Hurlshort

I finished off my taxes. California is really working the system, they dropped a ton of credits and put all sorts of limits on stuff, so I owe them about $500 but I'm getting a sizable return from the Federal government. Enough to cover my property tax and a few bills, but not enough to send $7k to GD I've got Saturday school tomorrow so early to bed.

Don't group your squaddies. Heh, I did have one of those on a terror mission, where on turn one an alien threw an explosive at the door of my ship and killed about 7 guys at once. The mission where my party got wiped was rough because I was doing quite well. I'd taken out 5 aliens on a downed small ship and lost two at the start as I exited the ship. I was moving into position to breach the ship. I went in and ended up facing three aliens, I took out one but the interrupt killed my soldier. I decided to regroup at that point, but as I was positioning one alien came out of the ship. He was a baddass and could not miss, and I couldn't get an interrupt. He took out 3 more soldiers. I had two on a roof top, so I started moving them in, but one panicked. The calm and cool one got shot by some alien off in a field somewhere, and my cowardly guy got shot running back to the ship. I actually had a pretty good terror mission on Terror from the Deep yesterday. I love how grenades burn down building in that game, I smoked out a few guys to win. But yeah, the cruise ships are a different story.

I retried Arcanum recently with the most recent saves and the high res. patch. It was much more enjoyable than when I originally played it and I finished it. I'm played ME2, but also a liberal dash of different Xcom games as well. I got massacred in my first mission in Xcom 1. Then I played 3 and found it a bit too easy. Then I played 2 and it was juuuust right. I'm still taking pretty heavy casualties, but my grenade usage is getting better.

I really don't know enough about regional restrictions to really discuss this, but I definitely see Gorgon and Pidesco's point.

I actually went to a massage parlour on accident once. I was looking for a deep tissue massage for my back because it was really tight. The website for the place said it offered such massages, and I'd passed it a couple times driving and it looked alright. So I made my reservation. I got there, and it was a little odd. I've been to a lot of actual therapeutic massage places, and this one wasn't quite right. First off, there were quite a few women working in the place, which is odd because a business like this usually does not support a large staff (watch the puns folks.) I was led to a room and told to undress and lay on the table. The table was horrible, not a real masseuse one with a spot for the head. There also was not a sheet to cover the unmentionables, just a small towel. I laid down and the masseuse came in. First thing she did was lightly tap my butt. She started in with the massage. It's hard to explain, but basically it was not a professional massage. It was a flirtatious massage, I guess is the best way to put it. It was very uncomfortable for me, and I really felt trapped. I was on this table naked, I wasn't going to jump up and run out. My body was responding in a way I didn't want it it to. She offered to finish the massage for an extra $60. I told her no. She left, I got dressed and found a back exit to leave by. I was mortified. I called my wife and told her the story. She wasn't mad at me, she was mad at the place and actually filed a police report. I was very uncomfortable with the whole thing for quite a few months. It's been a few years and it's easy to talk about now, but I really had a rough time for awhile. Anyways, maybe a little too much detail, but I figured I'd share. I guess if you go in looking for that sort of thing, it might be different, but I really hated it.

I get that, I really do. But none of this stuff is critical, it's all pretty much entertainment. So if you have to wait 6 months for something to release in your own country, why is that a big enough deal to break the law over? I've made the argument before that there is this odd sense of entitlement to the whole piracy debate that I've just never understood.

It was pretty painful how an elite soldier is not able to hop over a 3 ft/1 m gap in the floor. But at least it's much better than the Normandy crash site. I still haven't found all dog tags after returning to that place 5 times. Speaking of which.. what were they doing in there? And how did a bunch of fragile crates survive the ship blowing up and crash landing on a planet?

Boy, Bloodlines is one of my favorites, totally different experience compared to Redemption. But yeah, you need the big fan patch to make it stable-ish.

Are you paying for an American cable/satellite/tv license? Because that's where I see the big difference there. I think there has been a lot of progress over the years with offering media for reasonable prices over the internet. Many networks put shows up for streaming, hulu is a fantastic service for free, and services like Netflix offer a ton of content and are constantly working to add more. Heck, I just subscribed to Napster for $5 a month and I get unlimited access to a huge library of music. So there really are plenty of legitimate options out there. You might have to go without a certain show here or there. It's a bummer, but that is life. This is not anything we can't live without.

I'm surprised Atlanta was willing to take Patrice Cormier in that deal for Kovalchuk, after his elbow on that kid in juniors he is going to have a pretty rough reputation following him. Looks like the 1st round pick is the only real valuable thing they got.

I'm not sure how this is complicated at all. Piracy is an illegal activity. The same standard would be applied to a thread about illegal drugs. We can discuss the legal issues involved with it, but as soon as folks start promoting use or discussing personal experience, the thread will be shut down.

Haven't we already gone over this before mkreku? Mods are not paid employees. This is not his profession. He does not need to kiss up to members of the forums or play nicey nice with everyone. He is not breaking any forum guidelines by criticizing you, so get over it.

Redemption was neat for its time, but the best parts of it have been taken by other games and done incredibly better.

Is this like suing a car company because some jackass ran into you?

I'm not really comfortable hacking a save game, I'd worry that it might cause issues for using that character on ME3.

Agreed, it's not much of an upgrade over driving the Mako around. I guess it takes less time overall. Anyone else feel guilty about depleting planets?

I really enjoyed the dwarf commoner origin in DA. I actually started with the human noble and didn't feel it, and went with the dwarf next and never looked back.

It's a solid game. Not my top Bioware title, but nothing negative to say about it myself.

Dreamworks doesn't really have to be great though. They produce kids movies and they rake in numbers because of that. I own quite a few because my daughter just loves to watch anything animated.

I haven't even heard of Ponyo, so it doesn't sound like it really penetrated the US market, and the Oscars are first and foremost an American awards show.

Gotta agree on that one. The way he handled the reunion with Ashley was terrible. I tried to choose good options, but he was saying all the wrong things.

It's pretty funny that the guy who played Jayne is basically playing the same character on Chuck.

Bah, if you think you run out of hand cannon ammo fast... try the sniper. You get 10 shots before you run out. Sure, but those 10 shots are all headshot kills for the most part, and it's a slower process. Plus I only use the rifle to pick off the few people off in the distance.

I love the new combat so far, but the biggest change is the fact that I actually use my entire arsenal. I think that might have as much to do with the lack of ammo though, my hand cannon runs out like crazy.

Well, Nightshape did start his post with "this is all personal opinion." I'm going to stick by my position that needing to be online all the time is a serious line to cross, whereas invasive software and disk checks are just not noticed by the general public enough for companies to stop doing it.