LadyCrimson

Yeah, I figure it'll amuse me in that way, too. But I'm waiting for cable, since I'm not all melty-gooey over the main chrs to have to see it right now. Although, the vampire Dr. dude (Peter Facinelli) is pretty hot.

... did anybody take serious? HA! Good Fun! Not terribly, no....or maybe not at all. I just thought I should clarify just in case. I told you I sometimes have a hard time reading/interpreting your writing style.

While I'm sure some ppl are just stubborn like that, I'm not sure how disliking the chance (even if it's not a huge chance) that maybe one day you'll lose access to all those games you paid for is being old-school. So I don't think it's just being 'old school'....I know quite a few much younger than myself who dislike Steam as well. There's also (or at least there was, assume that hasn't changed?) the aspect on Steam where you can't control what patch is applied to the games you buy, since it auto-updates when you login to that game or something. So for me there's also a control freak issue in there, because I don't always want to play the patched version of a game. Cultural I could maybe see...liking to feel like you own something, rather than rent it, and CD/DVD=physical manifestation of ownership.

My Smurf/Blue Meanie comment was supposed to be a joke....not any kind of serious reference. Just sayin'. ie, maybe the Meanies are the mutated rebellious children of the Smurfs that had to be kicked out of the village.... In reality, I don't know much re:actual history of the Meanies or the Smurfs...all I remember is being mildly scared by the Meanies as a tiny tiny tot and uninterested in the Hanna-Barbera Smurf series as a pre-teen.

Hubby put a thermometer in his office yesterday, turned on on some pc's w/windows closed, went to work, and at end of day the high temp in there was 90F/32C. Outside, the weather had a high of 76F/24C. He has a work related reason for checking temps out, btw...wasn't just random. heh

Dear Divine Divinity item stat & loot drop randomizer: Please stop giving me crap, it's been 15 chr lvls with literally nothing, not even one charm. It's enough to make me want to meta-game, kthx bye.

Oh? I think I've seen that title on On-Demand, but hubby's not into animation films much. I'll have to check it out one afternoon. Thx.

Does anyone else occasionally miss traditional/cell animation? Not that I don't like computer animation, mind you. But sometimes....I wish not all animation had that computer look. And I've always suspected the Smurf's were somehow related to the Blue Meanies.

Hm...I played Morrowind quite a bit, and never once did it make me think of DS1 music...and I love DS1 music, especially that main theme. I'd have to hear Morrowind themes & perhaps other DS1 themes too, again tho, maybe I just can't recall. I didn't like DS2's overall soundtrack quite as much.

Get off my lawn. ...more seriously, at this point in time I may prefer having a CD/DVD of my own, but I don't have anything against the concept of direct-download instead. I just don't like Steam's way of doing it. Especially since I rarely play on-line/multiplayer games anyway.

No one is arguing that it's extremely unlikely...so unlikely that 'fraud' comes immediately to mind when you hear about it (hence the investigation, obviously). However, while "a probability infinitesimally close to 0 is functionally equivalent to 0" may be true in the classroom and while working on theories in the lab or whatnot, it does not, in fact, = "true 0".

I'm in agreement that no matter how ridiculous the odds, there's always the chance that it could happen, and occasionally, it actually does happen. That said...I wish I had had that woman's odds-beating luck.

Thanks, that was what I was trying to say. You said it much better than I ever could.

I didn't mean to imply there was only one type of personality ala Myers Briggs or something, that would be more attracted...it's more a matter of...certain personality traits, or at least the tendency towards such traits being in the forefront more often than the "average" person, perhaps.

I'm glad that I don't feel this way... or rather I look at the games from different angle. For me it always comes down to the simple fact - Is this game worth the price? It was that way in the early 80's and it's still that way. In the past, especially in early 90's there were more games worth the full price then I had time to money or buy. Nowadays only few games a year are worth the full price. Many games are worth something and some games are not even the worth to download or play 'em even if those games would be free. I interpreted that particular authors comment to be about his taste in games, not just price, and how the style of games made now may be part of the reason he has a harder time finding games that suit his taste. Like him, I have very distinct tastes in my gaming preferences, and the industry (perhaps because of his reasons listed) has slowly been evolving away from them, maybe because it's not profitable enough vs production cost risk...thus making me less interested video gaming as entertainment. Personal pricing-tolerance and a seeming drop in variety of games are two different things, imo.

All-star break for MLB, meaning no regular games to watch. Bah. Not interested. I've come to the conclusion that Stubb's brand Original BBQ sauce and their Beef Marinade are two of the better (non-gourmet-priced) pre-bottled sauces. Also, that's I'd BBQ/grill a lot more often if I didn't have to wash the stupid (and heavy) racks every time.

I'm not sure it'd be fair/accurate to say it's actually Hollywood/the area's fault per se. It's just where many congregate because it's easier to facilitate their chosen career to live nearby, either all the time or half the year or whatever, than have to constantly get on a plane. Remember a lot of the "Hollywood stars" have more than one residence. One thing I've theorized on (and it's only late-night ruminating...) is it could have something to do with the personality types that are attracted to that line of work in the first place. Perhaps such personality types are a little more prone to depression, addiction, anger/attention issues, or whatnot, and then on top of that some are...less capable?... of handling the media attention/pressure.

Aye...there is still some upfront consideration for me, since even a game that I think I'll love may end up sitting on that shelf. The hoped for replay value is what pushes me over the edge to buy full price new releases, however. Once it's down in the $9.99 or less category, it's less of a factor.

Cable station was playing a movie called "Doomsday", entirely dubbed in Spanish w/no english subtitles. I don't understand much Spanish (almost none, actually), but I sat down to watch some of it just to see if it looked interesting.....an hour later, I realized that while I didn't know much about the actual storyline or characters, none of that mattered anyway. I suspect watching it dubbed actually improved it.

Most of these temperamental stars aren't even close to equaling the woman who lived across/down the street from my parents for 10 years.

I was a grumpy fart on the internet 15+ years ago...the digital (game) future only means I have more & more space cash to spend on other things. Which probably isn't a bad thing. For myself, I'd rather spend $100 on a game that I'm confident will last 80-100+ hours (because I like to replay it - ie, Diablo's) than $30 on a game that when I finish it once, ends up on the shelf never to be played again. For me it's about replay or long-term value, rather than one-shot value. But I'm also aware not everyone likes to get so obsessed with/replay single games, they want to move on to the next, or get bored easily in general, and they're going to see cost-worth entirely different than I would.

Quoting from that escapist article: That's pretty much me in a nutshell. I certainly don't blame the companies because they've "evolved" into directions & business models/policies etc. that I personally don't like. I can wish it was different but if wishes were fishes. So I play old games & do other things while waiting to hear announcements or news of the occasional AAA or indie game that actually might interest me...I'm even getting used to the sun again. Mods still tend to be a niche area, imo. For certain games, that niche becomes loud (that's not a negative thing), noticeable, & fairly evolved, but still largely a niche. I have no hard figures for that, it's just my vague feeling from reading forums/game news for all these years. It's true that if you ignore an awesome mod - assuming you've even heard of it - that's your choice...but the article/opinion was about what the "official" companies produce, not what fan mod-makers produce. I'd be curious how many of the AAA companies/staffers live in high-living costs areas. I know Blizzard/EA do. The salaries needed/desired for even average living in those areas may sound absurd to those not living in them, but most of them really aren't that extreme. Unless you're talking about the CEO's who sit on yachts paying themselves bonuses...that might be true. I think most of it, tho, would be production time, marketing costs, increasing material, legal aid, insurance/license & other company costs...the sheer amount of workers required for all of it...look at the amount of ppl in many credits these days, particularly for feature games/movies...they go on and on and on...

But what if their next update/huge overhaul makes it worse again & it takes a long time for them to fix it? I don't like relying on that if I don't have to, that's all.

Not that you probably care now, but occasionally bnet does that as a kind of error...ie, it's not a stolen cd-key but for some reason it thinks you're already logged in, and thus sees your login as a 2nd login and gives you that message. I can't remember what might trigger it tho, besides server lag when you get knocked off. Other than that, yeah, could be stolen/hacked cd-key.

4000 books is definitely a lot. I love to read but I probably don't own more than 400-500 or so. I'd love to have a library of 1000's! Count me in the camp of liking a physical object to collect and place on a shelf or in a box. It's satisfying in some strange way. So don't mix in the book collection, movie collection, and the video game collection together, then.