Houston is the armpit.  plain and simple.

I'd kill for dry heat.  At least your sweat can actually cool you off in dry heat.

They should have went CGI

Two words...

JarJar Binks

One word:  Gollum

On a side note, I would consider the Pixies to be one of the greatest American rock bands, especially when you look at their influence on music from Nirvana on...

Pearl Jam is number 1 but Nirvana is 18?  what?  damn, I need me some of the crack they're smokin...

I wish I had walked out on Matrix Revolutions.  As it was, I managed to time a bathroom break quite nicely with the idiotic 'rave' sequence....

Meh?  The rave sequence in Revolutions was key to the story.  The one in Reloaded might be the one you were thinking of.

Oops.  That's right, Revolutions was the one I fell asleep during.  

I wish I had walked out on Matrix Revolutions.  As it was, I managed to time a bathroom break quite nicely with the idiotic 'rave' sequence....

Will Smith
Madonna
Julia Roberts (dear GOD I can't stand her!)
Michael Jackson
Streisand

Happy B-day Ron & Loren!  I wouldv'e popped in sooner but I've been spending the last thrre days of my four day 'vacation'  enjoying the lingering effects of the sinus infection I was so lucky to get after the cold that my loving children decided to bestow on me two weeks ago.  Today it gifted me with an ear infection (yaaay!) and I'm about to celebrate by putting my head through the flimsy sheetrock of my wall.

But hey, at least I saw the kickass new Batman movie yesterday with a buddy of mine, so it wasn't all bad.

Don't let my meandering grouchitude give you pause, though, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!

So, now the US is gonna start WW3?  Seriously, things were a LOT scarier back when we thought it was going to break out between us and USSR.  Bush overseeing the invasion of Iraq is not "Negotations are a no go, you either do what he wants or you get bombed, invaded, and occupied".  and this:  "If we didn't have a warmongering president, China would pose no threat at all to us." is a patently ludicrous statement as they have posed a threat to us for longer than I have been alive.

Don't believe the hype.  Bush is not Hitler, North Korea is run by AN INSANE PERSON that would be acting like a freak even if Mickey Mouse was in office, and whatever goes on in the middle east affects every country in this world thanks to our dependency on oil and it's byproducts.

And please don't take any of this as a pro-Bush diatribe- I think he's a subpar president, just like every president we've had for the last several decades.  We haven't had a real man of quality in that office in years.  Both republicans and democrats are more concerned with extending their power (for the most part) than actually doing the right thing.  The two-party system is killing this nation more than anything, IMHO.  We at least need more voices in the house and senate, and I don't mean just one or two.

Oh, never mind.  I don't even know why I responded to this thread, it's not like I'm going to convince anybody to stop buying into the bullshit of one side or another.  /rant off.

This is no Independence day, not even close.
What a peice of shit I cant beleive I spent $14 on this crap.

You WANTED it to be like Independence Day? I'd rather eat shards of broken glass than see another travesty like that.  In fact, saying it's nothing like ID4 is a surefire way to get my ass in the theater this weekend.

sold high dollar stuff on ebay, but never bought

Seriously, you guys are all nuts.  That trailer rocked.

The problem really lies in the fact that pharmeceutical companies are big business, and are generally more concerned with keeping their revenues up than actually helping people.  You'll notice that most drugs treat the symptoms rather than the illness.  There just isn't as much money to be made from a cure as there is a drug that alleviates symptoms.

I believe this was proven to be a fake several weeks ago.

the memory card slot and original xbox controllers are a dead giveaway, among others.

If it's dual shock, I think I'll get one for my wife as an anniversary gift next year.

not the system, just the controller.

I'll be happy to contribute graphics on the CG side of things.  can the png have transparency?

How is the console market doing in Africa?

I don't know.  I wasn't talking specifically about the console market in Africa, and I won't pretend to know what kind of economy they have over there.

And when talking about the 'health' of an economy, frivolous expenses have little to do with actual health.  

When talking about the health of an economy, there is no distinction between frivolous expenses and non frivolous expenses, only the sale and purchase of goods and services

Indices of such would be stable jobs, a healthy balance of import and export for goods and services, health care, etc.  Consumerism is low on the totem pole regarding 'health', since consumerism is what people do with surplus funds.

Your last sentence contradicts itself.  If the economy wasn't at least partially healthy people wouldn't HAVE surplus funds.  And proper indeces of how good an economy is doing are more along the lines of production, consumer confidence, employment rates, etc.  Health care is not and never has been an indication of a healthy economy.

1. What people choose to squander their funds on has little to do with the economic health of the nation.

Wrong.  This is a cornerstone of economics.  Whenever you are discussing the economic health of a nation, you must always consider what the population of said nation is buying and how much.  Spending money and purchasing goods is what drives an economy, what keeps companies providing goods and services in business, what keeps those companies hiring.

Y'know, I was reading up on the 'Downing Street Memos' and came across something very odd, to say the least:

Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.

The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have circulated widely). A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the material.

(full article)

Ok, so this guy re-typed the memo and destroyed the originals?  And a 'senior British official'  vouched for their authenticity, but chooses to remain anonymous?  I smell shennanigans.

Well, at least there won't be loading screens between scenes....

I want to see the script to the new movie before I get excited. So many of the previous drafts toyed with the character of Superman or Luthor -- Jesus, one even "revealed" that Luthor was also from Krypton -- that I will have no confidence in this production until someone gives me a reason to.

I read somewhere that not only was Brian Singer going to loosely adhere to the continuity of the first two films, but that he actually sought after and recieved Richard Donner's blessing for the new one.  I know that he started from scratch and all previous takes on the screenplay were totally scrapped.

Honestly, it couldn't be in better hands at this point.  I'm just sad that X-Men 3 is turning into such a train wreck as a result.  There was such promise....

damn.  I wanna see this.  now.

Sigh.  Allright, this is pointless.  Have your little Bush-bashing (and NO I AM NOT DEFENDING, CONDONING, or otherwise fellating George W. Bush) circle-jerk, I'm not going to be baited by you any further.

Wow, Rise of Legends looks completely kick ass.

Should I get RoN?  One of my classmates couldnt say enough good things about it.

RoN was great.  A very nice take on the RTS genre.  I've been meaning to give Thrones & Patriots a run myself.

Do you guys flame everyone who posts a link to an article without 'asking' for comments?

No, I call out a troll when someone links to an article with a baited thread title.  That is ALL I was doing.

When you start a thread with a title like this, offering no actual opinion except for your smug play on words in the title and throw an article quote on the table like this, yes, I think your motives are indeed in question.

If you had quoted the article, offered up your opinion afterwards, and asked what everybody else thinks, then THAT is opening up a discussion.

The way you did it came off as very trollish to me and I said as much.

edit- never mind.

Then please, enlighten me as to why you started this thread to begin with.  All I see is a smug self-righteousness  I don't believe that you have the open-mindedness to actually engage in an honest discourse with someone who's opinion differs from yours.  By all means, prove me wrong, it'll be a pleasant change of pace.

Ad Hominem

Yes, I know what Ad Hominem means, thank you, now please quit spamming the thread with it.  Let's just do away with formalities and use 'sticks and stones' from now one, ok?

Unbreakable, do you ever, for a minute of your life, ever think that sometime, just sometimes, you may be wrong?  Or maybe not even completely right?  Seriously, man, why DO you start these threads?

th'Fool wrote:
If I thought the thread was actually started to initiate discussion I would have gladly joined it. As it is, the thread title and subsequent post is more guilty of what you are speaking of than my brief comment about it is.  


Yes, get your Ad Hominem in early and often.

Then please, enlighten me as to why you started this thread to begin with.  All I see is a smug self-righteousness  I don't believe that you have the open-mindedness to actually engage in an honest discourse with someone who's opinion differs from yours.  By all means, prove me wrong, it'll be a pleasant change of pace.

troll much?

Seriously... if you really want a discussion, as opposed to just trying to rile people up, there's that *other* board, ya know...

If I thought the thread was actually started to initiate discussion I would have gladly joined it.  As it is, the thread title and subsequent post is more guilty of what you are speaking of than my brief comment about it is.

I calls 'em how I sees 'em.

troll much?

Yeah, I saved my favorites for part 2  

I gotta say, though, War Front: Turning Point was pretty damn spectacular.  You gotta see that earthquake bomb in action.

Hey all, today we bring you part 2 of my Tactical Report.  Here's an excerpt:

When Rise of Nations came out in 2003, I was curious to see Microsoft publish what appeared to be a direct competitor to their wildly popular Age of Empires series. Of course, at that time, Ensemble had recently released their divergent fantasy strategy title Age of Mythology, so it really wasn’t an issue, and it appears that they are in a trade-off with Big Huge Games as the follow-up to Rise of Nations is taking non-historical route this time. Rise of Legends takes the award winning gameplay of RON and infuses it with a fantasy steam-punk flavor, giving us the freshest take on strategy gaming I have seen in a long time.

Check it out here: http://www.consolegold.com/e3/articles.php?artID=54

I`m near cleveland ohio and it`s freaking hot, and has been for awhile

Cry me a river, dude. I live in Houston. During the summer, even our fish sweat

Cleveland
Houston

What Raven said.  And it ain't even August yet.

Hey guys, I just posted part 1 of my Strategy game preview.  I focus on six games total, with the first three in this first part of it.  Check it out here.

In part 1, I preview Blitzkrieg II, War Front: Turning Point, and Codename:Panzers Phase Two.

Can we just let it die?  huh?  how about that?

And speaking of blind Jedi, how come they have this entire sensorium of security holograms watching Palpatine and probably everything else that goes on around the city, and yet Obi Wan can push a button in an instant to see that:

1) Ah! Anakin slaughtered the Jedi Temple.  
2) Aha! Palpatine is the Sith Lord!  
3) Oh look! Anakin is the new apprentice.

That hologram sequence was taken within the Jedi temple itself.  Chances are pretty good that they had security cameras there, that they could access there.

Of course, that still doesn't explain the 'highlight reel' that Obi-Wan got, but, hey...

Well, it originally started as a comic book character a friend of mine and I created back in high school, The Fool.  Didn't really think much about it until a few years later when I rediscovered comics and started trying to do my own again.  The Fool pretty much became my mascot at that point.  Later, when I started doing freelance work I decided to call my 'company' FoolishStudios and my avatar here is part of my brand.

And while you are at it:

Here's Ron's article about the dashboard: http://www.consolegold.com/e3/articles.php?artID=41&pg=1

Here are my photos of it:
http://www.consolegold.com/e3/Photos/index.php?CategoryID=11

Having been on the E3 floor trying to decipher what a rep was telling me about a game through the noise pollution surrounding us, I can tell you I much preferred what Bethesda did.