Hurlshort

I'm not saying that the credits are the only benefit, I'm just saying that cost of these classes are only worth it because of the credits. Paying thousands of dollars just for the knowledge, when it won't affect your chosen career in an upward fashion, is a bad investment.

When I go to school, I'm not paying to learn stuff. I'm paying for units, which in turn increases my salary. It's great that they are making the information readily accessible, but the information isn't exactly top secret. I don't see how this is much different than buying a book on a subject.

The Song dynasty in China had a fairly effective meritocracy, but you ened up with mostly scholars in high positions. This might seem good, but in actuality it caused an awful amount of neglect for the commerce system and merchants. It also sounds like you'd have a few folks in power for long stretches rather than a steady churn. That never seems to work well.

I just saw it, excellent action movie and stunning visuals. The dialogue didn't bother me, but I wasn't expecting Shakespeare (although I'm pretty sure all the actors have a Shakespearean background.)

Or perhaps EB doesn't have the same employees in every store ... *yawn* Shush, don't interfere with the Volologic. Just watch in amazement

Hmm, I was actually bothered by the bad dialogue in Sin City. Is it similiar at all?

Wow, y'all are like my support group. I feel surprisingly better after readding all your responses. I did find it funny that the folks who called me out for arguing with the guy are the same folks who argue over the internet regularly.

Crackdown on the 360. It's basically GTA with cell shaded graphics and better 3rd person physics. The rooftop jumping is insane. I'm getting a Spiderman feeling when I play.

I went in to my local EB games in Gilroy, CA to pick up an Xbox360 game. Actually it's not my local store, but it is my favorite gaming store as the manager really knows a great deal about the latest PC games. Unfortunately he was not at the store this evening, and I was attended to by a salesperson named Andrew. He rang me up, and I commented on how disappointing it was that the Xbox360 games were still selling for $60. He said that will not change anytime soon. I responded by saying that Nintendo64 games also sold very high when that system was first released. Rather than agreeing to disagree, he very rudely said "No, they were $50." I stated an example I remembered buying for $60, and again he responded with the same answer. I don't mind being disagreed with, but his tone was dripping with derision. I was very close to simply returning my purchase simply because of his rude tone. I went home, not very happy. I decided to look up on the internet what the prices really were. I figured maybe I was wrong. It wouldn't excuse his attitude towards me, but it's nice to know. I found numerous mentions on the internet to back up my claim. So I called the store and asked to speak with Andrew. I explained to him that I had looked up the answer on the internet. He hung up very quickly. It seemed like pretty bad customer service. This game I just bought can easily be found at the Best Buy next door, and I'm still a bit tempted to return it, but I figure that means little to someone who makes no commision. So I felt that he should be reported, not necessarily for being ill-informed about gaming history, but for being ill-mannered towards a regular customer. I sent this entire write up into their reporting software. Anyways, felt I should share my lousy experience with y'all. Oh, the game I bought was Crackdown.

Screams straight to DVD release. It's a shame, because as a huge fan of JA I'll probably be foolish enough to rent it. I suppose they are banking on that.

Yeah, the whole tandem thing seems pretty intrusive to me. If I'm going to risk my life, I don't want some guy I just met stuck to me.

Great Idea! Married and happy: Check Child: Check in two months College degree: Check Great career: Check Masters: On hold, but it's close Doctorate: On hold Buy a house: Half-check, got a condo, but I want a house in the next 6 months. Debt-free: Student loans still to go, no credit card debt. Build Roller Hockey rink: Dreamin' Buy a Vacation home: 10 year goal Climb a mountain: On hold...need partners Go spelunking near the Black Sea: Dreaming Visit Europe: On Hold Visit South America: On Hold Visit a ton of places: On Hold Skydive: ... Oh yeah, it's about 78 degrees in Northern California right now.

That makes sense, since those two things are major causes for medical expenses.

Yep, US taxes really aren't too bad at all. There are a lot of trade offs. For example, I believe health care is completely free in Canada. It's a real nightmare in the US, but there are advantages. The US has some of the best medical facilities and doctors in the world because it's a system where the best get paid extremely well. When the government controls something like health care, it tends to cause mediocrity. There is no competition, no reason to strive for greatness, because it won't be rewarded.

Actually I have no clue what happened. I've posted them before and it worked fine, but this time for some reason they came out super small. Any suggestions?

It's even higher in countries with free health care and more socialist services. The average federal tax is only about 10% of a person's income, although it varies depending on salary, dependants, write offs, etc. I'm not complaining about taxes. I enjoy th quality of life I have in the US, and I know a large part of that is because I pay taxes. Of curse, my slary is also paid by the taxpayers, so it would be silly to complain too much on my end. No matter how low the taxes are, though, there will always be people complaining they are too much.

Clearly I'm a happy carpenter.

Woohoo, a cloak Group harvesting is awesome My noble steed

I just watched the Illusionist as well. I enjoyed it, but I found it hard not to compare it to the other magician movie, The Prestige. I liked how The Prestige realy explained every detail of the tricks, even the supernatural ones. Still, the Illusionist was a good story.

MMO's don't need to compete with WoW to be succesful. Pulling in around 100,000 subscribers can keep a solid revenue flow going. For example, City of Heroes and Everquest 2 are still doing very well.

I'd say the student Visa program is probably your best bet as well. If it turns out Oerwinde is a terrorist, we are all going to jail!

Yeah if you're happy with WoW I see no reason to change. It's the most stable game out there, and it stll looks great to me. I just have a short attention span and can never stick with one game too long. WoW kept my interest for nearly 2 years, so I definitely appreciate it. Not to be a total fanboy, but if you get tired of WoW ever, try Vanguard. There is plenty of magic. You can even levitate...which is surprisingly tricky. It feels more like controlling a boat than walking.

I do recommend getting an HDTV to everybody, even if it's a lower end model. They are pretty reasonably priced at this point, and the movie and gamin experience is a big step up.

Vanguard is very massive, and that's really why I chose it over LotR Online, although down the line I can see myself playing both. I wasn't actually sold on Vanguard until about 2 days before the game went live. Like you, it ran terribly on my machine and the bugs were numerous. But in the two weeks before release, Sigil put in major patches pretty much every day, including weekends. My performance skyrocketed, and once the debugging software was turned off, I was able to run smoothly enough with the graphics set to balanced. It is a beautiful game on those settings, and I can see how in a couple years it will continue to look stunning. The bugs are an ongoing process. I won't lie, there are a lot. But the game really has so much to do that it's not surprising. For example, my crafting was borked for a few days. So I stopped crafting and did diplomacy, harvested resources, and adventured. There are just a lot of different options. Things are being fixed often, and we are getting big patches every few days. I'm really just impressed at how hard Sgil is clearly working, and that is why I'm willing to pay them money. If the game was this buggy and I didn't see the effort, I'd suspend my account. There are three continents and something like 16 different starting areas. I really feel that Turbine missed the boat by not including places like Gondor and Rohan, although I understand the difficulty of designng such huge areas. If they release an expansion every 6 months with a new area, I can see it working, but otherwise I think the game will be old and people will move on before they really fill the world out.

I wouldn't go in with the expectation that the game is similiar to GW. It's very different.