Guard Dog

You can call me a honkey. Hell, now that I'm a reasonably well-paid white-collar government worker, I'm essentially "the man." Speaking of which, I am currently working on my self-assessment for my 1-year performance review at my job. I hate this kind of stuff. Yeah, it is better that it is required (the alternative would have the squeaky wheel getting all the grease-- i.e., the people who are so ambitious/egotistical to ask for a raise every few months), but I just can't help but feeling as if I'm bragging while filling the thing out, and sounding boastful really grates on me. Humitlity is an honorable trait Enoch. But your preformance review is not the time for it.

I agree. Rep. Mike Pence from your home state has sponsered the Broadcaster Freedom Act which will prevent future presidents from interfering with the media via excecutive order, or the revival of the very un-American concept of the "Fairness Doctrine". The democrats are, of course, fighting tooth and nail against it. Typical. They oppose anything with "Freedom" in the title.

Irony is my favorite. Case in point. Everyone who drives a company vehicle must attend the Smith Safe Driver training. Well, our staff instructor/safety officer rear ended someone in traffic last month while talking on his cell phone. He was in his company truck too. I'm still laughing a month later. It's so funny on so many levels.

Sarcasm is my second favorite form of humor.

If someone were to give me an Xbox/Play Station/(Insert console name here) I would have it on ebay within an hour. I have no patience for those damned controllers (too many buttons, too little coordination). It's PC or nothing for me.

That is a great quote. I've got to remember that one.

They might, but I would be surprised. I think there will be a real effort by the Repubs to be Not Bush. I'd expect we will be seeing all new faces this time.

Sounds about right. He will be hidden deep behind whatever candidate he is working for though. His name is a real negative.

Casablanca had one of the best endings ever. Definitely a 4 star movie. I rented and watched What Dreams May Come. I liked the book a lot better.

On the whole, I agree with Tale. The news media is selling a product. Like it or not, that is how it is. Their product is their broadcast and they want you watching so they spin up and hype trivial stories into major events in the hopes that elevating the importance of BS will get people watching. Case in point, Paris Hilton going to jail. But when the chips are down , the media is important and when there is a major event or public safety issue it is the only way to get the word out to the people and it does that very well. Where I live we have had seven hurricanes hit in the last four years, the local news media is the only way to find out what is open where, what roads are closed, stuff like that.

I agree, no one is going to top Krookie's post! This thread is over!

I work with a dog rescue charity and it is a 501c organization (meaning donations are tax deductible in the US). The volunteers are unpaid and 100% of the donations go to operations. But it is very small believe me. Last year I think they took in about $40k. The only board member that gets anything close to a salary is the lawyer, and she is paid an annual fee for her services. Anyway, it has been my experience that the smaller groups like that one tend to be more cost efficient than others. For example, when I compare our cost/income ratio to the Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League (a major force here in West Palm Beach) it is not even close. Peggy Adams takes in around a million dollars a year but only about 40% go to animal care and rescue. But, they have paid employees, a facility, an event staff, an army of lawyers, and a marketing firm on retainer. But inspite of their financial ineffecincy they do a lot more for animal rescue than we ever could. The point I'm getting at here is the bigger charities are usually cost/benefit inefficient but on the whole they do more good in the world than the smaller ones because they have a longer reach. 40% of a $1M is a lot better than 100% of $40k.

Two peanut butter and blackberry jam sandwiches on 1/2 inch thick sour dough bread, lightly toasted, with a big cup of black coffee. Mmmmm. I know what I'm making for breakfast tomorrow! Its probably a little hard to really enjoy your "last meal". I'd think I would be a little distracted.

Well, I am still working on one but with real world pressures I only put in a few hours a week. And as you know that produces a lot less progress than NWN1. But once it starts to pull together I imagine I'll spend more time on it. But remember, just because it took me a long time to make it does not mean it will be any good. You might want to check this site out Monte Carlo. It is the forum for the Forgotten Realms Weave, a builder group I sort of participate in...sometimes...when I'm not too busy with work, school, or dogs, that is. But it does count the best builders in the community as members The Forgotten Realms Weave

That was what I meant

WOW! How did I miss this? This is EXACTLY what the mod community needed! Hey Schazz, your wall is about to crumble! Link to story: NWN2 3dsMAX Granny plugin released

Well, actually you CAN modify the OC. There were a few mods that did in in NWN1. Like the one that made Mischa real henchman in SoU. But it is not a simple process compared to the IE games or the ES games. It would require making the hak with the mods, saving a copy of the OC modules, attaching the hak then the modified mod could be downloaded. In NWN2 the modules are so large it would not be practical. Actually I like the NWN 1 & 2 modding concept better because it is more flexible. If all that could be modded in NWN1 was the OC then we would not be talking about NWN2 today because NWN would have gone nowhere with just the out of box OC. The toolset made that game what it was.

No, you are correct. That is more in line with Morrowind/Oblivion modding. And the IE games of course.

You know, you have a little talent in that area too. Why not take a shot at it?

Wasn't Atari/Bioware the target of something like that after NWN came out? IIRC the healing kits had a red cross on them. Then after the first patch they were gone.

You are right on the money there. I always thought of the NWN OC as a half-a**ed showcase for game content. As story goes, they clearly threw it together at the last minute. NWN2 looked more like they had a story in mind and built a game around it.

Nice interview and it sounds great. But doggone it let's get some details on the content we are getting here! New interior tiles? New monsters? New textures? C'mon guys!

I wonder what Santa would say about the Russians claiming the North Pole?

Hmmmm. I thought it was the United Way that was caught misappropriating donations following 9-11. My support for RC comes for two reasons that I will admit were personal. After Katrina the dog rescue group I work with sent volutneers to N.O. and Biloxi to help with dog rescue. It was a well intentioned and utterly half-a***d effort on our part. They went there with nothing but pick up trucks, several hundred pounds of dog food, cages, and a single pop up tent/gazeebo. The regular emergency groups there were doing nothing for the dogs, and the animal groups were taxed to the limit. The local red cross let our team borrow one of their trailers, power it off of their generator, and even gave them several dozens cases of bottled water and first aid kits. The other reason I like the RC comes from back in 1991. It was in in the pull out phase of D.S. We were setting up a radar and nav-aids becaon near the airfield at al-Wafrah Kuwait. You can imagine what late summer feels like in southern Kuwait. The air field was in the middle of nowhere and the only thing that was delivered to us on a regular basis was diesel, water and MRE's. Then after nearly a week of operations a Red Cross truck shows up with a freezer full of ice cream (a lot of other stuff too but the ice cream is what I remeber the most). I never saw any other groups out there except RC and the USO. I guess that's why I donate to each group every year.

We have a topic on NWN2 mods but I notice on the vault NWN1 mods are still coming out at a pretty good rate. Does anyone still check them out? I do have an ulterior motive for asking BTW. Since CEP 2.0 included a lot of CODI material, I picked back up a Planescape setting mod I was toying with back when the Sigil tileset came out. Well, now I have two other builders interested in collaborating on completing the storyline. So far I have well over 100 hours in it and a 6-10 hour story line that is in in either completed or better-than-rough stages. I was curious, is anyone was still even playing NWN1 material? By the way, I do have a lot of Planescape source material on .PDF. If anyone wants it, PM me an email address and I'll zip it up and send it.