Nepenthe

I mostly make quick 'n dirty mediterranean food, due to my parents having lived there for decades (and myself for a lesser time). Occasionally bake, too. My dad's a pretty well established cook (has a cookbook published), unfortunately he insists on making stews regularly, and they are never good. Mom's also taught me quite a bit, they generally forced to keep me company to them as a kid when they were cooking, so I picked up stuff along the way. p.s. the better your ingredients, the less seasoning you need.

I was under the impression that hereditary peers have been removed from Lords for quite a while. In fact, the only country with 'inherited politicians' I know of would appear to be the U.S. (*cough* Bush *cough*)

What? If someone gives you something because they are nice and you are nice, how can that be bad? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bribery

Sorry to butt in on your whine-circlejerk, but I managed to get my paws on the DA2 demo at the Helsinki Digiexpo today. It was running on an x360, the only platform I've not played DAO on. There was just one rig, sound was turned off and due to some quirk, I apparently started from the last schmoe's autosave at the beginning of the "real" section of the game, stuck on a male warrior Hawke (which, honestly, I probably would have used anyway) Obviously, not the best starting point for impressions. The game looked quite a bit better than DAO, less good than ME1 or ME2, but there was some pretty heavy aliasing visible in all diagonals. Of course, I was standing 2' from a 40" screen, so it would have been as visible as it gets. Combat was pretty much A button mashing on the auto-attackless x360 version (and it's not like I had a lot of opportunities to get into finesses within the system). The 'faster' combat, OTOH, seems pretty well thought out, with a "leap" special that seemed to pretty well complement this. I'm not sure how this will integrate with the more traditional "point and click to auto-attack" functionality on the PC, but if they manage to pull it off, I think combat could actually be quite a bit improved over DAO. For now, I suggest all old-school RPGrs give the console version a wide berth (I don't want to read months of your bitching again). Of course, I haven't played the Witcher, which apparently has similar "click to swing" combat, and y'all seem to be wild over it, so what do I know. The dialogue wheel is pretty much just like ME(2), the added icons for the "nature" of your answer will probably be quite helpful. Honestly, I'm probably not a good person to give impressions on this, as I consider neither the wheel/script to be inherently superior or particularly annoying. The most convincing "pro" argument I've heard for it is from Dave Gaider, and it's that they consider bad design to make a player both read and then listen to the same line. I agree, but YMMV. So, yeah, if you want to know something, you can ask, but I probably won't be able to answer it. Glad I got in for free, the lousy circumstances would have made me feel pretty ripped off if I hadn't. Though apparently the demo area was a "beer zone", as it was K18 and had a fairly ripped bouncer on the door. I was still 10 years older than anybody else in there.

That does seem so convenient that such suspicion does not seem entirely unfounded. It's always a toughie, not knowing, and sometimes not knowing if you want to know. Is it better to have the circumstances conspire against you (like they certainly did in your case), or just be the Romantic Runner Up? :/

I know, but your suggestion was better to me than retreading the same matter over and over. ie. accepting that nearly everybody thinks that BG2 was better than DAO, and just looking at it on its own merits. Just getting over it, y'know... Like I mentioned in the other thread, I'm seriously considering splitting this joint, partially due to the fact that I could write out the content of most threads in here beforehand.

Just because it has the same measured caliber it doesn't have to be similar at all. Case in point, .50 AE and .50 BMG. Clearly just better to use 12,7mm and .50 separately than to confuse people even further by differentiating "pistol-type" and "rifle-type" .50 ammo in some other way...

I'm positive I've posted the list in one of the "your top games" lists, I can't be arsed to do it again.

oh man, I feel sorry for you so many great games in the last 20 years. Origins couldn't make it into my top 50 even if it begged. Yeah, I was aware of your opinion.

You know what, I'm pretty much in agreement with you, but probably from a different point of view. I agree that Baldur's Gate 2 is probably the best game I will ever play (though there are some games that I consider to be really close to it), and that DAO wasn't even half as good. I also think that on its own merits, DAO was a pretty good game, but certainly not one of those that are close to BG2. Still, I'd probably place it in the top 15-20 games I've ever played, and am also looking forward to seeing what the sequel delivers...

Similar situation, except apparently it's not a secret from the fianc

This does not happen often but I agree with you on this. Although for judges I think it is all together proper and even necassary for them to face a retention vote every four years or so. If a judge is viewed as soft on criminals or issues rulings that a a little off the legal reservation there must be a public remedy for them. They have a lot of power and there needs to be a check on them other than the appeals process because no every kooky ruling will get a shot at appeal or fair treatment if it does get one. Disagree. Of course, your judges have powers that far exceed anything that we have here, but having to kiss up to the "unwashed masses" (who are always under the impression that judges are soft on criminals, even if they give shoplifters the chair) is a seriously bad idea.

Go to London. The. Eat. Your. Words. I'd rather he stay where he is. Less competition for those in the know.

I agree it's insulting to suggest someone's a shill because they're enthusiastic about the game. I apologize for that, and would like to say I appreciate you posting your impressions of playing the game. It's useful for those of us who can't go to the various cons ourselves. Unfortunately, it's not the first time it has happened in this forum, I believe both of us have had that charge leveled at us, certainly in a semi-serious context. *shrug* I'm going to be playing the demo this weekend, I know I won't be writing my views of it here.

Heh, this reminded me that the items that add or lessens aggro has never worked in DA. Neither has items that add received healing. Neither has items that weaken nearby darkspawn. Neither has who knows what else. Maybe simplifying things is a good thing after all? Less stuff to not work I guess Never mind the multitude of non-working equipment drops.

... here we go again. I don't think there's been a SINGLE game in this forum without somebody claiming these two. What the hell are you looking for? You want Al Pacino reading Kafka out loud?!

Indeed. Maybe even a jar of cookies. Oh, and re: taking the Fort by night. They seemed plenty awake to me, of course Boone and myself with anti-materiel rifles weren't exactly subtle going in...

You're screwed pal Forgive me, Claudia! As penance, you shall buy a $ 2500+ home theatre system for gaming. Like I did.* (Or just use IMDB in the future, like Deathdealer did. ) *just counting the audio section :pP

I can't speak for him, but I think we're thinking along the same lines and the point is that it's not a horrible idea, either. Hell, if it cuts down on the thirteen year olds playing online Call of Duty, I might start playing those games myself.

I'm going to assume that a lot of people think like me (wrong, I know), and assume that the problem with the fade was that it was an interminably long and boring segment within an interminably long and boring dungeon. Conceptually, the fade was fine (and the execution in Awakening somewhat better, even though Blackmarsh was pretty much my least favourite part of the game, as it, again, felt a bit stretched out). Wait, what? Who was she in ME2? One of the quarian generals(or whatever). And Matriarch Aethyta AND the Rachni Ambassador... Having wrong/missing content in one region of one platform doesn't quite sound like a complete "botch of the release", tbh. Considering that the Euro CE's of both ME2 and DAO were delayed by weeks.

Yeah, nothing says cool like motel drapes!

Vault 34 Security armor, 1st recon beret and sunglasses all the way, babies.

I hope this is less criminal & douchebaggy than it sounds!

Yeah. It took me less than 10 seconds, so something murky's definitely afoot with Tigranes' patch.

Very much this (is what I meant above).