I'll pass, and I'm saying that as a person who ranks Ghostbusters in his Top 5 Comedies of All Time.

I've just seen it SOOO many times that I don't think seeing it in the theater would do anything but unnecessarily drain my wallet. If they were going to do some kind of crazy digital restoration or convert it to 3D or something I might consider it, but a straight transfer like I can watch at home? Pass.

So what's the conventional wisdom about the game from those who have been following beta more closely than I? A must-buy? A wait-and-see? A trainwreck?

I'm still really on the fence about pre-ordering but I don't want to wait around too long.

I'm strongly tempted by Dead Space 2, but I remember that the first game had some serious (though fixable!) problems with V-Sync and laggy controls.  Does anyone have experience on how the PC version handles with a wired 360 controller plugged in?

I had no problem using a wireless 360 controller. Played through the whole game fine at default settings.

I'm in as Khephram.

Louis CK is the only person who has ever made me laugh until I was crying with a pedophilia joke. The guy's humor is super dark, but I think the best comedy comes out of dark places. I love his stuff even more now that I have a kid and can better relate to his views on parenting. 

I haven't listened to them much recently but I went on a huge Doors kick in the 90s. I read all the books I could find about them and watched the movie over and over. I still love them and have all their albums (including An American Prayer, which I actually really like).

Jim Morrison was a fascinating dude. I'm not sure if he was a genius or just an asshole, but I'm guessing a bit of both. 

Excellent!

Since the first of the year I've:

- Dropped 20 pounds with a goal of running a 5K (about halfway to meeting that goal)
- Found out we were pregnant with child #2 (due in December)
- Went on a few awesome trips (trip to the Asheboro zoo, business trip to San Francisco, a couple of great concerts)
- Bought a new family vehicle (Toyota Highlander)
- Paid off the last of our credit card debt + my car (we're down to just the house payment and the one car payment)
- At work I've taken on more responsibility but for the first time in two years truly feel like a valuable member of the team. I've "paid my dues" so to speak and instead of being the rookie I'm now being entrusted with some big projects. I've also received a ton of training which has been awesome experience.

I hope I can keep up the momentum. After a short bout of depression in January I came out the other side vowing to really turn things around and make 2011 a great year. So far I'd say the plan has exceeded my expectations.

For the second half of the year we're planning on doing some remodeling to put hardwood floors throughout the house, and we've made some significant headway on cleaning out the decade of clutter in our garage. I'm very optimistic heading into 2012.

Today was pretty a nice combo of productive and entertaining. Took the wife and daughter downtown to the Farmer's Market on the riverfront and got some ice cream. Came back home, played some games while the little one took a nap. My wife got a burst of energy and started cleaning out the garage. I went down to help and when all was said and done we had put a bigger dent in our clutter in the space of two hours than we have the last two years, which was a great feeling.

Rounded out the day by picking up stuff for a cookout tomorrow, bought my daughter a little swimming pool, and then me and her lounged in it for awhile while my wife made an awesome taco dinner.

Tomorrow we're having a family cookout, then grandma is babysitting the little one while my wife and I go to dinner and to see Super 8. Then Monday we're probably going to hit the beach with my daughter while daddy attempts to bodyboard for the first time in like 20 years.

This Steam sale plus all the iOS sales running right now is going to hurt. So far I've been able to resist, but Witcher 2 for $33 was mighty damn tempting. Fortunately I had enough in my backlog I knew I wouldn't get to it right away.

Seems like a lot of HOMM V, updated visuals, more robust hero customization, and some little tweaks here and there (AI, cover system, etc.) to keep things fresh. Sounds like a winner to me!

I may be in the minority, but I really didn't like this show. I thought I didn't like it early on, but then figured I was missing something, then realized yeah - I really don't like this show.

My complaints:

1. WTF kind of structure is this? First a blind audition with team choosing, then some kind of contrived battle round, then solo rounds, and the people get to choose one person to save but the judges get to pick another person to save.... maybe next season will be better now that I know what to expect but at times it felt a little like they were just making shit up as they went along. (Yeah, I know this was based on a foreign show, but copying somebody else that is just making shit up doesn't make it right).

2. Absolutely no criticism whatsoever. Nearly every singer shown was fairly good - even when they weren't the judges seemed to act like it was just a matter of personal taste that they didn't choose them and not the singer's actual lack of skill.

3. Some of the performances were HORRIBLE and the judges still lavished praise. I'm talking pitchy, stiff, wooden performances and the judges just gloated over them as if it was the most awesome thing they had ever seen. That 16-year old doing "Price Tag" was one of the most cringe-inducing cases of stage awkwardness I've ever seen, yet from the judge reaction you'd have thought she had just belted out Ave Maria while tap dancing and juggling chainsaws. This probably irked me more than anything else about the show. I felt like the judges and I were watching completely different things.

4. Those stupid battle rounds. How the hell are you supposed to accurately judge two people singing back and forth - it just pissed me off.

5. American Idol shows more coaching with its mentors than this show did, even though this show is supposedly all about teams and coaching. Maybe one line of advice per judge per episode didn't seem like coaching to me. That whole aspect of the show just felt really underdeveloped - a shame considering how much of the rest of the show was pure filler.

I could go on. I missed the final two episodes and was going to watch them today...then realized I just didn't care.

For the record, I'm not a music competition hater. I am an American Idol whore, for all its faults. And I never saw this as a "Voice vs AI" battle, so that didn't factor into my hatred. I just didn't like the show and really don't understand all the critical praise other than it's a singing competition that's NOT American Idol. And I use the word "competition" really lightly because seriously, did anybody not predict who was going to win after the first couple of shows?

iPhone, pager (I refuse to wear that stupid 1990s relic on my hip), keys, wallet.

Cracked is great. I actually prefer it to The Onion only because I almost always learn some interesting fact from reading Cracked, whereas The Onion is more of a spin on current events.

Thanks for the impressions Lockdown. My wife is a HUGE HOMM fan - it's really the only video game I've ever seen her really love, so I'm thinking of picking this up for her for her birthday. We both really liked HOMM V - while it wasn't my absolute favorite of the series, I thought they did a fairly decent job of updating the game after the HOMM IV debacle.

I don't mind that simple town screen - I'd rather have a clean interface that I can quickly see what I have and make quick decisions than a bunch of ornate 3D flyovers of a town that I will get bored with after seeing it once.

My 22-month old is obsessed with Cars. She has never been this way for any other animated show or movie, but when the Cars 2 commercials comes on she screams, "DARS!!!! DARS!!!!" then goes into instant zombie mode. I dread the commercial coming on because I know I'll be forced to rewind it 10 times and play it over and over for her.

If she was older I'd suck it up and take her to see Cars 2 even though I'm not interested, but fortunately my wife and I agree that her attention span is not long enough for a 90-minute movie. We tested this by popping in the original Cars and she made it about 20 minutes before running off and playing in the other room.

I actually enjoyed the original Cars more than I thought I would, but it still remains near the bottom of my Pixar movies list.

I played the beta of a soon-to-be-released browser based action-RPG/MMO and I was blown away. While it wasn't on par with an A-list title released today, it looked as good as an average PC game released just a few years ago. If they can pull that off in a browser now, then I have no doubt that we will see stand-alone, installable game type quality on the web. The one thing I sort of disagree with might be a matter of semantics. I don't believe that web games will be able to keep up with consoles of their generation. So while web gaming in 2021 might look really good, I don't think it's going to look as good as console/PC gaming in 2021.

Aside from the technology standpoint, it makes sense from a business standpoint. The only way publishers can truly stop piracy is to keep the code on their side of the fence. Browser based games are a really easy way to do that.

We are quickly moving into a world where ALL forms of media - be it books, music, movies, or games are going to be accessible from everyone, everywhere, at any time. I don't think physical media will be obsolete in the near future, but I think it will be considered an extreme inconvenience and one the younger generation likely won't put up with. Just as I can now watch a movie on my PC from Netflix, stop it and go watch it on my TV, then stop that and go watch it on my iPad, we will see games that are just as flexible/mobile.

 

I found it invaluable on my recent business trip to San Francisco. When I arrived there I realized my laptop battery was dead. As in DEAD. Would not hold a charge for longer than 5 minutes. I had no place to get a battery for it, and I was facing four days of lectures I absolutely had to take notes on. One of the other requirements of my job was that I be able to remote back to the office when necessary and also be able to check and respond to emails throughout the day.

Luckily I had brought my iPad along for entertainment (books, movies on the plane, etc.). I quickly put it to use as a productivity tool. Downloaded Evernote and Pages and used that the entire time to take notes. Not only did the long battery life allow me to make it the whole day without stopping to recharge every 3 hours like my co-worker, it was quiet and not distracting to others in the room. I used Citrix Receiver to remote back to the office when necessary, and had my email was already being forwarded to it, so I was always in touch on the same device. I even typed up a game review on the plane ride back.

I really don't find it that difficult to type on. Like anything else it just takes practice. It was a bit awkward the first day, but by the end of 8 lectures I was typing nearly as fast as a regular keyboard. One of the mistakes I see a lot of iPhone/iPad typists making is typing very cautiously to avoid making mistakes. The things work better if you just don't think about it and type naturally. It's fairly good at recognizing what you want to say, as long as you are keeping a reasonable pace and not slowly hunting and pecking.

I came back from my trip with a whole new respect for the iPad as a business device. I'm not saying it could do everything my laptop could do. Some of my remote work would have been much easier with a fully functional keyboard/mouse, and there were a couple of occasions when I longed for a network jack just so I could get wired and not have to depend on spotty wi-fi or 3G reception. However, I did stop thinking about it as just an entertainment device.

Yeah, I like how he has shots of it on a trail, in the woods, etc. as if he just zipped up on in there on his awesome working hoverbike. Why do we only see it in the air when it's tied down? Video (non-tethered) or I'm throwing the LAME flag.

Never underestimate the power of country music fans. 

I'm pulling for Scotty. I don't think he was the best singer in the competition, but he's from my state and I like that he's got an old-school country voice. I'm a sucker for deep-voiced country singers like Randy Travis, Johnny Cash, Josh Turner, Jamey Johnson, et al. and Scotty definitely fits that mold.  Lauren never did anything for me. She's a technically good singer, but I've never figured out what "kind" of singer she is, or where her artistry is. At least with Scotty you know what he's all about, and there's no denying that he has an incredible stage presence given how young he is. Seriously, he looks like he's been watching country music artists since he was a toddler, as he has the stage mannerisms down pat.

 

It's worth noting that the car can be started even if the fob is completely dead. The ignition can detect the fob even if the battery is dead, but you have to do something like hold down the brake for 30 seconds (the exact sequence probably varies by car).

One other common myth is that if you were running from a murderer and approached your car, all the doors would unlock and the murderer could jump in the car with you. In reality, only the driver side door will unlock. The passenger/back doors will only unlock of a fob is detected on the passenger side of the car. So in that sense, they are pretty smart. 

My understanding is that this is by design (at least on certain models). There have been lawsuits brought up because owners accidentally left their cars running in the garage and poisoned themselves or others.

I'll test this on our Highlander when I get home. I could have sworn the guy told us the car would shut off if the fob went out of range, but who knows. Maybe some smart keys are smarter than others.

The guys are not any more exciting or talented than the girls but an 0-5-1 record to the guys favor is strange.

The difference between the guys and girls this season, and I've said it all season, is that the girls are almost carbon copies of one another while the guys have individuality. Read back in this thread where I said the boys were going to annihilate the girls. Point in the "YK was right" column.

There were only two girls since the beginning that I could say I knew who they were as an artist. Lauren (but *only* because they pimped her country side and so over-hyped her), and Pia, because she was basically the most talented girl period. The rest of them had zero individuality.

Take the guys on the other hand - you've got the obviously country guy. You've got the 70s singer-songwriter guy. You've got Casey, who I don't know WTF he is. You've got the rocker. You've got the lady's man. You've got the flamboyant drag queen. Nobody's going to confuse Jacob Lusk with Scotty, but up until last week I was still trying to figure out half the time who they were talking about when they mentioned a girl's name.

I said the judges made a stupid move burning the save on Casey, and now they are paying dearly for it. Another point in the "YK was right" column.

Pia got tossed out because of a combination of a number of factors, but I believe mostly it was because people thought she was safe and didn't vote for her. It's been the case of every "surprise" early elimination in Idol history, so I don't see it not being the primary reason now. In conjunction with that reason, of course, is the fact that the public just simply likes the guys better this year. I liked Pia, and thought she was probably the most talented of the whole bunch, but if I was going to vote I'd have tossed my vote to one of the guys. Why? Because I figured she was safe and because she's boring and I'd rather vote for one of the guys because I LOVE Scotty/Paul/whatever. If I'm thinking that, I'm sure there are millions of others thinking it too. I also don't think she was very likable - she had that stuck-up cheerleader vibe thing going on; guys hate her because she's a bitch, girls hate her because she's pretty.

How many people actually watch the show, listen to an awesome singing performance, and then feel compelled to vote based just on the singing?  My guess is the percentage is pretty limited.

Maybe limited, but I don't think it's insignificant. If it wasn't significant, then we wouldn't see bad performances or off-nights punished with bottom 3 showings.

I'm really not all that surprised at the surprises this season, because I honestly feel it's the most talented Final 12 in Idol history. There are no "bad" singers in this bunch. Some are slightly better or worse than others, but in past seasons there was a much larger disparity between the top talent remaining and the bottom. Add in the genre diversity left remaining and this could be anybody's game.

Predictions/thoughts:

Casey got a significant bump from the save - his fans must be really scared to let him fall into that position again since he hasn't been back in the bottom 3 despite some meh performances. How long can he ride that sympathy train, I wonder?

Paul/Stefano are definitely two of the most vulnerable guys. Paul because he is *really* prone to off-nights, and I feel he's had more bad than good. His teeth are basically all that is keeping him in the competition at this point. Stefano because he doesn't really fit into a niche like the other guys, and is also probably one of the weaker talents left.

Haley - has saved herself with a couple of great performances, but I think she's one bad night away from getting the boot.

I wouldn't be surprised to see any of the above 4 go home next week, but of course a lot depends on the performances.

P.S. I love Scotty's voice but good God dude the goofy faces and constant eyebrow raises have GOT TO GO. You're doing a country performance, not satirizing one.

 

I think the biggest problem is that Beatty's version, for all its flaws, did a pretty darn good job of capturing the time period and the comic book style. Looking back on it today, that movie was way ahead of its time. It was capturing the comic book/graphic novel feel that we take for granted today in movies like Sin City, 300, Watchmen, etc - over a decade before them.

The other problem I see is that typically the Hollywood trend for reboots of older movies is to make them grittier, darker, more realistic. 1989's Batman was pretty dark for its day, but contained enough campy elements that it was pretty easy to go even darker with it in Nolan's version. If you go darker and grittier with Dick Tracy I think you're going to remove the essence of the source material. The comic...and hero....are products of their time. Yes, you could probably do a modern Dick Tracy, but you'd be completely changing the source material. And if you kept the time period but removed the campy-ness, you'd gut the soul of the comic.

I think it's doable, but it would be one hell of a tightrope walk.

I had my first player plead for his life last night. Ran into a cleric in Scarlet Gorge one level higher than me. I immediately snared him and started whacking away. He panicked and ran. I rooted him, got him down to around 20% health. He healed and knocked me back. I immediately Rift Walked right back to him.

He was amazingly keeping himself alive (barely) and the whole time he is saying "Stop stop please don't kill me. Stop!" he finally ran out of mana and I put him out of his misery. Yes, it felt really cruel, but the whole time I just kept thinking about the number of times high level Defiants ganked me when I was 10 or 20 levels below them. This was at least a fair fight.

Honestly I think the Defiant on our server are a bunch of pussies. Most of the time they run from fights, and on the rare occasion they decide to PvP they try topic on people far below them. I hear PvP changes dramatically once you hit 50 though, so maybe that's where all the cool Defiant are.

All I know is that PvP has turned me into one heartless bastard. If I see you I will kill you, or die trying.

I disagree with the judges' decision to save Casey. I love the guy - I love his whole style. But he is in no way, shape, or form American Idol best-selling artist material. The Idol I think he most closely matches with is Taylor Hicks - entertaining on the show, but a total disaster to market commercially. They really should have saved it for someone who actually had a shot of winning but was voted out due to a really poor song choice or off night. I don't think Casey was voted out because of an off-night - I think he was voted out because he's quickly become a one-trick pony.

That doesn't sound like being an animal lover at all... that just sounds horribly selfish.  Putting a pet down when it's become time is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but unnecessarily prolonging suffering is just wrong.  Once you have a pet you are taking the responsibility to make those hard decisions.  If you can't do it, don't get a pet.

I've never been put in the situation so I can't tell you 100% what I would do when the time came. All I can say is that I don't feel like I should determine when something should live and when it should die, especially when I'm not in a position to determine how much it is truly "suffering."

I've had many pets in my lifetime. I take excellent care of them. Every animal I've ever owned has far outlived its average lifespan - be it gerbils, birds, cats, or dogs. I rescued a diabetic cat that was going to be euthanized (because it was inconvenient), and my wife and I have given her two shots of insulin a day every day for the past four years. You're entitled to your (uninformed) opinion, but I guarantee you I'm about as good, compassionate a pet owner as you're ever going to meet.

[Spoiler]

Re: werewolf

Spoiler for Hiden:

It's easiest if your tank has a stun/fear break ability. The werewolf will always stun/fear which keeps you from building enough aggro to pull him before he powers up. If you can break that initial stun he is easy to pull out of the light.

Sorry for your predicament Gratch.

I've already decided that if one of our cats gets sick, and I can't possibly afford treatment (or they are so old that treatment would not really be worth it), then they will be stuck with the "let God sort it out," option. Being the animal lover that I am, I just could not make the decision to put one of ours to sleep. Hell, I still have flashbacks to this day of shooting a bird with a BB gun when I was 12, and I didn't even kill it. If I actually watched my cat be put to sleep they'd have to lock me in the loony bin. Maybe it's selfish of me to let them suffer but I just can't make that call.

Three girls in the bottom 3 - I rest my case. 

The fact that Trion Worlds uses the former system screams to me that they really, really, really want to target the WoW audience for their game.

I'm not so sure targeting the WoW audience is a bad thing, because they're doing it the right way. Most developers just clone WoW then hope that they can live off WoW's leftovers. Trion seems to want to *improve* upon WoW, and pull gamers away from it. I mean, the "We're not in Azeroth anymore" commercials is pretty much a direct shot across WoW's bow. It takes some brass balls to take on the 900-pound gorilla directly, and I applaud them for it.

I don't think Rift is the WoW-killer, but maybe, just maybe, it's a step in breaking the cycle of developers just throwing up their hands and giving up on ever making an MMO that can compete. As much as Rift steals from other MMOs, it also adds some really daring features that in my mind prove they are at least as interested in innovation as they are in imitation.

The only complaint I have is output damage is so low that in PvP your role basically becomes to annoy the opposition than to actually kill them. After I finish out the Paladin line I have to look in to lines to raise my damage output.

Yeah, Paladin has been fun but now that I'm about to hit 20 I'm starting to realize he's not going to cut it for soloing/PvP. As soon as I get my souls I'm going to go with a damage dealer. It's still kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around a game *intended* for you to play multiple roles depending on the situation, which is why I still wind up logging on and stubbornly waltz around finishing quests with my Pally. 

Wow, I'm the exact opposite. I thought the guys blew the girls away. My problem with the girls is that they are all cookie-cutter singers with no real personality. I honestly can't tell some of them apart. Even though the guys have a few more quirky artists, they're at least unique and not all doing the exact same act. The only ones I can even remember right now are the janitor girl that wore the flowers and Pia, the girl that went last. The rest are all one big meaningless blur of mediocrity.

I really like Paul MacDonald, but I'm a big fan of the 70s singer/songwriter vibe he seems to be going for. I'm also rooting for the country kid since he's from NC.

It all just goes to show, though, how good the new judges are. If we can disagree over who's better, and none of us can predict who's going to win, then they really did a great job. I would have bet money that this season of Idol would be the biggest trainwreck in the history of trainwrecks, and now I can't stop singing its praises.

My one caveat is that despite all the great talent, I'm skeptical that there is an artist of Kelly Clarkson/Carrie Underwood caliber here. Not just pure talent-wise, but "ability to sell records"-wise. I don't see anyone, with the possible exception of maybe Pia, who is going to have that wide appeal necessary to produce a star.

The more I read, the more I realize what a genius he is. If you can't repair your image, make it batshit crazy enough that it turns into an internet meme. WINNING.

He sounds similar to a young Johnny Cash, but he wouldn't fool me in a blind test. He's still very good though.

Yeah, I currently have a love/hate relationships with the invasions. When they're my level they're a blast. When they're above my level, they are a supreme pain in the ass. Sometimes I just want to turn in some quests and get some XP without worrying about dying 10 times to roaming packs of pissed off crazy aggro raid mobs. It seems like invasions are timed to coincide exactly with my quest turn-ins.

Overall, however, I'm enjoying the greater challenge this game provides. I'm having a great time with it and the fact that this game is only a week old makes me *really* excited about how great the game could be in a year or two. I just hope the player base stays with it and it doesn't turn it into another Warhammer or Aion.

Only best picture nominee I haven't seen so far this year is The Social Network, and I plan on watching it before the telecast tonight. I can also say I honestly liked all of the films, which was a shocker since I didn't think there was any way in hell I'd enjoy "The Kids Are All Right."

I like both Natalie Portman and Christian Bale,but as i have not see either movie,so you think they overact as their Oscar nominated roles?

Portman - no, I don't think she overacted at all. I'm also not sure she deserves the best actress win, but she'll probably get it based partly on her body of work rather than just this film (see: Sandra Bullock).

Christian Bale definitely overacted, but the character he was portraying was seriously "out there" so it was believable. The biggest compliment I can give is that I forgot I was watching Christian Bale - he really became that character for me. What's more, I know a guy in real life that went through some of the same kind of troubles, and the similarities between their mannerisms, etc. was just spot-on.

The game is definitely growing on me. I was annoyed at the linear starter levels at first - enough so as to almost pass on the game entirely. But the week long beta gave me a chance to finally spread my wings a bit. The more things open up, the more I'm liking the game.

They definitely incorporated a lot of little things from previous MMOs that I really enjoy, and the rifts/invasions are a welcome break from the quest grind.

The only thing I'm still not completely sold on are the multiple souls. While diversity is nice and all, I've never been an alt-aholic and like focusing on a main. The number of options gets a bit overwhelming to me, and I don't feel as attached to my character as I do in most other MMOs. Maybe my view will change, but right now it seems like the game is catering to those "I want to be able to tank, heal, and cast spells" people, and I hate those kinds of players. Role-playing games are meant for you to play a ROLE. Not 50 roles.

Awesome!

Hepcat, if you ever want to "get" Radiohead, just go see them in concert one time. I was only a casual Radiohead fan when I went to see them and I was utterly blown away. In terms of pure raw musicianship/talent it was one of the best concerts I've ever seen. Thom Yorke is a freaking amazing singer, and to see them pull off live on stage the kinds of sounds you hear on their albums was just mind-boggling.

Why does it have to be the action genre? If the guy wants to make movies again, more power to him.

Yeah, I've decided against it as well.

I like the graphics, I like the *idea* of the various souls, etc. even if I found it a bit overwhelming. I somewhat like the idea of rifts but I'm skeptical about how long it will take for that novelty to wear off.

Ultimately, however, the game felt to me like a mediocre MMO with a couple of good ideas slapped on top of it. If the game comes out and critics/players are bowled over about how great it is maybe I'll give it a second chance. For me personally, though, it has the feel of an MMO I'd have fun with for a couple of weeks then drop before my free month was out.