The SF Bar & Grille: Maverick King's Hole in the Wall (

Maybe he'll produce.

And "300" can be purchased online, probably Amazon. It's about $25, though, and hardcover, extra wide.

 

I have to buy another book from Amazon anyway. Now, to find $25 . . .

I so need to get started on my summer job.

 

300 is an excellent comic. I read them as the individual issues were released. Frank Miller rules.

 

So. What about that new moderator guy, KnightWriter. Pretty crazy, eh?

 

Yah, he is out uv kontrol!!!!!11 [face_shocked]

 

I haven't been around enough to know. Since Friday I have been building a new computer and having all sorts of problems. I had the mother of all IRQ conflicts and now the monitor doesn't always come on when the computer is turned on. I'm scared that I'm going to screw up the motherboard by reseting so much!

I am sure Knightwriter will be fine as a mod.

 

Ever since I upgraded to XP Pro, I have been having IRQ issues. I bought a GF4, which runs fine, but I had to rearrange all my PCI cards so that there were no conflicts. I now have to disable my modem anytime I want to play a game, or my whole system locks up. Not that big of a deal, but it's gonna be bad when SWG comes out. I'll come up with a solution before then.

 

Time for another edition of Off Beat, the sometimes amusing crime-related column from my local paper.

List: Mow lawn, steal tire, get arrested
Thursday night, Grand Blanc Sgt. Willie arrested a Grand Blanc man, 19, after he was caught stealing tires from cars in the parking lot of the Fox Hill Glens Apartments. During a search of the man's car, police found a handwritten "to-do" list on the seat. Just below "mow the lawn" was another entry: "steal a tire". The note is now part of the criminal case.

More stolen moments
Two tired crooks in Flint got a rude awakening this week when a resident called police about an abandoned car. When a public service officer arrived to check on the car, two guys were asleep inside. Noticing damage to the steering column, the PSO called a dispatcher to send out a police officer who discovered that the abandoned car had recently been reported stolen. After awakening the two tired crooks, the officer learned that both men had previous felony warrants. Maybe they had "steal a car" on their to-do list.

 

The problem with my computer turned out to be the network card. I'll probably go buy a new cable modem with USB support. The new motherboard supports USB 2.0 so it should be just as fast PCI.


I just back from 4 days at the beach. Nothing but fun and sun with my family. I was surprised that my twins enjoyed it so much. Even the 10 month old was enjoying running in the waves.

 

I've got a job interview on Monday . . . nepotism works wonders

 

My connection is nowhere near as fast with USB as it is with my network card.

I wasn't too impressed with the USB connection.

 

My connection is flying. The progress bar goes from nothing to full in no time at all.

 

What does your speed test at?

 

I tested beyond awesome in that test.
I love cable.

 

Anybody play WarCraft III? It's purty fun so far, yup.

 

Been discussing it over in Games, actually. Yeah, it's a load of fun. I'm partial to the melee abilities of the Orcs, but their lack of strong aerial support doesn't make me all that happy.

The Undead are fun for starters and I need to get to know the magic aspect of the Night Elves before I do anything serious with them.

 

I've been playing that game a ton lately. It's weird going back to Blizzard after having become unhealthily obsessed with Galactic Battlegrouds. Warcraft 3 seems almost simplistic to me now.

 

I used to play a lot of Age of Empires and Age of Kings, so Galactic Battlegrounds was really boring for me

But WC3 is kinda refreshing, especially since I haven't done a lot of gaming lately.

 

Anybody obtained Neverwinter Nights yet? That is one I am looking towards getting.

 

I don't know; GB and the AoE series are fun (I wait with bated [or is that baited ] breathe for Age of Mythology) and have their bits of complexity, but WC3 can be a challenge at times, and having a small food cap and the varied food requirements for your troops, it can make for more in-depth analysis of what you really need to win a war. It's all well and good in WC2 to have an army of thirty knights with some ballista, footmen and archer support, but you can't do that anymore. You have to think. I believe WC3 has set a new level for RTS/RPS games to surpass.

Blizzard always seems to do that, making good games that whup everyone else's collective butt.

And no, I have yet to play Neverwinter Nights but moderator Gandolf the Grey plays.

 

Warcraft III is pretty good. I've been playing alot with the Humans lately-- great race for strategy.

 

Yeah, the more I play WC3, the more I can see the charm in it. I just get really annoyed with the training queue being so small and only being able to select 12 units at once. Drives me crazy. At least they added the idle worker feature though. I like playing Undead, because it makes me feel like I'm in Starcraft land again.

One other game I recently got is Empire Earth. I like it. A lot. It's cool because you can customize your own race. You get to decide which civilization bonuses you want. I'm having a little trouble with all the units and trying to figure out what works against what at the moment, but it's a lot of fun.

 

My nephew recently got Warcraft III for his birthday. Looks quite interesting. I have logged some hours in with Diablo II, another fine Blizzard product.

My problem is that I have to find little spurts of free time to do any kind of gaming, and I don't pick up new games often, so when I do I need to get quality stuff.

My birthday is coming up in about 3 weeks, and I may push for a game, but I don't know if Warcraft III is a kind of game that you can play for 1/2 hour to 2 hours at a time reasonably.

I have played a Beta demo of Age of Wonders II and have found it quite engaging. Being turn-based, I can easily stop playing at any point. It looks like good strategy, and it received a 90% score from PC Gamer. Not only that, but it's on sale at Best Buy this week.

Decisions, decisions.

 

Well, WC3 can be saved in mid game and most campaigns have convenient moments to do so, either right at the beginning, after you complete an optional quest, before a major attack or right after an AI attack. There's usually this calm before the storm that allows you a minute to get back into the saved game, or so I've found.

 

That's good to know. I was afraid the Blizzard folks would have followed the footsteps of Diablo II: if you clear out the Dry Hills (for example), but fail to find the Waypoint and then have to exit, when you play the game again you have to clear out Dry Hills a second time. That isn't a bad deal for gaining exp points, but when I want to advance the game due to limited playing time it can be a bit annoying.

I may pitch for AOW II anyway since Best Buy and Media Play both have it on sale this week.