LadyCrimson

Duetto Buffo di 2 Gatti

"Total Eclipse of the Heart" Ohhhh ... must go listen now ...

Do you mean all pictures/photos are blurry while browsing the internet w/IE7, or something more specific? Have you changed any of the item sizes via Display Properties/Appearance/Advanced? Some say using MSN Accelerator w/MSN Explorer made images on the web look fuzzy - are you using anything akin to that sort of thing? If you've been messing w/themes and other such, have you tried closing all of those programs to get rid of the icons from the tray, than restarting programs again to see if they 'fix' themselves? What resolution are you using, anyway?

Would it help to turn auto-updates off, until you have no work on the table and actually want to update right now, so to speak? That kind of persistant interruption annoys me, as well - I don't even like uninvited popup reminders of 'update available do you want to download?' - which is why I don't have auto-updates turned on for any program.

YouTube is great for finding 80's stuff. I watched "Beat It" for the first time in years not long ago. Michael Jackson was geekily cool once.

I spent an hour fooling around with a program called CrazyTalk. Very easy to use, but hard to make a 'good' animation. Cute software toy, but I don't see much use for it overall. I also thought I'd change my avatar into something more holiday-spirited ... ok, ok, fine, I just wanted to change it. My whitish cat in the other avatar died back in July so it's time for something different. Now I'm going to eat some of that frozen yogurt I bought. Vanilla-Berry swirl, yummy.

Going further into Overlord a little bit at a time. Was having quite the bit o' fun with the game, until this evening ... where I was driven crazy by a dungeon called "The Moist Hollows", which is where you get the blue water minions. There's this lever wheel I have to turn that my clumsy dork avatar can't reach himself, and the path I have to 'sweep'+Guard Marker my minions through to reach it is filled with deadly gysers and many 180 degree turns. This is made more aggravating by the clunky control/camera system. Every time I try, all the minions I send just die. I finally tossed the cordless mouse across the room onto the floor and went out and bought some frozen yogurt.

I didn't start thinking about Mac's until my mother bought her new one, and it was all pretty and shiney. Yes, that's a silly reason, but it did make me look at them more closely again, since like many here, I hadn't done so for years and years. They do still have the software availability issue, but since you can now run Windows on them, that at least allows you to pick up the latest copy of "quicken" and use it, if one really wants to. I'd also debate a little about the long-term cost comparisons, but I think that would be pointless on this forum. My family is mostly Mac because way back when all their kids schools were using them, and they wanted the home pc's to match what they were using at school ... and its stuck. Although I think some of them - like the cousins closer to my age - do have both Mac & PC's at this point. And btw, none of my family are ignorant, unintelligent, or jerks - they just don't care about the same things PC-gamers care about - ie keeping up with the latest software/games/tech gadgets. They don't spend much non-work time on the computer or internet overall, either. My mother had her old Mac for ... um ... maybe 10-15 years before she finally decided she needed to upgrade - mostly because she was having a hard time viewing images/videos her kids and grandkids were sending her. heheh

I'm no good at present-giving either ... my family has never been traditional in that sense and hubby and I don't bother gifting each other either, so I never built up a knack for it. I had a friend who was very good at gift-giving because she'd pay attention to the smallest thing you'd say, even in idle passing, and months later she'd show up at your door with something you'd forgotten that you even wanted, until you have one, if that makes sense. :D But most Moms I know tend to like stuff with personal touches - like old family photos, if you can get your hands on some, in a self-made framed collage or some other kind of inventive arrangement/presentation. Or if she's into tech, one of those digital photo frames perhaps. But I think most digital-frames aren't truly inexpensive. Other than that, for the less-pricey ranges I have no clue. All depends on your mom's interests.

lol, one of those 80's 1-hit wonder songs I love/hate. Catchy and sticks in your head. I don't like the 'new' versions they did much later, tho.

For the shooters, when you guys say it's co-op, does that mean you play the game/plot together, as in, say, Diablo's, or is it more along the lines of frag/personal combat'. Hubby likes whimsical fast-paced arcade-like games (Frogger/space invaders), or some shooters/action-rpgs. He's not into puzzle/word/board styled games. I've heard about Worms ... didn't know it was co-op. I'll look into that one more. Another question ... how many actually rent the games before buying? Just curious.

Yes. I don't typically like gamepads, and most PC-mice are too 'big/long/tall' for my liking ... but the xbox ones in the store that I've held didn't seem all that bad .. shape is fine but it is a bit of a finger stretch sometimes.

Was it one of those form fitted plastic-wrapped every-edge-glued packages, which were likely a conspiracy-driven invention to make us all buy more Band-Aids? Many battles, many scars. And this week we're still hanging in limbo waiting for a homeowner to move out of their house so the bank that owns their house can legally accept or counter-offer our bid. It's frustrating.

Exploration of environments and a game that isn't 20+ hours of nothing but rounding corners to shoot enemies that pop up from behind wooden crates.

Breakout.

Are there any games on the xbox that can be played by 2 people at the same time (2-controllers etc)? I want to play ME but am having a hard time convincing hubby on the console thing ... he doesn't see any/many games he'd be personally interested in. heheh

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LKeyJ1XRsVY Guy called slasherthrasher videotapes his TV screen to make game videos - the appeal isn't about his gaming so much, but rather his commentary/vocal reactions as he plays. Tis really funny/charming. The video is part1 of 3, of him trying to 'get to the car' in HalfLife2. All three of the videos are pretty fun to watch, imo.

Doom3 again, because it's one of the few shooters I have and it's fun on the big TV. Yes I'm addicted to playing games on the big screen now.

... Well, I think it's funny.

28 Weeks Later. First scene/5-10 minutes were cool. The rest of the 1st hour was ok but spent a long time setting up characters and such. The last hour I spent fast-fowarding for several seconds about every 5 minutes.

Screenshot?

Mostly for Bok I guess ... hubby was playing and I tried to take another TR on the TV pic. Best I could do w/the lighting and no tripod. :/

Saw the Mist. I'd give it a B-- (B double minus, haha) ... or 2.75 stars out of 5, maybe ... a decent, but not nearly one of the best, King adapatations. I absolutely hated the very ending, however. They should've closed the film maybe 2 minutes earlier than they did, because those last 2 minutes destroyed the entire potential 'horrific drama' impact for me. Anyway, beyond the ending and some sluggish 'non-action' sections, it was certainly better than one might expect. "Ollie" was cool, the nutty doomsayer chewed scenery amusingly, and the suspense parts were entertaining enough, even if the monsters looked a bit cheesy. Maybe they were supposed to look a bit cheesy ... w/the ending, I'm not sure. A couple of the action sequences were even very close to what I envisioned when I read the written story, and that was cool on a personal level, too.

Definitely sounds like an irritating problem for those who have it. I tried a quick Google on variations of 'vista router problem' and it seems you're not alone ... although most of the neworking issues seem more related to slow or randomly dropped connections rather than inability to connect entirely. From what little I can gleen via cursory glances: According to some advice, if you use a static IP with Vista, you MUST provide a DNS address or it will not connect to the internet. Since I don't own Vista, I can't confirm whether this is true or not, but maybe something to check/try if you haven't already? Don't know how old your Verizon router is, but firewall-equipped routers - or older routers in general - may have problems. Sometimes you just have to get another router/hardware. (p.s. - I know that article is a bit old, but mid-late-2007 articles/posts/complaints led me to the article, so I assume it's still problematic). Contacting Verizon seems like a good thing - although they may just shuttle you over to Microsoft.

I think it's not just eye-candy, although that's a large part of it - shorter development times, more time spent on graphics/engines, less time for everything else. But it also feels, to me, like a slow move away from what some might call 'hardcore/core' gaming ... a trend towards wanting to make games more accessable to a general/wide audience, if that makes sense. Not just to 'young children', either - but older people who might want simpler/shorter etc. games because of other reasons - time, motivation, whatever. Trying to make one game fit all - or at least as many as possible.