I can't imagine anything like this ever happening in the United States.
From the post:
"A leading opposition figure in Russia's volatile Ingushetia province was shot and killed Sunday after being detained by police... Magomed Yevloyev, a businessman and the owner of a Web site that angered Kremlin-backed local leaders with its coverage of official corruption and police abuse, suffered a gunshot wound to his head while in a police car taking him to a station for interrogation... The local government issued a statement saying that Yevloyev was shot after trying to seize a weapon from one of the police officers holding him. But a lawyer for Yevloyev ridiculed the explanation and said police dumped Yevloyev on a road after shooting him.... Yevloyev had just returned to Ingushetia after an absence of several months. He was seized by a large group of police officers after disembarking from a plane arriving from Moscow... the regional president, Murat Zyazikov, happened to be on the same flight and called police to the airport after recognizing Yevloyev in the business-class cabin... In a posting on his Web site last year [Yevloyev] claimed that Zyazikov had put a $50,000 bounty on his head."
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Gold Stars
I have been playing a lot of Rock Band with Pants lately. Well, for the past 6 months. 10 months. Something like that.
We'd stopped playing for a few months and then picked it back up again recently when our downstairs barkeep had Guitar Hero running in the bar, and then later that week, invited us over to his place where a bunch of people got together to play Rock Band. I'd lost a fair amount of skill, so playing in front of people was a little embarrassing (though not nearly as embarrassing as singing was).
Well, after a steady month of practice, I had recovered to my former skills and at this point, I've actually gotten good.
Tonight, I was playing Bass on "Hysteria" by Muse (downloadable) on expert and I got through the whole song. 3 stars. 86%. Something I'll write home about.
Then later, I was playing Guitar on "Gimme Shelter" by the Stones, and the craziest thing happened: at the very end of the song, right around 166K points, my 5 star rating went to 5 gold stars.
I didn't even know there were gold stars. It certainly wasn't because I'd played flawlessly (there are bonuses in Guitar Hero for flawless performances, but not in Rock Band); I finished with only 98% accuracy.
This is a whole new challenge that's opened up for me in this game.
We'd stopped playing for a few months and then picked it back up again recently when our downstairs barkeep had Guitar Hero running in the bar, and then later that week, invited us over to his place where a bunch of people got together to play Rock Band. I'd lost a fair amount of skill, so playing in front of people was a little embarrassing (though not nearly as embarrassing as singing was).
Well, after a steady month of practice, I had recovered to my former skills and at this point, I've actually gotten good.
Tonight, I was playing Bass on "Hysteria" by Muse (downloadable) on expert and I got through the whole song. 3 stars. 86%. Something I'll write home about.
Then later, I was playing Guitar on "Gimme Shelter" by the Stones, and the craziest thing happened: at the very end of the song, right around 166K points, my 5 star rating went to 5 gold stars.
I didn't even know there were gold stars. It certainly wasn't because I'd played flawlessly (there are bonuses in Guitar Hero for flawless performances, but not in Rock Band); I finished with only 98% accuracy.
This is a whole new challenge that's opened up for me in this game.
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