I've never been a great FPS player, but I do enjoy the genre, or at least I used to. (Apparently, kids these days think camping at spawn points is cool. In my day, that would get you kicked.) I really liked BF2. I liked hopping in anti aircraft batteries and gibbetting whole groups of people until inevitably someone stuck a bomb on the back on detonated it. Loads of fun. When I got BF3, I thought, "What the fuck is this?" Every gun, every add-on had to be unlocked. It was stupid, and made an already frustrating game, unplayable. I was a goddamn sniper, without a goddamn scope! WTF?

Even the single player campaign was boring and by the numbers. It was almost as bad as a rail-shooter, that I couldn't bother to finish it. And that's when I realized that I'd probably never play another FPS. (Well that, and the stupidity of the COD Black Ops demo where I had to walk to a U2, climb up a latter, turn on the plane, fly up, then watch a cut scene. Pointless.)

I'm surprised they didn't mention the bird in Mary Poppins - the one that sings sitting on Mary's fingers. I always thought that was the first use of Anamatronics. That and the Parrot Head on Mary's umbrella.

What? You don't do all your banking at the comic book shop?

"That's libertarians for you â" anarchists who want police protection from their slaves."
-- Kim Stanely Robinson, _Green_Mars_

The USPS has a history of supporting OCR research, as part of its need to quickly and accurately route mail to its intended destination. That's main reason why ZIP codes and their later evolution of ZIP+4 came about.

That said, the National Security Complex has used the this system to institute the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking, which is a program to expand what used to be law enforcement surveillance technique (mail covers), as part of mass warrantless surveillance.

thanks. I'll have to check this out.

This service is already available. It's called Your Momâ. It's free to use, but they do ask you to log in from time to time.

Wow, with the exception of the names of planets, that's a whole lot of meaningless fan service cameos.

But fan boys are cheap right?

When the prequels, came out, Lucas tossed everything the EU under the bus, including everything stated and implied in the films. ("I just remember my mother was always very sad," No! That was your adopted mom!) About the only thing he kept was Obi-Wan and Anakin fought over lava. So none of this is surprising.

When milking an existing franchise there's this need to be different-yet-similar, and a need to ramp everything up a notch or two. Eventually, everything gets a bit stupider as a result.

Years, ago I ingested everything out of the WEG RPG source books. I loved it. Now when I look out at the EU, it seems like such overwrought load of rehashed crap. A perpetual war of Sith and Jedi with even the uniforms and technology always looking the same. It's like the Star Wars Galaxy didn't even have changes in design, or different empires to grow and fall. (The Rakata being the notable exception.) Its quite a boring universe really.

Mr. Jackson seems rooted in an age that has long since gone by. What he needs to do is tell the people he claims to represent, "pull up your damn pants, don't get ugly tattoos all over your body, learn to address people in respectful language and study your ass off rather than trying to figure how you can goof off more. There's boatloads of money, waiting to be made and odds are you aren't going to be a zillionaire hip-hop or movie star, but if you take an interest you could make more than all of them put together.

Wow.

Personally, I find it unlikely that the CIA would do something so ham handed and transparent. And yet, since the War on Terror and the idea that anything goes when the people you're drowning don't wear matching hats, the CIA and the entire IC has lost all credibility, that I can't dismiss the allegation.

That said, Feinstein is a out of touch 80 year-old that thinks mass surveillance is cool, but at the same time gets upset when the IC spies on allies (like everyone else does), and when spy on her.

As a Democrat and a Californian, I say Fuck Feinstein.

Alright, not really.

My 10 year old uses them to play games. When she's older she'll get her own phone, but for now our she gets our hand-me-downs (with no service).