WordWolf

It's in my "queue" of movies to see. Is it any good?

On this show, for a while, the characters had their own band, but the only song they knew how to perform was "Splish-Splash."

Eddie Murphy Shrek Cameron Diaz

It's "Splish Splash", isn't it?

There's twi, and there's making sense. Sensibly, twi should have left groups intact until there were more than 8 regular attendees plus new arrivals. Then they should have considered how to make a division so you had at least 4 regular attendees plus new arrivals. As it was, the appearance of growth was more important, and other appearances were more important, so they made all sorts of decisions that didn't work so they had the appearance of doing something. Splitting already small "twigs" up meant neither was sustainable, so they either had to re-form or BOTH were destroyed in the process. I saw a corps assignee once arrive, then arbitrarily decide he was going to have a "twig" right where he was operating from, so he began assigning some locals to it to start attending it. There were a number of ways to handle it, but I'm sure he picked one of the least-successful ones so that it looked like he was doing stuff. (He got people to smile and nod a lot until he left.)

By now, either Johniam is unable to see those points no matter how often they are articulated, or he knows darn well he's standing up a squad of strawmen and is doing it deliberately. Yes, he should be called on it each and every time, but don't expect him to get it at any point. (The response is necessary, but not for him.) I suspect that Johniam thinks THAT end justifies ANY means- providing that HE doesn't have to sacrifice the means. So, meaningless, casual sex to get a Green Card signed, for a student for "the class"? Sure-so long as it's not John or anyone he lays claim to who has to provide it. So long as someone else is volunteered to prostitute themself for it, that's fine, although he's hoping nobody's caught that he's supported that across this page.

PULP FICTION. And frankly, I think we all thought that guy deserved to get shot at that point. I think he reminded EVERYBODY of at least one moment from work at some point.

Dr Christian Szell Dr Totenkopf Ezra Lieberman

Taking a swing here... "Kingsman"? I thought of that before, but not with any confidence.

....What?......OW!!!!

It reminds me of "At The Hop", but I don't think that IS the song.

....What?...

The rule of thumb I heard was to double the attendance# of any ROA to get the total# of adherents at that time. I heard the largest ROA had an attendance of 14,000, which doubles to 28,000, which is about 30,000 adherents "standing" at that time, and that was the apex of attendance. (Numbers went up to that # for 1 year, and fell thereafter starting the next year.)

Depends on your perspective, and place and time. vpw used to claim 100,000 members. That was based on a supposed number of 100,000 total who ever signed up for pfal. That neglects that some who signed up for pfal never showed up for Session 1. That neglects that some who showed up for Session 1 never showed up for Session 12. That neglects that some who showed up for Session 12 weren't around within 3 months of completion. When I took it, IIRC, there were 7 signed up, and 3 of us finished it, although all of us stuck around. (Me, the wife of a coordinator, and the son of a coordinator.) The times of the greatest growth were also the times of greatest attrition- not counting the exodi- because we had a lot of "member churn." People showed up, stayed a while, then left. If my class was any indication, and my experience later supports that- then many people showed up for a month or a year and were gone within 6 months or 2-3 years. So, the numbers of new faces was often high, and the numbers of old faces were less than 1/2 the room. Nowadays, that's totally changed. ANY new faces is news, or the result of staging an 'event', dragging in every body within miles, then saying "see-we can fill a room when we want to".

At this point, almost everyone who "CAN" leave has already left. There are people who think it is "impossible" to leave, if only because they can't hold down a real job and their "contribution" to Social Security was miniscule. The membership ranks are puny. They are bringing in almost nobody new- they're raising a few kids in the group, and some of those are leaving and some are staying. Evey year, there's still members leaving through death if by no other reason (the membership is aging every day, and younger members are not replacing them.) So, the membership numbers dwindle. And the kids, no matter what they think, can't rescue twi and "show the old folks what they should have done" because twi is irrelevant and outdated, and they don't have what they THINK they have. So, they have nothing to make outsiders go "wow" like the kids THINK would happen. And even if they DID somehow, rfr would shut them down because ANY kid who could do that would be a SERIOUS threat to rfr, and could take over the whole enchilada overnight, de facto even if rfr had the titles. So, the members leaving now tend to TRICKLE because the numbers who COULD get shocked already left, and there has been no influx of new, clueless members who had no idea felonies were committed. For that, thank everyone who's blown the whistle on them, through those who sued, through Waydale, and through the GSC (and others everywhere they did it.)

There was a disconnect, mostly because vpw didn't care. (Other than in how to manipulate people, vpw wasn't really smart, and didn't work hard to understand things not related to that.) Concerning Dave A, vpw would certainly treat him well because he was bringing gold into the coffers, and didn't otherwise care about what concerned Dave, like how he got the money he gave twi. Concerning D&D, that had nothing to do with Dave and had everything to do with tinfoil-hat conspiracies. vpw kept putting forth he learned all sorts of esoteric things because he had a special connection with God. However, he just had a lot of information sources of tinfoil-hat conspiracies and other nonsense. Naturally, when the D&D panic came around, vpw ran with it. The panic was that supposedly it promoted demons and suicide and all sorts of harmful things for teenagers. The only thing about demons it had was that the game included demons and devils (2 different, but similar, things in AD&D) as villains so that the heroes (the player characters) could destroy them or otherwise beat them up or foil their plans. (If you want to play a hero, there needs to be a villain. And a demon or a devil is a villain you don't have to worry is "misunderstood"-you can just kaboom them and that's it.) But the real panic started up as the result of 2 teenagers. One was under immense pressure at home and ran off. He tried to commit suicide by taking pills, but he woke up later and ran to a friend's house to hide out because the town was looking for him. A detective found traces of him having stayed in the steam tunnels under his school (where he had tried to commit suicide.) When asked about what he found, the detective, instead of just saying that, said that he probably went down there to play Dungeons and Dragons. (By himself? Impossible. The minimum required# of people is 2, and 5-7 is preferred. But 1 person can't play any RPG of any type without a 2nd person.) The newspapers ran with it. When the kid turned up again, the parents (who were the reason the kid ran off) begged the detective to keep hush about the real reason for the disappearance, so he stayed with the "played D&D by himself" story. That was later turned into a movie, "Mazes and Monsters", with Tom Hanks playing a kid who loses his identity and thinks he's his character, wandering around a modern world. (I read the novelization-it was awful. And there were idiots who thought the thing was real. I found it ironic that people who were unable to separate fiction from reality accused RPG players of being unable to separate fiction from reality, based entirely on their own inabilities to separate fiction from reality.) Then there was another kid who succeeded in committing suicide. His mother insisted it was due to D&D, which he played at SOME point but he was not a regular player. So, she crusaded against D&D, quoting the most ridiculous, made-up stuff and scaring other parents into believing RPGs were a real threat to their teens. Meanwhile, actual Psychologists have said that D&D/AD&D was actually HEALTHY for people. It was a social activity, it required interaction to play. So, we had people who normally aren't very social-who all got together on a regular basis and socialized for a few hours while playing a game and drinking Mountain Dew. The socialization was good for them. So, statistically, playing RPG's actually DECREASED the risk of teen suicides. A teen who was at risk of suicide tends to isolate himself- and social activities tend to act to suppress suicidal urges. (No one feels suicidal when they're having a good time and their friends are glad to see them.) So, I would have said, if you've got kids at risk of suicide, start getting them into some RPG groups that are run by competent GameMasters. (The person running a game can make a big difference- an immature one can ruin the experience for everyone by making it about HIM rather than about the PLAYERS. His role is to provide the setting, the supporting characters, the conflicts, and the goals to shoot for.) Anyway, we had scared parents, and people making claims about a game promoting witchcraft and promoting Satanism and suicide. Conmen like vpw can always use an existing panic quite successfully, and will invent one if they can't find an existing one. So, this panic was something he could use. If vpw was everything his hype was, he'd have seen right through this panic, and presented things of actual substance rather than promote the spirit of fear. He used this instead because he had no substance, just this.

For those who want to know about Dave Arneson, the quotes and links are on his Memorial thread from when he passed away. Myself, I was familiar with AD&D but not with Arneson until someone brought his name up here and got me looking.

Unless one of them was playing the role of a pastry, that would have to be someone portraying John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

http://www.inspirationpeak.com/cgi-bin/poetry.cgi?record=110 I'd Rather See A Sermon Edgar A. Guest I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day; I'd rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way. The eye's a better pupil and more willing than the ear, Fine counsel is confusing, but example's always clear; And the best of all preachers are the men who live their creeds, For to see good put in action is what everybody needs. I soon can learn to do it if you'll let me see it done; I can watch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast may run. And the lecture you deliver may be very wise and true, But I'd rather get my lessons by observing what you do; For I might misunderstand you and the high advice you give, But there's no misunderstanding how you act and how you live.

Was that "Doctor Kildare"?

"Diagnosis Murder"?

That's what this is. The newer Casino Royale was a reboot of the 007 series, with Daniel Craig beginning James Bond's career as an MI-6 agent. The older Casino Royale was a spoof, where the original James Bond was brought out of retirement, and we see that there's been at least 1 JB since, and the original renames the remaining MI-6 and any new talent they tap AS "James Bond" to confuse the bad guys. Ultimately, it was that James Bond's last case. With all the new "James Bonds" running around, adding Daniel Craig into the mix actually makes sense. Hey, if Peter Sellers as a baccarat master made sense, a new actual agent makes more sense.

*wild swing* "Jake and the Fatman"?

Paw made it clear that all political discussions are "Off-Topic" for all of the GSC now. That was after it became clear that there was no successful way to allow them here and keep any sense of civility. So, for the sake of the rest of the board, they left. There are plenty of other places online to have political discussions, and interested posters are always free to make one of their own- again. As for the Bataan Death March, I meant no disrespect, obviously, and I'm fine with not mentioning it out-of-context, out of respect. I'd appreciate, however, if you have a substitute handy since it will be faster to change my phraseology if I can swap in a different phrase for the excluded one.

Ok, I will once again be very sneaky when doing a movie round. A British secret agent is lured out of retirement. (His successor and "namesake" was ineffective.) He is placed in charge of MI6 partly because of horrible attrition as agents are killed all over the world. He then orders that ALL surviving MI-6 agents in the field will be assigned the same name and will all be namesakes. We follow the story of a NEW agent who is assigned with all the others, first in Miami, then in Montenegro. In the Montenegro operation, he crosses paths with one of the other agents, playing poker while the other agent plays baccarat. Stars include: Ursula Andress, Peter Sellers, Orson Wells, David Niven, Woody Allen, David Prowse, Peter O'Toole, George Raft, and Daniel Craig.