Bowling For Columbine (Guncontrol)

[sparhawk]

If I have to see this thread title in the New Posts page every time - can someone please explain this niggling little detail that's gnawing at my mind - what's the meaning of the "Bowlling" in the title? I get the Columbine bit.

 

It's the title of the movie. Don't know why he put this bowling in. Maybe some native speaker or som US guy knows why.

[Crispy]

It's been a while since I saw it, but I think he (Michael Moore) was going on about how the kids who shot up Columbine had played bowling just before. I forget what the significance of that was. I think he might have been mocking the suggestions that video games were the cause of the violence, by implying that bowling was just as likely to be the cause as video games.

 

I think...

[Domarius]

Well that's interesting enough to have put my mind at ease anyway

[Crispy]

Wikipedia agrees with me, so it must be true!

 

Bowling

 

The film title originates from the early myth that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two boys responsible for the Columbine High School massacre, went bowling early that morning, at 6:00 am, before they committed the attacks at school starting at 11:18 am. However, that assertion has turned out to be a myth that originated from several testimonies of distressed witnesses who accidentally forgot that they had been absent that day.[1] Moore suggests that it is as reasonable to blame their actions on bowling as it is to blame them on violent video games, movies, and music (during the aftermath of the shooting, many used the opportunity to denounce Marilyn Manson and The Matrix, claiming a connection between violence in the media and violence in schools).

 

Moore incorporates the concept of bowling in other ways as well (beyond the 6 am rumor). Ironically, a militia in Michigan uses bowling pins for their target practice. [...] Moore asks the question of whether the school system is responding to the state of today's troubled youth or if they are simply reinforcing the concept of fear to the children and allowing the youth to wallow in this façade.

-- From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_for_Columbine

[AluminumHaste]

Wikipedia agrees with me, so it must be true!

-- From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_for_Columbine

 

Again Moore is a sensationalizer looking for the largest political stick of the moment.

Around here if some punches you and is going to beat you sensless, you are only allowed to respond in kind. I.E. beat the living shit out of him too. If you pull a gun and shoot him it was not "reasonable force", and you'd get manslaughter and 15 years in jail.

The only way to beat that is if you can convince the jury that you were in fear of your life, which is difficult to do.

[OrbWeaver]

Actually it is quite likely that if you get beaten senseless by a gang of thugs, your life is in danger. It only takes a single hard blow the the head to kill somebody, despite what the Thief games suggest.

 

Of course it depends on the precise law and the jury, but I think 15 years for killing somebody who was clearly intending to commit life-threatening injuries upon you would be a bit harsh.

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

If a street is so deserted that someone would risk mugging you, then it is equally deserted for you to be done with them and continue walking to your destination, be that the opera house or the lecture hall. I've had 3 expensive bicycles (ultralight frame) stolen in Toronto. Apparently Toronto is the most notorious city for bike thefts. Needless to say I no longer bike in Toronto. When or If I move to North Bay or Orillia I will leave my bikes unchained unattended in the street just like the rest of the local population.

[SneaksieDave]

I'd always assumed it was a play on Bowling for Dollars, that being a frivolous gameshow. Maybe it's a combination of the two; his deep meaning, and looking for a goofy mass media reference thing to hang it on for irony.

[AluminumHaste]

If a street is so deserted that someone would risk mugging you, then it is equally deserted for you to be done with them and continue walking to your destination, be that the opera house or the lecture hall.

 

 

Apparently you've never been to downtown Windsor on a friday night. People get beat up all the time, shot, stabbed etc. etc., and there's a cop on every corner and in every bar. Just because there's a crowd or there isn't a crowd doesn't mean you are safe. But I do agree with you; if there is no one around to stop them, then there's no one around to stop you. You have a right to personal safety and the safety shall not be violated unless you give up said right. (You know, like shooting at police/public stuff like that lol)

[sparhawk]

Again Moore is a sensationalizer looking for the largest political stick of the moment.

 

You mean like politicians, who claim that such things happen because of violent computer games, to find an easy target, everybody can agree with?

[Ishtvan]

If a street is so deserted that someone would risk mugging you, then it is equally deserted for you to be done with them and continue walking to your destination, be that the opera house or the lecture hall.

If anyone ever ties you back to a dead or comatose mugger body in that case, you're even more legally screwed since you didn't report the incident, and that makes you look guilty. (lawyer: "Why would he run from the scene without notifying the police about the incident unless he realised he had done something wrong?")

 

@Spar: Yeah, those laws are such crap. I wonder who the hell came up with the argument that someone with martial arts training should "have enough control" not to injure other people who come at them swinging? Probably someone who saw one too many movies. It's one thing if they clearly get control over the opponent and then proceed to beat them into a pulp while they're helpless (like say you ground & pound them, then continue to break their face after they've been KO'd), but if you beat someone into a pulp in the process of defending yourself, I think it's ridiculous to say "you could've defended yourself without injuring him!" RL street fights are brutal and ugly, not beautifully choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping where the thug clumsily attacks and the master artfully dodges everything. That crap doesn't happen IRL.

 

@Orb: I'd be skeptical about a martial art that claims you can defend yourself without attacking the opponent. Think about how hard it is to keep blocking/deflecting, when some thug is throwing attack after attack at you, and not in a textbook fashion. Each time you defend there's a chance of failure, no matter how good you are, and each time you let your opponent attack you that multiplies the probability of you getting injured. That's why IMO you have a better chance if you can attack your opponent early on (ideally with a simultaneous defense and attack) and take away their ability to attack you, rather than just trying to avoid everything they throw at you. You can still use your opponent's own force against them when you attack, but that's not the same as being totally defensive.

 

How do you even win the fight in that case, wait for your opponent to get tired? If it's intended that you are to win by "defensively" put them into "gentle" joint locks and takedowns and stuff, you have to realise that some people will just keep fighting thru whatever pain you put on them, and you will actually have to take the joint lock to completion and destroy their joints, or do a takedown that slams their head against the ground. Then it's not so defensive anymore.

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

(lawyer: "Why would he run from the scene without notifying the police about the incident unless he realised he had done something wrong?")

I agree, that's what would probably happen. But assuming there's a cause to my behaviour is wrong most of the time. I don't know if I had an obligation to report this incident. I didn't yet. I don't see how a connection might be made. If it is, however, then the way of Karl Haushofer or Masaharu Nonaka seems most appropriate.

[Domarius]

How do you even win the fight in that case, wait for your opponent to get tired? If it's intended that you are to win by "defensively" put them into "gentle" joint locks and takedowns and stuff, you have to realise that some people will just keep fighting thru whatever pain you put on them, and you will actually have to take the joint lock to completion and destroy their joints, or do a takedown that slams their head against the ground. Then it's not so defensive anymore.

Yeah that's right. Imagine some guy comes at you and your girlfriend with a knife. You are going to think - I'm going to take this bastard down before he does any injury to either of us - why give him the chance? There is potential there for someone to get hurt - permanently. Limping for the rest of their life, missing an eye, god knows what. Basically it's a danger and you have to make sure it doesn't happen.

 

Maybe you hit him a few times - then do you give him the opportunity to surrender and run away? What if he doesn't? Nice work, you just gave him a free opening for an attack that will potentially, and possibly permanently, harm you or someone you're with.

 

And yeah, real fights are just messy scuffles, no matter how higly trained you are. The training comes off in a few ways - you take them down before they actually do anything (which is what you're trained to do) or you get a few good hits in during the scuffle, which leads to you getting some sort of incapacitation on them.

 

Basically there are a lot of impractical laws regarding this.

[SneaksieDave]

Taichi is more than just defensive (depending on the semantics of "defense"); there are locks, punches and breaks, throws, etc.

[Crispy]

Again Moore is a sensationalizer looking for the largest political stick of the moment.

There is some of that, yes, and I'm not going to defend him because I know there are a lot of holes in Bowling for Columbine.

 

I did find an interesting analysis of it yesterday though, suggesting it was intended as a mockumentary but ended up being too subtle for anyone to grasp: http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel040403.asp

[sparhawk]

That's why IMO you have a better chance if you can attack your opponent early on (ideally with a simultaneous defense and attack) and take away their ability to attack you, rather than just trying to avoid everything they throw at you. You can still use your opponent's own force against them when you attack, but that's not the same as being totally defensive.

 

That's what I like about Hap-Ki-Do. It uses the attackers force against him, so that you can even defend and get control if you are an old crone. Well, not really. In the training we had 55 year old woman who was quite feeble, and even when she did everything correct, she was no match for me. Weighing almost thrice as her has it's advantages, and at some point raw muscles (not that I'm such a musclebag but compared to her) smiply overwhelm you, no matter how good the tricks are. That's why I find this rather dubious for kids. Kids often think themselve a match for adults just because they make such a training, but fo course they are not. They might get some kicks in and if they are lucky, the can do even some serious injury, but most likely they will be simply overpowered.

[sparhawk]

Quite interesting. In fact I think it's hard for people outside the US to judge such a movie, as it really looks like a serious documentary. And considering that even people who should know better, didn't realize it (Cannes Film Festival, the National Board of Review's, etc.) tells a lot.

[OrbWeaver]

You can still use your opponent's own force against them when you attack, but that's not the same as being totally defensive.

 

That's what I meant, I believe Tai Chi is mostly about locks and stuff, rather than punches (although I am no expert and have never studied it in any meaningful way). For example, if somebody punches you and you avoid the blow but grab their wrist and elbow in a certain way, you can lock their arm or even break it if you apply enough force. This is much more effective than simply punching them back, since if they are large enough they may not even feel the punch.

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

Here's a taichi document I had lying around on my harddrive.

I grew up surrounded by people who had devoted their lives to the martial arts. My hometown

in Hebei Province, Xingtai Territory, Xin Prefecture has been recognized for generations

throughout China for its high concentration of martial artists. Every village had martial arts

classes, with many different styles being taught. The various schools practiced separately but all

of them got together for Chinese New Year celebrations. They demonstrated for each other,

and sometimes one school boasted that their style was better than some other style, which

resulted in a fighting demonstration.

 

These contests involved both internal and external styles. The external hard schools used

knives and spears and maces against each other. Sometimes the contest would get out of hand

and spill over into the audience, like rugby today. Usually there were no deaths, but a lot of

people got hurt. This kind of contest was still going on after the liberation in 1949.

The Dong family Taiji history began with my grandfather, Dong Ying Jie, who was a top

disciple of Yang Cheng Fu. For ten years, he traveled with Yang Cheng Fu throughout China,

teaching the art of Taiji to the people and taking on challenges on behalf of the Yang school.. In

those days, the teaching was very formal. Teachers commanded a great deal of respect. When

my grandfather began teaching on his own, he was treated with the same respect. His students

were not allowed to talk; they had to listen with their heads down and do whatever their teacher

said, with no questions. When Yang Cheng Fu taught, he gave his heavy full-length brocade

coat to my grandfather to hold. Dong Ying Jie would stand like a coat rack, with the coat over his

arm, in Peng posture, for two hours while Master Yang instructed. After many years, his Peng

was incredibly strong.

Both my uncle, Dong Jun Ling and my father, Dong Hu Ling learned Taiji from my grandfather

at our home in Hebei Province. In 1948, my father and his three brothers left Hebei for Hong

Kong in order to escape the civil war. After the liberation, in 1950, my uncles came back to Hebei

but my father stayed on in Hong Kong.

Even before I began to be formally taught Taiji, I would follow my father’s disciples around and

practice with them. All my friends were doing the same thing; many of their fathers were masters

too. In 1956, when I was nine years old, my uncle began to teach me, or rather to re-teach me. At

that time, I knew the whole Slow Set but had never had any formal corrections. Shortly after my

uncle began to teach us, he left for Hong Kong, where my father Dong Hu Ling was living.

From 1956 to 1959, I practiced Taiji under the supervision of Mr. Wu Bao Yin, a disciple of my

grandfather. After learning a little from my uncle, my Taiji wasn’t too good. I wasn’t satisfied. My

uncle suggested that I practice with Mr. Wu while he was gone.

Mr. Wu started learning Taiji very late in his life, at age 30. Most people in my village learned

when they were young. But his energy was very soft, so soft that even very strong people could

not push him. He seemed to disappear when he was pushed; there was nothing there. His

softness was very effective.

This was an organized class of ten people. We practiced two to three hours every night, after

dinner, unless it was raining or snowing or really bad weather. Classes were held outdoors in a

field on nights when the moon was out. Even in the dead of winter, we practiced outdoors if there

was a moon. If there was no moon, then we practiced indoors in a hall by candlelight. There was

no electricity in our town at that time. Inside the houses, the rooms were very small and you

could hardly stand up. The room set aside for Taiji in the Wu family house was about 12 feet by

30 feet, not enough space for ten people to practice.

 

When I first started doing Taiji outside in the winter, it was pretty cold. But it didn’t take long

before I could see steam rising from my hands as I practiced, even on the coldest nights. We

would start classes about six or seven P.M. Sometimes they would go on until eleven or twelve

P.M., depending on the interest shown. Times were not set. Some people left early and went

home to practice, others stayed. While we practiced, Mr. Wu told stories. That kept us kids really

interested. There was no TV, no radio, few books then. There was nothing else to do. The stories

really motivated us. If you missed a day, you missed an installment in the story. Taiji became

entertainment; we were entertained and learned at the same time.

In the winter of 1959 my uncle Jun Ling began to teach us seriously. I was twelve years old at

that time. My uncle was very particular about who he taught. He only had a total of ten students in

his whole life, and only one true disciple. He chose students who matched his own personality.

He didn’t want to teach anyone who had a prominent position in the town, nor any rich people. If

you talked a lot, he didn’t want to teach you. He believed that disciples should keep what they

know to themselves. My own philosophy is very different: I believe that the teachings should be

spread around so that the art doesn’t die out.

At this point in time, when I was learning from him, he was teaching just his son and me. We

mostly practiced outdoors in our family compound on a homemade concrete surface. Indoors

there were a lot of family members and not too much space. Practice was usually at night,

sometimes during the day. Now that my uncle was back, Mr. Wu began coming to our house to

practice.

At first, my uncle just corrected my moves. I tried the corrections and they worked better. As I

got better, I became more serious. After Taiji practice, I could jump further, run faster, and I felt

better. It felt really good and so I kept doing it, with no thoughts of the future or of becoming a

teacher.

My uncle and I practiced often, day and night. There was a long rest period at school after

lunch, from 11 A.M. to 1 P.M. in the winter. I would practice then, at home. I never took a nap or

slept very much at night because I felt so good from doing Taiji that there was no need for sleep.

In summer, our area was very hot and no one did very much at all because of the heat. The

rest period from school in the summer lasted until 3 P.M. I had been told that I should practice in

the hottest time of the day in the hottest place; I took that seriously, so I would practice in midday

in the summer. It was very hot when I started, too hot to stand in the sun for more than a few

minutes, but doing Taiji actually cooled me down. I could practice gong fu in the hot sun for one

or two hours, but when I stopped, it was too hot to stand there. In the old days, it was believed

that the harder the practice, the better the practice. Teachers tried to push you to the limit. They

didn’t force us to do anything, they just explained why it was better to practice hard. We were

convinced, so this is how we practiced.

 

At age nine to twelve, I was so energetic that I would jump off a 12-foot high roof and land on

the ground. The family restaurant had tables about one meter high, and after the restaurant

closed, I would jump from the floor to the tabletop and then down and up onto the next table, all

over the restaurant. We put a bowl of water on the table and the goal was to jump on the table

without spilling the water. If you spilled the water, you lost the game. You had to jump high and

land softly. I started by pushing off with both legs and later could do it with one leg. Even our

games were aimed at improving our gong fu.

Learning from my uncle involved very hard, difficult practice. He taught us step by step, one

move at a time. It was very painful at times. We went into extraordinary detail on every move. We

talked about every single fragment and how they fit together. There were almost one hundred

steps for every move. Then afterwards he smoothed them all out until they flowed. Sometimes we

would practice for seven or eight hours, sometimes only thirty minutes. At this point, I had been

practicing almost every day for three years. But Mr. Wu never went into this kind of detail. It felt

totally different doing it this way with my uncle.

When family members are being taught, the teaching is much harsher, much more critical. The

teaching of outsiders tended to be much more polite. The standards were different if you were

part of the family. Once one became a disciple, then you were treated more like a family member.

The master is much harder on you.

After Mr. Wu learned from my grandfather, Dong Ying Jie was gone from our village for long

periods of time. His students started teaching on their own. My grandfather came back and was

testing their Tui Shou skills. One student was having a really hard time rooting himself. My

grandfather would stick and follow and the student got uprooted and sent flying time after time.

Every time the student pushed, Dong Ying Jie would go back with him; it was like going down the

stairs backwards. Once you take the step, you have to keep going. Mr. Wu said to the student,

"Why are you so stupid? Why do you follow him?"

My grand father overheard Mr. Wu and started to push hands with him. He grabbed Mr. Wu’s

hand and pushed him between two Chinese wine jugs. These ceramic jugs are really huge, with a

small top and bottom and a very wide middle. My grandfather pushed him right into the small

opening between the bottoms of two jugs. His head went through but his shoulders got stuck and

he had to be pulled out. Dong Ying Jie did this three times. Each time he pushed Mr. Wu right

into that small hole.

My uncle was as strict with us as my grandfather had been on his disciples. As we practiced,

whenever I felt like moving, like in the middle of Single Whip, my uncle would tell me to stop.

When I felt like stopping, he would make me move. He would look for the most difficult part of the

move and then make me hold it at that point, to make me get really good at it. That it one of the

hardest things to do, to not move when you feel like moving. It breaks the flow. But it teaches

endurance and what the Chinese call "nien", the ability to withstand hardship.

 

At this level of detail, we worked on each move until it was correct. We could not go on to the

next move until the one before it was correct. When we felt impatient, he would teach us patience

by making us go over and over the same move. Then when you got really tired and stopped

caring about learning whatever came next, he would surprise us by going on to the next move.

You went on to the next step only when you were judged ready, not when you want to. There is a

big difference. There is a Chinese saying, "When the water comes, the dam will be created." It is

a very different mentality than in the West.

I practiced only the Slow Set until I was good at it, which took three years. It was just my

cousin and me learning this way. At the end of three years, in 1962, I began to learn Tui Shou

[Push Hands]. Sometimes my grandfather’s disciples would come around, and then we would do

Push Hands with them. In the beginning, we were told only about relaxing the body and keeping

it straight, not how to push. We were not supposed to do any pushing., just circles for two years,

every night, just me and my uncle’s son. I would also push hands with Mr. Wu, if he was there, or

with my uncle. I started out with Peng Lu Ji An , two-handed Push Hands, right away.

After two years of Push Hands circles, Mr. Li [Li Qing Shan], who was an expert in hard style

Shaolin gong fu came to see what I had learned. Though he was never officially my teacher, my

uncle allowed me to learn a few things from him when he came to our house, about once a

month. It was Mr. Li who taught me Fa Jing, how to deliver energy. He was a little bantam of a

man, but he was incredibly fast and his energy was unstoppable; he was an expert at Fa Jing.

He was like a mountain when he moved. There was no way to divert him. Even though it is said

that you can divert one thousand pounds with four ounces, there is a point where, if the force is

great enough, there is no way to deflect it. All you could do was get out of his way.

He could break a Chinese tombstone with his fist. These tombstones were made of slate, three

feet by five feet by eight inches thick. He could break one in half. He once took some Chinese

herbal medicines that made you much stronger and he was afraid of really hurting someone, so

he went to a graveyard to test his strength. Other people went with him and saw him break the

tombstone, so this wasn’t just a story.

Much later, at age 70, I saw him demolish my uncle’s front gate with one hand. He was

supposed to be a judge at a gong fu contest and was being mocked by some of the kids my age

for being too old to be a judge. To prove his capabilities, he hit my uncle’s front door, which was

made of wood two inches thick which was laminated in three different directions and then nailed

together. The gate was actually two doors which opened in the center. With one continuous

motion , he delivered first a forehand and then a backhand strike, with so much internal energy

that both doors were completely shattered. At age seventy! It left me completely speechless. The

other kids fell into a stunned , awe-struck silence. No one could argue with Mr. Li’s abilities. He

never married; he devoted his entire life to the martial arts. His father was a master martial artist

also.

 

About this time I began to learn Hua Jing, or how to take energy and change it, from my uncle.

When you learn to change your shape, then you can change the force coming at you, or divert

the strength of the force. I began to learn Fa Jing and Hua Jing from my uncle. One of us would

push and the other would divert. We learned in a flowing way, no fixed form at all. It was

whenever the opportunity arose, within the context of the Tui Shou practice, but only with Peng

Lu Ji An, never with Tsai Lieh Jou Kao.

My uncle was a real purist in his teaching of Taiji. I was never allowed to read any books about

Taiji other than family writings, just the Red Book [Principles of Taijiquan, written by Dong Ying

Jie]. I read that book many times. Each time that I read it, I saw something else. I understood it

differently as my knowledge increased. The deeper I went, the more there was to it. There was no

end.

From the time that I first began seriously studying Taiji in 1959, there was no time when my

practice stopped or was interrupted, even during the Cultural Revolution. In the beginning , my

uncle didn’t want me to learn any other martial art. But later, I practiced with people who knew

other forms, and we never held back. My most intense practice period was from age sixteen to

age twenty-seven. Outside of class, when I practiced with my friends, we would tell each other

not to pull our punches, and to hit anywhere on the body. In the beginning it hurt when you got hit,

but later it didn’t hurt anymore. At this time, there was a lot of Qi Gong practice, so the force of

the hit was transformed by the Qi Gong.

By this time, my Push Hands skills had reached a point where none of my uncle’s other

students could beat me. I began to check out other schools and styles of martial arts, and to test

my skills against them. Most people teach Taiji for health, so it is useless as a self- defense or for

gong fu. Many teach it as a totally relaxed form. But if you want to use Taiji as a martial art, you

have to be both hard and soft; you have to know how to use both. Even if you learn it as a

martial art, with all of the applications, if you don’t practice it against someone regularly, then it is

still useless as a martial art.

At age 27, I left my village and began teaching in Gong Fu Association classes and classes

sponsored by the prefectural government. I traveled a lot, spending two weeks at a time in each

place. Top martial arts experts from all over the country invited me to visit with them. I learned a

little from each one. I taught every day when I was away, three weeks out of every month. The

classes were two hours long, in the morning before work began. The classes were sponsored by

the government and were held in public squares. I was paid by the government, but also by the

students themselves, although it was not required. They gave ten percent of their income for my

teaching. It was what the Chinese call "the red envelope", a token of appreciation. They valued

what Taiji did for their health and their spirit.

Outside of China, I checked out many other schools. In Singapore, I tried out a lot of external

Chinese schools. Most of it was friendly sparring. The hard forms are all fully committed; once

 

they start a move, they can’t pull back or stop. Not like Taiji. In the hard forms, it is only the part

that is striking that is committed. In Taiji, it is the whole body, from the leg up, once you decide to

strike. The jing is different. When you punch in hard form, you can bruise someone; with Taiji,

you can throw your opponent thirty feet. The jing comes from the whole body; it is entirely

different from the hard styles. Taiji is both soft and hard. You have to start with soft, then go hard,

which gives a tremendous burst of energy.

I have met almost all of the modern Taiji masters and observed the differences in their styles.

Chen style has good explosive energy, and the old Wu style is very powerful, very strong. But

none of the other styles has the rooting of the Yang style. I feel that the Yang style fits the

general public better than any other style. It makes the legs really strong because you step much

more slowly than other styles. The steps of the Yang style are neither big nor small; an average-

size step has the most power behind it.

There is a story about Master Liu, who was a very small man, being challenged by another

school in front of a big crowd. He threw his opponent out of the circle, which was surrounded by

spectators standing five deep. The other man went flying so hard and fast that he shot through

all five layers of onlookers as though he had been fired from a cannon. Bystanders flew in all

directions. Sometimes the Yang style is so powerful that you can’t believe it.

You think that you could never have that kind of power, but you can. It doesn’t matter whether

you are big or small; everyone can get good. It is important to have a very good teacher to watch

you, to point out your strengths and weaknesses. There are three things necessary to succeed

at Taiji: You must have confidence that you will benefit. You must have the patience to learn.

You must be persistent, which means constant daily practice, with no lapses.

[SneaksieDave]

Cool, thanks for posting that. I always like reading experience narratives, am fascinated with China, and have a recent special interest in this.

[AluminumHaste]

Cool, thanks for posting that. I always like reading experience narratives, am fascinated with China, and have a recent special interest in this.

 

I second that, thanks that was a very interesting read, but we are very off-topic here.

Sorry, I'm just used to threads being locked when they get too OT.

[OrbWeaver]

This is an offtopic forum. Why would threads be locked for being off-topic?

[sparhawk]

Also I'm not really in favour of locking thread just because they go offtopic. I always hate it when this happens in other forums, but human discussions are not as narrow minded as a forum tries to induce.

[Domarius]

@AluminumHaste - The name of this board is "Off-Topic". I think you are safe.

[AluminumHaste]

@AluminumHaste - The name of this board is "Off-Topic". I think you are safe.

 

Apparently you've never been to Rage3D or NVNews lol

Glad to hear it though.