The easiest way to turn them into jpegs is to hit the print screen button (mine is “PrtSc”) when you’re finished editing it, then load your photoshop or paint program and hit “paste”. Then just crop the pic and save it as a jpeg.

Dob RuLezzz

I think I made him look too much like Sean Connery.

Apparently Manny threw a 61-year-old Red Sox traveling secretary to the ground on Saturday afternoon when the secretary couldn’t get Manny eighteen tickets to the game on short notice. From what I’ve read that was when Theo decided Manny had to go no matter what. Boras didn’t broker his current deal (which means he doesn’t see a dime from the option years); it’s pretty clear Boras instructed Manny to get himself traded so he could hit the market (there was a strong chance the Red Sox would have picked up his option years). Really lame shit.

I stumbled onto this program at www.heromachine.com that lets you put together portraits of your RPG characters (which you can then print up and use as miniatures). Download Heromachine 2.5 and then open the file in your browser, it’s awesome. Right now I’m working on One Eyed Zeke from the old Deadlands game I ran.

I saw Dark Knight with Lio the weekend before last; now that I’ve had some time to digest it I think it’s the greatest comic book movie ever (mostly because it’s not a traditional comic book movie.) The traditional comic book movie has an ass-kicking hero face off against, and ultimately defeat, a flashy villain (with a lot of crazy CGI fight scenes liberally interspersed throughout). The Dark Knight had a largely impotent and accidental hero struggling to keep up with a sociopathic monster while everything around them burned to the ground. We rarely get Hollywood movies (especially franchise sequels) where the protagonist “loses”. It was packed with interesting social and political commentary. Lio made a great point about this being essentially a crime drama. It takes the best elements of the epic crime drama formula and uses the comic book elements to ratchet up the characterization and the stakes. I really hope Hollywood takes notes on this movie because I’d love to see more comic book movies given this sort of treatment.

I loved the way they handled Two-Face’s appearance. We’ve all seen enough shitty burn makeup to last a lifetime; seeing the tendons, muscles, and naked eyeball moving really adds a layer of horror to the character. My only real complaint is that the movie didn’t draw more from Dark Knight Returns and Long Halloween. I wanted Harvey to slip into serial killing before getting acid in the face (Long Halloween) and I wanted Nolan to explore the copycat Batmans/climate of Gotham angle a little more (DKR).

Stone: If you have any interest at all in westerns you should check out Aces & Eights. It’s designed for people that love crunchy rules systems and has an awesome hit location mechanic where you put a translucent “Shot Clock” over the silhouette of the target.

Manny has really shocked me over the past couple weeks. He’s always been a wacky guy but I’ve never seen a player overtly sit out games and talk crazy shit like this before. I think you’re right about him being worth $20 million. On top of putting up top tier numbers every year he’s the rare hitter that can’t really be pitched to. Even the best hitters almost always can be pitched to and neutralized by a great pitcher (Ortiz and Giambi can’t handle fastballs on the upper inside corner, A-Rod swings at borderline offspeed stuff on the outside corner, etc.) Manny has no weaknesses; if he decides he wants to play he will hit the ball. That said, for the Red Sox to be this desperate to move him they must really think he’s going to keep sitting out games and distracting the other players. They’re a better team if they convince him to play and pay him $20 million to play again next year.

Calliander: I like your ideas for adding new features to Insult but you’ve got to keep the old school layout.

Hey all, I haven’t checked out the site in several months but I figured I should since I completely missed out on Blood’s birthday, Stone being back in town, etc. Let’s see if I can catch up:

Bloody: Happy birthday bro, I’m sorry I missed the Mohegan trip. I didn’t hear about it until after the fact.

Calliander: Your weed tirade was silly. 99% of pot users openly admit that they want weed legalized so that they can avoid getting arrested. Your abstinence from pot use doesn’t make you smarter or better than anyone; your assertion otherwise makes you sound like a flaming douche. Lio already covered most of the reasons pot should be legal (tax it, save money on law enforcement, clear room in the prison system.) Also, why are you supporting Obama if your heart lies with Ron Paul? Their views on the issues are about as far apart as you can possibly get. Obama wants bigger government, Paul wants much smaller government. Obama is pro-choice, Paul is militantly pro-life. Obama wants greater globalization, Paul wants isolationism. Obama opposes offshore drilling, Paul supports it. Obama’s a black guy, Paul’s a white guy that hates black guys. The list goes on and on. You’re adding support to my theory that Ron Paul supporters just want a shiny new club to belong to.

Stone: What do you think of D&D 4th? I desperately wanted it to be great, as it seemed like it was going to address most of my issues with 3rd, but I just can’t get into it. It feels like World of Warcraft (from the power cycling to the lame new races to the monthly subscription fee), too much classic stuff is missing (Gnomes, Druids, Barbarians, Monks), the magic items are in the Player’s Handbook (heresy), and they’re going to release a new PHB and DMG every year (heresy) along with splatbooks (fuck splatbooks). Giambi’s mustache is fucking great. Do you think Boston should pick up Manny’s $20 mil option for 2009?

Caniprokis: With D&D 4th all the classes and races are supposedly balanced in combat, which means they’re all also balanced outside of combat, which means everyone’s functionally the same (no casting charm person or invisibility and stealing an NPC’s stuff, for example). The game is dedicated to stopping you from powergaming and getting cool magic items. You’d hate it with a burning passion.

Everyone: Lio and I have been playing a Savage Worlds game for a few weeks now called Necessary Evil and it’s pretty awesome. The gist of it is: aliens invade earth and the superheroes all run off to fight them. The superheroes die, the aliens take control, and now the supervillains are all that’s left to form a resistance to the alien occupation. The Savage Worlds system was pretty much designed for our group, as it’s strength is running awesome combats with 50 combatants and tons of tactical maneuvering in an hour or less. I’d like to bring everyone into the Necessary Evil game, it’s a lot like our old Shadowrun games. I miss all of you, it’d be awesome if we could organize a game night like the good old days. If anyone wants to check it out just drop me a line and I’ll send you the ebooks. Our game day right now is Tuesdays.

Lio: Happy Birthday, I still can’t believe Custer fried his brain trying to summon a happy meal.

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Happy Birthday Stone and Bean

If you’re getting your cock gobbled off in an inappropriate place and a guy walks in on you the thumbs-up is your best option. Sure, you could act like a goober and fumble for cover (thereby ending the blowjob and telling the girl you like sucking cocks as much as she does). When you thumbs-up the guy you’re speaking to him in an ancient code of men. A gesture as simple as the thumbs-up is the silent method of saying to the guy “Hello my fellow man. I didn’t plan for this but this chick just started putting tonsils to my knob and I know you, as a man that I assume appreciates vagina, can respect this situation and be happy for me. Thank you for quietly leaving; I’m sure this has happened to you many times so I know you understand.”

If a woman walks in on you and you thumbs-up her you’re saying something entirely different; “Hey, you look like a really cool woman. Much classier and cooler than this skeezer I’m fucking in the mouth. Even though you’re a woman I respect you as if you were a man and assume you can understand how cool this is.” This is risky; if she’s a feminazi she’ll call you a disgusting pig or try to ask the girl why she’s blowing such a loser. At that point your only option is to feign outrage and be like “Hey now! Me and my lady are enjoying an intimate moment and it’s none of your business!” and hope the feminazi just gets frustrated enough to leave. Once she leaves you say to your girl “The nerve of her, she must be a lesbian!” as you gently push her head back down.

Girls acting all slutty is the true meaning of Halloween. Sure, our society has commercialized it with movies and candy but when the Celts created Halloween (they called it Samhain) thousands of years ago it wasn’t about any of that. It was about a guy thinking to himself “If I can find an excuse to get that loopy pagan chick half naked and drunk I know I can hit it.” Since then loopy pagan chicks have gotten so loose that a holiday is no longer needed (pretending their kooky opinions are interesting is usually enough to get their legs behind their ears) but regardless, we must honor the spirit of Halloween.

I've done research myself on the Atkins diet, unbiased research, and there's a huge difference between a low carb diet and putting yourself through ketosis. It's pointless to argue this any further with you though Gatekeeper, you were an overweight guy that found a way to lose weight without having to move, you're very very biased on the issue. And yes, there's no reason Atkins couldn't get away with selling his book, you can say you believe anything you want has health benefits. There's people selling dieting books based on eating according to your zodiac sign for fuck's sake. I don't care anymore though, you're adults, do whatever you want to lose weight and get as freakishly thin as you want, I'm just tired of all this stupid rationalization. Eat everything in moderation, exercise and drink lots of water if you want serious results. I'm going back to my old workout routine and boxing to get back into good shape, I think my shoulder's good enough to give it one more shot before I concede to surgery. I got back into working out in Cali and realized just how much I miss it. It also provides a healthy self esteem boost that you can't get from eating a pound of bacon. Anyway, I flew home from Cali tonight so I should be around tommorow jet lag not withstanding. I'll see y'all soon.

Aaron, LOW carb doesn't mean never eat carbs. I told you never eating carbs is horribly unhealthy, not watching your carb intake. You should watch your intake of everything. Not eating carbs at all puts you in a state of ketosis, which is bad. There's no such thing as a healthy way to eat as much as you want and still drop pounds, there aren't shortcuts. Just watch your calories and don't eat tons of carbs and you'll lose weight, and if you exercise a little you'll lose it much faster and build muscle too. BTW I just got home from Vegas a few hours ago, it was fucking amazing. I'll give details later, right now I've got to get to bed now because we're going to San Francisco early tommorow morning, hope everyone's doing well. Later guys, see you soon