I'm torn. The punching and beating part before the duel is worrying, unless they mean that he hit her with a stick while wearing armor, which isn't quite the same thing (that's more on level with spanking, it stings but won't do any real damage except to your pride).

Also if you are genuinely sparring with swords and armor, you're going to get bruises. Back when I used to attend sword schola regularly, my whole right arm was constantly bruised up.

I certainly don't consider sparring with swords, by itself, to be child abuse. But making someone do it for two hours is a little much.

@Shawn Struck Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. I was really disappointed with how much she just got wrong based on how much we know about the Dragon Age universe at this point. And I know there's a shit ton of codex entries, but she still should have done the research.

This is my idea about raw foods, and this article actually supports my hypothesis: That because our bodies aren't used to eating raw, we digest less of it (and our bodies have to work harder to digest what there is) and as a consequence lose weight.

@Kev: When you have to say the same scripted sentence 300 times a day, 40 hours a week, for months or years, it becomes impossible for you to say it in any way that is not robotic. You could be saying something outrageous like, "Let me see your naked body, you studmuffin", and you would still sound like robot after thousands upon thousands of repetitions. Forcing someone to repeat a single phrase forever is not a way to boost morale. It's a form of torture.

It's especially funny to think that this awful mandate was intended to 'boost morale' of state workers.

For her next attempt at boosting morale, the governor will be slashing benefits and doing across the board pay cuts. Government workers like that sort of thing, right? The governor is pretty sure they do!

Oh lord, if you've never been part of a call center, you can't imagine the level of hell that this governor just mandated for government employees. I mean really, really no idea.

Back when I was answering phones for [major telecom], We were REQUIRED to answer the phone with, "Thank you for calling [telecom], how may I provide you with excellent service?" But you have to understand that once a customer has finally gotten to a human being, they have NO patience for a greeting that long. They immediately hate you for it. If they're really irritated they'll cut you off, sometimes they'll even curse at you for saying such a long greeting.

It was even worse when we were ending the call, where we were required to say, "Thank you for calling [telecom], you can call us any time at [telephone number] or find us on the web at [URL]. This one was even more horrible because by that point the customer is DONE talking to you and wants you to SHUT THE EFF UP. And it was especially bad when the customer's internet was down (and we were sending a tech out the next day, or sending them a new router to fix it), because they would angrily say, "Well I can't do that, can I? My internet is down."

Greetings like this seem like a good idea to someone who has never, ever taken calls. To someone who has, they seem like a way to torture both employees and customer.

You want to make those gov't employees happy? Allow them to answer the phones like human being instead of robots.

I'm glad I read the comments, it makes a lot more sense that this is some form of mo-cap. Especially since the characters in anime don't use those expressions (they make no sense, that's what makes them funny in the context of this video).

Anyway, cool vid even if the description made me scratch my head.

@Artor I haven't read the contest rules, but her remarks about it indicate that the rules are such that they can refuse to use the winner in advertising if they like. Since it's stated right in the rules, I doubt she'd have grounds to sue.

Words cannot describe how much I love this.

I hope the Tolkien estate agrees to let him print it. I want a copy!

Many moons ago, when I first started going online - on usenet - I ran across 'LOL' for the first time and didn't know what it meant. I did a search and found out it was short for 'laughing out loud', and I immediately felt like it was a great compliment. "Wow", I thought, "I didn't know my comment was funny enough to make someone laugh at it!" Of course, I know better now, but I still remember my earlier days of feeling a surge of pride every time I saw 'lol' typed after a comment.

Yeah, she's doing a high level equivalent of pointing and saying, "Bad thing!", making the video completely useless to anyone who hasn't studied brains.

Cue someone claiming that making a dog wear booties is animal abuse in 3...2...1

Or the babies themselves could be terrorists!

It's a fallacy to assume a company is going to let go of only it's least worthy employees, and keep it's most worthy ones. There are a lot of factors that make that absolutely not true.

Easy example: I work at a union company. In my department, I am on the lower end of seniority, despite the fact that I've worked there almost 5 years now. If the company needs to downsize, it doesn't matter the skills of the employees involved, they are automatically going to get rid of people who were hired last. There are people at the company who work in my job title who have worked their 20 years, and don't have even half of my skills. I know because I've been asked to help train them. In the event of downsizing, they would stay and I would leave. Granted, though, my company can be kind of smart about this by offering generous severance to try to get people at the higher-end of the seniorty track to leave voluntarily.

Other examples include bosses who fire people because they just don't like their personality. So a more efficient person gets fired because they aren't good at gossiping with the boss, but the office fuck-up gets to stay because he's best buddies with the boss. Though I guess the ability to play office politics is, in fact, a skill and it is one that you may be demonstrating that you lack. But, "all he does at work is WORK! What a terrible employee he is, don't hire him!" seems pretty damn idiotic.