Bartimaeus

Ah, it's such a grand feeling being able to work out the right answer to something and/or get something to work while being oh so conscious of the fact that you have very little to perhaps no real idea at all what you're actually doing...and yet you're still able to get the job done anyways with just your intuition. Until you have to work with it again in the future and you're still just as clueless now as you were then.

Huh, never even heard of it until now. How were the production values, out of curiosity? I can't imagine they could've been that great, given the small-sounding scale and media coverage, but you're talking vampires, zombies, aliens, and spaceships, so I'm wondering how well they handled it.

Do they? Some teachers (maybe even the majority, but I can't say for certain, but the majority would be my experience) seem to focus on helping whoever will accept and benefit from the help the most, not necessarily those who actually need it the most. The two aren't always necessarily mutually exclusive, but they all too often don't overlap at all...and upon reflection, that's not really all too surprising, as already good students will draw praise and special (positive) attention from their teachers, while chronically struggling students very often have behavioral problems that make some/most teachers (understandably) want as little to do with them as possible. Does that make those teachers bad? Personally, I don't really think so...but then again, I don't feel as though it's primarily the teacher's responsibility to fix/deal with behavioral issues to begin with. Of course, if neither teachers nor parents will/can do anything to help those with those kinds of issues work through/around their issues, then they are pretty much screwed...but what is a teacher supposed to do about that when they've already got so much on their plate? Life, unfortunately, is often (pretty much always, actually) terribly unfair...

Also, yeah, that Saints/Giants game was absolutely ridiculous. 13 passing TDs...set the league record (previously 12 was the highest). And yet, that dumb 7 passing TDs record in one game from one player STILL has not been broken (although Brees tied it, again, as like 6 other players have, including Rodgers, Brady, and Manning, I think). Also, is it just me, or does NBC's picture quality completely suck during camera changes? Seriously, every time they change the camera, it's like the video is in the middle of buffering and it looks all blurry and artifacty and horrible... It's every time I watch their games, too, not just yesterday. Don't understand how it can look so bad...but then again, it's not that big of a surprise, given how horrible their production values for football are in general.

Ah, I didn't realize they couldn't call two timeouts in a row: that's why that was so wacky (and unfortunate for the Cowboys). Yeah, that would've been a 1st down at near goal line, too. Stinks. Boy, there sure were a lot of injuries across the league yesterday...yikes.

Technically, you would need to install the game first before you could even apply a patch...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0skAEQb07jw Man calls into a local news station during some major flooding to relate his 'experience' of the flooding thus far.

A non-binding resolution. Neat.

"I just happened to be with a bunch of girls this evening after attending this party, and I showed them what you said and they all laughed at you! Ha ha ha! :)" Yes, thank you, Bruce: your continued condescension will surely increase the effectiveness of your argument as well as lift our views of your character. No, actually, I don't: much of Volourn's antics are ridiculous, his obsession with Nazis included. However, at least he's unapologetic in the lunacy of the things he says, unlike a certain somebody I know. Ah, I'll accept being drunk as an acceptable excuse for showing such a silly thing to people you don't much know...something that would almost always just get weird stares in response, normally (because yes, it is a pretty weird thing to show who are not in any way invested into these forums, and who have no idea who Volourn is, or what the context, by your own admission, even is). Bragging about it here, on the other hand?

The thing I found even worse than all that...is that he TALKED about it to us - as if we would all somehow be impressed with his utterly ridiculous story. It'd be bad and cringe-worthy enough if he had just done it and then not mentioned it...if the story is even true, which I have serious doubts about: if it is true, then he's a narcissist for thinking that anyone else in the whole wide world besides him could ever possibly care about his silly little internet arguments (most of which, if I were him, I would not want to show anyone), or that it would somehow be cool with the ladies... If it was true, he must've somehow been enchanting enough of a personality at that "after party" that it wouldn't have mattered what he was talking about - he could have been talking about Hitler and how he was right and they still would've found him "funny", which seems ridiculous in itself, but stranger things have happened, particularly when it's around narcissists... And if it isn't true, then, well...that's even sadder. And then to actually talk about it like it's a legitimate point against Volourn...haha, good lord. Oh Bruce, I'm laughing alright, but it isn't at Volourn.

Hah. That makes me realize: Jaguars' only two wins this season have been at "home" in London. That's weird.

Hey, they almost mounted a comeback.

Congratulations, BruceVC, that's the first time you've made me physically cringe. Upping the ante, as always.

I think they're meant for the kinda player who liked doing speed runs in old school platformers.. All about overcoming the challenge through concentration and repitition. I found Dark Souls pretty darn easy after a certain point (and that was my first Souls game). But after beating the game once, I did send my character straight to NG7 via some memory editing with Cheat Engine, where that certainly applies. Dark Souls 2 was torturous and repetitive (and awful) from start to finish, though. Never got used to or liked the control changes, never got used to or liked the much slower-paced combat. Why you would slow down the second game compared to the first, I don't know...seems like the opposite would be the more logical choice (...or just keeping it the same)...but then again, I'm not a brilliant game designer.

Sounds like an understanding impairment, not a hearing. Brain randomly isn't able to decipher sounds as well as it should: same problem I sometimes have. I also have pretty good hearing.

That was a pretty miserable game.

Honestly, I feel like the first Souls game you play is the best. I played Dark Souls 1 and thought it was quite good: I beat it on NG7 at level 99, beat it at soul level 1 on NG1, and nearly beat it at soul level 1 on NG7 ([MINOR SPOILERS, I say the name of a boss] I can beat every boss besides the Four Kings...the Four Kings are just too hard to fight 4 at a time at level 1 [/END MINOR SPOILERS]), so I must've liked it, right? Tried playing Dark Souls 2, and I pretty much instantly hated it. Played through the entire game, and it makes me never want to play another Souls game ever again I hated it so much. I know others who have had similar feelings...though I know others that played Dark Souls 1 and then thought Dark Souls 2 was O.K., too.

That's a shame. It was a decent show. I just hated the format of filling up what felt like somewhere between 25-33% of each show with them repeating themselves, reexplaining what's going on, or just filling it up with pure filler. A shame.

Uh, not true at all, actually. There's no sales tax for online retailers that don't have a physical presence in your state...nowadays, that's most major retailers, so you'll likely get charged sales tax. Newegg doesn't have sales tax in my state, though, and combine that with it generally having the best prices across the board, and that's where I usually shop for PC stuff.

The latest is the most outrageous of all!

And why to people who continuously insist on lecturing others about empathy, while consistently abandoning it (or lacking it to begin with) themselves when it suits them? Truly a puzzle.

Dang, I knew I should've said I wasn't completely sure about that one, too (not having played it nearly as much as the Diablos), . Fair enough.

Maybe it's just because it's a relatively low quality image, but that actually looks pretty terrifying, .

Forgive me...but while I don't know for sure about Torchlight (not having ever played it), enemies never scaled with you in Diablo (1 or 2), nor Titan Quest. In fact, if they did, it would screw up the entire drop system in Diablo 2, where the alvl (area level) determines the mlvl (monster level) of the monsters in the given area, which, while players are killing said monsters, compares itself to the qlvl (quality level - also known as ilvl for item level) as the game tries to drop items off the killed monsters, which then checks to make sure everything's in order for that specific item type with that specific quality type (non-magic, magic or rare prefixes and suffixes, set pieces, uniques), and if everything is, it then drops the item...and if it isn't, it either rewrites the item into a different quality type (the unique to rare and set piece to magic transformations being the two that I know of), or erases it as if it had never existed entirely. If areas/monsters scaled with you (and they don't...not even to the slightest degree), it would completely screw up this formula. There are three different difficulty settings for a reason. I would also disagree with you in regards to character building: you could easily screw up your character to be nigh-unusable if you didn't know what you were doing (...and if you were playing before the respecialization patch came out): character building and progression was VERY important in Diablo 2. So was equipment, yes...but character building was one of Diablo 2's greatest strength (contrast it with Diablo 3, which is much, much more limited, and consequently much, much less interesting in this area). This just in: I know way too much about Diablo.

There were seven no-hitters this season. Seven baseball games where a team literally went the entire game without hitting the ball even once. Football seems terrible when the teams stall over and over and can't get first downs...imagine a game where a team goes literally the entire game without one, or without a reception or meaningful rush...