Lemonwalrus

WARNING, SLIGHTLY NSFW IMAGE SOMEWHERE IN THIS WALL OF TEXT

Before the events that I am about to tell you about took place, something important happened to me. I am not sure that something important happened to me, actually, but I have a rather good idea, let's call it a feeling, that something important happened to me. Unfortunately I don't remember the important thing, for if I did, I would tell you about it too. However, I do remember some details about it. I remember that it happened in a dark house. I remember that for at least part of it I was hiding behind a chair. And finally, as you might have guessed from the last bit that I remembered, I remember that it was scary.

That is all I remember about my scary; chair-hiding event in the dark house. However, the next bits I remember quite a bit better, and think you will get a kick out of reading them, so it is about those that I will now write.

I find myself next, after the scary house, in the basement of my old fraternity house. I haven't been an active member of the fraternity for about a year now, since I changed both majors and schools, but I still remember the layout of the house quite well. There seems to be a party going on, so I grab a cup and make my way into the next room, which I remember to be the room that parties were contained to.

I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back I should have been struck by the fact that the interior of the room, which is underground, was a minimum of four times larger than I remembered it having been. Maybe I just cast it aside saying to myself that the fraternity was composed entirely of engineers, and if anybody could enlarge the basement of a house that was more than 100 years old and located smack-dab in the middle of downtown Milwaukee, it was engineers. Besides, there were people to meet and partying to be done, so I was not concerning myself with architectural things.

Before I started meeting new people, I wanted to make sure I still recognized some friendly faces, so I began to walk around the basement trying to recognize people. To my surprise, the only person I recognized was a girl, we will call her Anna, primarily because that is her name, that went to my new school in central Illinois and lived in Chicago. Again, I should have been immediately dumbfounded to find somebody at a house they didn't know about that was one hundred miles and change further north than where she lived. But I just exchanged pleasantries and continued on my quest to find familiar faces.

Apparently it had become a game of sorts now; everybody go see if the new guy recognizes you. I was still not recognizing anybody. Then I found a middle-aged Native American woman that seemed to recognize me. I'm going to stop pointing out places where I should have discovered something was amiss at this point, but just so you know, middle-aged Native American women don't party at fraternity houses. I had one of those moments where you realize that the person you are confronted with recognizes you, but you can't for the life of you remember them. I gave up with a smile and said I couldn't put a name with the face anymore. To my surprise, the Native American woman didn't seem sad that I didn't remember her, but she did seem like she really wanted to show me something. She gestured to my left, and I turned to see a couch populated with four people about my age. The palpable pride in the Native American woman's smile let me know that these were her offspring.

There were three beautiful girls and a handsome boy on the couch. I didn't recognize the boy or one of the girls, but to my surprise I DID recognize the other two girls. One of them was Masiela Lusha, + Show Spoiler +

Alright, hopefully you all finished the book like good little boys and girls. (well, boys and lilsusie to be specific )

This thread will essentially be a no-holds-barred discussion thread, so anything goes. If you have a question/observation/theory/answer, just go ahead a post. At the top of your post try to highlight the chapter or part that you are referring to so people don't have to search frantically if they don't remember something.

To get the discussion started, I am going to post some questions here, most of which are from the internet as suggested book club questions (I <3 the internet) but there are a few of my own creation in there. If you feel like answering them, put the question you are answering above your answer. After that, feel free to discuss others answers or whatever, just be civil please.

IF YOU ARE QUOTING SOMEBODY, ONLY QUOTE ENOUGH FOR US TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE REFERRING TO, DON'T QUOTE 5 PARAGRAPHS TO ADDRESS ONE SENTENCE!

QUESTIONS:

1. What did you think about the title?

2. What did you think about Winston Smith? Is he a likeable character?

3. What did you think of the book overall? (Liked it/didn't like it/indifferent/etc.)

4. How does this book compare to other books you have read?

5. If you've read 1984 before, is this time around any different from your previous read(s)? Has your impression of Winston changed at all? What about the other characters?

6. How essential is the setting to 1984? Could the story have taken place anywhere else?

7. What are the conflicts in 1984? What types of conflict do you see? Are they physical, moral, intellectual, or emotional?

8. In 1984, is Winston consistent in his actions? Does he change or grow as a human being? How? Why?

9. In 1984, what themes stand out? How? Why?

10. Did you like the ending? Why or why not?

Alright, I am not going to answer the questions right away, because I think it would be unfair if I always got the first say in the discussion threads, so go ahead and answer/ask questions as you wish.

DISCUSSION COMMENCE!

Alright, the poll in the other thread ended in a tie, so I used my ingenious tiebreaker method of asking irc, and the first response, (made by tl's #1 poster, no less) said we should read 1984. So that will be our first book. We will have a better method for selecting books next time, I promise.



You have until December 1st to get the book and finish reading it. At that time we will have the discussion.

However, if you wish to discuss it while reading it (don't understand something, found something interesting, etc.) you can in this thread IF AND ONLY IF you follow these rules:

Your post should consist of the Chapter you are referring to, and everything else should be in a spoiler.

You can not refer to anything beyond the chapter that is highlighted in your post.

Responses must also be spoilered in the same way, and my not refer to anything past the same chapter.

Example:

Chapter 1
+ Show Spoiler +

There have been a lot of threads on TL lately about books/writing/reading. This got me thinking, TL is a community, and a lot of us are into reading...Book Club?

So I am guessing we pick a book, and then 2 weeks (just example, can be less/more) for reading, and then discuss said book. This thread is where we should see if anybody is in, and decide our first book.

Here are my ideas, feel free to agree/disagree.

1. A lot of people in various book threads have said they were really into Enders Game by Orson Scott Card, so I thought we could use that as the first book, but as I said before the process should be democratic, so suggest others if you wish.

2. Since TL is an international community, we should pick books that are relatively widely available. Idk, no obscure titles only available in certain countries.

So, yeah, discuss.

If you want to be in, but don't have anything to say in the thread, please just post saying "I would join" or something, so we can get a good idea of how many people are interested.

Alright, Fiction it is. (there used to be a poll here.)

New poll, I took the suggestions in the thread that weren't ender's game (for reasons mentioned in the thread) and weren't suggested by posters with <10 posts and very little time at TL.net. Posters like that disappear quite often, and, at least for this first book, I don't want to get saddled with the book choice of a guy than vanishes. Fair? Not really. Do I feel bad about it? Nope. Sorry, call me jaded if you must. Anyways, here are the 5 options for the first five books.

Poll closed, 1984 won.

Oh, and don't vote unless you are participating please.

Edit: New thread here:

http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=82227

Alright guys, I am trying to compile a top X list, not sure if it will be 5 or 10 or 3 or what, of the greatest bumps in TL history. This will probably go in Memory Lane at some point down the road. So anyways, post links or pm me if you wish of epic bumps you have come across. Feel free to discuss which ones you think are better or what not in here.

Note: Since I don't want to contribute to delinquency on tl, bumps made after the time of the post won't be considered, so don't go bump an old thread and link it here.

I have recently realized that my graphics card on my new laptop is essentially crap. Now, I got this laptop for school, so games weren't a priority, and I could also rely on any video card being able to handle the most important game to me, sc. However, I recently attempted to play a game that I know not to be a very graphics card intensive game, as the spectrum of games goes, and the card was entirely incapable of handling it. Anyways, I wanted to see if I could do something about this, so I went onto dell's website to chat with a support person to see if it was possible to upgrade my graphics card. After getting the specifics of my system, the support guy said that I had an integrated video card, and therefore it is impossible to upgrade it. I've been searching the internet and it seems that it is difficult, but not impossible, so I was wondering if somebody could tell me whether or not this guy lied to me. In case you need to know the computer is a dell inspiron 1525 and the graphics card is an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100.

I, a...learning zerg player, have run into a bit of a situation. I feel quite confident in the ZvT matchup, and relatively competent in the ZvP matchup as well, however, I am horrible at, and despise with every fiber of my being, the ZvZ matchup. I know a lot of people say it is a lot of fun, but the entire game, to me, seems like a hectic game of rock paper scissors in which my opponent knows what I am going to pick. I know it isn't and some of you might find that insulting, but that is just how it feels to me.

Anyways, from the HSL3 thread, I noticed that there are a number of players that choose to play different races depending on their matchups. Since I feel the most comfortable playing the ZvT matchup, I thought I might also be comfortable playing TvZ, or at least more-so than ZvZ (also, I am very interested in learning a second race, even if it is for only one matchup). Just curious about people who play multiple races, what are the pluses and minuses to this, and what were/are your reasons for choosing the races and matchups you did?

Disclaimer: This blog will not entertain you, it is a blog about me and about a problem I am facing, if you came here for entertainment, I suggest you high-tail it while you still can, because this shit is about to get real.


Alright, now that that is out of the way, let me introduce those of you still with me to my problem.

I am in my second year of college in a rather demanding major, and over the past few months, I have gone from absolutely loving my major to absolutely loathing it. For those of you interested, my current major is Construction Management, which would generally lead to a career as a general contractor of some sort. Anyways I have found myself only able to keep up with my coursework due to my paralyzing fear of failing/dropping out, and not because of the reasons I started out with. I could go more in depth, but I'm looking less for advice, and more for experience.

So, my question is, have you ever found yourself heading in a direction you didn't want to continue in, and subsequently changed that direction, either for better or worse? If so, please explain. I don't mean specifically changing your major, as I think there are many more life changes that would apply to my situation.

Was your change brought on by a single catalyzing event, or was it a gradual change over time?
What methods/resources did you find helpful/not helpful in your endeavor?
Looking back, would you have done it differently?
How long did it take for life to get back to normal?

I am just looking for some impartial morsels of wisdom from people who have been there before. I have been talking to people that know me personally and to professors/counselors, but the professors/counselors seem to have interests that aren't necessarily my own driving them, and people that know me, although their support is invaluable, tend to think they know more about the situation than they actually do, and therefore have an oversimplified view of what I am going through.

Please don't flame, as I am not asking you guys to fix my problem, I just want some more experience/wisdom to draw from as I fix the problem myself.

Sorry for the long winded self-serving blog, but it is a blog, after all, and I did warn you. Any responses will be greatly appreciated.

You may or may not have heard of the rebirth of Clan Art, which is a bunch of TLers getting together with the common goal of mass starcraft gaming.

However, you probably have not heard, that this weekend will be the first unofficial meeting of the Clan Art 2v2 League. If you are at all interested, please go to this thread and tell somebody to add you to Clan Art. Then, go to this thread on the Clan Art forums, and let us know that you are interested.

Keep in mind, ALL SKILL LEVELS ARE WELCOME.
Feel free to pm me, or post here, or in either of the 2 threads listed above, if you have any questions.

Hello all.

I have been thinking of starting to write battle reports. I have co-written one before, and I would like to strike out on my own, but there is one problem...I suck at BroodWar.

But you don't, so maybe that problem has a simple fix.

I am hereby sending out a request for replays so that I may begin reporting. (of course, I will post on either the blog or a thread at TL, so you can all read them when I finish.)

The Rules:
1. Must be 1 on 1 games, anything more than that is hard to keep track of in a report.
2. No fastest map games, or other variants, I don't think this really needs explaining.
3. I don't want a replay of you "pwning sum n00b", the closer the players are in skill level, the more interesting the report.
4. You don't have to be gosu, but both players should be reasonably skilled.
5. This isn't really a rule, but a request. The replay should have something that makes it stand out, like a comeback victory, or an off the wall strategy. "By the book" games, although beautiful in their own right, don't make for interesting re-tellings.

With your reps, please post a few lines about the replay, and why you think it would make for an interesting report. Assuming that more than one person will respond to this, I will try to let the person who's replay I chose know ahead of time, or maybe just post the one I chose here.

P.S. I know a way exists, but how does one watch replays from older patches?