Hurlshort

They are too busy rolling around in piles of cash and having pillow fights with supermodels.

That's actually pretty informative. It sounds like this project may be getting more priority with the big games released, and that could be good news for it.

It was a tough call. KotOR 2 is what brought me to these forums, so that was definitely a big one. But they've really hit their stride of late, and I found AP and FO:NV to be incredible games. I finished them both, which is rare for me with other games. I haven't finished DS3 so it wasn't really in the running. I gave NV my vote in the end because it indulged my sandbox spirit as well as told a great story.

I'm curious how many tickets you folks have managed to get. I have 4 without really trying.

It's almost like the Titanic ended his career, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe it was because he played a total douche. I liked him in the Phantom, but I think that may have bombed at the box office. My favorite movie I've seen him in was a Tales from the Crypt full length feature film. He played a demon and was fantastic.

I'll never understand what happened to Billy Zane's career. He was making some great movies in the 90's, and then he just fell off the map and became a B-Movie star.

Krezack = Positive Energy Morgoth = Negative Energy Which one will triumph? Place your bets now!

PS3 patches are often huge though, I've seen quite a few that were over 100 megs.

I just re-arranged my Steam wishlist in case I win the raffle. I've got four tickets in right now. I put a bunch of newer games that haven't been released yet, I figure if I get lucky I want it to be worth some decent moolah, instead of a bunch of discounted games.

I'm going to Bend, OR, in a few weeks, and I plan on doing the tour of the 8 local breweries. My wife will be handling the transportation

You would think, but the game is actually named after a Japanese protagonist that throws red dishes at you.

I would give it a try except that it's using 3-machine limit Securom DRM in addition to Steam. If I'm already using one DRM system I don't like very much I'd rather not toss another one on top of that. How many machines are you planning on playing it on? It's only $10

Risen is an amazing RPG, if you haven't played it, get it. You should all buy Rift now, and join in on the thread we already have here.

Charter schools really only work on a small scale though. A charter school functions much like a private school, you end up with a community of motivated parents because they have to go the extra mile to get their child in that school. I consider them better than private, actually, because the teachers still have to be credentialed, continue their education, and follow curriculum guidelines. Really, each school district can only support a few charter schools, because it would lose the motivated community if every kid could get in one. Teachers that work at Charter schools do so expecting a strong parent community and well-disciplined students. If that is not guaranteed, they have no reason to give up their union rights. Unions protect teachers from bad parents and administrators. Unfortunately it protects bad teachers as well.

I'll never understand how people without children are late anywhere. You live a life of leisure!

No... Don't waste your money on that. Especially when Two Worlds 2 was 70% off just a couple days agao. I hate you. I was getting ready to settle in to Drakensang and now you guys are encouraging me to settle into Two Worlds 2. You may not be doing it intentionally, but it's happening! If it makes you feel any better, I am totally lost on what to do after the starter island in Two Worlds 2. I keep running into stuff way above me in level.

Oh man, I want that!

That's a good point. There are plenty of other avenues as well, test scores really don't improve me as a teacher. Professional development with my peers, new classroom strategies, and interesting new technology are what keep me from becoming stuck in a rut.

Been splitting time between Rift and Just Cause 2. I'm an artifact king in Rift, I've been selling my duplicates for a decent bit of coin.

No... Don't waste your money on that. Especially when Two Worlds 2 was 70% off just a couple days agao.

What is this pressure you refer to? Accountability? Doing ones job? The program sprung into place do to unacceptably high percentages of US children doing poorly. What entity is directly responsible for educating our children? Teachers. So if the teachers are asleep at the wheel dont you feel they should be held accountable in some way? Shouldnt there be some metric for grading individual teachers capabilities in how they perform their jobs? It just grades schools, it doesn't actually show which teachers aren't teaching to the test well enough. As for accountability, that is BS. I've told you that I teach in a high performing school. Our test scores are always at the top. Does that make me a better teacher than my wife, who teaches at a school in downtown that gets significantly worse test scores? Not at all! I'm pretty sure she works harder than me. As I said, my kids are already motivated, they show up on day 1 ready to learn. The parents and the entire community push for education, and the students respond to it. I can just focus on teaching. My wife deals with all sorts of crap on a daily basis. Gang problems, pregnancies, kids on drugs. Does that make her a bad teacher? Standardized testing does nothing to account for all this. If I was greedy and wanted a bigger payday, I would be pushing merit pay and standardized testing accountability. It would be great for me. But it's a stupid system that doesn't work in the least. I believe in teacher accountability, but our current system is nowhere near the answer.

Bleh Krookie, I remember the days of cheap beer from college. I would always tart with a couple shots so I could handle the pisswater like Keystone and Milwaukee's Best. I like a good wheat based beer, particularly in the summer. I'm actually planning a trip to Bend, Oregon this summer, and there is a microbrewery tour I plan on doing. They have like 7 breweries in a small area so you can stumble around to them all.

If they want to learn, sure. My wife teaches PE, and she can't even get a good chunk of the kids to dress out or walk a mile in 20 minutes. It's all based on communities and how they prioritize education.

Standardized testing is a waste of time and money. We have a bunch of politicians who have no experience or understanding of education pushing the weakest type of assessment as the ultimate indicator of student learning. I'm lucky I teach in a district where the parents do all the pushing for studying on standardized testing. That way I can focus on real things like critical thinking skills and writing a frickin' thesis sentence.

Does anyone in this forum doesn't have a mail order bride? I was planning to go the old fashioned way and meet someone but I don't want to stand out so count me too Edit:Wals did you receive yours yet? we all pinched in together and got you one. We were a little short, so we chose ground for shipping and handling. So if you get any large packages, open them quickly!