LadyCrimson

By video I mean camcorder-generated files, not Fraps-or-similar game videos. I've been using Pinnacle Studio for a while now, and while it was fairly powerful/easy to use for simple things, it would crash/freeze a lot ... and I finally got fed up with it. Movie Edit Pro and Video Studio are two brands that some folk have mentioned before, but they seem an awful lot like Pinnacle - ie, feature-bloated that'll likely slow everything down. I suppose if they don't crash as much, it'd be worthwhile, but still ... I don't know if many people here work with home videos, but just idly curious if anyone's used any other program and liked it a lot? It has to work on XP and preferably be in the $100 or less range.

I knew the demo wasn't that great, but was wondering if the final release might've improved it some. Ah well. Back to Caesar4 I guess, then.

1408 - I liked it better than slug apparently did, but mostly because of the first half. The second half slid further and further into an abyss. The alternate endings on the DVD were kind of cool to see tho ... I liked one of those better than the theatrical ending. Transformers - finally saw it. Better than I expected, with of course fantastic eye-candy, but still silly fluff. It did, however, have some great little moments for those who've watched the cartoon series; odd bits of humor here and there. But mostly it's just one big explosion etc. after another, with a weak ending - they turned Mr. Prime into a serious wuss for the climax.

Most of the time I barely notice the soundtracks in games ... or I turn them off completely. So my choices are still ... hmm ... well ... Stronghold for overall goodness. Nox had a great theme and I liked a lot of the background/battle music as well. Majesty has a great theme - but it didn't have a lot of music overall. Someone mentioned Darkstone - I remember liking most of the background music from that one, too. Nothing stupendous, but pleasant and worked well with the game/set a nice mood. Can't think of anything else off-hand.

For those who've played/are playing HG:L - what's the opinion? Is it a decent single-player action-RPG, or if one has already played Diablo2/WoW to death, would it just be same ol' same ol' w/shiny graphics? I tried Ootp baseball, and it's an interesting looking, very detailed baseball/manager-sim (text-based, it's not a 3d graphic type game), but the 500 page pdf manual turned me away. No time for that, thanks. :D

I think I have a DVD copy with the audio commentary, but alas, I must admit I haven't listened to them yet. Maybe I'll do that soon, one night when I can't get to sleep.

Perhaps it's time for California to start thinking about building houses with more fire-resistant materials. We've taken some measures ... but perhaps not enough. Maybe some textured metal siding will come into fashion. Or maybe a skyscraper mentality should come into play soon, rather than spreading out in ranch-style further and further into riskier fire zones ... It's hard to picture California giving up their 'log cabins' and sprawled out homes any time soon, tho.

Alien - probably the only movie, ever, that made me so tense I seriously had a hard time watching it in one sitting; even, for a little while, on repeat viewings. John Carpenter's The Thing - nowhere near as tension-inducing as Alien, but great fun plus a decent level of tension. Still a fave movie overall. Poltergeist - I know it's not really a horror movie by most folks standards, and it's probably badly dated now, but at the time, it was great. There's a few scenes that, when released, "got" to a lot of people, including me. Evil Dead2 - keep in mind that 99.999% of zombie movies I view as being either hilarious comedies or very dreary comedies, rather than horror movies. Evil Dead2 falls in the hilarious category. I laughed like a loon almost the entire film, the first time I saw it. Honorable mentions: The Omen - (original) Jaws The Hitcher - (original - the remake was garbage) Hellraiser 1&2 - (I like Pinhead....) ... it's hard to remember all the movies you've ever seen.

Das Boat. Although, it was more like I saw it in three parts over three days, because one, it's really long, and two, I kept falling asleep, as I'd try to watch it at the end of my evening when I was very tired. Still my fav. war/sub movie, even broken up into parts. Zodiac. I didn't expect to, but I really enjoyed this film. Except for the early sections, perhaps, a very 'talky' type of motion picture, which isn't so common anymore.

She's very busy with non-internet things.

*peeks in* I'm glad to know everyone from this forum so far has escaped any major injury or damage. Hope it continues that way.

Some friends were in the beta and their general take was that it felt 'very Diablo-like' - but the character skills (the ability to be flexible w/them per class, I guess) were very lacking/boring in comparison... or something to that effect. ie, the usual "it has potential as a good action-rpg type game, but as-is, it's disappointing."

I"ve watched lots and lots and lots of TV lately. Seraphim Falls was an interesting little Western with Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson. Kind of a revenge/redemption theme perhaps, with the very end becoming almost a parody of some western cliches. I enjoyed it.

Don't eat the buns.

The series end episode for Stargate was pretty weak ....

Still a bit o' WoW, but losing interest. C'mon, Spore ....

Seen this a while ago. IMO pretty sad, but, hey, it's her life.

That's pretty much all I remember happening. No answers - they're just not there.

I haven't been able to get a much better score - some friends have done about 1.5 million. I actually do the worst during the segment that makes you type one letter at a time. My typing often seems to be from 'repetitous auto-finger memory' rather than a solid memorization of 'where the keys are' so things that aren't real words make me stumble. I used to be a better typist, but ... meh. Plus my fingers have a hard time stretching for things like the p - it makes the index finger fall off it's own letter, that sort of thing. *mumble* And meta, I think the most commonly used vowels/letters are indeed on the (edit: left) side of keyboards. Interesting. The history of the modern keyboard arrangement might be an interesting read; I'll have to do some Googling.

Fun little waste of time someone posted elsewhere. Requires flash. http://www.jonmiles.co.uk/fingerjig.php I managed 851,765 on the first try, I'll be interested to see if I can make it higher. Words that are instantly recognizable to you are much faster to type, and for me, the left hand is much better at finding letters on a keyboard than the right - despite my being right-handed. Wonder what the explanation for that might be ...

I drove around; I took pictures. I posted on the internets. Now I'm deciding what to have for dinner. Chicken rice soup w/jalepeno's, or teriyaki beef sandwich? Or ... I'm alone for two evenings ... I could have a pizza all to myself for once. I could even have tomatoes on it! Important stuff, y'know.

Maybe it should be called "Escapism Addiction: subcategory: technology", and include TV, games, internet chat, etc. :D

I think that would sort of fall under being addicted to adrenaline, or some other chemical substance produced by the brain or other organ during heightened physical activity/risk. Not really sure tho. If you have something like that, tho, it's likely you'd be at risk of addiction to any activity that produced enough of it for you. So having 'adrenaline addiction' or somesuch, I could see that as a medical label. Just not 'game/climbing/running' addiction.'

People have died parachuting, rock climbing, and mountain climbing, too ... I've yet to see anyone label those activities as a 'medical addiction' tho.

There's physical addiction and then there's psychological ones. And sometimes a mixture of the two. There's also the concept of perhaps being addicted to ... adrenaline? something like that? ... and maybe that's why some get addicted to risk (gambling) or other things (games). It's not the activity itself, specifically, if you know what I mean - thus I think it's a bit silly to start labeling all activities people may use to cope with their psychological stress/addictive 'personalities' etc. as being addictive of themselves. Some people watch 6 hours of TV a day - come home from work, plop on the couch, drink beer, watch TV, go to bed. Should that be a 'medical addiction?' But to answer the more lighthearted question - just about every game I've liked has been a short-term "addiction." I'm obsessive by nature, whether it's a game I want to play, a garden I want to plant, or a trilogy of books I want to read. Long term-addictions - games or otherwise - not so much. I burn out on things too fast.