The Off Topic Topic

[syk]

Next up: Church. First time in years. The kids wanted to see what the christmas church craze was about. 

[Razgovory]

Man, I keep having weird dreams.  I dreamt that Cal berated me on Languish.

[Josquius]

Damn Scandis are being idiots and insisting its Christmas today

[Eddie Teach]

Man, I keep having weird dreams.  I dreamt that Cal berated me on Languish.

That probably really happened.

[Syt]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArchivePanic

Perry Rhodan (well, the German original at least) has, as of mid-2009, one hundred and six 400+ pages books of the main plot (covering the first 911 of over 2500 60+ page booklets, with around 20% already left out), fifty-something books of half-independent story arks, 34 books of the Atlan-spinoff and 415 independent pocket books. Not to mention the tons of anniversary re-prints, story collections, fact books, star atlases and so on. You can fill a library just with Perry Rhodan stuff.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PerryRhodan

Perry Rhodan is a weekly German Science Fiction Pulp Magazine series that has run uninterrupted since 1961, with over two thousand five hundred issues released so far not counting reprints, books, and spinoffs. It was originally founded by two German science fiction writers (who have since passed away) and initially only conceived to run for thirty volumes. It is being developed and written by a ever-changing team of authors.

The series begins in an alternate reality with the first manned moon landing (in 1971) led by U.S. Space Force Major Perry Rhodan. However, things do not go as planned and the astronauts discover a stranded alien spaceship from a star system called Arkon and its crew who need medical help. The realization that mankind is not alone in space and access to the aliens' advanced technology lead to the (not entirely trouble-free) political unification of Earth under the eponymous hero-protagonist Rhodan, first expeditions into the cosmic neighborhood, and the eventual founding of first colonies on other planets, all the while trying to keep the more powerful established factions out there (especially the decadent Empire of Arkon, which had dominated local space for twenty millenia) from finding out just where the newcomers hail from.

Over time (over the course of the entire series so far, more than three thousand years pass in-universe), Earth and its colonies evolve into a major power in their own right while other space-faring races lose some of their traditional influence. It is revealed that all the various human races of the Milky Way galaxy - such as Terrans and Arkonides (who had founded a short-lived colony called Atlantis on Earth roughly 8,000 B.C.) - are closely related and technically part of one species. They are descendants of the Lemurians, the First Mankind, who fled Earth 50,000 years ago during a galactic war with an alien species and settled in Andromeda.

Several major outside threats are faced and eventually defeated, alien races are discovered and befriended as allies, then a successful invasion of extragalactic origin forces the Terrans to flee along with their homeworld. The attempt doesn't go exactly as planned and Earth ends up in a faraway region of space for over a century. It does, however, eventually return to its original position. That event kind of marks the turning point towards events of more 'cosmic' significance and contact with high-tech civilizations and cosmic entities far ahead on the Kardashev Scale...and I've only covered the issues up to about #700-#800 yet.

I had the audio plays as kid (covering maybe the first ten books), and always considered getting into the series later. You can subscribe to the book versions for 2/month, for example, but it would still take you a couple years to catch up to half of it.

[Grey Fox]

Looks interesting.

[Josquius]

I met my uncle today due to it being christmas and all that.
He told me a tale of a friend of his' son...
Now this boy is a total prick. He was fortunate enough to live in the right post code to go to a grammar school and through this somehow has a sort of superiority complex. He's one of these faux-posh twats that dominate red brick unis. eww. He is also a member of the young tories.
Due to where he lives though...there aren't many tories around whatsoever. This is solidly labour territory, the very thought of voting tory is utterly abhorant to 80% of the population, we suffered through Thatcher so we don't want to go through that again. Due to this at the last election it came to pass that the tory party offered him the chance to run for the candidacy in his seat.
Just some young lad who was due to go off to uni in Bristol the next year (and so wouldn't even be living in the area). They must have knew he couldn't win but felt they needed to run someone anyway so picked the only party member in the area.

Now.
This gives me a idea.
Should I join the Tory party?
If I could get myself running for parliament on the tory name....oh the fun I could have.
I could go door to door saying just the wrong things. I'd stay clear of the really dodgy areas of course lest I be stabbed but in the working class and above areas I could have good fun with 'Vote Tory to cleanse the country of its sub-human filth. Damn darkies, queers and unemployed.' and the like. Hopefully I could do damage to the Tory name going far beyond just their already doomed running here.

Yes.
I'm drunk.
But its a funny thought.

[Razgovory]

We used to have Tories in this country.  Apparently that's what they called the Loyalists.  The moved to New Brunswick.

[Barrister]

We used to have Tories in this country.  Apparently that's what they called the Loyalists.  The moved to New Brunswick.

Nah, mostly to Upper Canada.

[Razgovory]

We used to have Tories in this country.  Apparently that's what they called the Loyalists.  The moved to New Brunswick.

Nah, mostly to Upper Canada.

What ever.  One of those provinces was settled by Loyalists.  Unless they were Black.  They were sent to the Caribbean.

[MadImmortalMan]

 

Yep. Tory means the opposite of Patriot here.

[Barrister]

Yep. Tory means the opposite of Patriot here.

Funny - the words are synonymous here.




Actually, I've always been uncomfortable being called a Tory.  The Tories were the old PC Party, of which I was never a member.  I'm from the Reform branch of the new Conservative Party, and being labelled a Tory still sounds vaguely insulting to me.

[ulmont]

Sitting in the only open bar in Albany (SW GA flavor), watching the world's worst cover band bring the 80s back to undeath.

My only hope is that they will do "Kiss Me Deadly" shortly.

[Jaron]

 

[Eddie Teach]

Speaking of  , what exactly is this smilie supposed to convey?