SweetiePea

Yes, curly brunettes are a superior species.

I think Atton's appeal has to do with his dark streak. He's funny and does have some of the greatest lines but I think what really gave him that extra intrigue for me was the fact that he had a bit of an attitude and that his past wasn't squeaky clean. This is not the sort of man I would like in real life. But he's fun in a game. I really would have liked to see that.

Since I am one, I'm going to have to go with brunettes.

I think so too. One of the best sigs I've seen!

I am a passionate Carth lover. Flame away all you want, o male members. Carth is my all-time favorite, though. He's funny, he's handsome, he's wounded--these are things women dig. However, I also really, really liked Canderous and took him around with my PC almost all the time. I loved his backstory and I thought he was a very complex character. I liked how shaken he was after his encounter with Jagi. Jolee is also a favorite because I think he's hilarious. If you take him to Korriban with you and get into the Academy by persuading Yuthura to let you in and then tell her that your companions are slaves, he will make a funny remark about how he's glad his nice master doesn't beat him so much anymore. I also really liked Atton because I also found him complex. When he revealed his backstory, I was truly shocked. I only wish he'd been romanceable. Disciple was interesting and I would have liked to see him developed further. Psst, Brittany. Check my sig for a link to my fanfic.

That's how they hook you. Just when you finally get bored with the game, they bring out another expansion pack so that you'll spend hours building your Sim's business or buying them a vacation home or sending them off to college and on and on and on. I'm pathetically excited about the kitchen and bath stuff pack that's coming out and will likely end up playing hours of the Sims once again so that I can redo their kitchens and baths. And that's why that game gets a place in my top ten!

I don't get to live in a mansion with expensive pieces of artwork but my Sims sure do! I get so obsessively addicted to that game because there are so many sides to it. There's the dollhouse effect, the endless lifestory possibilities, the ability to craft (thanks to Free Time) as I never could in real life...

I'm working on that right now. My hubby is helping me set up a forum so that it will have a nice home. I'll definitely post the link for you once it's up and running. We're playing around with it today and I hope to have at least several of the chapters up by the end of the weekend.

Just wanted to throw in my two cents about Stardust, which I also liked. It is very similar to The Princess Bride and I thought it was very enjoyable and well done. I have a serious aversion to Claire Danes so if I liked the movie, it's saying a lot. The last thing I saw in theaters was The Other Boleyn Girl and I liked that one quite a lot.

Baldur's Gate II Knights of the Old Republic I The Sims Age of Empires Civilization Caesar SimTower (yes, this cheesy game is one of my all-time favorites) Hordes of the Underdark (NWN I OC and Shadows of Undrentide just don't quite make the cut) That's it for me for now. I've played tons of games but these are the ones that I've enjoyed repeatedly. There are other games I really like (such as NWN 2 and MotB) but I've gotten the most mileage out of these games.

I've never looked at anything on that particular site before and now I can see why. I have heard that biofuels are driving up the prices of certain grains, so there is truth in that. But the article certainly seems to imply that this is the sole reason for the increase in food prices and IMO seems to hint that developed nations are almost doing this on purpose. Food prices are going up everywhere. I've been seeing all kinds of news stories about the soaring price of food and I've felt the pinch in my wallet at the grocery store.

I guesstimated that Carth was 38, so go me! I made my Revan 28 and the age gap was pretty irrelevant to me. As random n00b said, though, it's entirely possible that Revan is older than this. I went with 28 because I was around that age myself, at the time, and I figured that was about as young as Revan could realistically be. But I think it's certainly possible that Revan could have been somewhere in his/her 30s. As for Bastila, most guesstimates I've seen say 18. I hope she wasn't supposed to be any younger than this, considering the whole romance angle and Revan's age. I believe it was explicitly stated somewhere that Mission was 14 and I was under the impression that Bastila was supposed to be older.

I figured Carth to be maybe 10 years older than Revan, but it could have been even less than that. I don't really know how old Revan was supposed to be but my guesstimate was that she/he had to be late twenties, given the timeframe of events leading up to the opening of KotOR. Even if it was ten years, it wasn't an age difference that bothered me too much but I can see how it may have seemed like a big gap.

Yeah, Carth was paranoid, that's for sure but he turned out to have a good reason for it. What I really love about his romance is that he's a lot of fun. He likes it when the female PC is sassy with him, which was really a refreshing change for me. The first time I played I wouldn't touch any of the snappy answers and I was floored when I found out that he not only was okay with it but would then engage in back and forth teasing with the PC. I also liked how, in the end, he overcame his anger and paranoia and his hatred for Revan and fell in love with her. I thought that fit in so nicely with the themes of redemption that are so central to the game if you play as an LS character. While I do really enjoy the Anomen romance in BGII just because of the sheer depth and progression of it, Carth was a lot more fun than Anomen.

This is great! I joined the BioWare boards years ago so that I could talk at length with others about the Carth/Revan romance in KotOR 1 and I've even got a mammoth fanfic that I'm *still* writing that fleshes out both my version of Revan and the romance. I've played BGII more times than I can possibly count, both with and without mods. I've played it so many times because of the Anomen romance. I'm glad to hear that guys like them too because I was afraid that, for a while there, I was under the impression that it was mainly women who liked them. However, hubby just confirmed that he enjoys them too. I can get a lot more involved in the story when there's a relationship of some sort between my char and her party members.

Is torture effective? Washington Post editorial with quotes from experts. MSNBC transcript with quotes from their military analyst, a retired Army (U.S.) colonel. These are just two of the many hits Google turned up when I typed in "is torture effective". There's plenty of reading out there.

Let's see... On Monday I made stuffed shells. Had a panic attack when I realized that I didn't have the ricotta cheese that is an essential part of this recipe. Grabbed four-year-old and did frantic run through local market. I had already made the sauce for the dish so at least that was out of the way but it still took something like an hour to make the filling and stuff the shells. All told, I spent at least 1.5 hours making that meal but it was delicious. The shells were stuffed with said ricotta, ground turkey, and artichokes. This was another Everyday Pasta recipe. I am sooo going to buy that book at some point. Yesterday we made real Belgian waffles, not those big ones that restaurants like to call Belgian. How do I know ours are real? Because my husband is a real Belgian and the recipe is his mother's. Belgian waffles can be eaten plain, they are so delicious. They are also a lot lighter and airier than American waffles and hubby is very exacting about how crisp they should be.

Was a little Carth affection too much to ask for? This topic was canvassed a great deal on the BioWare boards, I assure you. At any rate, it surprises me how much people enjoy the romances in games. I was afraid I was alone there.

She Says by Howie Day Do you all intend to mock me now?

Does pulling a prank on my four-year-old daughter count? And glad to hear that the U.S. isn't the only country with messed up politics. Then again, I already knew it wasn't as my husband is a native of Belgium and things aren't exactly hearts and butterflies with their political system either.

I personally don't buy the argument that our approach is "more humane". Torture is torture, period. If you think you can demand that U.S. soldiers be treated humanely when they're captured by other nations and then turn around and torture captives of that other nation, your demands fly right out the window. Why become what you hate anyway? Besides, as many other people have said, torture does not work--why do you think it went out of fashion in the more industrialized nations? Don't forget too that whoever is doing the torturing will also suffer from it. Do we really want to turn any of our CIA agents or men and women of the military or whoever into torturers?