LadyCrimson

No, I meant Chris North. The only thing I've seen North in where I found him somewhat interesting was in a bad romantic-comedy I caught on cable once. He played a restauranter character that was kinda charming. Most of the time I find him flat/boring - for me, no on-screen charisma - a little like George Clooney, who does nothing for me either.

I just mean low-end in terms of price. Heh That's helpful for my ponderings, thanks. What do I look for in a "solid" motherboard that would (hopefully) let me do this? A C2D one that says it's i7 cpu compatible or some kind of power-rating or connections or ...? Yes, I'm a dufus. The gamble is always frustrating, yup....w/the i7's out the C2D will get cheaper and cheaper if you wait 3-6 months. But in 6 months, there's another reason to wait, and so on...bah.

Let me rephrase that, for you specific-minded/"just google" people... Do you believe the low end i7 would have more core-system gaming longevity than the core2duo? I see some DD3 ram for like 100 for 6 gigs (probably a cheap brand, I know) and i7 motherboards for a few hundred...doesn't seem like a major price difference to me for a non-uber i7 rig?

Nice childhood memories Ditto. I loved that book. I'm not sure I like the way that trailer looks, tho. One of the creatures looked cool, but a lot of the other stuff ... a kid in a funky bunny? rodent? wolf? suit just doesn't look the same as a fanciful book illustration of same...

My version of 'budget minded" is probably a little different than some. When I'm very serious about that, my term would then drop to "cheap" or something. I consider longevity (how long it'd be before I'd feel like I must upgrade in order to even play new titles) into budget considerations and all that stuff. I'm kind of in the same camp as many others, where $1000 is typically a ballpark figure, not counting monitor, but if I thought the i7's meant better system longevity re: gaming I'd go higher. I mean, I'm still using my P4/3.0 for most things....(and a cheap/quickie pci-e video rig for games) ... gaming is the only reason for big upgrades for me, these days. Edits later: give me a ballpark figure for the difference in price between ram and motherboards, for instance?

Yeah, I know who the "new guy" in CI is, from articles. But I don't like him. His acting style is too stiff and dull for my tastes. And they all become formulaic when you watch them every week. Nature of the beast.

Re: the i7's ... Would a budget-minded/non-uber-geektech-gamer be better off with the lower end i17 (920) or the Core2Duo? Price ranges for the latter appear to be either 100+ bucks cheaper or about the same as the i7920, depending on core2 version. Edit: This reviewer (no claims on how good they are...) has the 920's beating the E8500 in speed, whilst using Excell 2007, by quite a bit - almost twice the speed. So speed-wise, a lot better?...so I guess the actual question would be is it a lot more expensive to set up a rig around the i7 (motherboard etc), or any other advice you can think of?

Not really funny, but that Kia Soul hamster commercial is just oh-so-cute. Edit: link corrected to video that has the commercial w/it's (more) original music. Guess there's tons of "versions" now...maybe even different official ones.

Trying to figure out which would be better for me: MLB Extra Innings on cabletv (which is not in HD in my area) or the MLB.tv streaming internet option. The TV package is more than twice as much as the internet, but I'd have more confidence about reliable broadcasts/quality and don't have to fret about bandwidth usage. But since HD isn't a factor, the internet price is right even with potential streaming issues. Plus the internet means I wouldn't hog the big TV constantly while watching. Decisions, decisions. It's funny...last time I was into baseball was in the early 80's...I watched baseball hardly at all and didn't care about it for years and years. Then I watched the playoffs/WS last year (and was astounded/confuddled by some gameplay/style changes...) and I'm madly obsessed enjoying watching all the games again.

I loved CI because of D'onofri. I saw his character as a more emotionally eccentric, modern day Sherlock. Outrageous and improbable? Sure...but I love stuff like that. Have the first couple years on DVD. When he stopped being on the show all the time and that other guy took over some episodes, my interest waned. I catch it now and then if it's one of "his" episodes but other than that....

As creatures of the deep, they can be fascinating. As human consumption edibles, not so much.

Red Sox vs. Rays season opener series! Red Sox lost the series! So, ok, baseball is a sport where you can often do other things while watching and miss nothing, but I still love it. When a game does have those great plays/innings, they're often really really awesome.

That cartoon looked really familiar so of course I had to Google. It's a real cartoon, from a book called "I'm Glad I'm a Boy, I'm Glad I'm a Girl," drawn/written by humorist Whitney Darrow. He did cartoons for the New Yorker, among other things. It was supposed to be satire, but not everyone saw it/realized it as such. Edit: It's interesting how most articles written about his death focus on collections of his NYorker cartoons and don't mention this book. I suspect it wasn't published for long, it's supposedly really rare. Some background story from a blog: http://contexts.org/socimages/2009/04/02/b...d-things-fixed/ Buy it for $270 on Amazon! http://www.amazon.com/Im-glad-boy-girl/dp/0671665286

Well, my father has died. Wasn't close to him, so my mourning is muted/low-key and perhaps not typical - I mourn for my mother more than anything else. But he was a highly respectable human being...he lived more from his bed/wheelchair than many do with two good legs and arms, and in the end, one could romantically consider that after 35 years my dad "beat" his disease and that the natural peace of old age took him, instead. A fitting eulogy, perhaps.

When in doubt, make stupid photoshops.

Avoid Googling, it made a huge media article splash and writers aren't being very careful even w/their headlines. *shrug* I may be going to a funeral soon myself, before long. Spring doesn't seem too cheery this year... Missed that one ... that's messed up. Can't say much more than that.

Trying a Mount & Blade stand-alone still-in-process mod called "Custom Settlements." It seems like a mod designed to turn the game a bit more into a strategy/sim, where you claim a small tent camp and "build" it into a major town/faction, whilst other AI npcs/neutral Heroes (that don't sit around waiting for you to come hire them, they can roam around/claim settlements too) and peasant tents are doing the same thing all around you. Watch your tent-city grow into the finished castle-town (with you eventually being King/Queen) and eventually taking over/leading other towns while battling other bandit factions and/or making friends etc. Neat in concept, but it still needs a lot of work ... getting started is confusing and very very slow ... still, quite an amazing mod in terms of restructuring the entire game, rather than just giving new names to factions, tweaking combat values, and adding new weapons/troop trees etc. The modder is having people create new 'settlements' designs to add in future versions.

Apparently, she thinks otherwise. Go say hi, see what happens. And right now I'm still reeling about tonights episode of "House." Wow. I don't want to spoil it in case anyone DVR'd it and hasn't watched it yet, but that caught me totally by surprise. I'm also rediscovering how much bad emotional stress makes me seriously crave chocolate. Like the "lie in bed and wallow with CostCo sized boxes" cravings. So far I've managed to not give in to them, but arrrgh. The last couple days ... just argh.

My sister in law got her real estate license a couple years ago. Timing is everything, baby. On the bright side, when things swing back up, she'll have experience and some seniority and will probably do well.

Same here. I mean, even to see it on the big screen in a theater you pay around $10 (depends on where you live, I know). $20 I'm willing to pay, since unlike a movie theater I can see it over and over...but meh... I watched another PPV freebie, Silent Hill. Didn't expect much, but I wanted to see Sean Bean. The film has absolutely great cinematic atmosphere, which actually kept me watching...and the acting was ok...but as a whole, it's not very good. Maybe if the ending hadn't been so laughably over the top it might've fared better. Still, for a film based on a video game, it wasn't the worst of its kind.

There's a couple "hidden" chests in two of the main cities that contain parts of a set. Have no clue what their origins are/were for.

I loved D2, but that comment still made me

Bill Withers - Ain't No Sunshine

So is the CADIE link on Google their April Fools? I can't be bothered looking it all up, but the website and videos certainly don't look ... professional.

No mods except for some graphical enhancement ones yet. I wanted to play the vanilla Native till I was bored to tears before gameplay mods. Maybe a couple more weeks. I have looked at a lot of the mods, tho. Some look interesting and I'd like the added graphic armors/different maps and such - the vanilla Native armors are kind of goofy, like the pink armors, argh. And ... I see you hired Alayen. He seemed a good soul, but he took me aside one day and had some choice words about my main man Nizar so he got the boot. Did you find the "Strange sword?" I've been using it sometimes because it looks cool. heh