judoka

He is the author that I now gravitate to. I am a history buff to begin with and when you take history and give it a twist you exercise the brain cells heavily. I love his stuff. When I find an author I really like I always try to read everything they do. (The exception being in this case the earlier fantasy oriented stuff)

I keep hearing about the fact they didn't fund the levee building... Are you guys aware the first levee that broke and flooded everything was one that HAD just been ungraded? We are talking about people living in a sinking city in the bottom of a bowl. Sooner or later you just have to say sorry - you are living in the wrong place. That's why they are trying to get people to NOT live on floodplains along rivers too. A disaster is just that - a disaster - old time biblical end of the world type stuff. How fast a group can convert to barbarism has nothing to do with government aid - it has to do with survival and predator instincts in all of us. I can understand the looting for food & water - people have to survive. But taking the tv's & electronics too? We are talking pure criminal behavior. Strip the veneer off in a crisis and humans revert to animal instinct. It would be great if bad stuff didn't happen, but it does and will continue to, no matter what the governmental entities and who is running them at the time. Everyone wants government to fix everything and prevent bad things from happening - it can't. It can help cut down on the probablilties sometimes, but it can't prevent anything from ever happening. We are talking about evacuating an entire city that is underwater one person at a time. This is not something that is possible to be either fast or efficient. We can all pray for people and send aid - you see everyone mobilizing around the country to do so. With the instant everything we expect now, we are seeing people getting irate that things were not done in a finger snap. While you can wish it would be, it can't be.

I rarely if ever actually post anything, but this one finally got to me... I keep reading all the grumbling and whining that these guys don't write as well as Frank Herbert did... That's right - they aren't Frank. There are greatly talented individuals that pass through the world from time to time. Frank Herbert was one. Yes, he started it all. He created and fleshed out a world and society that made everyone who encountered it go "Whoa!" But even Frank had his "ups and downs" in the series. The 4th & 5th books were to me a "little off" his normal level of excellence, but Chapterhouse got back to the "I can't turn the page fast enough to see what happens next" style that was what make the books through Children so special. I think the problem some folks fall into is the deification of the original author. Yes he was special. Yes he created a fantastic universe, but he is gone. The only way to get more of that universe is for SOMEONE to write about it. You can't just be a guardian of the grail and say so-and-so write dreck. I understand the need some feel to stand up and grumble. The "Inner Curmudgeon" in all of us wants to do that from time to time. However you have to weigh things in the proper perspective. There are "lesser talent and vision" issues vs "What were the idiots thinking?!?!" type issues in anything Dune related. I myself even thumped my chest at the rain scene in Lynch's Dune movie. You just have to step back and say "Hey, if someone doesn't do it, I will never have anything more Dune related to grumble about". If that were the case, I bet you that we'd be reading here "Why doesn't anyone ever write anything in the Dune universe? We are starving for it out here..." A lesser talent but actual writing is ok in my way of thinking. Dune isn't a religion, though to read some posts you would think it was ;D I'll torture the analogy a bit more... Having come through the Dark Ages after Frank's death, we are now in the Spanish Inquisition phase. I can hardly wait till we hit the Age of Enlightenment...

The other Python you were missing was Terry Gillliam - the sole Yank in the bunch. He was the comic artist who did the weird cutout animations in the shows & movies. He also later directed some cult classic films - Brazil, Jaberwocky & Time Bandits

A few years back, the remaining Pythons were on a talk show reunion. They brought along the urn "with Graham Chapman's ashes in it" so he could be there... They then proceeded to give him some tea and ended up dumping "Graham" all over the set.. "Shut your festering gob you twit, your type makes me puke...." "Look - I came here for an argument..." "Oh sorry - this is Abuse! Arguments are next door - 1b" "Thanks!" "Stupid git..." ---------- I've come here for an argument... No you didn't....

Fedaykin are about as nasty as it gets. Being cloaked allows sneaking up behind any offensive ground unit (except other fremen) and with a group of 4-5 toast it in 1-2 shots. If you combine them with a few visible Sadukar Elite (behind them to sucker in opponents and handle air targets) you cover both ground & air with quick kills. Put them in infantry cover where they can't get squashed and charge out before minotaurus, kobra or inkvines can lock on target and watch all that expensive hardware turn to scrap. Devastators are a joke against several Fedaykin. You guys get too caught up in hardware - the human/inhuman body is the most versatile fighting weapon ever. Just add a few tools to wield and there you go....

Those who hear them seldom live to tell the tale.... Man, It doesn't get any better tha Dune & Monty Python together... I have shooting script from the Holy Grail (Yeah, I'm a fanatic) You should see the scenes they threw out and never filmed. Instead of swallows, it was originally ants... Python dialog is a mainstay in coversations with my brothers. Every phone call starts with "Oh! How'd ya do!" And somewhere in the conversation comes: What sort of ballistic missle is that then?

How can you tell that Fremen are from West Virginia? They all have StillSuits...