taks

does my damage automatically go up with increased blade skill? taks

oh, it follows me outside fine... the sun does not matter. no effect at all that i can tell. yeah, better weapon... sheesh. might as well just suffer for a while. taks

it's a 9 on the listing... whatever that means. no traps around. either i brilliantly tripped them, or there are no more. the first two vamps went easily... this third is buffed up with lots o' cool armor. it's the green one with the maroon armor. taks

sure, sure, eldar... pick on the muscular stupid types. taks

nope... i'm a warrior. i have a katana, from the blades, enchanted with a sigil stone to do fire damage. taks

really? gee, i never would've guessed that. duh. taks

hehe, i'm a vampyre, too... not sure if i don't like it however, as my dude is pretty buff. anyway, it is annoying, the balance issues, when you're on the main quest and it is IMPOSSIBLE to get past a primary objective without 1000 deaths (clear the vampyre lair the nice lady says... sure i say, no problem). soooo, here i am vamping around, whacking everything else in sight (10th level i think) but i still can't get past the 3rd vampyre in the lair... ugh. anyway, with a regular 6800 (uh, all pipes turned on so it's nearly a ultra), 1 GB of PC3200, an Athlon 64 3200+ and win XP pro, i'm having quite a nice ride at "high" graphics. 1024x768 though i'm unsure of all the settings... textures are large. don't really care about the rest as it looks good enough on my monitor to make it nice. i haven't seen any of the major reported bugs EXCEPT, i got the black screen once in the first part of the vampyre's lair quest. reloaded and never worried about it again. taks

commissar, the problem is most likely that your new router does not have a proper MAC address loaded (from your ISP). you have to reconfigure your router to play nicely with your ISP. if you give me a bit i can point you in the right direction. who makes your router (uh, helpful if you have dlink)? taks

another point, don't ever tell him/her that you need a raise (i.e. rent went up, i need a raise), always state it as you deserve a raise based on your qualifications. taks

i'm not "keen" on oil companies developing new technologies, nor am i against it. rather, i don't care. if an oil company solves our long term fuel needs, yay. if it is someone else. yay. i.e. as long as they are solved. i simply think that the oil companies will be the first in line to fix their own long-term product problems. and alternative fuels are the answer. if they wait now, and someone else takes over, they'll never have a hand in the new market and they will all fail. atreides link is evidence to that end. taks

in a fiction novel. taks

you're right, it is not. taks

if the others' had actually taken the time to read my position, i think they would have noticed that it isn't much different than theirs. all i ever noted was 1) you need to have both sides of any story before drawing conclusions (i.e. the whole innocent till proven guilty) and 2) if they are guilty, they are caught, and should be punished. ??? pretty simple, yet somehow kaftan thinks i'm casting the "one side" as liberal to poison the well. never said such a thing, nor did i even imply it. the fact of the matter is that he actually committed a fallacy by offering a straw man, i.e. a weaker argument that is correct in that it is wrong to commit such an ad-hominem. unfortunately, i did not, so the straw man wasn't even complete. commissar thinks i discredited the pentagon report. didn't do that, either. all i said was the article was one sided (why didn't they follow up on cheney's comments?) and waxman has an axe to grind (uh, this is politics, and he does have an axe to grind). really, how hard is it to actually read what i wrote and comment on that, rather than misrepresenting what i'm saying so blatantly? these two automatically assume my position and no matter what i write, they read it as their preconceived notions about my "right-wing" viewpoint. shameful at best. particularly when i agreed with nearly every conclusion they had other than "guilty until proven innocent." i figured that, just thought that there was something you knew that i was unaware of. i.e. the chimps are organizing and we better watch out! taks

better and worse... it's sort of cliched the way they attempt to mimic the original version, however, the original is so campy that it's sickening sometimes. given that ICA is in english, it's a bit easier to follow. it also helps that the chefs are household names, well close to that, such as bobby flay and mario batali. oh, and marimoto from the original is pretty good, too but he doesn't have his own show otherwise. they've got a chick in there now, too, kat cora, whom my wife seems to like. chick power and all. so, overall, i'd say it is better. i'm a HUGE fan of alton brown, and he narrates with a lot of detail on the history and science behind the foods the cooks are using. taks

the closest thing to a "secret police" in the US is the CIA and maybe the secret service. the former has no power within our borders (legally, whether they use power is another story) and the latter really aren't all that secret. their power extends to protecting the government interests in particular (including money). other than that, a free society does not need such entities inside its borders. the threat of serious punishment for transgressions does nothinig to organizations that can't get caught. there is no way to control such a thing. taks

why don't you go back and read some of my posts in this thread. i'm not right-wing. for the record, it is next to impossible to be a "right-winger" if you're an atheist. good for you. uh, no sarcasm intended. yeah, and unfortunately, any time government provides these services, we have less education, worse health care and overall worse off conditions. it's not a surprise that the most prosperous countries in the world are the most capitalist. even those few standouts, such as oil rich nations, make their money to fund the socialism off of capitalism. it is seemingly having problems. to pawn a phrase off of gromnir... govments is like ska bands... the less you hear of them, the better off you are. my point? governments cannot accomodate everyone. the same reasons pure democracies don't work. the will of the majority will always leave someone out. is it fair to trample minorities' rights to favor the majority? rights are rights, they are all applied equally. the only method that has ever allowed this involves small government (with little or no control over business) and a capitalist economy. what people get out of the system is then directly proportional to what they put in. the more you put in, the more you get back (hard work, education, etc. returns high pay). phew, i wouldn't even know where to begin with this. yeah, we need a lot of people, but government just can't do it. government is strictly there to protect us. nothing more, nothing less. that's why the US Constitution was written the way it was, not to tell us what our rights are, but to limit the powers of the government (many have argued that the Bill of Rights was actually unnecessary as any powers and rights not explicitly given to the federal government were reserved for the people... i'm half and half on that idea). we could get into a huge discussion on why, but i don't have time at the moment (the day is done, time to go home and eat). hehe, i'm probably the most opinionated person on this board, if you don't already know that, you're not reading my posts entirely. glad you asked, however. but stop calling me a right-winger! taks

i wish... i certainly like to think i am. but who doesn't think themselves correct more often than not? uh, what is the chimpocalypse? taks

any ideology is annoying to those with a differing ideology. left wingers are self righteous, too, saying those on the right don't have any compassion or don't care about civil rights, etc. it's merely opinion of position. taks

wow, i forgot i still had darth taks as my sig. i need a new one. defender of the <insert obvious reference to something blatently right wing to appease kaftan, commissar and others> taks

oh, btw, kaftan, i never said it was left biased. problem 2 with your first bullet item. one-sided does not me "left" or "right", it simply means "one sided." that's an easy one. taks

you really need to understand what right wing is... i'm not. i am an extremist, but a libertarian at best. it is considered "middle" simply because i believe in some things the right likes and others the left likes. did i dismiss it? or did i simply say so far it is only one-sided. so much for your brilliant tactic number 1. really, you're as foolish as the rest. my "opponent" criticized me for disregarding the pentagon, when my first statement clearly called the ARTICLE one-sided. it is not my fault commissar failed to read that. brilliant list item 2 shot to pieces. i answered all of it other than the llyranor rant that was seemingly about something that made little or no sense. so much for brilliant list item 3. you really need to pay attention to the things i say. apparently, you hear only what you want and jump immediately to conclusion. again, where did i dismiss any of it? where? i said it was one-sided. we've heard from the prosecution, now we need to hear from the defense. that's how justice works. taks

when have i ever said halliburton has never done anything wrong? really. maybe. do you know for sure? in the absence of proof, you choose to automatically side with allegation. sorry, but i believe in justice. guilty until proven innocent. if they have done something wrong, and they may well have, then they should be punished. i hope to hell that ken lay gets his due. uh, i'm not a conservative. libertarian is a better term. as soon as possible. where have i EVER claimed the allegations had no merit? all i said was the ARTICLE was one-sided and you have a one-sided congressman lobbing charges. do you know for sure that cheney is wrong? nope, and neither do i know that waxman is wrong. two-way street there... mismanagement is likely given their repeated problems. do it too often and the government will revoke your ability to bid contracts. taks

it's got nothing to do with that. are you really that dense? all we have heard is one side of the story and you are ready to convict. you posted this article as some sort of definitive proof without any dissenting opinion. why is it so hard to fathom? i dance around nothing. i clearly stated wait till all the evidence is in.l edited out... how many times do i have to say it, allegations are allegations. proof commissar. PROOF. and, how many times do i have to say if it's true, they are caught. DUH! show me where i said that. also, show me PROOF. if the allegations are true, then they are caught. how much simpler can it be? sorry, you can barely even read my points yet i'm lacking? taks

funny, but the economy is in better shape now than under any democrat. in spite of 12 million illegals, we're STILL sitting at under 5% unemployment, inflation lower than any time in history. wages, in spite of cries from the left, are doing exactly what they do under any president: they're tracking inflation (a bit higher, actually). and, somehow, a republican is screwing up the economy? sheesh, man, how tough is this one to figure out. of course, if the idiot hadn't pushed the danged drug bill down our throats we'd be doing even better. never let one party control all branches... never. no, i need no hugs. i do need, however, for ATLAS to compile properly and pass all sanity tests. it's a real bitch today and i'm grumpy. taks

you're the one with the reading comprehension problem... i clearly stated: see? funny, but wasn't this article led off from the viewpoint of a congressman with a known axe to grind with the whitehouse? you're right, it works both ways. given that the article clearly favors waxman's opinion, and we don't have any other side to the story, the safe route is to actually wait for the evidence. of course, nooo, you need to hop right on the crucifixion bandwagon, don't you? apples and oranges. and, until the actual testimony came out, yes, i did. unlike you, i wait for proof. apparently you STILL cannot read. i did not say they get a pass, i clearly said: are you being intentionally obtuse today or what? i mean, c'mon commissar, you're smarter than this. taks