LadyCrimson

This usually occurs whenever my spouse says something about him not porking out on the pizza this time.

Under the Dome, the first two episodes. I loved Steven King's early/middle career but haven't really kept up with his later career, so hadn't heard of either the book or that they were turning it into a long mini-series/maybe series. Just ran across it by accident in the VoD menu. The pilot was very fun for the first half, then all those Stephen King staple stock chrs/situations started popping out in force... which in a novel can still be awesome but in a show with no inner-voice narrative often results in a B-movie cheesecake feeling. --small 1-sherrif town that seems to consist of about 30 houses and one church, in a crisis that brings out the worst in most people --obsession with birds as a symbolic death theme or whatever it is --obsession with people spouting nonsense or rhymes or something while in a trance/seizure/rapture... --the reluctant stranger/outsider --the crazy nut teen who's angry/rejected and violent (and a source for major cheese lines) --the town mayor/council/whatever with a secret and who maybe isn't so nice after all --the fallen/corrupt priest type of chr. ...anyway, the pacing of the show is very fast-food edible, but the 2nd episode became pretty silly in that King mini-series way. I'll probably still watch it, tho, to see how it all goes. The fact that the actor who plays Walter White's brother-in-law in Breaking Bad has a major role in it is major attraction for me. He's fun to watch, even when doing cheese. ...I should buy the book, too. I'm sure I'd enjoy it a lot more than the TV series.

Dear SF Giants: So, guys, what's upppppppp? Can we do a little better than last place? Dear Red Sox: Even if it falls apart at the end, it's still overall far more than I was expecting from the year. Which of course, makes it more interesting.

that's a cash shop item for trolling other players :D Well, that's just rude ...but funny.

Dear Diary: outside achieved (it's cooled off today and late afternoon feels good instead of "I'm mellltingggg"), a little color in the face, a little exercise, blah blah ... I'm ready to be a couch potato for the evening. If it stays this temp, might try a long hike tomorrow morning. Just not too steep. The downhill would kill me. I'm not a huge exercise sort these days but this knee stuff has even me feeling like more of a log than I want to be. Or maybe the beach...walking a few miles on sand might be good.

That's how I'm interpreting it, based on Sawyer's wanting opinions and various other things. I'm still a bit sad I won't get to see how it would've worked ... unless they put it in as a hardcore/expert/whatever mode option or something ... but seems to be a case of wanting input, input given/mulled over, decision made. I'm fine with that happening here and there and for ideas they're bandying about and are curious what the players might think. Sometimes the players have awesome ideas and input. I just don't want to see it happen constantly to the point where I start to feel like their own vision might get lost a bit too much. I'm pretty sure that won't happen, but it does cross my mind once in a while.

Kids have it/will have it so easy now/future. I didn't have any video games to teach me/make math fun. We had...paper flash cards and chalkboards and sometimes even drew figures in the dirt! So boring. If I had had something else, maybe I wouldn't have flunked math all the time ... wait...nah, I still would have had to show up to class. nvm. ...seriously tho, I'm all for having as many teaching tools as possible, games or otherwise. The better to have a chance of accommodating multiple learning styles. We don't all learn (the fastest/the easiest) the same way.

I've wanted a high life steal (mine's still sitting at around 11% I think) and a shorter cycle time on Sunburst (Recovery). eg, I'd love to be able to spam Sunburst...not as much dmg of course, but with its own skill-healing effect + lifesteal, it might be...fun. ...still need lots more AD's to really experiment with that sort of thing tho - it's never enough since I buy everything on the AH at this point. At least I have a good chunk of time before the expansion (which I think will have new soloable campaign areas?) to stock up. ...I didn't realize/notice that dye pack was Zen-shop available, either. I just noticed it in the lockbox merchant.

Well, on the one hand, I'm kinda sad I won't ever get to see the original vision they came up with, to see how it truly worked/felt first-hand instead of just assuming it would suck. But on the other hand, I never cry over the lack of a durability mechanic.

Google/YouTube's forced me into their new menu/interface now. All I have to say is ... YUCK. Tired of being inside today...time to go outside for a bit.

I am so lost in this game, it's like everything's in a foreign language and I'm supposed to know it already. Do I need this? Do I already have that? Am I wasting XP points? What is that/why do I need it? I'm supposed to go where? Eh? What? Who? lol Also ... why am I/others dancing when I just want to build stuff? Because I got some achievement unlock at the building station?

I'd be ok with that, especially if you had to find the master teachers ... eg, they're not just hanging around in town picking their noses waiting for you have the cash to click on them. They don't have to be super hard to find, but some kind of effort required. And yeah...I feel for the developers too. Can't please everyone all the time and all of that. I still hope that they will at least stick to whatever things they may strongly want for their game and not be tooooo influenced by all the armchair posting. I have tons of my own preferences, like anyone else, but frankly I want to have a game by Obsidian, not a game "by the masses," if that makes sense.

I hit Reply on the last game mail exchange we had to send you a dye pack, which seemed to just use your @ name, no chr. name. Did you get it? I'm still not confident about this mail system. Haha. ...I wish it was double-diamonds all the time. I'm just raking it in. Now, if people would stop asking for quite so much for AD to Zen exchange ... just a little bit lower, that's all I want ... I could get that tiger mount and still have a decent amount of diamonds left over.

The only problem with the Dread is I can't stand his main weapon. That delay is far too long (the assault gun is fine tho). I love the way the Recon "feels" but yeah, so fragile. We'll see. I'd like a cycle but not sure I want to spend money on the game...I spent enough on that other one already. Tho at least this one is cheaper for the Founder's. I'll play it more today, try to get a better idea. Plus since it's the weekend I can get hubs to try it, perhaps.

I miss them, but I understand the reasoning why they're not legal anymore, around here. One of the big droughts and a lot of fires, IIRC, was one of the many clinchers. First it was the big ones, then pretty much everything. Most people might be likely to use them as safely as possible, but like you said, there's always the yahoos, drunkards, etc. that do stupid things. I'd rather my house/block didn't catch on fire because of them. Although I do think not even allowing those hand sparklers was a bit of an overkill. But whatever.

Since I used to dance and still like to watch some dance, I think that's my favorite post of yours, ever.

I had a cop do the pat down while I'm standing with hands on the hood of his car, thing, once ... in my driveway. But that was because I was stupid. Probably mentioned it before, but ... I saw him on the way home behind me. He didn't have his lights on but he was following, following. I hadn't re-registered my car on-time so I figured he was looking at my tags. I kept driving home (less than half a mile, btw) - he still didn't have his lights on. I was literally like 10 feet from my driveway, already practically in the act of turning the wheel to pull in, when he did put his lights on, and like an idiot I finished pulling into my driveway then got out of my car and faced his car, smiling, waiting, ready for a tag-fixit-ticket. It's habit, y'know? Pull in driveway, get out of car. The (young) cop freaked on me, pulled his gun, screaming why did I pull into this driveway, why'd I get out of the car, dragged me to his car, etc. Few other incidents in my life too. But I always just try to keep in mind that I would never have the balls to approach some random car like they have to, wondering if there's a gun pointed at me through the door or something. It'd make me tense too, especially if I was a rookie or near it.

I did do the tutorial ... in the dreadnaught suit. Taught me the thumper, made a pair of flying boots, I think (I found it confusing to know which pair of boots in the list was the better boots....), among other things. 24k xp on that suit, with no real clue how to advance the abilities beyond figuring I have to click those "1500xp, 2000xp, etc" bars to somehow spend or make stuff, so I left it alone for now. I switched to the Recon suit after the tutorial, so it has .. um ... 700xp on it. And yeah, the Engineer makes me think of BL2's commando, only pumped up, but meh...I kinda like being more active than tossing out/keeping track of turrets.

I find this a difficult question because I still believe there is no such thing as perfect balance of economy. You can't balance for every type of player, I mean. It all depends on what a player is willing to spend their cash on. Some people spend freely. Some scrimp and save, thinking there will be something awesome later that they'll want to buy. Some try to tred a middle ground. Thus in the same game, some players will always feel poor, some players will always feel "rich," and some players will be rich at the end while thinking "I should have spent more earlier, because there's nothing I wanted to buy after all." But to answer the question ... I want to have enough money where I don't feel like I have to constantly scrimp and save just to buy a few pots or scrolls or simple crafting ingredients while in town, but I don't want to end up at the end of the game with 4 billion quatloos even after buying all kinds of expensive stuff, either.

You lost me on that one. ...but I've often wanted a super powered ice cream maker. None of that wait for an hour or four. Ice cream done in 5 minutes. That's the ticket.

Left field/random blathering: I don't think I ever had an issue of having too much money in BG1, and never did buy any of the more expensive store items. Altho, this is likely due to me spending all my funds buying stacks and stacks and stacks of bullets (mages) and arrows (everyone else), and enchanted arrows and bullets to cheesily decimate everything in my path from range. ...which was fun at the time, but I hope today's game/P.E. has a little more ranged/melee balance than that. I don't think one has to have super expensive things in the store for "money sinks" and indeed I'd rather those be items that are found through adventuring/defeating enemies/looting chests. I shouldn't be able to find Excalibur or Merlin's wand (haha) in a store, darnit. There just needs to be enough of a variety of store items (from useful to perhaps even more decorative/fun) to inspire many to splurge to buy them, because those items either give combat, after-combat-recovery, or some aesthetic personal-fun value. I find it pretty boring when stores only have inventory that looks something like: --copper sword --copper sword +1 --copper sword +3 --wood bow, steel bow --potion of healing --potion of defense --steel shield ...boring. It worked once, but these days...boring. I only ever need one or two of those types of things on a periodic basis. Need more interesting things. They don't have to be powerful, one-of-a-kind or uber-fantasy things but something more interesting. Purchasable item enchants, or some crafting materials so one doesn't have to rely quite as much on finding them, or a cool looking cloak to wear over your armor just "because". Whether one ends up thinking they're worth buying/using will be subjective of course - some only want to buy things that are "really useful" or even "uber" while others may have other reasons for purchases - which is why some people end up with a huge pile of extra cash at the end game and some are always broke even in a well designed game - but the point is, if what's in the stores is really largely a repeat of what you'll find in the wilderness, why would people bother spending in the store, outside of stocking up on a zillion arrows or pots or food or something. And I don't think a loaf of bread should be 5 gold.

Low power anything tends to be unexciting. Go for broke, I say. Unless you're like Tim the Toolman. Then it might not be such a good idea. The neighbors this year went for broke with the illegal fireworks. Saw big ones popping up from a few blocks away while standing in the backyard, lots of fizzy noises, lots of huge bangs that drove my cat under the couch for hours. Usually it's just some occasional noise pops...kinda nuts.

Store run, then maybe some gaming with the spouse, then probably bad TV whilst comforting the kitties who will be freaking out from all the noise poppers. Might walk to the corner of the street to watch the city fireworks, too. Can mostly see them from there, without having to go anywhere. Which is cool.

4th of July dye packs? Hehe...colorful. But yeah...my wiz might like that. I've yet to really like any of the dye "packs" because they feel too generic. I keep meaning to use one then see if you can re-color aspects with the single-dyes while keeping some of the pack coloring. They need more colors. Btw, I have a bunch of dyes and packs I got one time and still haven't used. Did you have an idea what you wanted on your main? Maybe I have it. There seems to be a limit to how many different selections I can see in the "pick what dye" drop down, too (6 or 7?), which is annoying, because then I can't select the one I want, hah.

I was thinking of the film rather than the book, when I said that ... I read the book 30 years ago, definitely don't remember much of anything from the novel, outside of the riddle sequence (that bit really sticks in your head).