LadyCrimson

I don't find anything overtly sexual/provocative about those pictures either. However I do find it a little disturbing how the media (and pageants and some parents) keep trying make children look grown up. It's one thing, to me, to put on a little blush & lip gloss, do their hair all nice and put them in a fluffy dress for church or a portrait, and another to go to this sort of level. They're children. Let them be children. I don't understand it. Well, I do understand (marketing, sales, blah blah) but I still find it a little creepy when they're only six? ...ah well, I was raised where you couldn't wear makeup at all until you were at least 12, so y'know, I'm just behind the times I guess.

Scout the cat drinks beer.

Hubby was watching "Knowing" again so I watched a bit of it. Then I remembered it wasn't a particularly good movie, even with the Cage-cheese, so I left the room. I wonder about my husband, sometimes. Then again, it's winter...

13 pounds lighter now. Eating now more stabilized vs. gameing-induced starvation but keeping the goal going. Haven't eaten out in a couple weeks, too. But I've been craving pizza all day. I really really want pizza. We're talking the uber meat loaded, artery-clogging kind of pizza. *drools on self* *cries*

I don't care one whit whether Gamespot thinks the overall DLC content/story is awesome or not awesome/what rating they give it....what I do care about are the words "forced" and "timed". I absolutely loathe timed anything in games. Now, if the gamespot review is exaggerating and it's not really timed, maybe it just felt timed to them because there's a sense of pressure to the gameplay, that could be something different. Edit: from reading some quick threads, the first impression I'm getting is that the DLC is slower-paced, possibly repetitive in that pacing, has more of a horror/suspense feeling, and of course, about 1/3 love it, 1/3 hate it and the rest think it's "ok". haha

I've avoided reading the threads on the beth forum about the DLC to avoid huge spoilers (don't mind little ones), but I guess I'll start taking a look to see if anyone describes (whines) about stuff that matches the review's notions.

I usually renew for 2-3 years at a time...since mine are just for personal use, haven't bothered to change from godaddy since I started registering domains ages ago - I only register the names w/godaddy, I don't host with them - and until now, they've always been good at sending reminders. Bah. ...and today, was like every other day. I've been staring at our disgusting back lawn that's quite literally covered in rain-moldering leaves, but I can't work up the motivation to rake it up this year. Don't need grass anyway, let it suffocate under the load. Har.

I wasn't terribly interested in this DLC to begin with, but then I read that review and ... "several jumping bits, considering the game engine's terrible, unresponsive jumping mechanics" ... "A forced stealth sequence" .... "multiple timed escape sections" .....No, just no. I'll definitely be skipping this then. I'll stick to mods for now.

Yesterday I couldn't access a lot of my email and kept wondering what was up....then this morning I finally checked my domain registration and realized two of them had expired a day or two ago without sending me any any warning notifications. ::slapface:: *doh* Good thing they aren't ones anyone was trying to grab as soon as they expired. ...renewed, set to auto-renew. There.

Despite still occasionally goofing off in FNV (companions and grenades are really funny) I'm pretty much back to "gaming...meh." Fire up any game, an hour later I'm turning it off. Went out and took some photos, mostly just experimental things to fiddle with in the photo editor. The sun was out, so the light was fair for camera work. But now it's night-time and this wimpy Californian is going to retreat from the chilly night/house to her warm cozy bed. As usual, couldn't wait for winter, and now I can't wait for summer.

Don't know if it's already been mentioned by someone else, but this is the mod I've been using for a more populated Wasteland. Obviously if you prefer story/quest mods & liked the wastes as they are, this probably isn't for you. Also, if you have a low-end pc it might strain it, especially the versions that require NVSE. The 'core' mod file doesn't increase things to too crazy levels or anything...but it's definitely noticeable. Especially all the town guards/faction battle encounters near towns and main roads. Great fun, imo, however, and completely changes the feel of the game (they're at war, not hiding in their bunkers!). Increased Wasteland Spawns And here's the thread/post where the author lists some of his upcoming changes/additions for the next version.

Haha, that's what happened to me with 1.1. Did you start a new game since installing the patch? Sometimes the patch changes don't seem to work reliably on current saves. They should, perhaps, but sometimes they don't.

I think Journeyman could've used another season to see if it would get better/expand its audience. I wish HBO had done another season of Rome, but I understand why they didn't...and also, from the way they did the 2nd season, a 3rd might have sucked, so... I don't watch a whole lot of episodic TV these days and even when I do, I don't generally follow it religiously for more than one season or so. So there aren't too many shows where I feel very miffed by cancellation. Either I didn't watch it enough to care, or the show has been on long enough that it doesn't bother me much, because it had a good run (better to leave while still liked then run it into the ground) - like MASH, Cheers, Seinfield, STNG or Stargate SG-1 etc. The last actually felt like it went on a little too long, imo.

Holidays were nice, quiet, and relaxing....and I managed not to gain any weight back during them, which was a nice thing. Now back to the same ol' same ol'. I was thinking the other day about how my husband and I have known each other/been together for 25 years. Not officially married for 25, but still...darn that's a long time. Found a FNV mod that turns the Wasteland into a chaotic, populated, faction-battle laden land. It's awesome. Not good so much for "normal play" but it really does change combat/fun of the game. Luvin' it. Time to fire it up again.

Free on HBO, so what the heck, I'll try Transformers2. ....15 minutes later, I turned it off. Even if it gets a bit better later, not worth my time. What a mess. I also re-watched Terminator Salvation. I really would have liked it better if someone else had played John Connor. Bale was not right for that role. I'd also like to see Worthington in some more dramatic roles or something, but I suppose he's now stuck forever playing action roles. I see he's slated to be in the remake of Commando. Hm.

I'm not a laptop expert but from reading around, the ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 isn't very well liked by people for running modern games. SC2 playable on low-medium & low fps, that sort of thing. However, since that's not what you're interested in .... in terms of video at least, it's probably more than fine. The rest...I couldn't really say. It sounds good enough for general/some multimedia use, tho. I think HP might be a bit over-priced in general tho....but I don't know much about brand quality vs. pricing for laptops.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Nothing special, but a watchable fantasy/magic adventure with nerd flavor. If you like Nick Cage cheesing it up in his good way, it's kind of a small delight. The effects were pleasant and it didn't take itself seriously. Plus the "bad" guys, there's this one tiny bit where they're poking fun at (or doing homage to, take your pick) a famous scene from Star Wars, that had me ROFL. Being a Disney movie, another scene that was ripped from one of their famous old cartoon films was also rather priceless, at least to me.

Yesterday bought a 2nd internal 1TB hard-drive to contain all my video stuff, which I've been getting more and more into, now that I have a PC that can handle them (not just game vids, but home vid stuff too)...don't like it all on the main drive and my 1TB external is good for weekly backups but too slow (thru the USB) for media stuff. At the moment, after some housework, sitting on my arse feeling chilly and a bit bored. Tonight going to get some Hawaiian BBQ and watch Cage ham it up in the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

The parts have no other quest for them...they're just the parts that you find for him during the quest. I think it's just a bug that you can loot some of them after.

I don't think a market for this sort of thing would be very available in any near future. I know I wouldn't be very interested. A movie is too short and limited a format to make altering the bits & pieces I don't like to feel worth the probable time it would take to do it and have it come out well when played back. I mean, I might not like a character in a movie, but the effort to scrub them out of the film and replace the role they fill with some other cgi-creation of my own....no, too much work for the payoff. But then, I'm lazy.

HBO's been playing a lot of films, lately, that I sorta wanted to check out but was unwilling to pay for (even rental price). So I watched The Fourth Kind. On the one hand, it does have a nice creepy atmosphere on several occasions & has Will Patton hamming it up as the town Sheriff. On the other hand, it's a terrible movie with some really annoying split screen tactics. Then I watched Fantastic Mr. Fox. Sure it got rave reviews but I still wasn't sure I'd like it. It was cute/charming. I might have liked it more if George Clooney wasn't the voice actor. Too recognizable and for me didn't fit Mr. Fox's animation/chr.

I liked Searchlight the first time I did it, because it's one of those few places that felt dangerous (at least at lower levels) because of the radiation+enemies. I also loved the But on subsequent playthroughs it's not as fun and starts to feel tedious. Walk around, press radaway hotkey every few minutes. Plus the undroppable looted items one of those npc's has (that I'm careful to not pick up, now). I try to rush through it as fast as possible these days...don't remember having any trouble finding the axe, tho. What I did have trouble was finding all the parts they guys wanted in the one room filled with desks/computers. Confuzzled me for a bit.

I should probably mention that my 12.7 pistol had a silencer on it, which I believe is why I could shoot & remain undetected. I think if you use a non-silenced weapon they're supposed to be able to locate you from that. Wearing heavy armor increases the odds of being detected too, I think (makes more noise). Since I was in 1st person I couldn't really tell if any of them technically touched me while they were chicken-running around, but supposedly if you connect with someone while stealth-boyed that breaks it as well. You'd think one of them would have run into me since two are almost on top of me when I enter, but I guess not... (edit)my Sneak was around 80 w/out the Stealthboy, but it alone did not suffice).

So last week I forgot a small soup/ramen sized metal pot on the stove and burned it into uselessness. This made me sad because I've had the pot a long time and considered it to be a pretty good one (not expensive or anything, but I liked it). I didn't feel like dealing with Xmas shoppers in order to look for a new quality pot, so in the meantime I bought one of those ultra-cheapies at the grocery store. And it turns out, it's the best little pot ever, at least for soups/ramen. Boils faster, simmers better, etc. Go figure!

Well I'm always vilified by the Legion, haha, so that can't be it. But I didn't try the stealthboy in previous versions of the game, this was on patch 1.2. Maybe they changed something.