Hi,
A friend of mine is having some trouble with her laptop.  She has a Dell, and it came with a nice big black spot on the screen, so she sent it back.  She got it back, turned it on, and was dismayed to find it running basically "in a box" on her screen.  The desktop was 800x600, but it was floating in blackness on her screen, which should support 1400x1050.  She only had two resolution options - 8x6 and 1024x768.  She used to have three.  Setting it to 1024 made the black bars smaller and the screen bigger, but it still wasn't stretching.

I had her run windows update and grab the video driver it recommended for her ati mobility 9000 card.  She installed, rebooted, and problem solved!  But wait, the computer was running at a full 1400x1050.  She dropped the resolution one notch, and voila, welcomed back the black bars.

Basically I think that something in her system has turned off the normal "stretching" feature that most notebooks should have.  Anyone know how to reclaim this functionality?

Thanks!

Pretty funny take on those chick.com evangelical things:

I will most likely be there.  Probably just walking around, doesn't look like they'll need me to give demos (thankfully).

Wow, I played Wind Waker when it first came out during my senior year of college (when I should have been working on my thesis).  Almost two years ago now?  Time flies...

Kingdom of Heaven comes to mind.

Batman Begins.

Appleseed and Wonderful Days / Sky Blue on DVD.

Next up - EA announces it has acquired exclusive rights to swords.

Doh.

How did you get it so fast?  I swear I ordered it like noon on the day it was announced, and now I check the site and they say it will ship on 1/26.  Bah!

You left out the hardware numbers:

Xbox = 1,315,067
PS2 = 1,015,741
GC = 782,164

I use 1and1 and haven't had the slightest hint of a problem with them.  My site used to be a blog but is now really just a repository for some personal stuff and a few funny pictures, so honestly it doesn't really get hammered with traffic or anything.  But I know a lot of people who use them and haven't heard complaints. [/url]

I love 200x150 size screenshots :p

Here's mine, with the icons removed for obvious reasons:

I ordered my 1GB shuffle yesterday about three hours after they came available on the website.  It's exactly what I was looking for, and the price was right.  The mini is probably quite good as well, but it's more then I wanted to pay, and (just personal opinion) I'm not a big fan of the design for whatever reason.  For some reason design is really important to me and I find just about every mp3 player I've looked at other than the iPod to be very off-putting.  *shrug*  I'm probably just a whore for well done consumer marketing.  Also many other players don't seem to get very good reviews.  That Rio Forge link posted above is filled with warnings from other users it seemed.

Anyway, I hope I like the shuffle whenever it gets here.  I'll be sure to let you know

So who is getting the Chainsaw Controller to go along with it?

The mod system will work very similarly to MW.  Many things will be easier, some things will undoubtedly be more difficult, just because there's a lot more data there this time.  

Another, much more retarded interview with me if you're interested:
http://articles.filefront.com/Elder_Scrolls_IV_Oblivion_Interview/;277;;;/article.html

Everyone who says she is plain is required to post wife/girlfriend pics

j/k, that isn't the best picture I've seen of her.  I didn't recognize her at all actually.

Irregardless, hit it I would.

Awesome!  I'm leaving for Tahoe tomorrow (yes, really)  Can't wait!

Is that a real accident or someones idea of a work of art?...Cause I cant figure how a wreck would spread so many cases so evenly down the middle of the road.

Probably the back just came open and he didn't realize what was going on immediately.  That's what it looks like to me.

Here's what I use.  After I shower my face gets super uncomfortably dry if I don't.  Not the most manly product, but I got it in my local Giant (grocery) store right next to the deodorants.  It has a slight "fresh" smell to it that goes away almost instantly.  Not girly.  

I find that usually those special "for men" type products are just repackaged, overpriced versions of the same damn thing with a different scent (that doesn't stick around anyway).

Satellite radio?  Can't think of much, but honestly I think anyone who says "don't need any type of home theater equipment, games or consoles or movies" is a big fat liar

Oops, I meant to type everything works perfectly and we're just holding back the game because we hate you.  Your pain is like candy to us.

You can understand how I'd get those two mixed up.

Right now, I'd be plenty happy if it just plain worked right

I read that as Tales of MILFs

Rarely do I get the opportunity to not only pimp my game, but pimp myself in the process.  So to seize the moment, here's an interview I did with GameBanshee.

http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/oblivion1.php

A DVD is also a bigger disk, requiring more energy to spin and keep spinning, and thus using up more battery life.

Honestly though, I'm not concerned about it at all.  If it had four hours of life, that would be about double the amount of time that I can stand holding and staring at one of those things in one sitting.  I don't know how you people do it.  I don't see 20 seconds being a bad loading time in the least.  Anyone ever play Half-Life 2?  

I really want one just because I'm completely seduced by the thing's design nearly as much as I'm repulsed by the DS's.  But, as with the DS, the deciding factor will be the games.  I consider the DS library to be absolute garbage so far, but as soon as Advance Wars hits I will have to own one.  I haven't seen anything that great in the PSP launch lineup, though the Armored Core game does look very nice.

[Pirates of the Caribbean]

Pirates of the Caribbean (Sea Dogs II) was made by the same folks - not fantasy, but at least you have an idea about what you're in for.

No, please don't associate that game with us  That's Akella's handiwork.

My general reaction to these kinds of news stories runs along these lines:



Full comic for those curious.

Nice subject line.  I thought you were just going to brag.

My last semester of college, I needed three more elective credits to graduate, so I took a semester of beginning japanese thinking it would be easy.  Well it was probably the hardest class I took during college with the exception of 3D calculus.  In all honesty, it was the last semester of my senior year and studying was not a priority, but it was still quite difficult.  Multiple alphabets, crazy inflections, symbols that relate to nothing whatsoever in the western experience (even the cyrillic alphabet has some similarities to the Roman letters).  I wouldn't recommend trying to pick it up unless you're a big masochist.

ya i seen this discussed at another site and it's obviously a disgruntled employee.   i thought the anal massage was great until i saw the mari j.  can't wait to see what pops up next.

Nope, they're real.  The marijuana one is some book and the anal massage was an instructional "couples" video I believe *shudder*.  It's just weird how they get listed.

Who cares whether Perfect Dark is a well-known series or not?  Look what Halo did for MS.  Most people think the whole Rare deal is a huge screw-up on MS's part, but I'd be willing to bet they've had this Perfect Dark game planned for the Xbox2 and in the hopper getting better and better since Day 1.  Here's hoping at least.

Would kill to have copies of games in my office  :wink:

I have an Xbox on my desk, too

We got a copy in the office here.  I might take a look after lunch.

I have been drafted into it.  Don't know how much time I'll be able to give it next week between the holiday and the impending move, but I'll give it my best shot.  

Being one of the few humans who did not play at any point during the beta, I have no idea what class to be.  A rogue sounds like fun though, and I don't see it represented yet.

Me and Rage played it co-op without any multitap BS.  It is not split screen.

So it's knocking your enjoyment that you don't constantly have full access to whichever weapon you find tickles your personal fancy best?  Cry me a river

Also, I saw a post of a guy that worked for Microsoft or something of that sort and couldn't give more information but he knows a guy that beta tested and even contributed to Halo 2 and he said that Halo 3 might come out sooner than what everyone thinks.

I am in love with this sentence.  It is perfection.

NSFW but kinda funny [/url]

Here would be my approach:

Launch before Sony.

1) On the day the Xbox 2 goes on sale, have the following games available on/near Day One:
-Halo 3
-Knights of the Old Republic 3
-Fable 2

Probably none of those will be available for launch.  Halo 3 is rumored to be slated for PS3 launch day.  KOTOR3 team was disbanded at Lucasarts.  I highly doubt there will be a Fable 2.  It sold well but the setting is just not compelling enough to warrant a sequel IMO.  But hey, there's a Black and White 2 so you never know.

Square-Enix would be a lost cause

Squenix has expressed possible interest in Xbox 2 development, and the head of Xbox Japan is a former Squenix exec.

Acquire Bioware.  They are easily the finest developers in North America today.

You can't do a hostile takeover of a privately held company.  I don't see any incentive for Bioware to submit to being purchased and made into a single platform developer when they can pretty much write their own ticket on any platform they want.  Just look how gleefully they bandy about the fact that Dragon Age doesn't have a publisher.  They know they are both consummate developers and consummate salespeople with an in-demand product.

I will be a voice of dissent and say I thought the book was pretty downright bad.  The unintentionally hilarious scenes of Langdon teaching his absolutely amazed class about the Golden Mean and then the scene teaching the prison class feature some of the worst dialog I've ever read in a book in my entire life.  But you know, his sales put hotcakes to shame, so what do I know?

The historical exposition was interesting, I agree.  Though quite a bit of it has been shown to be false, inflated, or misleading.