Wow, that's a real big disappointment. 

Thanks for the advice all.  I called a couple of tenant attorneys to try to get a free consultation but they were closed for the day.  I'll have to try again tomorrow.

On a side note, we called a professional cleaning company and when the guys came out, they instantly recognized the smell as cat urine.  That's great since I have cat allergies.  I was wondering why my eyes were itchy and my nose was so stuffy.  Now I know...

Yeah, I know we should get a lawyer, but I was hoping to hear what options I have available so I know what we are getting into before we contact a lawyer.  BTW, I live in California.

So I am not sure what action to take but we really need some help.  These last few weeks have been a total nightmare.  Here's the events:

So at the beginning of May, we find out that we need to move since the house we are renting is scheduled to be torn down and rebuilt.  It took us several attempts, but we finally find a place that we can afford and we ask to tour the place.  They show us unit B which is on the ground floor.  It is very nice inside with new paint and new bathroom fixtures.  So we submit our application to B and we are accepted.  We pay our first month's rent and security deposit.  This is a week before we need to move out. 

Fast forward to May 28th when we are told we would receive the key to start our move. The listing agent shows up and tells us that now we need to move to unit F and that B is no longer available.  We were totally shocked but at this point we have no choice since we need to be out by June 3rd.  The agent takes us up to F and the fist thing I notice is a musty, smokey smell.  I ask the agent if this is going to be cleaned and he said they would.  They also said that since it isn't ready yet, they would give us the key on May 31st.

So May 31st arrives, and we get the key and the place still stinks of smoke.  Apparently, the landlord's son lived here and smoked so much marijuana that he was admitted to rehab.  The landlord refuses to believe that there is any smell and reluctantly sent his handyman to steam clean the carpets twice.  The first cleaning was done before we moved in and like I stated, it still smelled.  We had to complete our move by June 3rd, so we had no chance to do anything but move.  The next weekend, June 8 - 9, I bought two boxes of baking soda carpet cleaner to try to get rid of the stink.  For the most part it seemed to help but there was a little smell left.  The second cleaning came yesterday and now the place stinks just like we first moved in. 

To make matters worse, we just found out that the people who moved into B actually applied to F and we have the documents to prove it.  So the landlord screwed us with the bait and switch.  If we didn't have the time constraint, we would have looked for another place but we are stuck.  Also, my bed is ruined since it sits on the floor and absorbed the smoke stink.  What legal action can we take?  I hope we can sue this guy...

I know you guys want to try this out! Haha... Kobe Red

[Spoiler]

They finally revealed the cause of the blackout and it actually makes sense. 

Spoiler for Hiden:

Nanotechnology.  Self replicating virus sized nanobots that block electrical current.

While the show isnt perfect it can be entertaining, so Ive continued to watch it. 

What I don't understand about that is

Spoiler for Hiden:

if they are breathing in the "nanobots" and they are strong enough to absorb/block electricity, how are people still alive?  The human nervous system runs on electricity too.  Wouldn't that block brain activity and heart activity?

See previous page

Okay, but...

Spoiler for Hiden:

Pete was talking about an EMP not causing people to die, but these "nanobots" are absorbing all electricity according to Rachel.  Seems like those two are different animals, hence my question, how are people still alive?

[Spoiler]

They finally revealed the cause of the blackout and it actually makes sense. 

Spoiler for Hiden:

Nanotechnology.  Self replicating virus sized nanobots that block electrical current.

While the show isnt perfect it can be entertaining, so Ive continued to watch it. 

What I don't understand about that is

Spoiler for Hiden:

if they are breathing in the "nanobots" and they are strong enough to absorb/block electricity, how are people still alive?  The human nervous system runs on electricity too.  Wouldn't that block brain activity and heart activity?

Yeah, it has been a lot of fun and I'm enjoying it a lot.  The Star Trek geek in me is overloaded with all the cool stuff in the game.  Speaking of which, is there some sort of website that explains the mechanics of the game?  The Star Trek Online wiki is pretty good, but some of the info there is outdated.  I'm trying to figure out what the optimal configurations are for my character.  I started off as a Science officer, but I decided to switch over to an Engineer since I like the abilities they have.  The game is pretty overwhelming so any help or info would be greatly appreciated!

Anyone playing this anymore?  I was looking forward to playing this when it launched but the lackluster reviews kept me away.  I recently saw one of my Steam buddies playing this and decided to give it a try.  Wow, I guess they really made some improvements because this game is pretty fun!  So, was looking to see if any of you guys were willing to give this a second or third chance (or however many chances ) before Neverwinter sucks all the gaming time away next week. 

So I don't know if I missed something but what is the bar for under each character in the character select menu?  Is that some sort of xp bar?  If so, seems like you need to kill a ton of monsters to get it to move. I've purchased the 1 star upgrade for all the characters unlocked thus far.

[THERE'S A NEW COMIC OUT!]

There won't be any new OotS comics any time soon because the creator/artist Rich Burlew injured his drawing hand severely back in September.  According to his website, Giant In the Playground Games, he is undergoing therapy and isn't even sure if he can gain full control of his thumb.   Here's hoping for the best!

That's pretty damn old news to any OotS fan. The latest reports are that everything is going well, though not as quickly as he had hoped. The original estimate was that he'd be back to work around this time.

Has he said with any certainty when the next OOTs book will be expected? I stopped reading the strips a LOOONG time ago, because I enjoy the books so much...

I just wanted to make sure that the folks here knew what was going on with Rich Burlew, since some of them didn't sound like they knew he was out of commission.

On another note, THERE'S A NEW COMIC OUT!

There won't be any new OotS comics any time soon because the creator/artist Rich Burlew injured his drawing hand severely back in September.  According to his website, Giant In the Playground Games, he is undergoing therapy and isn't even sure if he can gain full control of his thumb.   Here's hoping for the best!

Just downloaded Dragon Island Blue today for free. Looks like it is free for a limited time.

I'm getting my ass beat in the trial Mechs and it's pretty frustrating.  I'd love to join you guys that are doing pretty well.  Most of the random teams I get lose.  My pilot name is namatoki.

I like number 7. LETMEIN!   

I was initially excited about a new space based game from Chris but once I found out it was going to be an MMO I have pretty much lost all interest in it.

I know it's supposed to have a single player mode but I'll wait for reviews on that before even considering this game.

According to the Kickstarter page, it's not an MMO.

Is Star Citizen an MMO?


No! Star Citizen will take the best of all possible worlds, ranging from a permanent, persistent world similar to those found in MMOs to an offline, single player campaign like those found in the Wing Commander series. The game will include the option for private servers, like Freelancer, and will offer plenty of opportunities for players who are interested in modding the content. Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.
 
Last updated: Thursday Oct 18, 10:20pm EDT

If you feel like investing a little more money into Magic, the Duels of the Planeswalkers is pretty newbie friendly and helps give you ideas on what works well for decks.  What kind of advice were you looking for?  I'm not great, but pretty decent.

Thanks for the info, Ironrod.  I keep my plant outside, but I have it potted right now.  I have to move it from my balcony to my front yard to chase the sun.  It's getting about 8 to 10 hours of sun right now.

I have tried helping pollinate the flowers with my finger and cotton swab, but I have no idea if it is working.  Most likely not since 2 flowers have died and fell off the plant.

I was reading that pruning the plant is supposed to help with growing peppers?  How do I know which leaves or stems to trim?

So I recently bought a ghost chili plant that is about a foot tall and I really have no idea how to care for it.  I did some Google searches and read so much conflicting info that I really need help from someone who knows how to care for plants.  I have no idea if I am giving it enough water, too much water, enough sun, etc.  The plant is blooming with flowers but they are dying off without producing any chilis.  Help!

Also, when you beat the game, it makes an autosave right where the new DLC wants you to be to see the extended ending.  As long as you keep that autosave, you should be okay.

What's the point of WD pets in Nightmare+?  They die almost instantly.

Which pets? Not Gargantuan I hope. Zombie dogs die damn near instantly in Normal act 2, so that's certainly not shocking.

I beat Nightmare last night in a four player game and was using my WD with pets.  My pets lived through most fights.  Are you using the passives to boost your pets' health and damage reduction?

Well, I was enjoying Nightmare mode until Act 2, when suddenly it got stupid hard for me.  Gotta figure out a good skill combo or something, but later, because I am too angry right now.  Dying over and over isn't much fun.

Upgrade your gear.  Made a HUGE difference for me.  

The problem is I am getting shitty drops that I can't use.  Can you tell me what you focused on for gear?  I am playing a DH and seem to always get barbarian and witch doctor loot.

When you search the auction house, +dex and +vit are big, but if you can get gems, emeralds give +dex on armor and rubies give +exp on helms and +damage on weapons.  I would try to find some high quality gems, square or better, to go with some socketed gear.  Also, +dam items boost damage much more than your primary stat will.  For example, I have an amulet that gives +4 - 8 damage and it boosts my damage much more than +60 to int (for my witch doctor).  The only drawback is that you lose some secondary benefits from your stats, like more dodge from dex.

Remember, gear is a huge part of the game and if you aren't keeping up with your gear, you will die. A lot.

Edit: Also, as you get into higher difficulties, you want to limit the number of monsters you pull.  You won't be able to aoe down monsters like you did so easily on normal.  Snaring and rooting will help a lot.

Glad I got to play all of 10 minutes in the last 24 hours of launch.  Thanks for all the fun, Blizzard.

Really glad that the game was sitting on my hard drive for a month too.

That's probably more than even the best of databases could handle (and they aren't all the same physical database either, if they're smart)

I picture poorly-paid interns running back and forth to a card catalog, looking up login credentials. 

Paid? LOL.

I tried to make my character at midnight and like everyone else, timed out and gave up.  This morning, I log in and see my character list is full of demon hunters. 

There's an interview linked at diablofans.com of Jay Wilson and he said that he can't get past half of Act I on Inferno difficulty in less than 10 deaths!    I'm excited to see just how tough it will be.  Although I hope it won't be impossibly tough like the multishot, extra strength, lightning enchanted champions that one shot me and my brother in Diablo 2.  I remember zoning into a cave and loading dead.

Here's the link to the interview in case people want to see it: http://www.diablofans.com/news/1192-cyclone-strike-runed-two-jay-wilson-interviews-blue-posts/

[Spoiler]

Figures that I get stuck with a bratty five year old kid behind me kicking my seat and yelling.  He even went so far as to spray spit mimicking "Hulk's smash." 

That aside, I really did enjoy the movie.  Figures that there was a second scene after the credits that I missed too.  I thought the first end scene was it.

Great movie! We saw it at a packed 3D Imax theater. One thing I didn't get ...

Spoiler for Hiden:

How did Thor return? I thought the bridge portal thing was destroyed at the end of Thor.

Spoiler for Hiden:

They used the power of the tesseract to open a portal

Spoiler for Hiden:

Thor didn't have the Tesseract.. Loki did.  Odin used MAGIX to send Thor back, Loki asked Thor 'how much power did our father have to spend to send you back

Spoiler for Hiden:

IIRC, Loki asked Thor how much dark energy did Odin use to transport Thor to Earth

Does the game have a mechanic for allowing players with different character levels to play together?

I have watched several interviews with the developers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ku0oEryTX7o is the latest Blizzcast where they do confirm it, the last developer to speak) and they have stated that players can jump into games regardless of level or quest.  Not sure if you can jump into a Nightmare game if you are a Normal character though.  Probably no.

btw, that's my first pull quote via iPad   Just wish apostrophe was on the main keyboard set  

Just a heads up, you can get the apostrophe by swiping your finger up on the comma button. It's a iPad key shortcut.

My brother has a project for his statistics class and has a short 5 min survey asking about food preferences.  Help him by filling it out!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHJqZUZGV3pXWkFnNXhELTM2dVJWN3c6MQ

so far I've been cutting myself off right after I rescue Deckard Cain from the Cathedral so I don't spoil things too much.  how much is after that part?

I would say that you are about halfway done with the beta at that point.  I don't think there is that much to spoil, so you should finish it and enjoy it!

I find it so odd that you can't switch what skills are assigned to mouse buttons except through the skill screen.  It seems like such a waste.  Until I'm in a room, I don't know if I need AOE or single target high damage.  I shouldn't have to guess.  I should be able to respond appropriately.

You can play in "elective" mode from the game options menu which allows you to customize your hotkeys with any skill you want. However I don't think you can expand the current number of four hotkeys.

I've been trying to log in for the past hour and I keep getting server busy or battle.net down error messages. 

namatoki#1778 is mine.

Tupak hologram performing at Coachella

Reminds me of this hologram

I was hoping they'd have some sort of Gold challenge event at some point. Not that I'm a masochist, just thought it'd be fun to have some enticement to play that difficulty level. 

What? The 70k+ credits aren't enticement enough?

My brother and 2 friends and I did a Gold Reaper the other night (before the new DLC) and man was it tough!  I didn't have fraps loaded to record some video, but there were several times during a wave where 2 - 3 banshees plus 2 - 3 brutes were on top of our location.  It was fun, but so much work! Haha...



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

So I used Windows Movie Maker and it was pretty easy to put together my fraps clips.  I didn't edit them since I wasn't sure how and plus the video was stuttering in WMM which made playback hard to go through.  What settings do you use in fraps and what settings do you publish at, Blackjack?

Anyway, here is my video: http://youtu.be/3l7LO_0AZgU

I played a few games of gold level Geth on Firebase White with my brother, friend, and a random player.  I played as Salarian Engineer for most of it, and then switched to Asari Adept later.  I wish I didn't lose so much FPS when I start recording video.  I go from 60 to ~30 or so.  I'm not sure if I can adjust some settings to not take such a big performance hit.  Anyway, I hope you liked the video! 

The first screenshot has a geth in the middle between the Asari and Batarian. 

Ah, cool tips, Blackjack.  I'll give that a try and see if I can put together a decent compilation of some gold level runs.

Well, I tried to make a video of my gold level Geth run, but since I only have the free version of fraps, I could only record 30 secs.  So this is the first 30 secs of wave 5:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0p44Wu7rig&feature=youtu.be

Also, I noticed that fraps makes a huge file.  30 seconds is 200+ mb?  Blackjack, do you have some utility that compresses the fraps file?

Looking forward to the new classes and maps. I figured we'd see playable Geth at some point, but Batarians? What's next - Volus? You just know the Krogan Battlemaster will be a rare. Time to start saving up credits now.

The only map of the 6 we have now that I don't like is Reactor. Two new ones are very welcome.

There was a leaked screenshot I saw of the new classes in the "pack" format and they were all gold, i.e. rare.  I really wish they keep the Premium Spectre packs around, but I know they will be gone on Monday.

I really dislike the Reactor map as well.  I'm really looking forward to the new maps too.

I still don't have the asari adept... Don't worry though, cause I've got the salarian infiltrator about 15 times. Looking forward to new maps though!

That's funny, because I have the exact opposite issue.  I fully unlocked my Asari Adept (I can customize skin tone), but still have yet to unlock the Salarian Infiltrator.  I really want the Salarian Infiltrator too since Energy Drain from cloak is uber powerful.  Salarian Infiltrator + N7 Valiant Sniper Rifle = Win.