LadyCrimson

I sneezed a lot. Then coughed. Then I sneezed some more. Then I went around pinching my nostrils shut so I wouldn't breathe thru them and trigger more sneezing. Then I left the store and went home, where things have only improved a little bit and I lay around trying to keep post-nasal drip from congesting my lungs like last year. Apparently some people are allergic to avocado trees (bark, leaves, flowers). I have no idea if I am one of those people or not, but if so, that would suck since there's that giant one in our backyard. I am surrounded by allergens and the only slight relief I get is sitting in this room with the AC filtering/recyling the air a bit. The first year in this house wasn't too bad but gets worse each year and stuff like Claritin hardly makes a dent. May be time to start getting actual allergy shots or something. Sigh.

:lol: ....yeah, sometimes it feels that way. I like the Darth Batman pic too.

I reached that point last week (didn't watch). Thought about watching this week but nah. Hubs, however, continues to watch....largely because there's nothing else on.

Nope, cause I'm unreasonable that way. I just start all the downloads (FF lets you pause/restart them if they get stuck) at once. But that means each file's DL speed slows down quite a bit since (FF? our router?) seems to count each one as a new bandwidth strain, vs 1 big file that goes at the same speed the whole time. No big deal really, I just prefer one big file. Slept too much today. Allergies and all that. One day I'm going to go insane and take a chainsaw to all the maple trees on the street and be tossed in jail for it.

Haha, starting to really like Nation Red. Fits my current short-gaming-session mentality. No questing, dialogues, or purpose but to shoot and survive. Wouldn't play it all day but very fun to do a few level plays in a row. Haven't tried the "Mission" levels yet, still trying to get better at surviving longer. Tried Alan Wake...I love the atmosphere of the game but the fast stress (shadow person! run! into the light! run! thump! flashlight! run!) tired me out quickly. The aim/shoot controls do feel a little clumsy, but it's not too bad. Night time scenes look/feel awesome - character faces (in all the cinematics) are horrid, tho.

Sometimes I wish GoG wouldn't split up large game downloads. Or at least give an option to DL one big file for those of us who can. Today I sweated in the backyard clearing out some junk. As they say ... "...my back..." Errands, then watching Red Sox lose again. Because you know they'll find a way.

Bought both Alan Wakes (1st, pre-order), so I can have yet more games that I may not ever get around to finishing. Just been in the mood to try more games outside of my normal range/pickiness again. I almost bought them on Steam this morning, glad I didn't. Might get Gog's Quest packs someday. For the moment DL'd those AGD Interactive fan versions, since they were free. Think I've spent enough/have enough for one month already.

Everyone in the film with an active clock is supposed to be physically 25 (not 21), not just the leads. That's when they "stop aging" and the countdown begins. Their skin, I'm sure, would still be affected by sun/other things (so after 50 years of being "25" you might not look quite as good as you did when you were really 25). Most of them it wasn't that bad. Anyway, didn't bother me much. At least they weren't still in highschool. ...I barely remember Ben Foster. Think I saw that Messenger movie, which wasn't bad, but don't really recall his performance. Heh.

The browser-free version bethsoft has up? I almost started to play it but...maybe later. Brings back memories tho. I liked Doom better since it was more refined but W3D is definitely a classic too (I played it after Doom).

"In Time." The first 1/3 of the movie or so was pretty decent. Nifty little sci-fi/future world premise. Thought it was heading for some kind of stylish gambling-for-time caper. But then it fell into a more typical "chase" film...kind of Fugitive-ish with the obsessive Time Keeper cop-guy bent on keeping order. Toss in the heavy-handed social haves/have-nots oppression theme and it fell by the wayside. But if you can overlook some of the silliness, it was entertaining and kinda cool. I like Cillian Murphy more in every movie I see him in...not just his US roles either. (edit: Timberlake isn't bad either. He's growing on me as an actor)

Hahaha!! Maybe "Fridgecat" was too hot. Either that or wondering where you hide the anchovies. Gorgeous kitty, too.

Tried a little Nation Red. Mindless gunning fun. I think I'm going to like it. Anyone played any of the games in the Avernum series? Downloaded demo for the #6 one, going to check that out today. Looked kinda old-skool rpg or something.

I....have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. But it's kinda fun anyway....

And your reasoning for this "hyperbole" is? Price vs. performance? Some new benchmarks?

Downloaded. Only 43MB off of Steam. And YAY the slo-mo jello run is gone. Pushed everything but AA (off)/AF(4x) back to max available and it's fine. They must have optimized it better or something. That 3rd party tree pop-in patch didn't seem to like it, however...the game wouldn't launch with it installed (would go black/back to desktop and not run). So no 3rd party patch, game launches, slo mo gone...the foliage/plant pop in seems a bit less bad than it was before but still noticeable. Just not quite as much of the close-up "magic growing bushes" effect. Happens little further away.

Parts of that video remind me of season 3 of Slayers. My mind is suddenly filled with the vision of a humorous mashup of both. Not that I'm going to make one...which is probably a good thing. I dunno, I like the story aspect, but it's too brief and most of the animation/drawing feels really uninspired.

There's a only 2 or 3 that go up to Ultra, everything else just has "high" I think. Anyway, that's not it either since I've turned down everything at one point or another. Maybe it doesn't like my 590/dual GPU or something, even tho it's not 2 separate SLI'd cards, who knows. Oh, awesome. Maybe that'll help my jello-movement issues. Plus only 10 autosave files created, I like it.

That's definitely dubbed. Too clean. Splicing bits of close up video to match certain runs in the song and such (don't always quite match either). They probably played somewhere else in the Metro to record a "good" version w/high end mics - "recorded in Metro" doesn't have to mean on the train during actual "flash mob" bit.

Well, since I'm lazy and like mods I can just click on, I tried that. It's nice for the trees, but then the constant pop-in for objects and cliff textures becomes more eye-catching since you aren't staring at the growing/expanding leaves anymore. Anyway...if I turn water reflections off and keep shadows to medium it helps the most. Tried turning shadows off but ack, that looked bloody awful. AA/AF didn't seem to change the slow/lag sensation at all. But I still feel like I'm running in jello fairly often - even in 80-100fps areas - the jello's just not quite as thick. Still...not sure I can stand it. I mind poor graphics a lot less than this weird slo-mo sensation.

I have my doubts that the girl's vibrant and intense blue eyes are natural. Perhaps she vacationed on Arrakis and ate too much Spice.

So....did anyone else experience the game becoming "chunky" in terms of running? Where it feels like there's lag as you're exploring? It's not microstutter, it's like swimming through jello. The fps goes up and down but it's still plenty high enough (doesn't drop below 40). When I first started it seemed nice and smooth, but the longer I play (which hasn't been all that long really) the "chunkier" running around feels. It's becoming aggravating. (edit: I've tried turning some settings down a bit, which increases fps but doesn't help)

Now there's something I can generally agree with. Not completely related to that, but I read an interesting article from Stephen King (the author) re: the rich, taxes, and how the rich give to charity. He made some good points/comments about the distribution of wealth, imo (and it wasn't for the rich).

Cutting up vinyl covered garden-type fencing to tack up/lean up against the fences to discourage the 20 neighbor's cats (seriously....) from using our backyard as a highway. Can't keep them out entirely, I know that...just trying to make it feel less "safe" to easily escape from so they won't want to use it as a pass-thru/consider it part of their own yard so much. Wouldn't normally bother, but they're pestering my new outdoor cat too much lately. :/

@Delfosse - er....yeah, ok. That seemed really unnecessary. @213374U - Hm. I can understand that argument perhaps, but I don't agree with it. Even if it doesn't cost anything to copy, what it does do is decrease the potential value for something. Like if someone "steals" my photograph and plasters it all over the web, the value that I might have been able to sell it for may become less because now the image is so common/well known. I will agree that hard value/harm is/would be incredibly hard to define or even prove, since who knows if I would have ever made money off that one photo in the 1st place.....and that in terms of big publishers it often seems unfair/pointless (no one likes over-inflated monopoly like prices), but in order to protect the "little man" the laws also (I think) have to protect the "big man" as well, or it's unfair. Anyway, agree to disagree. But thank you for explaining it a bit more clearly for me. Sigh. The real issue (imo) is that humanity has yet to find a good economic model that works on a consistent, long-term level for "everyone". Maybe one day we'll be like Star Trek and work just because we all find it fun & rewarding to do so. "You don't get paid?"--ST:8

I think that's subject to interpretation and how one perceives the meaning behind words. I saw what he said in a different light (and he then emphasized it in his later post). But that's another topic like you said, so moving on... I still don't understand this notion that because something is intellectual property it's somehow not a real product and thus not subject to the idea of thievery. I've seen that mentioned in other threads here and other places quite a lot. Money itself could be seen as an intellectual concept - it's just a substitute for bartering actual things, because carrying around 3 chickens just in case you want to trade them for 1 pig isn't very convenient. And now many of us don't even carry around real money anymore, it's all digital on our debit and credit cards, because it's easier than carrying around coins and fat wads of paper. Is digital money not real money because there's no tangible thing to hold? I know that's not a direct analogy....but if someone takes the time to compose a unique song, then records it onto/as some media that can be played by another, and asks for compensation, how is that different than someone designing a unique chair, building a roomful of copies of that chair, then asking for compensation for each chair? (edit: they both took some time/effort to do, to create the finished "thing" that someone wants - music that plays in a player or a chair to sit on) I'm not trying to be obtuse....I really don't get how one is a "real" product and the other is somehow not a "real" product and thus it's ok to freeload/not pay for. Edit: afterthought - and I don't mean the issue of whether or not you think a company is horrible/a rip off....and, perhaps, I might think it's at least kind of ok/understandable if one did buy the actual product (support the company) but then used a pirated copy to bypass DRM. I just mean...this definition thing.