Hi

An issue has arisen in our household recently that I would like to discuss with some of the other parents here.

The topic, as described above, is charity fund-raising within the school system. This particular one, the Terry Fox Run/Walk, raises money for cancer research. But the issue is more global than this specific charity. How do you feel about curriculum time being spent on any charity? Do the schools your children attend have any similar efforts ongoing?

For background, I am inserting below the letter I just wrote to the Media Relations Officer of my own school board - the Toronto District School Board.



I would like some information, please, about the way that the Terry Fox Run/Walk has been handled at the TDSB.

My concern arises from the negative response one of my children has received at his lack of fund-raising participation in this endeavour.

My husband and I have discussed the Terry Fox Run/Walk at some length. Our conclusions are thus:

1) The goal of curing cancer is laudable.
2) Terry Fox himself is a genuine hero, and a worthy role model for our children.
3) We have grave concerns about how the Canadian Cancer Society allocates its research funds.
4) We do not wish to give financial support to an organization whose spending habits we are uncomfortable with.

This has led to our decision to bar our children from entering into fund-raising efforts for this event. This is a matter of our own consciences. There are many worthy goals that charities spend money on, and we feel that we should encourage our children to spend their energy and money on other ones than the Terry Fox Run/Walk.

With this in mind, it has occurred to us to question the participation of our school in the Terry Fox Run/Walk. I am wondering how this particular charity managed to insert itself into the TDSB so that school time is used to support it. As it stands, my children have three choices. They can join their classmates for the actual Run/Walk, eschewing an afternoon of classes (not counting the pep rallies that precede it). They can sit out the afternoon in the school, with supervision but no actual schooling. Or they can stay home.

Would you please explain to me how it came about that one specific charity, out of the many candidates, managed to displace curriculum in the TDSB this way? A brief history of the participation, including the level of authorization, would suffice.

I will be discussing separately the issue of the negative response with the teacher involved.

Thank you for your help in explaining the larger issue.

My schedule has been the same for years.
Mondays and Tuesdays off. Tuesdays are usually better since back in variants nights.
Any other days will have to be after 9:30 PST

Post your prefer time slot anyway, we may just be able to have 2 team and merge them on the rare occassions.


As always, I will pick last as to what character I will make, so the others can play their more favorited classes and I will fill in what is needed. I will even play a variation of Demi Maul E/W as a warrior tank if we need one

Just to name a couple things why a E/W can make a good tank
-Pump Mist Form and hope the party can make good progress in that 18 sec time slot
-Bring Thunderclap and keep mob knocked down around 18 seconds (Thin Air can maintain his lvl18 TC for its 22 seconds duration. Funny How I built Thin Air just to do that then later realized Demi Maul with the E/W classes might be better afterall. But it will kill Demi not to use maul)
-Stackable armor buffs
-Bonetti Defense to regain mana


Anyone with ideas as to what would make a viable team please feel free to propose a mockup. All I know is, we need healers


KoP

http://www.gameshout.com/podcast/

Jeff Briggs, Sid Meier, and Soren Johnson for about an hour. I thought it might be dull or overly sanitized, but actually I enjoyed listening to it.


- Sirian

If you haven't seen it already, CivFanatics has released the complete (or almost) tech tree for Civ 4. Also, as you might know, there are multiple paths you may take. What will be the most favoured route? Will there be some specific "ToE" strategic route? (Atomic Theory and Electronics)? We can only wait. The release date is also set for October 24. See the tech tree here: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/techtree/

My friend was over the other day, and I showed him (URL deleted) It is a site with cheats, bugs, dupes, etc for guild wars. He told me it was against the rules for gw to do this. Is this true? I am used to cheating on video games for my whole life, so I was sort of shocked to hear this.

Lets get naked!

Here’s a few issues we need to address.

A naked character does not play with PuG – It is sad enough that even with a “normal” character a PuG can make you feel totally useless, that you are just there to fill up party size limit.

Playing with other restricted characters – Playing with other with similarly restricted (in difficulty) characters should be okay, and of course, with a team of naked characters.

Solo Naked Character - Some quests and missions requires multiples of human drivers, at which time, the options are:
Acquire help from other players and as little as possible. You should play a key role.

Skip the quest or mission if there are ways around the area.

Henchies
The use of henchies should be ok so long as there are no melee henchmen. Soloing with non-tank henchmen will ensure the player to be involved, at least at first contact. Furthermore, if we feel henchies maybe too powerful, We can limit the party size to no more than half of the maximum allowed party size when using any henchman.

Minions are allowed

Armor
No armor allowed, of course. The only concern to this rule is that the Mursaats’ Spectral Agony spell may make a solo non-infused naked character impossible to play. Maybe one piece of base starting armor should be allowed when the character earns the right to be infused – for modesty reasons, of course. ;p Though a chest piece would be the obvious choice, which body part you want to cover is up to you. So keep your starting outfit in stash.

The one piece of infused armor is only legal where Mursaats are known to be found.

For a team of naked characters, I would like to see no infuse allowance until we have the opportunities to play with the Mursaats a few times before we decide.

No shield or focus items

Weapon
No weapon at all – characters cannot use melee and bow skills, and, all characters will go into melee range without attack when a skill is not keyed up for use...

Starter weapons will allowed warriors to melee, and rangers to use their bow skills while still keeping with the spirit of the rules. However, I would like to see that only primary warriors can use melee weapons, and only primary rangers can use bows. Furthermore, rangers are stuck with their starting bow, and, warrior are stuck with their starting maul. Warriors can acquire a sword or an axe if faster attack rate is preferred over slightly more damage from a hammer, but the sword/axe must be of base minimal damage without mods.

Non melee characters can equip their starting wand or staff else it will go into melee range but does not attack.

Comments, suggestions, anything I left out?


KoP

Hi everyone,

It's awfully difficult to find fellow guildies on at the same time, or in the same places, it seems. would anyone be interested in starting a team with a set play time each week? We'd need four people, since it will make sense to start post-Searing. I've got a monk who's only done the first mission, and a mesmer who's about to go through the Academy and arrive in post-searing. Either is fine with me, depending on the rest of the team's character choices.

Would anyone be interested? We'd play one night a week. I can play any evening except Sundays and Thursdays, and can be online by ~8:30 Eastern time. It would be great to be able to avoid the PuGs for a change!

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Cheers,
Hawkmoon

Ideas? Thoughts? Has the RB community moved past Civ as a whole?

Yesterday, I finally got Hawkmoon of Realms ascended (woot!). So I toddle into Droknar's Forge, gawking at all the pretty armor and cursing my lack of leather squares, minding my own business... Then I notice that this fellow, Warrior primary with the descriptive name "I Kill With Axes" keeps saying, on the open chat line, "Hawkmoon of Realms, will you marry me? (I will give you pressies)" He follows it a couple of seconds later with "I really love you."

Now, unless this was a fellow guildie in disguise, I swear I've never come across this fellow. He followed me all around Droknar's Forge. It was bizarre. I asked him, jokingly, whether A.net had added a "/marry" emote. He "LOLd" back, but then kept up with the same thing. Over and over, same two lines. I eventually moved on to do constructive adventuring, but he kept it up the whole time I was there (~10-15 min). I can't figure out what on earth he wanted, other than to be annoying. I'll grant you, Hawkmoon of Realms is a stunningly figured blond Amazon, but so is every other female character in the game!

Anyone hear of any new scams perhaps?

Cheers,
Hawkmoon

P.S. I really should have thought to take a few screenies! Drat it all!

"Mommy, Havral broke the economy."

Same rune, same day, same place. At any merchants I could sell the rune for twice as much as the rune trader would buy for.

However, the minor beneath the major I was selling was the same price at both.

I like selling unwanted runes back to traders since this helps maintain a steady flow of runes for people to buy, but... Bah. Bah, I say.