Hurlshort

Really sorry to hear that WD. Take care.

Seriously, my health care costs were skyrocketing before Obamacare even got passed. The system is broken. I don't think Obamacare will fix it, but all the people who attack it instead of coming up with reasonable solutions and alternatives are just another part of the problem. The cost of insuring my family of four through my employer right now is $600 a month. We are young and healthy, we don't smoke, we barely drink, we don't take part in bull riding or anything. That's crazy. My employer is shelling out a good deal more than that as well.

I agree, but that has been aided by watching my baseball team win the World Series, having a decent basketball team, my college football team making it to a bowl game, and the NFL. With football wrapping up soon, it will be nice to have some hockey to watch in February and beyond. Plus you still can't beat the Stanley Cup playoffs for entertainment purposes.

Time for a resurrection, as it looks like we will have a dab of hockey this season! The lockout looks to be ending, and a new CBA is apparently about 10 years long, so hopefully that means no ridiculous stoppages in the near future. It will be interesting how teams adapt to this very short prep time before the short season, and who comes out of the gate ready to compete.

That's a pretty good idea. I watched some movie with him called Driver recently. It was a bit of a tribute to the 80's, but he was very good in it.

Woohoo, go Warriors! Does Bogut stay healthy in the video game?

Crazy Stupid Love was pretty awesome, but I thought it was less of a romantic comedy and more of a bromance film between Ryan Gosling and Steve Carrel.

If you played ME1 and ME2, I don't know why you wouldn't want to finish the series, especially for a bargain price. Personally I enjoyed the way they brought closure to most of the relationships and storylines. The good far outweighed the bad.

Iron Sky - Campy and entertaining for the most part. It was a bit heavyhanded at the end with the whole anti-American thing, but I still got a kick out of most of it.

Lord of the Rings Online - This game is massive, and they made some pretty nice changes since I played last. I just got a pretty awesome legendary trait that allows me to call on a ghostly herald for help, instead of my typical squire I've had for the last four years. Kind of sad, actually.

Started the first of these Jack Reacher novels, and so far it's a pretty easy read.

The focus of the Ouya pitch seemed to be that they made a controller. I've just seen a lot of consoles fail, so backing an independent one seemed like a terrible idea.

Speaking of Del Toro, his giant sea monster versus robots movie looks interesting. Pacific Rim, I believe?

I enjoyed FTL a good deal, but I also found the mothership fairly impossible to beat. I made it there twice, and both times my ship that had done very well against everything couldn't get the job done.

Yes, kids do put a bit of a lock on the gameplay hours. I'm lucky if I get an hour before bed during the week. Weekends I actually get up early so I can play for a bit before they wake up.

Huh? Batman Begins was solid at the box office, I don't get the comparison.

Well it does look like you put a lot of effort into it, good job.

I typically play a new game a month, and I don't finish most of them. It's actually rare that a game keeps my attention longer than a month.

I thought very few of the dwarves looked good as well. At least Thorin was well done, and the brothers, but the rest were silly or easy to forget.

I thought the trolls in the Hobbit could have been done better. There were also a few scenes that I thought were designed simply to make a 3D experience worthwhile, and that bothered me. But the positives far outweighed that stuff.

I actually think there are parts that would make less sense if you hadn't read the books. I mean it wasn't hard to follow, but it helped to have that background. The LotRO game actually had quite a few connections as well, right down to collecting Bilbo's buttons in Goblintown

I have a few people close to me running small businesses, and I've really had trouble finding any evidence that Obamacare will negatively affect them. I have been looking, my mother-in-law has enough troubles keeping her doors open without new costs. But most of the facts I can find on small businesses read like this article: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/small_business/2012/07/nfib_is_wrong_on_obamacare_the_aca_should_actually_help_small_business.html

After watching The Hobbit, I got an itch to load up Lord of the Rings Online. Holy Moly, I forgot what a huge and complex game this is. I spent all day getting back into my level 62 (now 63!) character and catching up to speed on some of the events. I've still got a ways ahead before I can head to Rohan, but I'm making my way along the path to Saruman's tower and that should help me gain a few levels. I actually just did a quest where I traveled around the whole map talking to the Rangers and enlisting them to fight for Aragorn. It took me most of the day but I got to reminisce about all the great areas I had adventured in over the years.

Sadly the Republicans are too divided to even get much credit from these tax cuts. When you have a vocal group yelling 'let it burn!' it tends to make everyone look bad.

I can see Hiro's point, but I genuinely thought this would be a fun activity for my dad. We did have wine in the house by the way, just nothing special. My dad built a wine cellar in his house, collects bottles, and generally enjoys visiting vineyards. We had recently moved to this house and it was only a few blocks away from this winery. Also I'm no expert on wines, so giving my dad a chance to choose something nice for the dinner seemed like a good idea. My wife and I are definitely not the most formal hosts, but we do the best we can. We both teach full time and we've got two little kids to raise, so it's fairly amazing when we manage to get a dinner on the table. My wife's parents seem to recognize that, as well as all my good friends, so it is disappointing that my parents do not. I don't know, it just doesn't seem like any of this is worth dividing the family over. edit: The winery in question