Hey all,

Sorry to show up with bad news (well, that depends on how you look at things, some of you might think it's good news!), but having received the Barracks role call I've had to resign my position in the Barracks. I've already given my reasons/excuses to Slash, but I felt I owed the same to the rest of you as well.

Basically I don't have time for this place anymore, nor the passion to keep active and stay in touch with the conversation. There was a time I would hit the shortcut to here before any other when I came online, but on the rare occasions I'm on the internet these days it is strictly for work, and I just can't keep up. I'm now doing a full time teacher training course, which involves both time at university and time at school, and is seriously intense. If I can't find time to sleep I certainly can't find time for here! And this doesn't look like it is about to change.

On top of that I'm now officially living with my girlfriend of 2+ years, and I don't see that changing any time soon (hopefully ever...) either! What little free time I have is devoted to her.

It's been fun here over the last 4/5 years. I'm proud to have been a member for so long (one of those still hanging on from the early pages of the thread), and I'm equally proud to have been an officer here for a period. This was the first place I ever felt at home on the internet, and one of the first places I posted when I was new to the site. If I could be bothered to look I wouldn't be surprised if half of my total posts have been in this club.

I may or may not pop in with the odd post in future as Eaglerock has tended to do over the last few years (good to see you're back for a while by the way!), and I hope that if I do there will still be a few familiar names about. In the mean time keep having fun and keeping looking after the portal!

*salute*

I've listened to the album right through 5 times now since last night (I have a lengthy drive to and from university at the moment which helps), and...

I absolutely love it. I was rather expecting opinion to be a little more split in here, but clearly I was wrong. My reasoning for that was that I can't really pick out any instant classics from the album. There aren't any stand out tracks in my mind that will go down as Muse greatest hits (though I've now been humming Uprising ever since I got home, so perhaps that one will stick).

But instead they've created a whole album that plays through from start to finish beautifully, especially the final three tracks. I didn't much like United States of Eurasia when I heard it a few weeks ago as a stand alone track, but in amongst the other tracks on the album I'm loving it.

And I've always been a big fan of the classical influence in Muse music, and this album takes that to a whole other level. Piano is especially a favourite of mine, something I tinkered with back at school, and this album has more of it than any other before it (or at least it feels like it does because so much of it is as solos).

I could probably go on gushing about it for ages, and I'm happy I'm not alone in enjoying the album so much. Most of all I'm pleased that my slight apprehension after hearing United States of Eurasia was completely unfounded- this album completely lives up to my expectations.

I'm going to attempt answer some of these criticisms from the other side, though I haven't yet started my teacher training (I start in September).

Generally I think a lot of you are being very hard on teachers. Granted there are plenty of inadequate people working in education these days, a direct result of there being so few incentives to become a teacher and the governments desperate attempt to provide teaching staff despite there being too few appropriate candidates. But there are also a number of excellent teachers out there.

The problem (at least here in the UK) is anyone with talent is sucked up by the private school system, as that is where the money is. It is a travesty that teachers have to spend 5 plus years in higher education in this country (You have to have a degree in your subject before taking any educational qualifications) only to be paid average wages. I for example will be a solid 20 grand in debt come my first actual year as a teacher, and will only then be paid in the mid 20k range. Should I make head of department that might stretch up to 30, but it is hardly sufficient compensation for what is a stressful and important job. I get into a private school and I could be on 40k in no time.

As for the argument about finding patterns in results that perhaps aren't there, welcome to the real world. That is not the fault of the teachers, that is the fault of the government who are so determined to show that education is improving. Results are skewed in all walks of life to show what people want them to show, education is absolutely no different. Generally there is probably little difference in the actual ability of teachers to teach between now and 50 years ago, but the subjects and way that they are taught has evolved completely with changes in technology and changes in focus in the syllabus. And yes, they are probably getting easier too, as I said the government is determined to show that they are improving the education system.

Believe me, to become a teacher you have to be passionate about teaching. There is little other incentive to do it, and it is very much the focus of interviews to get on courses. The problem is that after 5 plus years of teaching the same information over and over it does become difficult to maintain enjoyment in the job, especially with students that are completely disinterested in what you have to say. That doesn't excuse teachers for becoming disinterested, but you have to realise how mindnumbing it can be to go over the same facts over and over and look at a load of blank faces staring back still completely uninterested in being there and not taking anything in.

As it is I am excited about teaching, and am determined to teach my subject in the most interesting way possible. I don't kid myself that it will be easy, or that I will enjoy it every day, but I love the subject I am teaching (biology) and want to encourage as many students as I can to be interested in it as well. Fingers crossed I'm not one of the teachers being moaned about on here in years to come...

I'm not going to mourn his death as such, rather celebrate an amazing life. He sad in an interview recently that he considered himself lucky to have achieved what he had, and regretted nothing in his life- there are few that can say that honestly, and I feel that despite the cancer that plagued him in his latter years he was a lucky man. One that will never be forgotten by any football fan.

On my old laptop I had a perfect 100% record stretching over 100 games, but its hard drive was nuked and so I don't have any proof of that claim. As windows games go though it is one of my favourites, as (almost) every game is possible (I read somewhere that only one of the card set ups on windows XP had never been solved), but still requires a good amount of skill and forward planning. Certainly trumps the damn guessing in minesweeper- so many cases of a 50/50 guess with the last two cells and getting it wrong...

At 7/30/09 01:40 PM, Mechabloby wrote: Quentin Tarintino's new film is hitting the cinema in the next couple of days for the UK, but before it's released I was wondering if it's worth seeing. If anyone has seen it yet, what is your opinion of it?

I could have sworn the release date was the 21st August, and IMDB certainly says it is...

But anyway, I'm looking forward to it. I've seen a mixture of reviews, but then I often enjoy films that have received poor reviews so that certainly won't be putting me off.

At 7/30/09 07:45 AM, LegolaSS wrote:

At 7/30/09 07:14 AM, Frank-The-Hedgehog wrote: Broken medals as always... I didn't get the medal for beating story mode with all 12 guys.

medals are very random... i havent got the 12 completed... but i have the 5000 gold one... i got it during a battle O.o... also i feel that 100% completed one is bugged as well as some of the secret ones :(

Does it say you have 100% completion in your data menu (options: data)? I've played all 12 characters in story mode and it only says I have 92% completion, as well as 97% overall (despite doing all challenges and unlocking everything). Is there another hidden character to do the story mode with, or is it just a bug? Pic below:

I've seen what one of the secret medals is in someones profile, which I haven't worked out how to do either, but that may be related (not saying anymore for fear of revealing secret medal info...)

Not exactly a huge distance in the future for me...

I'll probably (hopefully) be a teacher by then, though where I'll be I don't know. There is also a reasonable chance I'll be married... scary to think that is just a few years away!

Or I'll have won the lottery and be travelling the world. Personally I like option 2 more...

Obviously as a Muse fan I'm biased, and I agree that there are stronger Queen influences in this track than most, but they use a range of styles and sounds, and take influences from a lot of places, so I don't see why it matters. If you want to pay tribute to one of the most successful and lastingly popular bands of the last 30 years then why not?

Personally this track will need to grow on me, but then there have been Muse tracks before that I have been iffy about on release and then grown to love. As it is I love the classical ending, reminds me a lot of the classical segment in Butterflies and Hurricanes. There aren't too many rock pianists that are as embracing of their classical upbringing as Matt Bellamy.

I'd like to point out I did read all of that, and while you paint a beautiful yarn, all I really wish to do is commend your choice of car. I also drive a Yaris, and it has never let me down. You are a wise man.

Also I will aim to carry tampons in my car whenever I'm heading for a supermarket car park, specially for the numerous dreadful SUV driving Mom's out there. Maybe we can start a trend.

At 7/22/09 09:26 PM, BattleFieldNoob wrote: Supposedly (based on the FAQ), you can only gain experience points through the daily voting and signing up for mailing lists. However, there are some users with an odd (in terms of divisibility by 2) amount of experience points.

Given the information in the FAQ, it should be impossible to have an odd amount of xp because you can only have a number of experience points ending in either a 0 or 5, the 5 being due to the mailing lists and thus being the only exception to having an odd number of xp. However, i have seen members with xp numbers ending in 9.

Therefore, there must be, or was, another way to gain experience points.

You've pretty much answered your own question. There used to be other ways to gain experience, though that was a long time ago now. Now it is 10 per day and that is all.

At 7/21/09 07:55 PM, SoulMaster71 wrote: Let me first say that despite being religious myself, there's a lot of aspects of certain religious people's beliefs that I don't like. I don't like their intolerance of other religions (I personally have no problem with, say, Muslims, but if the news is to be believed there's a lot of Muslims who hate Christians).

The news is virtually never to be believed, the Muslims you here about on there are the extremists and thus the intolerant ones. The vast vast majority are not openly against Christianity, a point made to me when visiting a predominantly Muslim country (Tunisia). In many cases the news is the reason for a stereotype. Christian extremists exist as well, they just aren't on the news as often.

That being said, a stereotypical atheist is even worse. He takes every opportunity to bash religious people, and is just as intolerant of the religious as the Muslim fundamentalists supposedly are of Christians. The stereotypical atheist (Richard Dawkins is about the best example I can think of) sees religion as bad in every way, as though there were no benefit to morality or to the social cohesion provided by common faith in the same principles. Luckily that's just a stereotype and most atheists probably aren't like that, except on bad Internet forums.

But don't you think that is the stereotype because those are the only atheists you come across? The ones that shout out about their beliefs and attempt to threaten other peoples, in exactly the same way as the only Muslims people hear about are the extreme ones. The vast majority of atheists are probably quietly living their own lives without religion, and have no interest in damaging it. Each to their own so to speak. My entire family is atheist. Not once have they ever openly attacked religion, they just live their lives like everyone else.

As with all stereotypes, the one of all atheists being angst ridden teenagers wanting to rebel against the world is rubbish. I'm no teenager, I have no desire to rebel (in fact most aspects of my life are completely ordinary and boring), and I've been an atheist all my life. I don't have a desire to abolish or attack religion (though I must confess I'm very much against the teaching of creationism as a biology graduate and soon to be teacher), if people want to believe in God then by all means do. I simply encourage people to think for themselves and make their own conclusions, whatever they may be, and not blindly follow a crowd.

At 7/21/09 02:50 PM, EJRProductions wrote: More monopoly

Official>>Temp 031>> Table 2>>Pass: stickam

Table still open, needs more players!

Only England could throw away such a huge lead...

Saying that if they can get a wicket early tomorrow I still think England will win this, but it should have been over today. Agonising watching ahead tomorrow.

It's 2:22AM here, so I could easily be back from a party and sitting here merrily drunk...

... but as it is I've not done anything this evening, I'm at home trying to stay up late while my girlfriend is on night shift (as this way I'll be good and tired when we curl up together tomorrow when she gets home), keeping myself entertained playing online poker. I suspect my partying days are behind me.

At 7/17/09 12:56 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: North out for a duck! Shocker, sort it out Aussies!

I really shouldn't gloat with 3 tests left to play...

I suggest we don't hold back, this may be as good as it gets! Looks like the Aussies won't make the follow on target now, they have underestimated our greatest weapon... the weather! Here's hoping we get to bat in the sunshine every match and they keep having to face Anderson swinging the ball all over the place in the gloom :D.

Though even with the ball swinging this is a pretty feeble batting display...

I'm paying slight attention to it, but paying a great deal more to the second Ashes test (cricket for the Yanks).

The Open is the one and only golf tournament I watch each year, though not usually until the last 2 days, when things start getting more exciting. Frankly I'd like any European to win, ideally a Brit, but I suspect that may be asking too much. Westwood or Casey to win in some sort of dream land. Certainly Woods is the absolute last person I want to see win, so anyone but him would do!

In the middle of a club dance floor... whilst still standing!

I'd pulled an all nighter at university, and in celebration of finishing my coursework decided a drunken night of partying was the way forwards. Copious amounts of alcohol later, combined with my already sleep starved state and I was snoring while the party raged on around me, the close proximity of the people around me holding me up (including a few friends).

There is photographic evidence of this incredible feat, but it's embarrassing enough as it is having it on facebook without posting it here as well.

At 7/8/09 09:41 PM, yurgenburgen wrote: Companies put use-by dates on their products that are a lot earlier than the actual use-by date because it encourages consumers to eat the products earlier than necessary so that they'll go out and buy another.

Also they are covering themselves and putting them as early as possible to avoid someone getting ill from eating something on the day of the use by date and suing them. Their is a lengthy window a product can go off in, companies simply use the earliest reasonable date.

And as such I will happily eat most products after the use-by-date, so long as there are no obvious signs of mould or the product going off. To date I have never become ill from doing so. Even if a product was looking a bit iffy, cooking it well would theoretically make it safe to eat (though I wouldn't personally risk it).

You mean a boglin?

Does your car not come with that newfangled invention, brakes?

I mean, if you saw the 'rock' at a distance, and saw it starting to move, surely you could have slowed down long before you hit it. After all a turtle isn't known for its breakneck speed- its not like it jumped out in front of you. All that time it was slowly walking into your lane you could have been braking...

unless of course you were going much faster than 57mph initially and slowed down to that speed...

The sound of a swimming pool when you have your head under the water. Hard to describe exactly how it sounds as it is different depending what is going on, but it certainly is peaceful to just lie in the water with nothing more than the blurry noises of everyone else in the pool to keep you company.

When Brad Pitt gets blown away in Burn After Reading. I watched that with my girlfriend, and when it happened we both just looked at each other mouths open. It just completely comes out of nowhere.

Also the space ship in The Life of Brian- though that was a little more predictable as Monty Python are capable of absolutely anything at any time.

A healthy body leads to a healthy mind. If you exercise regularly you will also perform better in other areas, including academically.

Plus there are other lessons to be learned from sport beyond just getting fit. It teaches teamwork, encourages camaraderie and friendship, builds a healthy competitive spirit and will to be the best that you can be... all things valuable to your personal development.

So yes, you should start going.

At 6/30/09 08:16 AM, Coop83 wrote:

I'll trade you - it's sweltering down here in Worcester. About 28 degrees and probably about 50-60% humidity and rising

Having complained it has actually been a very pleasant day here in the low 20s, though I am a bit of a sun worshiper and 28 sounds heavenly to me (ignoring the humidity, always ruins a good sunny day in the country). Still, spending the summer up here has it's advantages, NO DEAL!

At 6/30/09 09:02 AM, DumbassDude wrote:

I was in Bath yesterday and it was around the same temperature, lovely heat. But hearing it could get up to 39 degree's is abit worrying.

Aww, I miss Bath at the moment. I'm looking forward to getting back there in a couple of months already, with girlfriend in tow of course (long distance relationships get very old after a while...). How's the building work going in the centre?

39 degrees though... where did you hear that? Seems like a crazy sort of figure to me, but then stranger things have happened.

Regarding the FF flashes being deleted, it's about time really, their animations were annoying and all they did was clog up the portal. I'm not sure if they broke a rule or anything, they might have just pissed Wade off. Good riddance.

I'm sure there was a good reason for the deletion, generally the admins seem lenient and only delete when there is no other choice. Good riddance to bad rubbish anyway.

I've been coming here nearly five years, and it has been a positive influence in a lot of ways:

Most importantly, the community here has helped me during some of the toughest periods of my life. It may not even have known it, but the random banter and idiocy, the comic putdowns, the flash and audio, and the various characters on the forums are all a fabulous way to get away from real life. Some of you, and you know who you are, helped more personally with comments on my userpage or replies to posts, but generally just being away from the real world for a little while was what I needed most.

You lot are actually helping me on the long road of life. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life until recently, and eventually it dawned on me that I enjoyed interacting with you lot, most of who are a good deal younger than me. So I'm becoming a teacher. Obviously the situation and challenges will be different, but ultimately every time I teach a class I'll be wondering who amongst them visits this site- which of them are little spammers in the making, which of them are forum regs, respected by all including myself, and most importantly I'll know how to talk to them, and see them as equals even though I won't be able to show it as openly as I can here. I never thought so many people so much younger than myself could garner any respect at all from myself, but many of you are smart and funny in ways I could never imagine.

You've irritated me with your stupidity, sure, but for every poorly thought out argument there is one that has made me question my own. I believe that the ability to think about the world around us and question it is one of the most important skills a person can develop, and this place has been ideal for me to develop my own ideas and find some new ones, no matter how hairbrained. You've also taught me restraint- I'm less quick to attack another's ideas as invalid, and although rarely you have actually changed my opinion of something you have made me realise that I might be wrong.

I enjoy being part of a community (if a relatively little known one), and I enjoy helping it in my own small way. I'd like to think I've helped some people on here with problems in their lives, both on the forums and more personally, as so many of you have helped me. I enjoy trying to help Tom and the other admins in helping this site reach its potential, even if it is only by patrolling the portal and writing the odd review. I want this place to be the very best place it can be.

(And on a more mundane level I've become much more proficient with a computer, and a keyboard, but that is hardly something to get excited about!)

I certainly don't consider it 5 years wasted.

At 6/30/09 01:44 AM, TheThing wrote: Hey speaking of hot places, I'm in Costa Rica right now! It's pretty cool down here

And I'm in Inverness, Scotland! Wait... that isn't quite as cool, nor anywhere near as hot... damn.

I will resist any further jealous comments, no summer traveling for me this year :(

At 6/28/09 08:46 PM, TheThing wrote: So, as the monthly writing contest draws almost to the end, anyone going to/already has submitted something?

This is my first entry to the Monthly Writing Contests, so obviously I'm a little excited. Unfortunately I won't be able to find out who won until July 9th when I get home.

I've taken part in the last three, and done fairly well as well (though not actually made the top 3 yet...). Unfortunately I've had no time to take part this month, not to mention I wasn't too keen on the theme. I just couldn't come up with anything original enough for my tastes.

But certainly they are great fun to participate in, and there are some really excellent writers around on this site. Good warm up for the rumoured lit portal too, I'm building up quite a back catalogue to submit to there if it ever shows up!

At 6/27/09 01:04 PM, esko-man wrote:

At 6/27/09 01:00 PM, AapoJoki wrote:

Have you never heard of Nepal?

Nepal who got a new flag conforming to the rectangle?

How about the Swiss flag, which is a square... (as is the Vatican's).

As for favourite, I always liked Rwanda's old flag (as I share the initial 'R')

Wow it has been a LONG time since I last posted...

First up I love the new EGB Bulletin Board in the forums. Over the last couple of months I've found it increasingly difficult to keep up with what is going on here, as I'm inactive for quite long stretches, and reading dozens of pages at a time is just a bit too much. So the Bulletin Board is perfect to get me right back into the swing of things, great idea!

I've missed a lot of the spam that has been occurring, and there is little I can do about the art portal anyway (as I a) have no art, b) am so horrible at art I would never consider submitting any, and thus c) will never be scouted!), but I have caught the odd attack in the portal. Rest assured I have been weighing in with plenty of 0's where appropriate!

And I apologise for my prolonged absences (all is explained in my profile as always). It is everything I can do to deposit my experience regularly (and I'm missing plenty of days entirely), and gaining B/P is a real struggle. My target of 30k blams feels like it is going to take me decades at this rate (I'd love to have Supreme Commander in both saves and blams, mmmmm). I do try and keep up here, but by the time I have read through the pages I've missed I usually don't have time to post- with luck the Bulletin Board will make that a little easier!

Generally keep up the great work! This place has evolved a great deal in recent times, and now more than ever puts up a stand against spam of all kinds, not just within the portal. I've never seen so many links to rule breaking flash coming in so regularly before (probably an indictment of the state of the portal as much as the great work done by you lot), but it's nice to know that this club is still a force in making Newgrounds a better place. I just hope I can stay active enough to help, though no matter how busy real life gets I'll always keep poking my nose back in here on occasion.

*salutes*