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I actually do read and think about the Roman Empire quite a bit.

Patrick says

I actually do read and think about the Roman Empire quite a bit.

The Holy Roman Empire is the one that worries me.

Illegal immigrant quick access ports? They looka likea buncha dykes.

Are you staring at my skin tight, camel toe outlining, nipple exposing, butt thong yoga workout outfit? The ultimate shit test: damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Yes, I am this old:

I burned a disk from work to upgrade my win 98 machine at home, but I forgot to copy the key.so I made up one. I ended up getting it right on the second try. I should have played the lottery that day.

Ceffer says

The Holy Roman Empire is the one that worries me.

Why? Doesn't seem as strong.

Gollee. No wonder it smells like fish.

Patrick says

Why? Doesn't seem as strong.

Holy Roman Empire is the Vatican.

Facial Recognition Software has gone a bit crazy.

LOL! They don't call them reptilians for nothing. Nice catch with the fly from eye to mouth to swallow.

Patrick says

I actually do read and think about the Roman Empire quite a bit.

Really? Any recommendations?

All I know about it is that is wasn't Holy, wasn't an Empire and wasn't very Roman.

It was more a weak confederate monarchial state. A precursor to the joke that the EU is today.

I got confused when reading about it's Circle system of local administration and gave up.

@UkraineIsTotallyFucked

Yes:

Plutarch's "Lives", a large collection of short biographies of famous Greeks and Romans in pairs, contrasting a Greek and a Roman each time. Written ~100 AD. It's very long, and sometimes tedious because of all the battle descriptions, but full of amazing twists of fate and other excellent tidbits.

Also "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Gibbons, which is similarly long and sometimes tedious, but lots of rewarding bits too.

I also really liked Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" and Seneca's "Letters" but they are really about Stoicism and not the Empire itself.

Patrick says

UkraineIsTotallyFucked

Yes:

Plutarch's "Lives", a large collection of short biographies of famous Greeks and Romans in pairs, contrasting a Greek and a Roman each time. Written ~100 AD. It's very long, and sometimes tedious because of all the battle descriptions, but full of amazing twists of fate and other excellent tidbits.

Also "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" by Gibbons, which is similarly long and sometimes tedious, but lots of rewarding bits too.

I also really liked Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" and Seneca's "Letters" but they are really about Stoicism and not the Empire itself.

My bad. I thought you wrote Holy Roman Empire instead, for some reason.

BTW, highly recommended:

Oh, great. Now the fucking Milky Way has to go to rehab.

Ceffer says

Oh, great. Now the fucking Milky Way has to go to rehab.

Explains the existence of the Soviet space program.

Lol, I used to be a bit embarrassed by how much Irish people drink until I learned that the Russians drink twice as much per person.

Patrick says

Lol, I used to be a bit embarrassed by how much Irish people drink until I learned that the Russians drink twice as much per person.

You'll feel even better when you learn Koreans have the highest per capita alcohol consumption in the world (Japan is up there, too). Koreans are very industrious with groupthink, but I heard that passed out Koreans on city streets are common. They apparently even beat the Russians.
Claim is, Russians weren't an especially alcoholic nation but there was a period with some czar or another forced Russians to buy and drink more alcoholic beverages for economic reasons. Vodka taxes are still a major revenue source for the government.

Europeans in general probably have similar comps, but the Irish were chronically characterized as drunkards from way back when it went along with them being 'subhuman' LoL! I guess I'm half subhuman. Because of economic and social repression from Britain, Irish men could be chronically unemployed and thus prone to hanging about and drinking (and fighting).

There are Irish who don't drink or drink normally without getting drunk. It's the luck of the genetic tendencies.

I have heard Koreans called "The Irish of Asia" in reference to their tendency to riot, but maybe alcohol is involved in that too.

Age Test:

Have you ever used one of these?

Oh sure, that was how I drank beer during my sophomore year in the Notre Dame foreign study program in Innsbruck in the 1980's.

My grandmother got pissed at my older brother because he was not very respectful to her, so she redirected the $200/month she was sending him to me instead. My ship had come in! I really needed the money.

So she would deposit money in my bank account in the US, and I would write the Innsbruck AMEX office a check, and they would give me those traveller's checks, which were as good as money in Europe at the time.

I still feel a bit bad that my very last check bounced because of a miscalculation on my part. Not intentional, but then I was back home and not quite ethical enough to mail a check for $200 to a foreign country for an unsecured debt. I guess I'm still not ethical enough to send AMEX a check for that amount plus interest.

Crop circles 2D cross sections of 3D objects?

AI is getting better...