EnderAndrew

That isn't entirely true. Plenty of people make games that require the latest and greatest technology when it comes to PC games. If they were designing the game to target the largest market share, they would lower the minimum requirements.

England requests communication with Germany, in hopes of heading off any break in diplomatic relations. Should we receive none or no adequate explanation, we will consider your failure a sign of hostility and act accordingly. We warn our fellow nations not to trifle with the might of Britain. We would also at this juncture welcome correspondence with the French. We have made no overtly hostile move towards each other, and thus should consider our future arrangements.

Sarah will attest that I dig speulunking.

A Proclamation From Turkey We would like to assure our Italian neighbors that we bear no ill will towards Austria, as we are sure Austria will attest. On the other hand, we have to wonder about what Italy and Austria have intended for us, as even though Austria says they have no alliance with the fine nation of Italy, Italy insists on calling the Austrian people 'friends' and saying that they will act on their behalf if Austria is attacked by either Russia or Turkey. Also, Italy's fleet prescence in the Ionian sea continues to make the Turkish Vizier nervous, especially with it's close proximity to the newly, how shall we say, 'accquired', Greecian harbor. As for our neighbors to the Northeast, Russia, we bear no ill will towards them either, and are sad to see them squabbling over the nation of Rumania in such a fashion, and the Vizier can't help but wonder if Rumania would be better suited as a Turkish provincial territory.

I'm sure that people will code for DirectX 10 and force us to switch, even if it means poorer performance for DirectX 9 games on our computer. But I imagine that there will be a Windows XP release of DirectX 10. I doubt the games will require us to upgrade to Vista.

Actually I haven't read the most recent Zahn book (Survivor's Quest). I gave it to Sarah, and we live together and all, but I never read it myself yet. I loved his first five books though, and I've heard good things about the new one. There is a Zahn trilogy set 5 years after RotJ that many fans consider the unofficial Episodes 7,8 and 9. Heir to the Empire Dark Fleet Rising The Last Command Then he did a two book series later that wrapped up some loose ends called: Spectre of the Past Vision of the Future The new one I guess ties up another loose end, called Survivor's Quest.

Housecall is an online virus scan. It isn't installed, but I use it to backup AVG. AVG is free and quite good, but somepeople insist that it doesn't catch everything, so I do Housecall checks from time to time. If you use Firefox, you won't get popups at all. I also like Maxthon, which is like a Firefox-esque version of IE. It blocks pop-ups, float ads, pop-unders, ActiveX scripts, etc. It has all the security of Firefox, but uses the IE rendering engine. But I didn't want to start a browser arguement.

Generally Googling the name will give you specific instructions for removing that particular trojan. I use AVG and Housecall and they've worked quite well for me.

Back when Bantam had the license, you will notice in the author's notes it always mentions how the editors made all the authors get together and keep the characters and storylines consistent. Then Del Rey got the license and started the NJO. Timothy Zahn was handpicked by Lucas, and he got permission to use cloning and such. He said that Lucas nixxed some story ideas, and personally approved others. This was well before the prequels. Zahn mentioned that Lucas specifically wanted to reserve the rights to discuss the Emperor's backstory, Vader's backstory, when Han and Chewie meet, and Boba Fett's backstory. So somewhere along the line, Lucas stopped approving the books since the books went into Boba Fett's backstory.

Do not stick your genetalia in a toaster. It is not as exciting as one might imagine, and has quite a downside.

I loathe the NJO. I read every Star Wars book published up the NJO. I highly recommend: The 6 Zahn books. Easily the best of the best. Children of the Jedi The X-Wing Series Courtship of Princess Leia.

Find the exact name of the trojan and do a Google search for it. To make sure you don't get new viruses and spyware, I recommend you do the following: Use Firefox. Install a HOSTS file. Install Spybot Search and Destroy. It can immunize your system against Spyware as well as remove it. Install Adaware. And believe it or not, Microsoft has a really good beta Spyware program that will prevent Spyware and viruses.

Float On is on that compilation of kid's songs with kids singing them. Too bad the song is pretty morbid and screwed up. I offer up the good stanza from Plush: And I feel, so much depends on the weather So is it raining in your bedroom? And I see, that these are the eyes of disarray Would you even care?

I said multiple times that things could have been done better. When facts are thrown in your face, you choose to remain willfully ignorant of them to exploit the death of helpless people towards furthering your political opinions regardless of truth. If you read my posts you'd see that I blast Bush on a variety of topics. I hated his proposition of giving amnesty to illegal immigrants while legal immigrants wait years and years for following the system. I hate his economic policies. I feel religion doesn't belong in government. I feel that he ignores the Constitution and discriminates homosexuals illegally. I voted for him despite my dislike for him because I truly loathed Kerry. However, not only do you remain willfully ignorant, but you intentionally misquote what I say. You are added to my ignore list. I don't deal with people who do not operate on any realm of objectivity or truth.

I actually enjoyed Police Academy 1-5. 6 and 7 were truly horrible. I don't know that this movie will really get made however, Hollywood is quick to pump out sequels to truly horrible movies (MVP and Air Bud come to mind) while refusing to make good movies. I am firmly convinced that people in Hollywood have little to no clue what they are doing besides the Weinsteins. WB brought Kevin Smith in to do a sequel called Beetle Juices goes Hawaian. Thank goodness he passed.

I felt that last avatar was more unique. The current one is generic-anime. Most anime avatars convince me the corresponding posters are likely 15. I like anime by the way, but it just seems like a trend.

I would just like to say, and I intended to email Jags and Darkside with this last turn, that I felt my hand forced in the last turn. There are so many NMRs in this game, that actual Diplomacy has failed. It is just a numbers simulation largely, and Deraldin is out-building everyone. None of the players who are actively playing have much of a position to stop him, and so long as other countries continue to NMR, the outcome of the game was largely inevitable. That shouldn't be a game of Diplomacy. I decided to enter the race for 18 supply centers at the cost of my allies to prevent that. I had assumed that the second Austria was out of the picture, either Russia, Italy or Turkey would get screwed as there likely wouldn't be room for all 3 of us to push north, unless I controlled a good chunk of Austria, Russia pushed through Germany, and Italy pushed through France. I didn't see that happening. Reveiled may preach his "I told you so's" to Darkside about my turning against her, but that decision was not made until about 48 hours ago. I tell every player that I operate on logic, and do what is best for the outcome of the game. In other games, I have been a loyal ally, and even shared victory when I could have taken it for myself. That opportunity was not presenting itself in this game however.

It should be noted that when the first service pack for Vista comes out, it MAY be worth it to upgrade as you'll get this new file layer that makes for easy/quick searching of your computer. Except Google Desktop Search already provides that now, for free. Vista allows you to have this pretty new interface with transperancy, except software like StyleXP and WindowBlinds have been offering that for years, and you if you really want to try out the official new interface, Microsoft is allowing it as a beta download for XP. .NET 2.0 is also a feature of Vista, that you can download for XP. DirectX10 is going to be a feature of Vista that you may not even want, but likely will also be a download for XP. The new API opens TONS of new security holes. It is like ActiveX but worse. Just booting Vista right now, without opening a single app takes up 700 megs of memory. They are saying you need 2 gigs of memory really for the OS. If you want a 64 bit OS, then there is both Linux x64, and Windows XP Pro x64, which is even better than normal Windows XP since it has been updated to use the more stable Server 2003 core code. Seriously, I can't think of a single reason to upgrade to Vista.

Itallian Times, Fall 1902 A Stir in Europe As the glorious Italian government maintains the on going peace with it's good neighbor Austria, they continue to keep a watchful eye on those sneaky Turks. "It's not that we don't trust them, but you just never know what a Turk is capable of," stated the Itallian leader. "However, I'd like to make it quite clear that although we are a peaceful nation, should the Russians or Turks attack our good friends the Austrians, then they will have to face the full might of glorious Italy. As such I would love a harbor a new friendship with my sovereign nation France - I wish him good luck in his camapaign against the English & Germans, but unfortunatley cannot yet aid him in his pursuits as I'm currently fully committed to repelling the would be scavengers of Austria. However, I promise a non-aggression treaty with France; under the condition that the mysterious French leader does not opt for a military buildup near our boarder - for the sovereign nation of Italy will consider a fleet build in Marseille this year to be an Act of War." -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ack. We thought Sarah was in labor. She was having contractions every five minutes, but they sent us home from the hospital with sleeping pills. No baby, but we should have one very soon! Check the first post!

One of us is cussing and screaming. One of us is emotional and resorting to personal comments. It is isn't me. Your problem and inability to define it, doesn't mean that it hasn't been defined. I guess I do need to repeat things a few more times. No, you put words in my mouth and post with the logical comprehension of a 3 year old. I haven't gotten pissy. You have. You still haven't answered the one question I've answered you, while I've repeatedly answered you. The core mechanic of an RPG is stat-based gameplay. Perhaps you missed that the first 10 times.

No you said the situation could be predicted. It wasn't. Not a single person said the leevies would break when Katrina hit. You imply that somehow lives could have been saved, and you outright say the reaction has been poor since this could have been predicted. Given that NO ONE actually predicted the leevies would break, I think you are wrong. Tell me what should have been different. Did anyone predict the leevies would break? No. The experts predicted that Mississippi would be hit worst by the hurricane, which is what happened. Could anyone predict that the police force in NO would be largely missing? Could anyone predict that when the first crews went in to rescue people, that people would be firing guns or shooting cops? Hindsight is nifty and all, but I'm just curious what you would have done differently, given that getting to the area is difficult. How long does it take to assess damage and formulate exactly what reaction is needed? People forget that initially the leevies didn't break right away. People also forget that relief was in the city within 2 days. That was FASTER than with Hurricane Andrews. When aren't you blaming Bush for everything on the planet? It is quite possible to have a political agenda outside of running for office. I'm sure things could have been handled better, but you single out Bush and blame him specifically to further your political tirade. No one man is responsible for what happened here. The greatest mistake in this whole travesty has been not maintaining the leevies, and several people over the years have been guilty of that. None of them have been the President who doesn't oversee that.

If you are going to participate in a discussion, you need to read what people are posting in front of you. I never said an RPG is defined by having characters or story, quite the opposite actually. I said REPEATEDLY that the definition of role-playing as a broad term is different from the specific definition of a CRPG. If you are just going to make me repeat things even more, I'm just not going to bother reading or replying to your posts. The question I posed to you is, "If the term didn't mean anything at all, then why has it had a consistent meaning and usage in the industry for 30 years?" Try again.

The mechanic is to execute the play correctly through twitch mechanics, and that drives success more than stats. Trust me. Last year they bumped pass defense seriously. After throwing 20-25 straight incompletions, I decided to edit my stats up to 99. I still threw incompletions left and right. Then I lowed the pass defense rating. I still threw incompletions. The real key was learning the playbook, getting the timing for each route down, and executing the plays perfectly. I feel very confident saying that the primary mechanic is not stat-based gameplay.

Again, you can use a Visa Check Card, which you can get with horrible credit since it doesn't require a credit check.

I said consistently. I play various EA Sports titles, and with many of them I can humiliate both the computer, and other players. I can beat people with clearly inferior teams and clearly inferior stats. Why? Here is an experiment. Fire up a copy of Madden, and take the CPU's Pass Defense all the way down. Take your QB's rating up to 99, and your WR's rating up to 99 and throw a pass into double coverage. I'd say 20 out of 25 times the pass will be incomplete regardless of the stats. Now inversely, raise the Pass Defense all the way up, and lower your QB and WR's rating down. Throw the ball to an open WR and you'll catch the ball. Which is the primary game mechanic being driven? It's not stats.