originally going to be an expansion, but for reasons (mostly financial,  I think - their US publisher Strategy First was bad about paying them) they turned it into a full priced game.

[Razgovory]

i saw EU1 on the shelf and decided to take it home. it was the old days of giant boxes.

Yeah, me too.  Bought it at a shop in the mall, back when you'd buy PC games in a store and there were stores in a mall.  Mostly I just wanted a strategy game where I had more than 8 potential opponents.  Bought EU2 when it cam out and played the hell out of it in college.  My room mate thought it was weird and called it "the map game".

[Syt]

There's elections in Vienna on the 11th. This is the official Facebook pic for the candidates of Strache's new splinter party for the district of Hietzing.

Clearly, the work of professionals.

[Sheilbh]

[Josquius]

Hey. Selecting people so precisely on photoshop is hard!

(seriously. Never figured out how to use that program)

[Sheilbh]

Amazing project:
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/generations-of-handwritten-mexican-cookbooks-are-now-online?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

[Sheilbh]

Extraordinary story of a Nigerian born jazz musician who fought in the Polish resistance:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-africa-54337607

[grumbler]

Extraordinary story of a Nigerian born jazz musician who fought in the Polish resistance:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-africa-54337607

Just read that earlier today.  An amazing story to me, because I keep forgetting how cosmopolitan the capitals of (at least some of) Eastern Europe were in the 30s.

[Oexmelin]

Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr died today. He was 95.

He was also the grandson of the tenth President of the USA, John Tyler (1790-1862).

[Valmy]

The guy who abused the rules of Congress to slip through the annexation of Texas during his lame duck period. We named a city after him to thank him. Tyler Texas is a pretty shitty city but then he was a pretty shitty President.

RP to your grandson though President Tyler.

[Syt]

Because we all need some levity in times such as these, here's a video of a toddler eating salt and vinegar chips for the first time.

https://twitter.com/lportwoodstacer/status/1312419320358727684?s=20

[viper37]

Sexsomnia defense rejected by Canadian court

A Vancouver businessman convicted of sexually assaulting his blind date, despite claiming he didn't remember the assault because he slept through it, will learn in a week how long he will spend in jail for the crime.

Karl Richard Antonius, 53, was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman he had offered to put up for the night in his Fairmont Pacific Rim apartment when she lost her keys after a night out.

Crown prosecutor Alan Ip asked for a four-year prison sentence for what he called an act of violence and "profound violation" of the woman while she slept.

He cited the woman's victim impact statement, which she tearfully read out in court, saying she "never felt more violated in her life" by the 2015 assault and she was not "able to wash this sickening feeling away."

Defence lawyer Bill Smart asked for 18 to 24 months, based on court precedents and noting that Antonius had lost his job and business and suffered other "collateral" consequences that will be permanent because of the media attention and the internet.

"This has completely turned his life upside down," he said. "He will never be able to escape the consequences of his actions."

Smart also said he was of "otherwise good character" and the circumstances of the assault were "unusual."

During a July trial, Justice Austin Cullen rejected the claims from Antonius he suffers from a sleep disorder known as sexsomnia, a type of parasomnia, and therefore the assault was involuntary.

The victim testified that she had no interest in having sex with Antonius when she returned to his apartment to sleep on Sept. 27, 2015. He gave her shorts and a T-shirt and they slept in the same bed. She swatted his hand away after he groped her, court heard. She later awoke to find him engaging in sexual intercourse with her.

He testified he'd touched her on the buttocks and the waist underneath the waistband of her shorts but denied he had any sexual intentions. He said he went to sleep and didn't remember the sexual intercourse.

But in his ruling, the judge said he accepted the victim's version of events in finding Antonius guilty of sexual assault.

In a powerful impact statement on Friday, the woman told court her life was changed forever that night, leaving her "broken, anxious and depressed," and that she had a "constant fear that I had contracted something from this monster who had done this to me."

She said she no longer trusts people, especially men, and only feels safe when she's at home with the door locked.

She also said she blamed herself for a long time until she came to realize "the one thing that I did was that I trusted you," she said, addressing Antonius directly.

Instead, she said, she was raped and "you have betrayed that trust. You have changed that (trust in people) beyond repair."

She also lambasted Antonius for not taking responsibility for the assault and drawing out the legal process for more than four years since his arrest in July 2016, forcing her to testify at trial and listen to the sexsomnia defence, which she called "unfair and cruel."

She said she felt further victimized and retraumatized by the long legal proceedings, including hearing "how this trial had already impacted your life enough."

Antonius addressed the court in her absence, saying, "I understand how angry she is" and the "serious impact" "because of a horrible sexual assault she encountered."

"She trusted me that evening and I violated her trust," he said. "I'm very, very sorry for what I did."

He said there "no excuses or explanations, only regret." He said he feels "despair, self-loathing and disgust at what I did. I'll live for the rest of my life knowing what I've done to (her name)."

He said he would like to apologize to her but didn't think she would accept it.

The woman left the courtroom after reading her statement and didn't stay to hear his statement.

Apparently, this is a real thing, sexsomnia.