http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/us/allan-calhamer-inventor-diplomacy-board-game-dies-at-81.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&ref=obituaries&

Abebooks is totally legit; they're not up there with Book Depository, but they're reliable, quick, and trustworthy, from what I've heard.

Olympus has FallenHadn't seen this one posted.  (It's YouTube, so may or may not be region locked.)

It's not locked here in NZ so presumably anyone can watch it

It looks... like an action movie with a medium-sized budget  I'm sure it's fine but it didn't get me very excited to see it at all 

First thing I thought of was Under Seige.

..sans gorgeous blonde. 

Aaah Erica Eleniak (IIRC). Such a great talent (at least to my 13-15 year old self ) Also I want to spell her first name with a "k"... (goes and checks).. Yup, Erika. How the hell did I remember that???

Olympus has Fallen

Hadn't seen this one posted.  (It's YouTube, so may or may not be region locked.)

It's not locked here in NZ so presumably anyone can watch it

It looks... like an action movie with a medium-sized budget  I'm sure it's fine but it didn't get me very excited to see it at all 

[un]

Just to clear things up, what I am about to post is NOT OFFICIAL

I'd be reasonably tempted to make it something like this:

"If you fail <at task X>, you lose all remaining actions for your turn and become flat-footed".

The (rather major) downside to that though is that most clever players will simply either do the dangerous action last on their turn, or (as Valentina pointed out somewhere) just not attempt the action at all, as the perceived risk of failure would be too high

That really shouldn't be neccessary. As you observe, any "failure has the additonal consequence of costing you time (the most valuable resource in the universe)" mechanic is really tantamount to saying "you cannot take this action as your first half action- or you're an idiot". As Big Jim noted, the unavoidable form of risk is~

With a miss, the character becomes flatfooted at the end of his current Initiative Count.

In that case there is no difference between doing it first or second.

The current set up makes taking some actions as your first half action better if you can engineeer the circumstances where that is possible, but the down sides to risking it as your second half doing it are not so severe as to preclude doing it if the need is great. In this specific case moving to an opponent and then disarming them in the same action may be totally worth the risk of becoming flat-footed if you fail. And if it's not, wait 'til next turn.

I totally agree with all of that, although I hadn't realised that you can unflat-foot yourself if you can get into a position to Disarm (or whatever) as your first half-action. I think that's kind of neat

Just to clear things up, what I am about to post is NOT OFFICIAL

I'd be reasonably tempted to make it something like this:

"If you fail <at task X>, you lose all remaining actions for your turn and become flat-footed".

The (rather major) downside to that though is that most clever players will simply either do the dangerous action last on their turn, or (as Valentina pointed out somewhere) just not attempt the action at all, as the perceived risk of failure would be too high

I got 30,700 almost exactly on average for my age (which you can now figure out using that site if'n you're interested)

Kinda disappointing actually

[is]

Finally went and saw Django Unchained last night; I wasn't really expecting a Western, and I wasn't disappointed in that regard. Absolutely LOVED the character of Dr Schulz, but

(click to show/hide)

was quite disappointed in the way he went down. Seemed out of character, even given the oh-so-brief "reliving the torn apart by dogs" scene. Didn't seem like he'd snap quite like that.

As for the rest, well the (second to) last fight was unnecessarily splattery, but this is Tarantino we're talking about. And the Australian accents were rather jarring...

I really enjoyed the relationship between Django and Schulz, and Michael(? Samuel L Jackson's character) was just the right combination of scary, creeepy, and calculating.

Good watch, highly recommended. Not a Western, though.

Hell no. There's a difference between sparring and Oh-My-God-That-Guy-Is-Totally-Trying-To-End-My-Life that can't be simulated

Wasn't it the other way around? CCCP wanted White Wolf's IP to make a MMO out of?

Yep that's correct

Looks like Disney is applying The Avengers formula to Star Wars. Could be interesting. Could be terrible. Way too soon to tell.

I'm going with terrible until I see evidence otherwise; Han Solo's story could be interesting (but in all honesty probably not...) the rest only really work together, together... And getting buy-in for a whole movie for any characters introduced in Ep VII is going to be a very hard sell, IMO

I'd watch that 

Yes. I bought one and left it with the gaming group when I took a break; asked for it back when I started my own game and they're still using it

Very handy thing, highly recommended. Having said that I picked up a very small (A5, I think) white (actually silver) board and some cheap magnetic markers to write names on. Works just as well

[right now]

Something a little more serious than (how I remember) the 1960's book - less Austin Powers and more "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" 

While there was a Swingin' Sixties Campaign Style, it wasn't the only one in the 60's book, nor was it even the baseline.  It actually looked like a precursor to the Campaign Qualities that were in full effect come 2.0.

Entirely possible It's been quite some time since I looked at it (although I'm literally looking at it right now - the SC1 books are never far away from me

<steeples fingers>
Exxxxxxcellent. Carry on gentlemen