Did the servers all just crash or is it just me? Got into game for about 5 minutes then received a Disconnected from Server message now the launcher wont even open up, keeps saying can't find the patch server. Tried checking the forums but they seem down as well??

Ah login queues! My old nemesis, how I've missed thee! #13,626 I've now been sitting in a queue for 30+ minutes. I realize its day one of a new title but sorry after 15 years of historical data to work from queues of this magnitude are unacceptable. Mybe I'll give the game another go in a week or so but too many other games to play to sit and wait for hours to login.

so, this is out now and the big question, is MP worth the shortened dev cycle?  kotaku basically called this a OMD 1.5 but was all right with it. 

The multi-play adds alot to the game especially if you are co-oping with friends (which you sort of have to do since there seems to be no lobby). The addition of the Sorceress is very complimentary (new skills and abilities) rather than just having a second character on the map. The difficulty seems to have been ramped up quite a bit IMHO. I played the first Orcs and had no problem whatsoever 4 and even 5 skulling my way through the first 10 or so maps while I am already stalled on map 6 of Orcs 2 (I can complete the map but so far not without loosing Rift points) and co-op ups the difficulty even another notch. The dev's went above and beyond in adding more depth to the game with tons of new traps, weapons, trinkets and loads of upgrades for each.

I did encounter some bugs with the game, constant crashing on one particular map, Orcs getting stuck and being unhittable so you cannot complete a map and targeting seems off somehow, I've missed an Orc firing from point blank range right in its face.

My only real issue with the game is I have been playing alot of Dungeon Defenders lately and it's hard not to bias my opinion and I personally think Orcs and Orcs 2 falls short. Particuarly in the "walls" aspect. Proper wall type usage and wall placement to funnel creatures is a huge part of the strategy in Dungeon Defenders and mostly non-existant in Orcs 2. You have access to barricades but they are extremely cost prohibitive and a single hit from a couple of Kobold Sappers will wipe out all your walls and the game likes sending Sappers out 6 to 8 at a time.

The OMD games definitely have a more player involved and visceral playstyle but  if you enjoyed the first game I'd say you will  like the second and co-op can be alot of fun.

Thanks for the Scroll ericb!

Unfortunately it appears my account was hacked/compromised while I was away and then the person used a stolen credit card to run up a bunch of charges i.e. server moves etc. Obviously the owner of the credit card disupted the charges and so my account went in to default. I managed to get that straightened out with a very helpful Blizz support person but it also made my account ineligble for the Scroll deal since it had been active recently. Again I managed to get THAT straightened out as well but while the hacker had control of the account they obviously sold off pretty much everything that wasn't nailed down and stripped all my characters of cash etc. Blizz did their best but they said due to the circumstances they could not fully restore everything.

So I am going to attempt to try and regroup over the next few days but it may be a bit beyond redeeming. The Blizz rep did say if I sub for the month you are still eligible for the rewards you will just need to contact them via a ticket with some info which I will gladly provide you.

Anyone want a shot at a free mount? Looking for a Scroll of resurrection  Odds are pretty good I will sub for at least the necessary month.

I currently have one character in Nightmare, althought I have 2 more quickly reaching the same point, a level 35 Monk. I played this character through Normal exclusively as a duo with a buddy of mine from start to finish, now as I solo through Nightmare I am sorely dissapointed by the items that are dropping. Yes Yes I know "Use the AH!" but quite honestly I do not want to use items that other players have found I want to use the cool loot that I find, isnt that the point of a loot based game like Diablo, Torchlight, Titans Quest etc. I am not looking for the "Uber Sword of Instant Death" with every monster killed but I have yet to swap a single piece of equipment in nearly 5 levels. Diablo 2 Normal to Nightmare progression had a very marked demarcation between items Im just not seeing here. I found at least a dozen blue drops last night with stats less than +8 on them. The Skeleton King dropped two really common type blues and NO yellows for me when I killed him, I know the yellows are only guaranteed on first kill but I thought that was first kill EACH difficulty tier.

Now I am wondering if playing in a group increased the level of loot or simply increased the number of mobs/champion packs we encountered to the point that law of averages dictate we had a better oppurtunity to find better gear drops or possibly I am just having some bad luck in NM at the moment.

Once again I know I can use the AH to upgrade but Im not having an overly difficult time so far, (still only one death on this character to a certain ice based sub-boss in Act IV normal) and quite honestly If everyone is simply going to use the AH then really the "chasing that next great gear drop" aspect of the game has devolved into simply amassing huge amounts of in game gold to buy what you want. Has Blizzard outright stated that the addition of the auction house has altered how they designed the game in terms of loot tables and drop percentages?

Blizzard obviously can design their game any way they wish, however saying that it's necessary to remove the ability for players to assign attribute points for their own good (i.e. broken character builds) is pretty lame and border-line insulting. Essentially this person is saying as a gamer I am too stupid or inept to figure out the "correct" way to build my character.

There is an insane amount of information available about every minute detail of Diablo 2 in regards to character builds and game mechanics, is there some reason Blizzard feels the same level of OCD-like attention to detail will not be forth-coming for Diablo 3 or that prospective D3 players are all unfamiliar with Google/Wiki?

How about a simple respec mechanic, even a severly limited one, that allows a player to adjust their characters attribute points at one or two points along their characters progression to fix any game breaking mistakes the dev's are so certain we are all going to make.

Witch Doctor "Haunt" skill is essentially a DoT (damage over time) that will jump to an additional target if the original dies within a given amount of time AND there is another target within close proximity. Base damage is fairly big, around 575% of weapon IIRC, however it's spread over about 12 seconds. You can modify it with runes to return life or mana as it ticks or reduce the time it ticks for a much quicker kill etc. etc.

My biggest complaint so far with the overall game, which was also touched upon by Ritt, is the lack of specialization. In Diablo 2 I like playing a Sorcerer heavily specced in Ice. While the Diablo 3 Wizard does have cold based attacks you cannot really "specialize". Diablo 2 had like 9 active Ice type skills and 1 passive where as D3 has a total of 3 plus one rune mod for another non-cold skill that adds some cold effects. I enjoyed dumping tons of points in to one or two skills like traps or pets to see the effect and definitely miss that level of customization in D3. I know there are tons of ways to loadout your characters skills to make them "unique" but the reality of this type of design is there will most likely be one or two acceptable/succesfull builds for Hell/Inferno (if you dont want to die over and over).

I probably watch about 4-5 hours over the course of the entire week and I rarely go to or watch a movie. I am a full time student (giving College another go) and that consumes the vast majority of my time, in school 5-6 hours 4 hours per week and average another 5 hours or so of study, reading, homework time each evening. When I can squeeze it in I enjoy reading (non-school related), I recently requalified for my A+ and I am studying for my Net+ now (shooting for September), I study 2 different Martial Arts and prior to going back to school I trained 5 to 6 days a week for 3+ hours per day (not quite so much atm) AND I try and squeeze in some gaming time as well....SO happy Diablo 3 released just as I was starting a 3 week inter-semester break 

Would getting an associate's degree be the right course for someone who already has a B.S. in an unrelated field?

This would depend on your overall goals. Do you want to be hands on technical, write programs/code/applications and are you looking to move in to management?

As mentioned in previous post Associates in IT typically come in two flavors, one for the highly technical minded that are a)looking to be in the trenches and b) seeking quicker employment. The second flavor is for those looking to move in to Information Systems Managment, looking to specialize in programming or looking to offset the cost of a four year degree by taking their pre-reqs in a two year school first.

I have found most colleges will accept/transfer credits for courses going back about 10 years for your math/english/humanities etc. classes and about 5 years for advanced science classes. College algebra is college algebra, English composition is still English composition. I would speak with a local college counselor and see how much of your current B.S. you can apply to a  4 year CIS/CS(tend to be B.S.) or MIS (tends to be B.A.)degree. Why repeat classes you have already taken and payed for in the past?

Skip the Certificates and focus on the degree. Going for your A.A.S, Associate in Applied Science, will require taking many of the same courses as those offered for the certificates, why not apply them to an actual degree and your brother can always still take the Cert exams.
Most C.C. offer two degree paths for an A.A.S. either CIS, Computer Information Systems or IT. The CIS degree is typically easier to transfer to a 4 year program for your Bachelors in Computer Science, the IT degree is more hands-on techie stuff and structured for people looking to get out in the world and start earning a living. In either case having a degree is not going to be a hinderance.
10 years ago I would have said it's not that big a deal in the IT world because it really wasnt. IT used to be one of those career fields where experience and know how were what really counted. Today it's a different story. The current economy and the abundance of IT savy folks have made it an employers market and companies are setting the bar fairly high now a days. Peruse your local want ads, craigslist, monster.com etc. and SOME sort of formal education is requirement for most jobs followed by a lengthening list of certifications. Employers no longer advertise for JUST an MCITP or JUST a Net+ now they want a whole alphabet soup.
CCNA is an awesome certification to have but it's still one bitch of an exam and even if someone passes I would not recommend trying to step into a job as a Cisco Admin/Engineer without at least 2 years of real experience or that person may quickly find themselves in over their heads.
MSCE has pretty much been repaced by MCITP, plent of info on MCITP on the web. If the school your looking at is offering the "MCSE" rather than one of the newer certs I'd do some more checking.

So to recap, Community College is an awesome starting point to gain some credentials to break in to the IT field....Skip the quick certification track and go for the 2 year degree....your brother should examine his long term goals, does he see himself happy getting his hands dirty and doing the actual tech work or does he aspire to Information Systems Managment....Pick the appropriate degree path.

Finally Cisco UC/UCS isn't really something you just take a couple of classes to pick-up. You need a fairly significant background in network infrastructure and architecture.

Attempted to download the demo from Steam but I keep receiving an error message that the Steam servers arent configured to download it, tryed using Origin website but they insist you download an entire clien just to download the game. Not a very productive way to offer a demo.

Timothy Omundson (Aric Jorgan) is a Movie and TV actor most notably for Detective Carlton Lassiter on Psych

Stacey Haiduk (Akaavi Spar) also hottie TV actress, I remember her from that futuristic submarine show with Roy Schieder.

Azura Skye (Ashara Zavros) another movie and TV actress, she did bunch of movies, I remember her from an episode of House and she was in a sitcom years ago with Selma Blair and Michael Rosenbaum

Tara Strong (Risha) has been around for years and is one of the industry top voice actors, if you've watched a cartoon or played a video game in the last 15 years you've heard her voice.

Tom Kane (M1-4X) same as Tara Strong, long time voice actor and recognizable to most animation/anime and video game fans.

No clue on alot of the others.

[Spoiler]

Caught this on DVD not too long ago and really enjoyed it althought I agree the movie started to loose something toward the end. I will say though that I became heavily biased toward liking the movie when about 5 minutes in;

Spoiler for Hiden:

Rango (Johnny Depp) is struck by a cherry red convertible being driven by an animated Hunter S Thomson (previously portrayed by Johnny Depp) with Gonzo riding in the back seat

If your looking for an MMO but want to avoid monthly fees excluding WoW, Rift and the just released Star Wars The old republic EVERY MMO out there has a free version; City of Heroes/Villians, Champions Online, Everquest 2, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings online, Dungeon and Dragons Online, DC universe online, Anarchy Online. There are also the 2nd tier market MMO's like Rune of Magic and Forgotten worlds, also free.

Considering a server move to Dreshdae to join the guild before getting to deep in to the game. Is everyone 30+ now or are there a few lower level folks still around, we can probably hit low 20's by the weekend with a little work but if the majority of the guild is already level 30-40 might wait for the first wave of alts? Is there a decent turn out of guild members in the evenings? Would like to be able to run flashpoints more reliably and with just my buddy and I it's getting harder as they FP's ramp up in difficulty.

Myself and a couple of friends are playing on Elysium if anyone else is on that server.

As to character classes I have run several different classes up to level 20 and IMHO the Sorcerer/Sage are the best class in the game. Better than average DPS, better than average heals EVEN unspecced, excellent crowd control and great buffs. I would give a slight edge to the Sorcerer A) because there attacks fire quicker due to shorter animations B)Empire story lines have more flavor IMHO.

Running a close second is the Commando/Mercenary for basically the same reasons as listed above. They can heal, do great DPS and by the early 20's they have a good selection of crowd control as well.

Smuggler/IA started out as a fun class to play ( I tryed both) but by level 20 the "cover" mechanic was becoming cumbersome. Also did not help that it's still rather buggy and does not always work correctly. Smuggler/IA is also very niche in PvP as PvP is generally about momentum and having to stop and take cover repeatedly breaks that momentum.

I also ran a Sith Assassin and found stealth, at least in the 10-20 levels to be useless. The Assassin gets one ability that requires stealth at level 20, Mind Trap, which is a 60 sec sleep which does NOT work on droids and does NOT work on targets in combat. Force Lift and Concussion Round work on any target any time. Slice droid is restricted to droids but at least works anytime. Needless to say I was not impressed with the Force stealth class.

I did not try out the Tech stealthers so cannot say how they compare with the force stealth classes.

I also leveled a Jedi Sentinel to 21 but shelved him as A)There are already a ton of DPS'er running around B)I did not like the flow of skills. At first glance it appeared the Sentinel skills had alot of synergy which I found appealing but in actual play alot of the synergy is very conditional and those conditions are not always easily met. I also found the Sentinel to be a little too button mashing for my taste. It is also very possible Im just not very good at playng the class.

I plan to level up a Tank to at least 20 next, I've grouped with both Guardians and Vanguards and was very impressed by how much damage they can absorb, especially when paired with a good Sage. I was also surprised at how much damage a Guardian can dish out for a tank class.

If you like the Paladin type classes I'd say try the Commando/Mercenary. Heavy armor with a mix of good healing and DPS. If you like the druid I'd say try the Sage/Sorcerer, no shape-shifting or stealth but a good mix of healing,buffing and ranged DPS and appears to be the most soloable class in the game.

Having some issues with getting in to the game. I already have everything up to Sentinels Fate installed on my computer, when I launched the station launcher it did a 3GB update but when I tryed entering EQ2 after the update completed I kept getting the message "Login Rejected" Clients Version does not mach the servers." so I uninstalled JUST the sation launcher, re-downloaded and re-installed. Now when I attempt to login Station Launcher is insisting I install the EQ2 Trial. I do not need the trial I already have the game installed Anyone know if I need to completely uninstall Eq2 then do a full re-install just to use the F2P??

Downloaded the Demo and played through the first and only demo mission "Foundries and Forges" with the Mage. Interesting twist on the tower defense genre.

I tryed the same mission as the squire and the first 99% was easier than the Mage but I could not kill the Ogre and actually failed as the Squire. The blockades do little to no damage and the Ogres club attack keeps it outside the range of the bouncer traps. The best weapon I found was about 18 or 20 damage with an upgrade and the Ogre has 5,000 hp. Whats the strategy for defeating the Ogre as a Squire?

The other classes are not available in the demo so have not had a chance to try them yet.

Question for anyone playing a mage type post level 20, which element are you finding the most viable?
I typically prefer doing cold/ice when playing a mage type but it seems the logical choice in Skyrim is Fire. A significant number of creatures and NPC's (Nords, Ice Troll, ALL UNDEAD, etc.) are highly resistant to ice and from experimenting Fire just seems to outright do more damage. I was hoping the sub-par damage of ice would be offset by it's reported slowing effects but so far, currently level 14, it does not seem to impact creatures very much. I have definitely noticed the slow effect on my character when struck with Ice but enemies still close distance very easily even when struck with double ice spikes. Anyone else attempted an Ice focus?

Second question to anyone using companions or henchmen, how do you deal with the annoying game mechanic of friendly fire? As a ranged mage type I have been seriously debating dumping my companion as it's more a hinderance than a help now. He has a penchant for stepping right in front of my spells and in narrow corridors makes targeting an enemy more difficult than it should be. Had one battle against a Bandit Chieftan I should have easily won but could not launch any attacks in fear of hitting my companion.

Forgot to mention in previous post you can contact me in game via tell or email at @neuromancer. Mouse over either of the Police officers standing at the entrance and you should get the little blue "clicky" hand to enter. Same for any hazard zone.

Killed a new dragon and when I went in to activate my 2nd shout had some issues and then realized I had to hit the 'R' Key which I most likely missed earlier. Fixed my previous post and thanks to those that responded with the info.

I play pretty exclusively on Virtue, I have a whole gambit of characters throughtout the level range. My Main is a 40ish controller and I have been playing quite a bit with a new 20ish controller and a 20ish scrapper.

I know theres some folks that play on Pinnacle and Exalted. There is a SG established on Virtue I can invite you in to as well but It appears I am the only one still actively playing on Viture.

If your bringing in some old characters be sure to respec if you have one available. The majority of the health pool is now given for free (no power pick spent) and you dont need to pre-req travel powers so depending on your original build you can regain 3 or 4 additional power picks.

Plugged away at that same dragon for awhile and learned a few things for myself. Shield bash, which I use all the time, can stop the dragons breath if your timing is near perfect. Managed to pull this off a few times and saved on the damage considerably, unfortuantely still died (a bunch of times).

I am not sure what tirggers the special cutscenes the but dragons is sort of cool, had it almost dead in one fight and before I could land a killing blow I was treated to a cutscene of the dragon enclosing my body in its jaws and shaking me around like a rag doll before tossing me through the air and killing me

The dragons can aggro other nearby creatures, had it down to under 10% health and when it flew up and circled around it flew off really far and brought in a pack of wolves with it which in my weakened state killed me.

After dying and experimenting a bunch of times a small party of Stormcloaks spawned nearby during one of the reloaded fights and attacked the dragon.... it killed all three of the stormcloaks   but they weakened it enough I was finally able to kill it. I was actually tempted to reload again as I felt sorted of cheated after spending so much time battling it over and over to have some one else essentially kill it.

Now the bad part AFTER killing the dragon I found a nearby Word of Power but could not seem to learn it as it said I needed a Dragon soul, which I acquired just a little while earlier, apparently you can waste a dragon if you kill one with no Words of Power to empower.

I also slogged through several more loot runs back to town and managed to purchase the first house. Encumberance is still annoying and IMHO not well handled in the game but having the house has made it WAY better.

Does anyone know if clearing a dungeon before receiving a quest to enter breaks quest lines?? I would like to explore some of the dungeons I've uncovered but worried I will run in to a problem later if its flagged as "cleared" when I receive a quest.

Ok how in the hell are folks killing dragons?? I am currently playing a Nord Shield + 1-hander and I cannot find a viable strategy for dragon slaying. I attempted the first dragon via main quest line at level 5 and died at least a half dozen times before finally beating it and truth be told I didnt really do much as the NPC's did all the damae and I just landed the killing blow. I am now level 7 and have come across another dragon out near Eldergleam and with just me and Lydia I have died 5 or 6 times and I have yet to hit it once!! One shot of dragons breath does 70-75 damage which is half my total health at the moment. The dragons arc of fire is about 120 degrees so trying to attack from the side is useless. This particular dragon is actually using a smarter AI and simply strafes the area with firebreath from the air. I am unable to dodge or block the breath attack so I am instantly at half health if and when it does land by the time I race up to smack it I get hit with another gout of flame and die. Conversely in one or two of the reloads the dragon chose to land... I ran over to it taking a face full of fire then it immediately launches into the air... lands again I run over .... it launches into the air etc. etc. I've tryed using terrain as cover which helps a bit but I still take splash damage WHICH then sets me on fire anyway. What is the strategy for dealing with this, my biggest issue is how to avoid the breath attacks and still be reasonably close enough to engage it after its finished spewing fire.

Also how in the world do you use hotkeys, I did the favorites opened up Q set my numbers to various configurations i.e. shield+weapon, bow, Shield+spell, Just spell etc. I can cycle through the hotkeys with no problem then I get into combat attempt to switch weapons and voila all my Q settings become discombobulated.... and no I do not have multiples of the same items I am hotkeying. I've spent almost as many hours messing with this as playing the game.

I have to be the only gamer on the face of the planet who is not blown away by this game. Not saying it's a bad game but I simply am not seeing the uberness through the haze of glaring annoyances.

Aside from the obvious UI issues the embumberance limits are IMHO ridiculous. I spend 2 hours in a dungeon and 3/4 of that time is inventory managment trying to figure out what to throw away and what to keep and running between corpses trying to salvage the higher priced loot etc. Completely removes the immersive nature of dungeon crawling for me. As a Nord melee'r I really want to wear heavy armor but I am starting to feel the weight, at least the lower tier items, simply prohibits it's use. Do I need to waste Perk points in light armor until I can find "lighter" heavy armor? How are folks dealing with the embumberance limits? I have twice slow walked back to town after clearing a dungeon and I do not think I can do it again, reminds me of the "slow motion running" nightmare.

As a Ex- Former Marine - I celebrated with a large amount of Rum and Tequila (and almost got into a fight when the girl that was driving me around stole a parking spot).

Good night.  :-)

El

Did a couple of quick searches and did not turn up much info so for those who are playing; does the game support co-op play, i.e. multiple human players teamed up against computer AI opponents?

Armor - John Steakley (one of the absolute best SF books ever written IMHO a must read for any SF/Fantasy fan)
Neuromancer - William Gibson (Gibson basically created Cyberspace and Cyberpunk with Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overddrive)
Foundation Trilogy +1 - Isaac Asimov (Great piece of classic literature)
Saga of Pliocene Exile -Julian May
The Galactic Millieu Series -Julian May
Soothsayer/Oracle/Prophet - Mike Resnick (a light trilogy based in a universe Resnick created, he has some other books centered there as well)
Dreampark Trilogy -Larry Nivens/Steven Barnes

These are a few off the top of my head I will add more as I think of them.

As a side note if you've got a year or so to kill you can start reading the Erikson stuff, its fantasy not SF but excellent story telling. with all the books think its about 10,000 or so pages but there is no waiting.

Oh and Tawny Man is the follow up to Hobbs Farseer and is very good but avoid Soldiers Son Trilogy like the plague, very very bad.

Reading the announcments and impressions of the new skill system had me feeling pretty depressed about D3 but then I saw the link for the character builder. While, like many, I am still leery about the new direction Blizzard is taking skills in D3 I am not quite as upset after having played around with the character builder. Straight up the skill options feel rather limited but once you start getting in to slotting runes in to the various skills it opens up a whole new depth.

I think my bigger fear now is with subsequent play throughs. In Diablo II you had just enough skill points at the end of normal level to scratch the surface of the skills and get a taste for how you wanted to play. It was the subsequent play throughs that you were really able to start sinking some points in to key skills to make your build shine. In D3 it appears you will have all your skills available by the end of normal level. I am assuming the better runes for slotting skills will be the carrot for playing Nightmare and Hell but this seems a precarious line Blizzard is attempting to walk.

Woohoo! Finally executed some of the big Ork's tonight. LMB, who'd a thunk it.    I find it still takes some precise timing to pull off though, I have the best success if I hit E and LMB almost simultaneously.

My new favorite combo is Sprint+RMB+E in rapid succession. Titus charges into an Ork, sends them flying and immediately executes them. I give a lot of credit to the developers while the combo may not seem overly complicated the animation as your character moves from sprint to shoulder slam to execution is flawlessly smooth.

I dont know if I am reading too much in to it but, if you look at the combat options in the demo, the page that shows you the actual combos for each melee weapon.... it appears that tying a stun to the end of a combo means NO FURY generation for that attack. Again not sure if that is actually the case but may be something to keep in mind.

I played the demo with Mouse and keyboard and had zero issues. To be fair I do 95% of my gaming on PC so I've had way more practice playing "Shooters" this way, similiar to Blackjack Im not a big fan of aiming with a controller. I also moved sprint and stun "F" attack to my mouse so in melee I just RMB,RMB, thumb1 etc. for my combos. My only minor gripe is I've yet to figure out how to win an execute duel against the Ork mini-bosses with the mouse/keyboard setup. I've tryed mashing E, F, RMB and I always lose. In the end I just decided not to execute bosses, instead I just build fury and then pummel them.

I have always been partial to the "Chronicles of Riddick:Escape from Butcher Bay [not booty bay]" box art work. Riddick standing with arms crossed and a blade in each hand. A quick google search for Dragon Magazine Cover Art should give you several hundred fantasy pieces to look over. Dragon had some really awesome covers from pyschedelic to pure fantasy through the years. If you want to narrow it down you can do a search on Larry Elmore, who did tons and tons of art work for TSR. If you like a more mature and darker theme Frank Frazetta is always the go to guy.

From reading your posts it appears you are associating your bout with Anxiety/Panic attacks with the sleep aids you are currently taking and while this is a completely feasible explanation have you also considered your consistent lack of restful sleep as a possible cause? Lack of sleep can and will cause a great host of physical and mental issues, including chemical imbalance in the brain which obviously dictates our emotional state. I also suffer with occasional bouts of insomnia lasting for days at a times. I am also like minded in my distrust of medication, there are a number of lifestyle changes and conditional criteria you can establish to aid with sleep, but I am sure you've done all the research. In any case best of luck with your situation.

Religious exemption to Title VII.

Religious Organization Exception: Under Title VII, religious organizations are permitted to give employment preference to members of their own religion. The exception applies only to those institutions whose “purpose and character are primarily religious.” Factors to consider that would indicate whether an entity is religious include: whether its articles of incorporation state a religious purpose; whether its day-to-day operations are religious (e.g., are the services the entity performs, the product it produces, or the educational curriculum it provides directed toward propagation of the religion?); whether it is not-for-profit; and whether it affiliated with, or supported by, a church or other religious organization.

This exception is not limited to religious activities of the organization. However, it only allows religious organizations to prefer to employ individuals who share their religion. The exception does not allow religious organizations otherwise to discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability. Thus, a religious organization is not permitted to engage in racially discriminatory hiring by asserting that a tenet of its religious beliefs is not associating with people of other races.

[Elapsed Google time to find:  2.5 seconds. ]

Thanks Fed. I did do a google search on fair employment and EEO etc. but I kept coming up with responses regarding Federal employment, I did not know how to phrase my search. 

Wow all that and they get tax exemption! Instead of looking for job listings I should just work on forming my own religion. 

I came across a job add and there was an odd provision in the requirements section and I am just curious if any of the local legal minds or HR folks now if this violates any sort of fair employment act or equal oppurtunity rules etc. Again this is just an intellectual curiousity on my part.

So here is the link for the position http://www.denverseminary.edu/youth-for-christusa-inc/2011-06-24-systems-administrator-helpdesk-support/

Towards the bottom of the job description where the bulleted requiements begin is this line "Acknowledge and agree to Youth for Christ’s Statement of Faith"

Here is a link to the statement of faith being referenced http://www.yfc.net/about/statement_of_faith/

This read to me very much like "non-Christians need not apply" and I just found it a bit disconcerting and discriminatory.

There are many subtle (and not so subtle) references to other games and settings in this game. One of the less obvious ones I've spotted is that the tileset on level 3 seems to be modeled after Doom 1. A funny one was the recipe for Grog, which is lifted straight from Monkey Island.

One of the Dual Wield skills says something like "Not Drizzt".

Anyone else found the Horadric Cube yet.

When I attempted to register the email verification never came through to my Netscape account. Attempted it twice then decided to try my yahoo email and it worked fine, about two days later I received the two orginal attempts in my Netscape mail box. So my only advice would be to try a different email address if you have one.

USA network seems to be were all the talent is at the moment IMHO. Royal Pains has become a bit formulaic but still very much fun to watch with some new twists this season, I have not seen any of the new White Collar episodes yet but enjoyed everything up to last seasons finale, Burn Notice has good and bad episodes but still fun to watch and again some new twists this season there as well. I loved the first two seasons of In Plain Sight but this show seems to have jumped the shark really really early. So far I have not really enjoyed a single episode this season. Law and Order L.A. isn't bad but not great either. I have loved some of Alfred Molina's work in the past but he seems a little over the top in this role, Terrence Howard always needs to dial it down a notch in every role. Really enjoyed the first few seaons of NCIS and will sit and watch some of the reruns occasionaly but cannot really get in to the show anymore, I actually prefer NCIS LA, might just be because the characters are a little fresher. Season 2 finale was excellent I thought and opened up some new story lines and gave Linda Hunt's character a lot more depth. Lastly Law and Order: Criminal Intent final season with the return of kathryn Erbe and Vincent D'onofrio has been really good and the interplay between D' Onofrio and Julia Ormond has been interesting.

The game is still quite fun however it continues to suffer from the same affliction as it did in it's previous incarnation. Extreme instability and awful, awful network code. The game still has issues with disconnects when moving between instances and logging in any time other than the wee hours of the night/morning is an exercise in patience. Part of the issue may be that they are still only working off a single server during the supposed "OBT". I say supposed because while T3Fun and Hanbisoft claim open beta status they had no problem opening up the microtransactions. The time I have managed to spend in game has been fun, but at this point It's not quite worth it to sit in a queue for 10 or 15 minutes until the counter hits 10 of 500 only to be disconnected and have to start the whole process all over again. I do find it funny that when you get disconnected before even logging in the game you get locked out for a minute or two as if your character was still "in game".  I hope they can work out the kinks as the game makes for a nice distraction but I honestly don't have much faith. Luckily TQIT is scratching my action RPG itch pretty nicely at the moment.