LadyCrimson

I typically chose the bottom of the neck pageboy like hairstyle, but it gets boring having them all look the same. I liked the official frazzled one too, but it clipped into glasses on one side if you wore those. FO engine just doesn't do hair well I guess.

As long as they leave the Mongolian Beef and Green Bean Chicken alone, I'm good.

Speaking of Apple, hubs just came home with an iPad2. Work client gave it to him cause the client thinks hubs "needs it." Hubs might disagree but hey, free stuff. With the iPhone they switched him to recently (which he doesn't like much), I now get to tease my non-Apple spouse about being an i-person. Guess I can take a peek at it and see what the fuss is about. I still have absolutely no use for such a thing myself, but shiny gadgets are always cool to look at regardless. Cheers, Mr. Jobs.

I was never, and never will be, a fan of Apple products (less about Apple per se as the way tech is going as a whole). But he was a tech-wizard and a tech-trend setter...influence for decades past and to come and all of that. I admired the man for that. So it's kinda sad, if not unexpected. Stupid cancer. I wonder how Apple will do over the next decade or two....we shall see.

Making high-fat frying oil a bit more expensive isn't going to teach certain groups of folk to not fry everything they eat and even 2.3 saturated fat is going to be bad if all you eat is fried chicken, fried tortillas, fried potatoes and so on. And if you're going to tax fat, why not an extra tax for even lean red meat (colon cancer). An extra high sodium tax for cheeses, canned soups, crackers, many breads, etc. How about a huge tax on restaurant meal offerings that exceed 800 calories per dish (those 2000 calorie Applebee/Chili meals etc.)? People can always order 5 rounds if they're really hungry....and rich. ....in other words, I think it's silly. Educate and then it's up to the people whether they want to be fat/high risk or not. Government shouldn't be part of the 'what you can eat' equation in this sense. But if you're going to do it, do it. Make the tax high so people don't want to spend $5 on a single small candy bar/soda or $25 for small bag of Milky Ways/box of soda or $15 for a McD's McMuffin or $20 for pork won ton soup, except as a very once in a while thing, otherwise it's pointless as a preventive measure, imo. I don't know how much Denmark's taxes will be, but 25 cents, say, is only for making the government money. Of course, if a McMuffin cost $15, McD's would soon lose lots of business, and then you have a possible employment issue (not just at McD's either, trickle down effects)....so I'm guessing it'll be in the cents category. At least at first. Maybe you can raise it a little every year or couple of years to get people used to it.

Yeah, I have one and it looks great while you're not moving. But the longer styles tend to clip into the back and stuff when you run. And others do not work if you wear a hat (you go bald...) Kind of annoying.

The Village Barbershop (2008). The actor who played Cliff in Cheers stars in it. A deliberately slow paced chr. study type movie, with dry humor and sweet notes. I liked it a good deal more than I thought I would. Very nice. Also finally watched 1st season of The Walking Dead, all at once. Not bad for zombies. Might watch the upcoming 2nd season. The BBC series Survivors wasn't bad either - similar theme, but no zombies. More like The Stand minus the good/evil magic mojo perhaps.

Past midnight....enjoying the sound of the rain while I read news articles. Then sleepy time.

Wow, it doesn't get much more Diablo clone than that.. Right down to the two orbs in the corners The font even looks similar. D2 didn't have a half-naked chick in chains 'holding up' one of the orbs, tho.

Much as I like Path of Exile, I didn't feel like going back to it today (that Act2 kind of burnt me out a bit) so I went back to Darkstone for a couple hours. I'll play more PoE tomorrow. I do want to check out the other classes before they change it, so I have some notion of comparison value.

I definitely picked the right man to marry. It is so awesome (to me at least) to be with him for so many years & still be so similar in the ways that matter;to have nights where you can be just mouthing off at 1am about the world and everything you like/dislike about it...the sounding board sessions. And they understand. And agree. And laugh at your stupid jokes and you laugh at theirs. And all is right with the world then. I'm still so in love. *mushiness overload*

Settling in to try and watch the TB/Texas playoff game. But after hearing/reading about Tito no longer being the GM of the Red Sox, I am not feeling the baseball love right now. Edit: oops make that the Yankee playoff. I swear the TV said TB/Texas 5 minutes ago. Bah.

Forgot...if you do get in the beta to check it out and get the below glitch effect (the banding stripe at the top of the screen), perhaps also along with some strange screen jitter-jump during combat, turn off Post Processing in the options. Or some people had to turn AA off entirely. Just turning off PP worked for me tho, and I still get the AA at least.

Yeah, I'm hoping the new version/patch will address some of the things I'm personally nitpicking with. I didn't start feeling very nitpicky until about clvl 15. And could be at very high clvls my nitpicks would go away for some reason, too.

The game has a lot of the same structure (Acts, waypoints, etc) and of course the classes are similar to the way all such games are (there's always a mix of melee, mage, ranged, paladin or hybrid and/or thief in most fantasy rpg's, not just Diablo-clones). There's enough differences to make it interesting to play for a while. But as usual nothing in it is going to make anyone who dislikes hack n slash games like hack n slash games, however. Played a Duelist to lvl20 so far. My main two issues with the game on a personal level is that as currently implemented, combat becomes rather tedious/boring after a while. I mean, I know all D-clones are grind-fests and all that, don't get me wrong, but even within that definition it didn't take long for me to feel a little bored/annoyed that every step I take I'm attacked by 8-15 enemies. It feels a little too same-y all the time, at least when playing solo. And I don't like the combat-skill selection overmuch, tho it does work fine. Not supposed to post pics or go into details since of course it's all subject to change but here's my first thoughts: --potions that recharge during combat are pure genius and much better than floating orbs ala Diablo3. They're only active while in one of the belt slots (can't keep spare full ones in inventory) and the rate of recharge still creates a challenge in the harder fights, since you can easily use them up and be left with nothing. --The passive skill tree, which has nothing to do with the gems/skills - Holy Gigantic Endless Interconnecting Honeycomb, Batman! It leaves an impression. I'm sure it'll change a lot but still...holy carp. Fascinating and nothing I've ever seen in a D-Clone. --not sure I like the skill gems. Interesting in theory and it works "well enough". I'm just not sure I like it, at least the way they've implemented it at the moment. --For me, the item system as a whole doesn't feel very long-term interesting or loot-hunt addictive since it's mostly so connected to the skill-gem socket thing. It's kinda interesting at first but meh...figuring out how you want to do the passive skill tree is, for me, more motivation to kill-grind than the items. So far. --melee targeting (especially close up) is rather terrible & feels sluggish. Most of the time I'm just flailing away at my feet hoping I'll hit something. It works/I've survived as a dual-wielding swordsman, but ranged targeting is definitely so much better/easier. --no gold is nice, even if the item barter amounts to sort of the same thing. It makes those ID scrolls & other small things worth something...and they don't drop a ton either. Means you don't fill up your limited backpack very rapidly & can stay out in the field a long long time if you want. On the other hand, it means you have little reason to even look at/pick up 98% of anything...let alone use a precious ID scroll to ID anything that isn't a rare with the exact sockets you want. Basically, if you like Diablo type games, you're likely to like this one for a spin or two, especially since it's free. It's graphically decent, has some interesting elements along with the same ol' same ol', and if you're unhappy with D3 (for whatever reasons) this could be a substitute for you. We'll see. Still early.

I have absolutely no idea how to get a friend-invite key...I assume one has to request one on the forum or some similar method, which I'd feel bad about doing until I played longer/posted a lot etc. If I get one I'll give it over. Edit: you posted while I was typing. hehe. Glad you're in then.

Looks sweet, thanks. Turns out some other online friends are all playing, I might be able to get a friend invite from one of them faster than the company deciding to choose me. We'll see/I'll hope!

Torchlight - played it (Fate too) Divine Divinity - same. Nox - I'd actually reinstalled that not too long ago. Kinda fun to revisit but it's not the same kind of action-rpg. Which is the problem...I've probably played most of the ones worth noting. I did look at some videos of that Deathspank game, it looked cute, but it's Steam only I think? Still...maybe, especially since FNV appears to be "finished" and I don't have to be super-picky about Steam auto-updating that one anymore. It'd be the 3rd game I'd purchase via Steam. hehe

(...someone else made it. It made me ROFL..)

I hope this isn't the only "improvement" Win8 will have, haha.

Little tired of Darkstone now but I'm still in the mood for some mindless, fast paced, hack n slash item/monster meta-gaming. Sadly I don't feel like re-playing Diablo1/2 or Dungeon Siege or Titan Quest. Need something else....

I had thought of making a joke about a bat and a ball...guess I wasn't too far off. ...Took a bunch of stuff to the dump/yardwork over the weekend & other such home-y stuff. Watching the Red Sox implode all month & thinking even if they make the wild card, they won't last long much after. Trying to keep up with daily exercise to keep the aging joints in shape, I'm terrible at keeping up with any exercise-for-sake-of-exercise regimen (and I don't play sports). Aerobics/gymnastics while watching TV seems to be about the only thing I do well with in that regard.

Electric pump definitely a must. The double-height (or whatever they call it) ones are more comfortable- that's what puts them higher off the floor. They're ones that look sort of like they have two mattresses on top of each other but it's really one unit. Don't get ones with built in "pillow" risers at one end, use your own pillows. Silly marketers. Ones that have shallower depressions on the top are more comfortable imo, some get carried away with those circular pits. But I do tend to prefer ones with some kind of depression design vs. the long rounded lines that look a bit like tubes (that are more akin to the cheap camping air mattress or pool flotation style). Perhaps something like this: Edit: non-circular depressions on top might be cool too. Never tried one but it looks flatter so I might like it more. (yes I'm even picky about an air mattress, Princess & the Pea haha). Add a 1"-2" foam mattress topper and you're good to go.

Me. Onboard sound always seems to give programs fits and errors at some point, I usually don't like the sound they produce & I guess I'm still a control freak. I always disable it in BIOS & plonk in a card. I've been kind of disappointed that it's moving away from independent cards so much. @Walsh - I've never liked RealTek for anything. Sometimes they're adequate technically (tho for me, often not...) but their support is definitely terrible.

*looks at the item packs* ...nah, don't need them. I might be interested in the Gun Runner's one, but mostly for the katana. Not because it makes much sense to have/use one in NV (imo) but because I just like Japanese swords, even in games. It can be a room decoration/screenshot pose item.