LadyCrimson

The time of adjustment eyes require when going from light to dark is something to consider, but I'm not sure it could or should be implemented in this particular game. It seems a little too complex for a party game that is likely largely going to be played out in a fairly zoomed-out point of view...thus you'd be able to see both the lamplit town street and the dark alley at the same time, making it .... odd. eg, it might work in a 1st person 1-chr type game, but probably not P.E. Just my idle thought tho.

I tried the generic walk-in HR Block service years ago, when we could still file a simple 1040. Both state and Fed came back with letters saying we'd done it wrong, so I never went back. Currently we use a private accountant. He's not cheap ($30 is far far far away....) but knows us (over a decade), and does other general financial/tax advice. So we stick with him. I'd hate to have to find a new one. Also....my feet are freezing. With the wind and a not very well sealed A/C window unit, there's a draft in this room or something. Do they make 10 inch thick slippers? Guess I need to seal that A/C unit better....

I only paid about $330 for this one, so I'm fine with getting a more expensive one later. Still liking this cheapie IPS a lot better than the regular LCD. So much brighter (without being irritating) and cleaner looking, and like the bigger screen. Don't feel like YouTube has to be in the 2nd size window all the time anymore etc. Side note: while in the store, there was this gorgeous, 80" TV in the special section. I'm not sure what type of screen it was (some kind of LED/IPS perhaps), but it was the awesome. Sadly, I don't have $25,000 to spare. Other ones weren't to my liking, however. They were so weirdly sharp or something that it gave everything a cheap video-camera feel (like that one infamous Twilight Zone episode)...too flat, where you lose all of the illusionary sense of dimension. They were playing a well known action movie on it, and it was truly disconcertingly odd.

We gave up on keeping up with tax laws ourselves years ago and now fork over big cash to have someone else do it. Self-employment has big rewards, but also big headaches.

Planet Explorers made funding today, with 5 more days to add a little gravy on top. I am pleased. Now just have to wait for the next alpha version.

I don't want to hear about tax refunds. Lalalalala can't hear you. ...today I successfully kept myself from being blown away in the heavy wind, altho I'm not so sure about Mr. Grey. Hubs came home with windblown hair and said he expected to see a tree on the roof. Heh.

Twilight Zone + Richard Matheson = awesome. "Little Girl Lost." That House Hunting film turned out to be not so bad...as long as you forget about trying to make sense of the various plot threads and just enjoy it vicariously. Because there is no sense to be made.

Walsh as political pundit. I'd read it. Don't know how well it pays, however.

I love Eastwood westerns. It's weird to see the differences between old film trailers and the way they do them today, tho. Was watching a film called "House Hunting" via Netflix, last night. Fell asleep in the middle so I'm watching the rest now. Another low budget suspense/horror, with a slow pace, but I like it conceptually. A couple families get stuck in a house/area and can't escape it (the drive in a straight line but still end up going in circle sort of thing). Not a gore-fest, more suspense. Plus, Marc Singer! Had such a crush on him from V, once. lol ....guess I've been on the low-budget, B movie kick....

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.