For example, Americans have the highest rate of documented mental problems of any civilization of people in the world. We’re also the wealthiest of nations. I’m not saying being wealthy is a bad thing, it certainly is not, but when self control is so easy to lose in this day and age, it is also easy to value possessions over people. I’ve seen this firsthand where I work, as another example. If customers at my supermarket find a dent in one of their canned foodstuffs, they’ll switch it out and find another undented can because they equated the dent to imperfection and thus second rate food. However, the public’s treatment of retailers far and wide is appalling, leading one to believe that customers value their food over the people checking their food out for them. They would be correct in believing this, but I suppose I should tie this in to why we as a nation are obsessed with being happy.

Because we, as America, have the highest rates of mental problems, it obviously means that the people are not happy. Dreams are deferred because of money issues, the government is overspending and overtaxing, the public is lazy mentally degenerative, and fear is often used as a weapon, particularly by the media and organized religions. So in order to keep our “upbeat” appearance, we have to pretend to be happy. We have to pretend to be okay with things like overspending and fear as a weapon. In truth, we may as well be wearing smily-faced masks, our second skin to hide our true pain that our society has deemed unacceptable to acknowlege.

Drunken Lullabies:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcEEAjGtAkY&feature=related (Vid by DustyRhodes711)

PART TWO

Why not include a part two? After having our fill of laughs and drinks at the bar (non-alc for Dan and me. How unfortunate, that scotch smelled awesome). We went outside to laugh and goof around some more. We all lit up to honor the celebration. Dan and I had cigars (I’m not a smoker, but I’ll enjoy a good cigar on the holidays), Keith had all-naturale cigarettes, and Steely Dan had this monster of a cigar that could probably burn through metal. I took a puff of that (after cleaning off the tip of course) and holy crap that thing had so much spice. I might as well have been puffing a ground-up jalapeno. It doesn’t stop there either, we feigned an Fightin’-Irish style brawl, but stopped when an officer drove by really slowly watching us with this weird expression. One of the other bargoers joked that he was probably getting off on watching us fight, which we all burst out laughing over. After some more joking, high-fiving, and goofing around, we decided to head back to our cars. Just as we walked into the parking garage, some guy in a Mercedes, whacked my van’s front-left bumper. I stopped him, and he got out, apologizing. My god, he looked smashed with everything South America has to offer, and he didn’t do any damage to my van, so I let him go. I just hope the poor sap made it home ok, because he looked like hell. Once all that was done, we sprayed ourselves down with axe to lighten the cigar smell. Keith then asked for the can, which Dan handed over. He held his lighter up to it and made a makeshift flame-thrower… Then we got the idea to light our hands on fire with condensed axe. That was probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, but it was so fun. There was no real fire, per-se, just the axe burning up insanely fast. And we could shake it out if it got too hot. As an experiment, I told Keith to spray some axe on my fist, which he did, and then light it, which he did also. Hand alight, I made a real life “FALCON PUNCH”, shout and everything. We all laughed hysterically over that, and decided to head home. Dan and I were the designated drivers, so we each took a passenger and crashed at his house for a while. I went back home to get some homework done for the following day, and that concludes the most awesome Saint Patrick’s Day I ever had! Saint Patrick might have been religiously intolerant, but hey, he made for a kickass holiday!

Shas’vre Y’va’kna, once Shas’el Elan’ro, now serves Commander Bloodstar in his bodyguard retinue with Shas’vre Anuk, having been demoted for incompetence. The reason lies in his obsession with popping tanks, an activity he finds more enjoyable than the act of reproduction. As a Shas’el, he commanded a rapid-insertion cadre of XV8 Crisis Stuis and XV15/XV25 Stealth Suits. He was a tactical mastermind against vehicle units, for he knew them all, how they functioned, what their weapons were, even what their emissions smelled like, and was the pride of the Sa’cea Fire Caste. However, over time, his tactics became consistently sloppier and more reckless, costing more and more lives even in simple tactical situations against small armored divisions. Eventually, the Ethereal Caste lost their patience with him, calling him back to the Tau home-world. They accused him of acting on his own selfish desires instead of looking to the Greater Good, a true accusation. They stripped him of his rank, and renamed him Shas’ui Y’va’kna, which means “one who has done something foolish”. He was then put in a Crisis Suit team and that was that. It was on his first mission, however, that he ran into the Shas’ui destined to become Commander Bloodstar, wounded from a Karskin attack. It was he who called in aid for the Shas’ui’s Fire Warriors and called his Shas’vre’s attention to the blinded Karskins, thereby earning him commendation for his acts and a promotion back up to Shas’vre, though the Ethereals have refused him any further promotion for his past acts. He continued to fight alongside Bloodstar as a friend and ally ever since.

Commander Bloodstar’s other Bodyguard, Shas’vre Anuk, gained his name from his frequent use of his suit’s jetpack, more so than other battlesuit pilots. Little is known about this Shas’vre, for he was found wounded on Arthas Moloch, the only survivor of a secret search team sent to find clues to Commander O’Shovah’s betrayal. He barely survived that incident, though he doesn’t speak of what exactly happened. However, aside from his past he is very talkative and friendly to his fellow Shas’vre and his Shas’O. In combat, he is skilled in multiple weapons, his favorite being the burst cannon, especially against swarms. He balances Shas’vre Y’va’kna’s tank-hunting prowess, and both pilots prove essential as advisors to their Shas’O.

On a lighter note, here’s a Tau Empire Tribute vid I found on Youtube. It’s not mine and I take no credit for making it, but I like it. SyrianPhoenix is the creator of this vid and the URL for it can be found here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG_T45waEOU