Donward

It all seems to be the political equivalent of the Jerry Springer show.

OK. What is that movie's name? It looks deliciously terrible and therefore I must watch it.

When I wrote "hilariously" I was kind of poking fun at our M14-was-best-in-Nam friend of a few days ago. That's all. Of course Hollywood filmmakers of the time had to use real people and whatever props they could to get the "cast of thousands" effect for giant battle scenes. And considering that the AK-47 hadn't really entered the public's awareness, any old rifle held by the human waves of injuns Vietcong would do. As I mentioned above, the US military went above the call of duty to give John Wayne and Warner Bros. access to high tech equipment of the day, whether it was Huey helicopters, miniguns, Claymore mines (training), the Skyhook system (which was used in an actual military operation just six years previously) and authentic Tiger Stripe combat fatigues. While it wasn't the first Hollywood movie to use the M16, it was certainly one of the first movies to portray it being used widely in combat. Although in the end, the movie did no favors to the M16 considering the infamous Mattel Marauder scene where John Wayne smashes a toy M16 against a tree so the weapon doesn't fall into the wrong hands. This, more than anything, has probably contributed more to the denigration of the M16 being a "plastic rifle". So with the amount of technology on hand, I'm surprised that the AK-47 wasn't used in this film, given the star power of The Duke and its pro-American slant. There is a scene at the beginning of the movie with the lineup of commie weapons from around the world being imported into Vietnam which includes a Soviet SKS (then being about 23 years past its original manufacture). Given that the movie is set in 1965, I'm not sure (off the top of my head) if having the Viet Cong armed with AKs would be anachronistic or whether they were reserved for regular NVA units. Or it could have been that the movie makers or the US military didn't want to portray the bad-guys as having a very technologically advanced weapon. So it is interesting to me that the AK-47 only really enters the broad American consciousness in the late-1970s and 1980s in terms of a pop culture phenomenon as the ultimate bad-guy gun. Stories from Vietnam no doubt enhanced its mysticism as did its use by terrorist organizations throughout the 1970s and 1980s. And by then, ironically, the original Kalashnikov was becoming relegated as a second-line weapon in favor of the AK-74.

Not in the hundreds like the extras in Green Berets.

I'm presuming that Soviet filmmakers were having the same trouble as American filmmakers finding appropriate weapons to cast with their villains. If we use the Internet Movie Firearms Database as a source, it was only in 1977 that the AK first started getting used in major movies, 30 years after its original manufacture and five years after the end of the Vietnam war where it was first encountered in any great numbers by American soldiers. That was in the Israeli thriller Operation Thunderbolt about the Raid of Entebbe which was directed by Menehem Golan of The Delta Force. There were a couple of small films listed in the 1950s and 1960s but I'm not sure if that is stock footage being used or mocked-up Stg44s. Even the 1968 John Wayne blockbuster The Green Berets portrayed the Viet Cong as using Mausers, (hilariously) M14s and the T-62 Civilian Defense Model. This in a film that lavishly portrayed (then) futuristic military weaponry like night vision glasses and gunships.

Yeah. Yeah. Laugh it up. LAUGH it up. I was talking about the radio you cretins.

Awesome picture. Although you know what the biggest force multiplier is in that picture? It ain't the rifles.

How are douchebags like John Oliver still a thing?

Sometimes the Navy and its domestic partner Marine Corp makes things too easy. http://southpark.cc.com/clips/153051/flexi-grips

Speaking of ads, the best part of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition was the Snickers ad on the back cover showing Medusa as a model with various different teasers about Gorgons and turning to stone. It was a clever way to incorporate the Snickers, You're Not Yourself When You're Hungry ad campaign. Although that brings up the sad subject of models with eating disorders...

I'm in favor of it just so long as it involves bathing in the blood of virgins or a morality tale involving a portrait.

It's not strictly archery but it is period related. https://northamptonbattlefieldssociety.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/oldest-cannonball-found-in-england/ I won't guarantee the historical provenance of whoever wrote the article. But it is need that they keep digging up cool new stuff over in Old Blighty.

I have the newest copy of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition in my possession. It's nice that magazine companies still send my wife's dad free magazine subscriptions, even though it has been close to a decade since he retired from being a doctor. Like everything, the Internet has ruined all that is sacred and pure. Once upon a time, all I'd need was Elle MacPherson or Kathy Ireland staring seductively from the cover to sate all of my rampant teenage hormonal desires. It didn't matter that MacPherson had a one-piece suit. It was the imagination of what lay beneath which is what made them wonderful. Now you can find any sort of genre of porn or stolen celebrity pictures you can imagine. I don't know if you can get Elle MacPherson but you can watch her sister getting nailed which - in my trailer park - is the next best thing. So this season's issue has the standard array of air brushing beauties prancing and spreading across a standard array of beaches, National Parks and Americana pop culture settings. The body paint edition is more interesting in the fact that the paint does look like actual swimsuits rather than the knowledge that the models are actually naked. There are plenty of nipples to be found, covered in sand or see-through fabric. One suspects that it is only a few years off that the entire female anatomy will be put on display. After that it is only logical that the male anatomy will be introduced to the female anatomy in the photographic form for these annual magazine shoots.

I wish I had thought about filing away my contributions to clan of the comieboo for this contingency.

Time to wake up Pliny Bushbreaker, my wicked little halfling ranger assassin. I'm sure he's off somewhere wicked with his mate Piddle.

Oh really? Did not know.

From most of the videos I see these days, any RPG RPG must include muttering "Allah Akbar" repetitively while someone films you with a cell phone camera who is also muttering "Allah Akbar". This goes in for two to four minutes until you work up the courage to shoot. At that point something happens like you being sniped, hit by artillery, machine gun fire or the RPG itself explodes because it has been boobie-trapped. At which point the "Allah Akbar-ing" reaches a frenzied pitch as the cameraman loses focus. And then inexplicably loads the whole thing on YouTube.

I sadly have no practical experience designing games on the computer or pen and paper. I'm only here to throw in oddball ideas and to act as the straight man in any comic routines. I do like the Gothic Wars idea but am probably the only one who'd dig post Roman stuff.

We can have an RPG-based RPG... Nah. I kid. I kid.

Since this is a terrible music thread, why not play some terrible music by a terrible human being? ISIS gangster rap mogul Deso Dogg who's tunes are going up the charts with a bullet... to the head. Shocking that someone with such raw, undiluted musical talent should resort to extremism...

I am by no means a game expert, but I've never had any issue with the rolling dice mechanic to determine attack against armor and hit points way of gameplay. It's a useful way of simulating notional combat and has been around for decades with the pencil-and-paper set. Modern computer games just do it faster and without hours spent scouring the errata tables for loopholes. Backing up Xthetenth, I just want the action where I can make game-play decisions without hours of micromanagement. It's why I always laugh at the scrubs on the WoT forums screaming for "more realistic" game play. Now am I opposed to a hyper realistic RPG? Not necessarily. But I suppose clubbing someone over and over with a blunt axe head while he screams for his mother and is fending off your attacks with his flailing hands, forcing you to straddle him and mash his face into a pulp with your axe handle might seem a bit extreme.

Oh sure. If you want to squabble over livestock up in Geatland.

Wouldn't RPGs in the 4th to 7th Century be starving or suffering from the plague while small gangs of bully-boys squabbled over the remains of society until Justinian literally kills everyone left alive while trying to "liberate" the Italian Peninsula during the Gothic Wars?

Battlefields from the 1200s to 1500s must have been confusing places what with all the different forms of technology. Here's a guy speared. There's another with a crossbow bolt in him. That gent has been cloven in half with an halberd. There's another one been billhooked. Feathered by an arrow. Sword thrust. Trampled to death. Sun stroke. Ere now! This guy has been shot with a little lead ball. Downright cruel and un-Christian that!