taks

trust me, the degree doesn't help. overboard is never bad when choosing a PSU, btw. it is also my opinion that a server case, or at lest a mid to full-size case is the best bet. i have not ever found the "quiet" cases to be anything close to quiet, nor can i deal with cramped and compact cases. i guess i'm biased, however, since i've always had a rather larger area in which my rig resides, so compact is not really necessary. i'm also used to noisy rigs, so quiet isn't an issue either. heck, you ought to hear the dell server cranking in my office right now. 1.5 TB of HDDs (5 each at 300 GB) screaming away plus two core2 xenons and associated monster fans pumping out the decibels*. jet engine is an understatement. taks * as a funny note that only an engineer would likely be amused by, the plural for decibel is decibels, but the plural for the abbreviation of decibel, dB, is dB, i.e., there's no s on the end of it. i was watching some movie the other day and a chick playing a scientist/engineer of some type referred to some measurement in terms of "dBs," which elicited an immediate comment from me (my wife hates it when i do that).

i turned 40 today. taks

CO and OR are the two highest per capita micro-brew states in the US last i heard. every little po-dunk town in CO has its own brewery, and there's a lot of po-dunk towns in CO for sure. heck, even the "local" restaurant chains all have their own breweries, as do a bazillian (technical term) other restaurants. rock bottom and old chicago are two that come to mind immediately (both owned by the same corporation, btw). taks

well, not all department of defense people are military. lots of civilian jobs, too. as gifted1 noted, however, there's just about everything imaginable on a carrier. from what i gather though, most "specialized" jobs, such as accountants, doctors, etc., are filled by officers. taks

the denizens of st. louis are livid over this. this has the potential for major economic impact in st. louis. sand, that's the nature of the beast. if you want to drink good american beer, you have to go to bars that carry local beers on tap or find large liquor stores that carry the good stuff. rarely will you find anything from out of state even (unless you live near a border), though some are popular enough to have regional presence. fortunately, i can get most of the beer i like just about anywhere i go, but it's almost all from CO anyway. the mass produced crap typically serves one purpose: intoxication. as the joke goes, it's like having sex in a canoe: effing close to water. taks

well, there's actually more good ones than bad ones, just not all are available everywhere. you won't find either odell's or bristol brewing beer, for example, outside of colorado. taks

gotcha. had 'em reversed in my head for some reason... oh yeah, i don't play pnp anymore, that's why. taks

ah, i did find it, but didn't know it... actually, it looks as if tony_k did NOT actually implement these, rather, they were designed to work with tony_k's AI mod (hence the name), but written by Kaedrin and Reeron. that would explain why clicking on tony_k's name did not bring these up under a "submitted by" link. taks

oh, i thought a pit fiend was a demon... my bad. i can't find tony k's spell fix mod. taks

spell fixes? am not being paying attention lately... apparently. taks

i thought he was a devil? taks

yeah, but that thread went down in march, and MC hasn't been posting till recently. hence we get a new thread. taks

there are plenty of beers that don't taste bad, but any of the major beers (A-B, Miller, Coors, etc.) produced in the US, including the crap from across the border (particularly Corona), are arguably piss-water. good micro-brews abound, as well as a few major brands (such as sam adams, which is no longer a micro-brew but regularly wins beer contests around the world). oddly, pabst blue-ribbon wins taste-tests regularly, too. taks

i've never found any mexican beers to be any good. not even drinkable, IMO. there's at least one beer by franziskaner that i like, but it's not the weissbier. quality of beer out of the tap will depend largely on how often the establishment a) cleans their equipment and b) replaces kegs. places that carry micro-brews on tap likely clean their taps often, and probably go through beer fast enough that the beer is always fresh. in bottles, it just depends. the pool hall i play out of carries fat tire in bottles, but there are probably on a few people that drink it. as a result, the beer is likely always old, and thus a bit skunky. not that i like fat tire when it's fresh, either. taks

odell's: 90 pfennig bristol brewing: laughing lab sam adams: scotch ale i do like a good lager, too, but they simply aren't that popular in colorado. there are several good porters that come out of CO breweries, too. breckenridge brewery has a vanilla porter that i adore (normally i would not like the fact that it has vanilla in it, since that's contrary to the whole german brewing philosophy, but a porter is not technically a "beer" anyway). taks edit: Fat Tire is crap compared to other colorado ales, IMO. it's just got good marketing.

MC, you forgot the whole "death in D&D is either done right, done wrong, or simply screwed for crpgs, which is not necessarily a problem with D&D so much as it is with crpgs." as for volourn, Dwarf: The Game, which is an accompaniment to Yuan Ti: The Game for JE. taks

sigh... my favorite is a scottish/scotch ale. unfortunately, it is beginning to look as if i have a sensitivity to either wheat or yeast, both of which are fundamental components of a good beer, and yeast is more prevalent in the micro-brews that i prefer to drink anyway. sniff, sniff. oh well, i am a bacardi fan, and i do have a bottle of some good stuff sitting at home. taks

i didn't really care for the dragon's eye portion of IWD, either. at least, not the yuan-ti presence. it was really, really annoying with the cold damage noise every couple rounds or so. taks

nope, like waiting till your ass is on fire, then noticing that the carpet is on fire and deciding to do something about it. taks

never say never, GD. i've been hanging out with my buddy mark, who's in town from FL, this week. he's going camping with us this weekend at collegiate peaks campground. just got a wedding invite from another buddy, joe, in cocoa beach (mark plays on joe's sunday pool team, btw), so i guess i'll be back down there in september. of course, i also have a sister-in-law in melbourne, and she's never seen her nephew... but i'm not 100% she'll be my sister-in-law forever anyway, so maybe she'll never see him other than september? never, there's that silly word again. taks

yeah, i recall that, too. of course, in older D&D, 25 was the maximum stat anyway. i liked it better that way. a potion of storm giant strength made you as strong as a storm giant - 25 STR - not +10. "other than the newer versions who *do* make it easier now... " well, in all fairness, that is sort of the context of a discussion about a 3.5E game. taks

i'm thinking "crystal painkiller" is illegal in many countries. taks

noted the additional cost... i do recall the constitution check in earlier D&D versions. once you failed, you were a goner. as i recall, elves could not be raised, either. but they could be resurrected. taks

oh, i realize this. i think PnP actually has XP costs for all higher level spells anyway, which would rule out saving a whole village of your minions should the need arise. yeah, why not. maybe they got blown to bits, too. taks

isn't it "sometime this fall" for SoZ and "once DRM is in place" for MoW? of course, the DRM thingy may hold up SoZ as well, which could eventually mean "sometime, hopefully, before we all die of old age." taks