taks

once a marine, always a marine. my brother has been out since 1994, and he's still a marine. taks

a) they have not "politely asked us to leave." check your facts. b) they have not descended into civil war, either. at least not yet. and our presence is not necessarily the reason for a lot of the problem. insurgency from iran, however, may be. obviously you do not understand the definition of an empire. are they actually teaching in schools anymore? taks

i'm not sure if camping counts as "extreme," but this year we intend to start "scatter camping." this means you find a place out of the way, then go off road to a nice spot. no facilities, just roughing it (with complete gear of course) in the wilderness. my son is old enough that he we can handle being without facilities for a weekend or so. once he's 7 or 8 we'll start hiking up into the forest. i've found some really, really, really nice places down near aspen (actually on independence pass, btw). the pass is closed through july, so there is not much traffic near the sites. taks

ayup. my suggestion would be to learn an extreme sport. i know two now, surfing and skiing. taks

does it count if you're drunk? regularly. uh sure #3. i've known about what i've wanted to do since i was 7. married, and the wife does not like me to paint her with anything. i don't eat breakfast, and i'm an electrical engineer. first two are impossible, and i shower daily, sometimes twice, so i smell ok except right now due to massive amounts of liquor from last night. oh, my record is about 1 week without sleep. i can only sleep about 6 hours. sure #4. taks

weekly. hung over right now. uh, sure #2. do that as often as i can. can't dance, so simply going out to dance satisfies this. not pretty/handsome, either, so vanity is not one of my issues in life. did that last week. start the new job monday. taks

does staying up to see them thar rays from the other side count? either way, i've done it both ways. the drive up to the mountains on ski days are amazing. uh, sure. i'm diligent every day at work. i'm one of them folks that actually enjoys what he's paid to do. my corner is a busy one. i think about this every time someone gets stuck in the 6" of ice that's still there. artistically declined. taks

or old. at my age, 30 would take, well... 30 days at least, not counting ice time. taks

the blues, btw, are now only 3 wins out of .500. they've moved ahead of chicago now, too. of course, in 3rd place 21 points out of 2nd is nothing to write home about. if they keep up the pace, however, earning 15 points every 20 point opportunity (7-2-1 last 10 games), they'll finish out the season at 101 points. woohoo!!! yeah, i know, tough pace to maintain, but their playoff chances are increasing rapidly. i wouldn't be surprised if they do end up with over 90 points for the season, which could easily be playoff material. taks

yes, as JE and i noted, only one companion so it wasn't that much of a deal. also, i usually play the spellcaster so i always had red tiger (brute) type npcs in NWN1. NWN1 or NWN2? terrible in NWN2. i think it's been discussed in other places. i know sammael griped about it in his thread. i didn't notice as much the first time through because i was in "standard" rules, so AOE spells did not hurt. i.e. i could spam fireball, et. al., on the group and whack everyone w/out noticing that orcs/thieves/<insertbaddyhere> kept appearing out of nowhere. they all died before i did so i didn't care. yes, josh, more time on AI!!! so far, that's really my only _real_ gripe about the game. there are minor things that don't change my gameplay, but nothing substantial. 2nd time through and i'm having a lot of fun anyway. it just gets frustrating when scores of baddies appear and qara is doing her best to fry us all. i almost went over and whacked her myself. fortunately, she finally ran out of lightning bolts. taks

i must say, now that i'm playing through on hardcore with a fighter type, this game can be excessively difficult. respawning/instaspawning orcs are the issue now. it is ridiculous. my characters get walloped by 20 or so at a time, and the party AI is sooooo bad that half the time one or more of my fighters is actually just standing there, not doing anything because a splinter in the floor is in his way (i'm assuming). really need to get on the AI thing. it's abysmal. i guess it wasn't noticeable in NWN1 since you only had one partner at a time usually. eve then, their AI wasn't this bad. taks

no other fanatic currently has quite the pull in fanaticist islam as ben hidin. he's become a symbol more than anything else (heck, he's a saudi for crissakes). taking him out renders a serious blow to their over-inflated egos. taks

yup. native resolution brings with it many problems. as i noted, i recently acquired two LCDs. one is the 213T from samsung (21"), and the other is some sort of 20" dell. with a 6800, i'd screw myself a new orifice if i switched from my 19" CRT (dell, too). oh well... dead monitors sitting in my man-cave with no apparent home. taks

i was referring specifically to many complaints that were often tied to widescreens, with 1600x1050 resolution, for example. with such a high, non-4:3, resolution, the game becomes GPU bound. contrast that with my system, which is rather low-end, running on a CRT with 1024x768, with no performance problems (i did have to turn of v-sync, however). but yes, games are moving to wide-screen support, which will make that a moot point soon enough. i have a 213T (samsung) at home just waiting for a high-end GPU and games that will take advantage of it! taks

keep in mind when buying an LCD, there are several hangups that can cause performance issues. first, the native resolution of most larger LCDs is either 1280x1024 or 1600x1200. you'll get your best picture when running in a native resolution mode, which taxes your GPU considerably more than lower resolutions offered by CRTs. second, many native resolutions are NOT 4:3 aspect ratio (e.g. 1024x768 or 1280x960) which is an issue with many games. many games are designed to only support 4:3 aspects. this will be particularly the case for widescreen LCDs. if you have a powerful graphics solution, then you shouldn't have a worry. based on what i've seen, however, with NWN2, non-4:3 aspect ratios tend to perform poorly even with newer graphics cards. just a note... taks

the blues are now 4th from the bottom, not dead last. they're hotter 'n hell. 5 games to go to reach .500. taks

it is actually illegal via the constitution of the US to hand over sovereignty to any body other than the US government. no matter what treaty is signed, ultimately, the US government answers to the people of the US ONLY. that is a fundamental concept of "sovereign." taks

oh no... they wouldn't penalize you _that_ much... maybe only -10.. taks

btw, timed tests are poor differentiators for high-end scoring. even the most brilliant of us have to think for a while on really difficult questions. the "hardest IQ test in the world" (aka the mega test), i believe a pure analogy test written by ronald hoeflin, has an unlimited time and only 48 questions. answering 9 correct puts you at 132 IQ (SD 15)... that's with a dictionary and thesauras and the internet at your disposal... pretty tough test. taks

those are, supposedly, the high-end differentiators. the first 30 or so took me about 10 minutes (with distractions from work). the next 5 or 6 took another 10 minutes and i spent about 15 minutes on the last 3 or 4. taks

no kidding, he shipped them all to syria while the UN was waffling around trying to decide what to do. taks

they'd have better luck focusing on syria for those stockpiles. taks

re: #2... i hope not. i wouldn't mind a beginning module that only went to 8 or 9. i am really opposed to "caps" on level, however, but a well balanced module will put you where the cap would otherwise be if you don't power scour everything. i just like the possibility of going back and replaying in power mode to see if i can reach higher levels. mark

double secret probation... taks

apparently you weren't a part of the bioware boards when this all went down, eh? suffice it to say, many of us regulars were shocked, dismayed, disappointed and even outright angry. even the codex regulars scorned the interplay debacle and they tend to be generally anti-bioware/interplay (post fallout). we were shocked, of course, but not truly surprised. taks <{POST_SNAPBACK}> apologies, that should read "apparently you weren't a part of the black isle boards when..." not bioware. oops. sorry if i confused anyone. taks