*big hug* She'll be back soon. In the meanwhile here a photo of owl :D

Doing ok, it finally stopped raining here *yeah*

Think I'll stick to relatively light chat here while laughing at idiotic reviews for books on Amazon, like one I just read where the person complains about how they read to get away from the subjects presented in a certain book.
Nothing like being too lazy and/or senseless to read the book jacket beforehand.

It's good that you're getting a bit of a break from the heavy exertion. Any sign of the end to the heavier hours you've been putting in?

Awww :'-| *tearful hug*
She loved coffee so much... and always offered it to everyone :'-(
*starts carving tally marks on the wall for every minute that she is away*....

Did you know that in the Lord of the Rings books (and movies, I guess), that the true hero of the book (as stated by Tolkien himself), Samwise Gamgee, was actually Frodo's batman? Tolkien was an officer during the First World War, and he always had the opinion that the officers were pretty much inferior to the common Tommy (an old term for English soldiers), that it was the common English soldier that mattered in the war, it was them who fought bravely and died bravely, those who were the true heroes. He had great respect for his own batman during the war, and of the common soldier. Which is why he made Samwise the true hero, and why many of the heroes in his books are just common men, not just those in a privileged nobility.

A little quote of Tolkien's:
"My Sam Gamgee is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself."

That's great news. I really hope it will go well. I will keep my fingers crossed and hopefully you will come back with good news.

People do seem to be unable to do a bit of research before they throw money at things, just look at all the people asking for Steam keys for the Witcher 3 graphics card promo.

It will be a few more weeks before my hours get back to normal. It would have been sooner, but my brother had an accident and cut open his arm quite deeply. So now he is unable to use it and so we are having to cover some of his workload on top of our own. But it's okay, it is tarting to wear me down a little, but it will take a lot more than some long hours to really effect me. :-)

I didn't know that. I haven't read the books, but I saw the movies. I always felt that Sam was the true hero, despite all those sexy humans and elves beating people up...
Interesting info. I like it when officers have a normal sized head :-)

It's easier to complain than to accept responsibility for screwing up.

I saw you mention your brother's accident. Hopefully he's recovering quickly.

Not surprised. Your strength level is extraordinarily high, so I'd be willing to bet you'd continue going until either the heightened need passed or you physically couldn't.

Hey.. where are the GOGbears?
It's the second time I see "error 500", instead of the usual fluffy titan holding the Earth.

Tolkien hated the two world wars, in fact, he hated war in general. Highlighted by this quote from the Two Towers book (Tolkien often put a lot of his views into his works):

"War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."

I have read lots of his essays and notes on war and things like that, he was a very interesting and intelligent man. One of his big dislikes of the Second World War was the Americans total war approach. During the war, the Americans wanted to just destroy everything in their path to Berlin, including innocent civilians, putting casualties and destruction down as collateral damage. England threatened to withdraw RAF bombing support during the drive to Berlin as England had no intention of killing innocent civilians, which having suffered the Blitz, we knew how heart breaking that kind of thing was, plus we were supposed to be better than the Nazis, not the same as them. After a short while, and seeing that England would not go along with the whole thing (and the global bad publicity it was causing), the Americans ended it and attempted to be a little more civilised and not just randomly kill everyone, civilian or enemy. They of course made it look like their idea and not that it was pressured by England to stop.

(Disclaimer: I am recalling that from memory, so some facts may be incorrect, but I do not think so, but my apologies if there are errors.)

Which reminds me of an old saying that originated in the First World War, and was still used in the Second World War. It went something like: "When the English shoot, the Germans duck, when the Germans shoot, the English duck. But when the Americans shoot, we all duck". Sadly it seems that Americans during the war would shoot at pretty much anything non-American, something that sadly happened all too often even recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, with many British soldiers dying in "friendly fire" incidents with Americans.

Edit: I meant no offence by my comment, hopefully it did not come off that way.

My brother will be fine, it was nothing serious, but it means he only has one arm usable for a while.

You would bet correctly. It would not be the first time I have physically been unable to carry on properly (but never fully unable to carry on), but that happened a long time ago when I was dealing with things like my attack, my mother and grandmother being seriously ill, and my grandmother dying. Luckily I have none of that stress to at the moment (although my mother is still ill, she is no where near as bad). It should last a few more weeks at most, providing something doesn't spoil all that. We are due to be getting some storms, which could cause some problems, but we will just have to wait and see.

Jah mon!
:)
Happy with these latest games and next week's too.

Morning all :)

Had anyone else noticed what happens when you click/mouse over on someone's avatar?

Good morning!

How are you today?

Have you seen the new Galaxy integration thing when you click on a person's avatar?

Yep there is this friends invite stuff. Seems like they are working on the website. Would explain the gogbears and the strange internal error stuff

*welcome wave* Hope you are doing fine?

Oh my god!!! MUST INVITE EVERYONE!

I just realised this happens even if you are in the forum overview and mouseover the avatar of the thread OP.