Bartimaeus

I can give you a "Montgomery does well and Rodgers & Bennett seriously underperform" instead. What say you? ...Doesn't help that both of our Pro Bowl-level tackles are out of the game, our star DE (Daniels) is out, Nelson is out, and our defense is playing much like the last time these two teams played... (e): yep, into the trash it goes

If I recall correctly, the whole Imoen plot got messed up compared to the original designs, as it was originally planned that Imoen die in Spellhold. From what I recall reading, playtesters got upset that you spent all this work and time trying to get her back, and then she was just immediately killed by the plot right as you got to her. Understandably, other bits of the story got pretty screwed up as a result of them trying to work her back into surviving when the game was pretty much already finished at that point. I think the original design made more sense and probably would've ultimately worked better for various reasons (including in ToB), but it certainly would've been grimmer. Personally, I always hated that the base cause for the setting of the game's events in motion, as well as what became (I thought) a big theme of the game, was never really properly dealt with: namely, the utterly horrid destroying of Irenicus' and Bodhi's souls as a result of pre-BG2 events. The destroying of one's soul is a pretty terrifying concept, and there should've been something learned by the elves and gods as a result of doing it...but the end of the game kinda just glossed over it, like no big deal - you got YOUR soul back, so no harm done, right? Worse, ToB then kinda just retconned it by bringing Irenicus and Bodhi back for the final fight anyways*, which was super lame. If you're gonna go with something that conceptually horrifying, at least stick with it. *I guess the idea was that...you must've left a tiny sliver of your soul behind for them? Otherwise, there should literally be no way of them being raised again...

well, in that case, why did you even look up the battery replacement to begin with, it does drive me a little crazy how cavalier some people are about replacing entire laptops when it's just a battery replacement away from working perfectly again, though...

I tried using a trackball for comfort/pain management purposes, but found that it was just not good enough for quick and precise movements and that I'd rather take the pain. I have recently moved to a so-called "vertical" mouse, and it's a real cheap thing too (the Anker), but having now used it for the past couple of months, I will probably never go back to a traditional mouse.

could you link the laptop model/battery replacement you're looking at? battery replacements, even OEM ones, are usually never nearly that expensive. I've replaced many laptop batteries over the years for laptops that people said were "broken" and I think the most expensive I've ever ran is like $30.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/09/the_supreme_court_s_conservatives_just_ensured_that_latino_votes_still_won.html (garbage site, but whatever) Looks like the conservative Supreme Court (or, in other words, Anthony Kennedy) will likely rule gerrymandering to be well and fine.

I think it's pretty similar. I don't really get "it", whatever "it" is, that makes people love 'em. Just another shallow, over-the-top dark setting that just doesn't do anything for me...tied to kinda mediocre platforming. Meh: just not for me, I guess.

INSIDE is somehow still available on Shady's list, for anyone not paying attention. I personally didn't care for it, but a 96% positive rating and generally rave reviews says I'm not the majority of people for whatever reasons.

this is the worst broadcast team of all time (e): ahh, screw it, I'm going to bed

How many years did it take them to fix their offline mode? It's embarrassing. We still aren't allowed to have non-automatic-updating for even singleplayer games...all you can do is delay the update: Steam won't let you play it until it's been updated (or until you muck around with some semi-hidden files to make it think you updated, anyways). Steam Friends/Community also can't reliably keep track of when someone was last online (it often says they were last online like 20 hours just fifteen minutes after they signed off...), and they still have never fixed the "(User) is typing a message" that erroneously displays when you're talking to somebody but they're not actually typing anything that they introduced around 2011 and somehow never got around to fixing. Still no real customizable profile privacy settings, either...the latest versions of some forum board softwares have freaking better privacy options than Steam does. Bah.

Spectacularly bad press can sometimes do it too, if the developer/publisher is small enough that Valve doesn't worry about offending them by pulling their game(s). That pile of flaming garbage Aliens: Colonial Marines was allowed to stay on, though, even after a huge amount of outrage over blatantly false advertising and total misrepresentation of the game.

Circa 2011, I was pretty happy with Steam and optimistic about its and Valve's futures. Lots of cool new futures, lots of pushing the industry and the markets with new innovations. There wasn't really a foreseeable future with Steam where things were going to be DRM-free, but oh well, you don't win every battle, and it wasn't one I ever expected anyways. My opinion on Steam and Valve have been in a slow decline since then, and at this point, I've been looking for a sign, any sign, that the Valve of old still exist. All I can see now is a company that only ever half-finishes ideas and features, takes literal years to fix bugs in their client, seems to have mostly abandoned making original games (and the creative process in general) in favor of either buying out other people's work and running with it (note: this isn't that new for them and it isn't limited to just their game development, either) or essentially never finishing anything at all because of their clearly now-dysfunctional company structure. They seem like a company that's in an extremely unique position to do some really great things in the video game industry, with near virtually unlimited resources...and yet, they just seem listless and directionless, always spreading themselves too thin over too many projects of wildly different designs and purposes that never quite seem to actually get finished, and so the only thing they really seem to care about anymore is raking in more money off of their incredible market position, and the utterly awful Steam Direct that is flooding Steam with an ever-increasing amount of utter garbage and shovelware is just symptomatic of whatever disease Valve seems to have contracted sometime within the late 0s/early 10s. At this rate, I can't see my opinion of Valve and Steam improving: I can only hope that it doesn't get any worse - I'm not quite at "hatred", but rather just strong dissatisfaction, I guess. The biggest thing that I use Steam for these days is Steam Friends, for keeping in easy contact with my gaming friends: I only buy just a few indie games a year, and presently shy away from buying anything on it when I can. If I can instead buy from/pay directly the developer instead of giving any more money to Valve's obscene dragon's horde, I do. I'm not that big on GoG either, to be honest: Valve has taught me not to invest my money or time in these kinds of companies anymore, just as a rule of thumb in avoiding disappointment in yet another group of people or company succumbing entirely to greed. So I prefer to only give my money directly for the development efforts that I like, and nothing more.

still don't know what the heck games you guys are ever playing, since none of you ever say (actually not true: some of you do say what you're playing sometimes)

Yeah, it's a steaming pile of trash, as per the Valve/Steam trend over the past 5 years or so.

Some really bad - atrocious, really - games today...Falcons-Bears was good, some games like Raiders-Titans and Cardinals-Lions started out good, but really fell apart in the second half.

That sucks. Hopefully the motherboard is not damaged.

I've had this song in my head for a few days, but couldn't remember what it was or who it was by or even what the lyrics were. Took me a while to figure out.

Yeah...there's more criteria than just "attractive" here, especially if you're applying it to non-human characters that you have little to no capability of being attracted to. Banjo-Kazooie, for example, I think the characters are well-designed and appealing...but I'm certainly not attracted to them. Yooka-Laylee, in comparison, I don't like the designs as much - I don't think a lizard and a bulbous-looking bat are quite as appealing as a goofy bear and breegull. I want characters' designs to be appealing in some manner, not necessarily attractive: sometimes, it means NOT attractive in the traditional sense, and sometimes it does. Depends on the type of character and their personality and such.

Even so, the players did literally vote for the current CBA back in 2011. So while the union may not have been that great at negotiating (looking back at the changes that it enacted, they actually did have some decent progress for what they wanted at the time...but some of them then became self-inflicted wounds to a degree, such as the extremely limited practice time and the rookie wage scale), players did collectively agree to it. The funny thing is, I am pretty sure the commissioner's broad power wasn't even that big of a deal to them at the time - I don't think they expected it to be wielded like it has been, especially when they had their minds on other concerns such as pay and injuries. Now it'll be a big thing that they have to fight to limit next time, which means they'll likely have to concede even more ground to reverse something they probably could've easily nipped in the bud in 2011...

I don't disagree that the union totally failed...but the union only goes as far as its members (the players) want it to, and they collectively decided they'd rather take money now than fight for a better CBA. In other words, the players and their union are the same thing, and so they failed themselves by agreeing to the CBA. If that's the point you're trying to make, well, okay then. Like for most everything else that's wrong with the sport, though, I generally prefer to blame the NFL.

I mean...the NFLPA caved because the players caved. It's not like the NFLPA is some nebulous organization that has its own mind: it's a players' union. It was either cave or shorten/cancel the season...and no surprise, the NFL can suffer not having a season much better than players who only have an average career length of about 3 and a half years can. The NFLPA will never gain much power until the players get serious about actually holding out, which isn't likely to occur (especially given a strong majority appear to have awful financial skills). Sadly, this isn't baseball where players can play for forever and so could afford to lose seasons: the NFL knows this and exploits it to its full capacity. It's not right, but what can they do?

Well, unless the NFL wants to violate court orders that specifically disallow them from suspending Ezekiel Elliot for the duration of the lawsuit as a result of the case, I wouldn't bet on it. Maybe if they felt comfortable taking a gamble on the courts not interpreting the commissioner's exempt list as being a sort of suspension, but I doubt they'll do that.

While this particular judge seems to favor Elliot's side, from what I understand this case isn't that fundamentally different from the Brady case: the NFL makes unforced procedural errors in the trial (or appeal, in this case), and the lower level judge takes issue with it and sides with the player...and then it's appealed to a higher court, who realizes that while the procedural errors were stupid and arguably unfair by the NFL, they ultimately made no material difference in the NFL handing down the suspension, which they have extremely broad authority to give. I would expect EE to play the entirety of this year, but don't be surprised when the NFL ultimately wins this one next season.

I mean, it was obvious there was at least a decent chance when the judge specifically called out the NFL.

I'm hoping the massive problems this will cause down the line will eventually help move us away from using SSNs in the absolutely pants-on-head way we currently do...but realistically, I'm expecting it to just be swept under the rug like every other major security breach.