LadyCrimson

I missed that speech...clicked the YT link and he was just finishing. Course, the TV news will repeat it a zillion times, so I guess I'll move out to that room for a minute.

We saw that in the theater and we were ... not sober. One of those youthful decisions if you get my drift. That was an experience. And I'm still haunted by the poor Dipped shoe.

Ideally, yes. I still would like outdoor-night to be generally a bit darker than in the video. Again, not pitch black. But something that makes me feel like there's more of a visibility difference, even if torches aren't a necessity. But as mentioned previously, if they have a reasonable world explanation for very bright night skies (multiple moons, a ton more night-stars than real-Earth has etc), I'd be fine accepting that, as long as it's consistent. Deep dungeons should still be very dark tho, imo, without light sources. And I'd be fine with something like helmet/headlamp gear or lantern vs. a hand-held torch, too. Torches should stack, btw. I like it in a recent game I've been playing where you can place torches on walls and such as you go...that way you don't have to actually carry in hand, just have a stack in inventory and periodically pause to place one...and once placed, they stay there unless you remove them.

Supposedly some packages that didn't explode have been found or suspected. Ah well....I'll check in again later when they have more clear info. Just hope that's the end of it and there aren't any more actual explosions. boston globe liveblog/notes link: http://live.boston.com/Event/Live_blog_Explosion_in_Copley_Square

....since I follow mostly Red Sox fans, you can imagine what my Twitter feed looks like right now. It's on all the networks right now. I'm definitely interested to know the cause. The video I saw didn't look much like fire...some kind of pressure explosion perhaps?

Eh, had that wierd moment when Heath Ledger died and I realized he was only a couple of months older than I. I've had moments like that but they didn't affect me nearly as much as when my older brother turned 50...for some reason that's the one that really drove the "time passing" thing home for me.

Tried to watch "Sushi Girl." I say tried because I found myself skipping forward now and then. Supposedly Michael Biehn was in it, but turns out he had a role that lasted about 40 seconds. Film has a Tarantino feel, only without the complex/interesting or humorous dialogue. The actors try, but the script, imo, just isn't interesting enough. The weirdest thing about the film was how it took me more than 30 minutes before I realized that was Mark Hamill under that shaggy blond hair and glasses. Even without the weird chr. look, I'm not sure I would've recognized him right away. Last non-voice role I'd seen him in was probably from 15+ years ago or something....my has he changed. Next I'm going to watch "Yellow Rock", another low budget film with Michael Biehn (much bigger role tho). Western. I have low expectations.

I think some ES fans are hoping the MMO will still give them ES-like gameplay, only with co-op, and are/were willing to give it a chance. I'm not one of them, but I'm not much of an ES fan, either. Graphically, if anyone thought it would look even remotely like that trailer they released ... hahaha. Yeah, I knew that wasn't happening.

We already have a long running and ongoing topic about posting armor and weapon designs that people admire/would like to see emulated. Repost there, perhaps?

I think it's more nostalgia for certain ways of life is forever golden to those who lived through them.

After everyone kept telling me how cats were extinct in Fallout lore or something, but dogs were still around, I demand a game where dogs are extinct but cats remain.

Trying to watch a film called "Hypothermia." The main reason is because Michael Rooker stars in it, and I love Mr. Rooker. It's a low budget, fairly short, monster movie with a small cast and low effects. Two families ice fishing in some lake area and a monster shows up under the ice. Rather laughable, but y'know, even through that, Rooker still makes me smile. So I'm sitting here still watching.

I look back sometimes and think how much "simpler" life seemed to be when I was a kid. I've always been a loner etc. but even so it felt like I was more connected to people in a meaningful way while growing up. I don't think of it as being better, exactly, just different...certainly more quiet (literally as well as figuratively). But then again, I feel like the internet was invented for me. I'd miss it terribly if it went away. What would I do at 2am?

Lowly non-tech/business people like myself can barely comprehend why it costs so much for all that shiny. So many things factor into that, like cost to research/develop the tech itself as well as the time spent learning how to use/apply it. I do understand that a need for more development time/bigger teams = higher costs in anything, tho. And yeah....all that flak in Hollywood right now over the cost/outsourcing issue. It's sad.

That's true. This will only end when people stop buying shiny, shallow games. Vote with your wallet. One problem with this is humans tend to be hopeful creatures. Sometimes it's hard to know/decide if something is going to be that shiny/shallow until you actually play it, since graphics don't always = shallow. And a few games I had no idea if I'd like ended up being my fave games ever when I impulse bought them. That is, it's easy if you already know it's a genre of game you wouldn't like anyway, but less easy when it's a sequel you've been looking forward to for a while or something. And at some point you have to buy one again, to find out if they've improved or not. This would be helped (maybe) if games were refundable more often. Then people could also vote by returning/taking their money back, like you do with a TV or a leather jacket.

All I know is budgeting 100million or even more to create/publish/market a video game seems like ... way too much. Course, I feel that way about movies, too. And yes, it's sad if 3.5million copies sold = perceived or actual financial failure. While the film industry may be able to withstand/weather such things as a whole (cgi/action budget busts over quality/original stories etc), I'm not sure mass-market video gaming has that kind of flexibility....at least not, perhaps, without changing a lot of what video games are defined to be. Already happening, really (mobile gaming, etc). At least there are indie vid games and crowd funding these days to keep gamers like me interested.

So nope, different forum theme doesn't cure the Delete key issue....oh well. Soundblaster Z comes with a lot of red neon lights, apparently. Gonna have to rip those out. Other than that, while I think serious audiophiles wouldn't like it, it's still an improvement over the old soundblaster I was using. Punchier bass and, with my usual pretty extreme EQ fiddling, treble that finally doesn't break my eardrums when wearing headphones, while still sounding fine with speakers. eg, less drastic volume/pitch differences between speakers and headphones, which is what I was looking for.

Darnit, can't see the little CRT TV/DVD combo screen. I need a bigger desk!

Idle experiment in progress: does using the default IPBoard theme change the weird behavior of the quotes and deletions and other things ... we shall see. This theme is certainly a lot ... brighter. I still personally find black text on lighter backgrounds easier to read, even with the extra brightness. Maybe I should keep it this way. And I didn't do much today, except spend money on some new things to spiff up the PC a bit. Btw, Gorth, your avatar looks a bit strange when placed on a white background instead of black.

YESSSSSSSS Cookies? GImme! Mine, mine, mine! ...I have no idea what you're talking about.

So, went to Best Buy looking for a new sound card (got one of those). In the process, noticed they had some LG IPS 27" monitors for sale. Not quite the same model as the one I linked to in the OP post, probably just a slightly cheaper version. Model #27EA63V-P. Only 1920x1080 but eh, local BestBuy is excellent about returns so I said screw it and brought it home to check it out. I can't decide. Color/basic setting options and response time are all fine for gaming and general photography out of the box (I rarely officially "calibrate" monitors, just do the typical contrast/hue/brightness settings). Doesn't seem like 1080 on 27" is much of a problem for those things. But it does tend to be little more pixelated with text, both on websites and in program menus. Nothing terrible and probably get used to it, but hmm. It's not blurry, just bigger pixels. It's most negative feature so far, however, is the power cord itself - it's really really short, not leaving much wiggle room to get to the power outlets. Oh and the touch "buttons" for the settings menus are super duper hyper-sensitive so it's annoying trying to adjust hue and stuff. Why can't they just use frakking real buttons like they used to. I definitely like the viewing angle (and size) better with even cheap IPS. Don't see any bleed through, dead pixels, contrast seems better, and so on. If I keep it, the biggest problem is that both it and the old 23" monitor (for 2nd PC) side by side starts to take up my whole desk. And my desk isn't small.

Last time I played BL2, I think my BA ranks were something like 35k-40k with most things at 10% and some at 15%. At that point it's nice because you can forgo a skill point in certain skills, here and there, and put them somewhere else instead if you feel like it. And any new characters have it really easy at the start, since it applies to all chrs. at once. For a while you can get BA ranks fairly rapidly by making new chrs to lvl8 (get to Sant.) and then do nothing but gamble, but eventually that becomes less effective.

I would like a large feline, please. ...but a dwarf hamster that could ride around and peek out from the plumes of my fancy hat would be pretty awesome too.

I've only known one person (friend of my mother) who could sew serious dress-up clothes (for women too) and make them look off the rack. She sewed as a hobby, not career, but she was great at it. At the moment there are no skilled sewers in my life and I'm not paying a shop to alter my usually cheap clothing. I do think I should get a sewing machine again tho. I can do a lot by hand, but most of the time I'm too lazy to bother.

I don't personally care about bikini babes, but the bald guy in the 2nd video is pretty hot. They needed to show him more.