Red

[quote name='Desert Shadow' timestamp='1350085701' post='712401'] [b]Oh my gosh. You really do remember. Haha, that's awesome. Do you remember the buckets? SNAP SON. Buckets are back.[/b] [attachment=15305:Original - Silly Bucket.jpg] [/quote] Oh my. I still remember you spreading boldness to me and AJ like some sort of textual disease. Also Dessert Shadow, the tastiest of impersonators. Good to see you here again!

Haven't played much recently but I'm down for games or showing new people the ropes if you're interested. Send me a PM and I'll drop you a link to my profile! Don't have any invites left unfortunately. Petie and Allamorph, anything in particular you want to know? The wikipedia page describes the basic gameplay elements pretty well so I wasn't sure what to write here without rambling endlessly.

Cripes. Think I was called elite dbz or something equally ridiculous way back in the days before the board got haxored or whatever it was, but red since then. Pretty amazing to see so many old faces posting in 'ere, wouldn't know where to start when it comes to trying to say hello again and whatnot! Any chance anyone knows what Deus and Sephiroth are up to these days? Either I'm a blithering idiot (fairly likely to be honest) or I didn't spot them while nostalgia tripping through the thread.

[quote name='Gavin' date='04 June 2010 - 12:53 PM' timestamp='1275652425' post='694534'] [font="Tahoma"][size="2"][strike]Death[/strike] Defeat to the cheating French![/size][/font] [/quote] Hoping said defeat is decided by a keeper charging up the field and punching it in Kahn-style, preferably with a deflection off Henry's face! Not that I'm the vengeful type... Also hoping England get somewhere but that's mostly out of a wish to see the incredibly pessimistic press & supporters shut up for five minutes Looking forward to watching the Dutch play too, if only to see van Persie have a touch of the flippin' ball (the man works magic, I tell thee).

Windows 7 'ere. Love Aero and things like the ickle gadget I'm using (which is called system control), but hate that customisation only goes so far when there's huge potential for tweaking shenanigans.

[quote name='Gavin'][SIZE=1]I admit I am always a little perplexed by the fascination that has developed around the day, more so those with absolutely no Irish connections (and no, your housemate's third cousin's ex-girlfriend's grandfather does not practically make you Irish) being so enthused by it. [/SIZE][/QUOTE] As someone who is labeled plastic at family events for being the only member not born & raised in eire, same here!

[quote name='AJeh'][size=1] [b]WHY IS IT SO HARD TO MAKE TOAST?![/B] Trying my hand at isometric pixel art. My slice of bread looks like cardboard. A little. [/size][/QUOTE] Show us your toast and I'll show you my flora. Gwaaaan.

Modern Warfare 2 on the PC. First came the announcement that there would be no mod tools or dedicated servers - a terrible blow, but one that I would've been able to forgive for the sake of a vastly improved CoD4. Then the release came, and I spent my first week invariably getting decked at extreme range by people dual weilding century-old lever action shotguns. Since then, on top of the lag and ridiculous matchmaking problems, its been one horrible balance issue after another.

I'm looking forward to [b][url=http://www.blackprophecy.com]Black Prophecy[/url][/b]. It's another pew pew internet spaceships MMO but unlike EVE etc it grants you full control over the ship, which will hopefully mean skill isn't limited to how well you can design a spreadsheet. It's being made by the same small German team who made a game called Neocron, one of few decent attempts at an mmofps. Oh, and it looks gorgeous too :p

[quote name='ChibiHorsewoman'][color=#9933ff][font=monotype corsiva][size=4]My current blue tooth is a POS and I need to take it to a Verizon store to get it looked at. I'm really bad when it comes to talking while driving. I just did it tonight on my way home from work right down to driving with my elbow because I was putting my window up (I have power everything in that car so it wasn't THAT bad) I think that first ticket didn't really get me.[/color][/font][/size][/QUOTE] If that's your attitude nothing you do in the car to distract yourself will be 'that bad' until you hit something, or someone.

Americans die on waiting lists too. Look hard enough and you'll find horror stories from every health care system on the planet - they attempt to cater for an entire population, nothing that huge can ever run perfectly. We in the UK have the National Health Service. It's ridiculously far from perfect, especially at the moment thanks to government meddling, but on the whole it works. Yes, sometimes the wait can be ridiculous, but let's be realistic here: people don't turn up at A&E suffering from a heart attack and get told to take a seat. If your condition requires urgent attention you will get it - if you don't...well, see what I mentioned about horror stories. As I see it the problem with the US system is profit; people want to make too much in an environment where it is difficult unless you begin to do things that are questionable, ethically. Patenting treatments rather than the technology involved. Drug or other private medical companies directly funding medical education and sponsoring studies which wholeheartedly recommend x, which turns out to be something developed by the sponsor company. Insurers being able to declare things like cancer pre-existing conditions. That's just for starters. I think at the very least a compromise between nationalised health care and insurance needs to be reached for everyone to receive fair and timely treatment for whatever ailment they may have (isn't that why health care exists in the first place?). I think the Aussies have a half-and-half system that works pretty well, as do some European countries. Some more restrictions on the way private medical companies operate couldn't hurt either.

Spare a thought (or a penny) for smokers in London...$8.70 for a 20 pack according to google's conversion! The price of packs has gone up over here but I haven't noticed any change for rolling baccy. Shisha and all the other fine smokables don't seem to have been affected either.

Yeah, bluetooth headsets are a tad pricey and there are many tales of epic fail to be told. That said, if the only wired headset you can find plugs into the controller it's technically using bluetooth anyway. Might as well splash out and avoid having to go through a pad to get a good signal.

[quote name='Shy'][size=1]Has anyone had to deal with this alleged Conficker computer worm yet? -Shy[/size][/QUOTE] All it did was update itself so no mass computer brickings or any of that lark :D Bit of an anti-climax really

7 years according to me profile, can't remember if I was on OB before that anyway! Least favourite memory is my own posts; inevitably said things as a teenager that would make me cringe now. :D Plus moderating Your Picture for a short spell...'nuff said! Lots of good memories, mostly of the many people who are still here or have passed through at one point or another. Writing in bold with AJ because it wuz kool, aim chats of ridiculous length, kuja... Which reminds me, got a good kick out of reading the otakupedia so cheers to all those who took the time to write it all ;D

[quote name='TimeChaser']An interesting new development in the story... [url]http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/01/08/watchdog-to-probe-atheist-advertising-claim-91466-22649549/[/url] From the article: Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) yesterday, saying the adverts break the ASA’s codes on substantiation and truthfulness. [size=1]snipped[/size][/QUOTE] Hopefully he won't get very far with that complaint. The possibility of at least one person complaining about truthfulness was brought up in the fundraising stage, so the campaigners made sure the word probably was used on the main ad. Unless the ASA embarks on a massive rewrite of the rulebook over the next few days the campaign should be fine.

[quote name='Nessaja'] Also, why is it that no place seems to sell old PC games? I've been looking for the old Unreal Tournament for a while now, but with no luck.[/QUOTE] You can get it from [url]www.gog.com[/url] (good old games) - GOTY edition, patched and DRM free. 'tis a fantastic website that's a bit like Steam...who also sell the first UT, [url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/13240/]here[/url]! Giving away keys online is against Blizzard's EULA. Follow Nathan's link, it's pretty much the only legit way to get it done without buying a new copy of the game.

I've only been able to play short bursts of the demo due to a busted hand but I'm completely sold, this game is fantastic. I love the characters, the hordes and the panic that overcomes everyone when they hear a witch or get slimed by a boomer. Really, really love what Valve have done with the source engine lighting, too; anyone who has lit up a pitch black room with a flashlight only to catch a glimpse of something hurtling towards you knows what I mean! Unfortunately you don't seem to able to see your teammates' lights on the PC version but hopefully that will be sorted for the full game. My main gripe is with the PC difficulty - as I said my hand is completely screwed yet I still managed to do fine against anything that wasn't a hunter. Expert was a breeze after 3-4 playthroughs of the subway level unless the AI spawned the witch in an unavoidable area and it's a bit too easy to kite the tank if there are obstacles nearby. It'll likely be much tougher with players controlling the zombies but I still think there should be yet another, more ridiculous difficulty setting. Edit: seems advanced & expert in the full game are much, much tougher than they are in the demo, which is brilliant. Multiple tank & other special spawns along with thousands of zombies over the course of each campaign!

[quote name='Vicky'][size=1]There's a few kids who do it around here and are really bad at it. For one, they don't do anything relatively dangerous or talented aside from grabbing the edge of a wall and dropping from it, or jumping down two steps swinging their arms. In fact, we do better Parkour than them when we go urban exploring (that is, taking photographs of places that are all blocked off, illegal sites, closed down and abandoned buildings .etc).[/size][/QUOTE] You shouldn't be quick to judge, it could just be a group of smart beginners - I've met many an idiot who thinks they can pull off what they've seen in Jump London/Britain after a few months of training. If they're constantly doing small drops and rolling around, they are smart. If they're just showing off, sod 'em...at least they're not hurting themselves. Yet. Anyway, until recently I had about two and a half years of practice under my belt, now I'm just waiting for a rather bad hand injury to heal up before starting again. Absolutely adore doing parkour, especially in London. I couldn't give two flying hoots about the free running/parkour argument...seems ridiculous to me and I train with people who like both styles. Kenso, my advice to you is to take it as slow as you can and have patience. You need to condition your body parts (especially your joints) to take the kind of strain you're eventually going to be putting on them and this takes time. For drops and jumps the roll is the most important thing you will learn, as it's the only thing between you and injury in those situations. Even the experts who have been doing parkour for years constantly practice rolls, along with all the other basics. While I'm at it I might as well repeat that practice for everything is extremely important, especially the basics. Upper body strength plays a large role in parkour but technique plays a gargantuan one; it's about how you use that strength, your weight etc. Your asthma shouldn't be a problem. You'll definitely be working hard but there is nothing stopping you doing it in short bursts, especially when you're first starting out - there's no need to attempt a marathon. ;) Also, try to get some friends into it or find a group online that practices in your area. It's hard to tell if your technique is off yet very easy to get stuck in bad habits, having friends around allows you to make suggestions to each other and avoid needing to change your style or re-learn something later. It's also helpful to have someone who can help you should injury occur!

[quote name='James'][font=franklin gothic medium]I read somewhere that the amount of spam is now so high that it is responsible for some significant percentage of internet slowdown globally. Ugh. I think my bigger pet peeve is viruses. I mean...who actually sits down and deliberately makes these things? I can't imagine setting out to create something that will disrupt businesses and damage people's computers. It's just totally malicious and the creator really gets nothing financial out of it - they just get some kind of weird satisfaction perhaps. Always good to hear about spammers/virus creators being caught.[/font] :catgirl:[/QUOTE] I would imagine it makes things chug a bit. According to wiki 110 billion spam e-mails are sent a day, which equates to a whopping 102 terabytes of daily bandwidth usage if all the mails are only 1Kb in size. That's an awful lot of data but I wouldn't be surprised if the real figure is even higher! These days, most of the more damaging viruses are created with financial gain in mind. A good chunk of the spam being sent out is handled by botnets, huge networks of compromised machines that are controlled by a single person or group without the end user knowing. These things can and do change hands for thousands of dollars at a time, if not more - it's even possible to rent some! Having control of one of those things would potentially allow you to send millions of spam e-mails a day without using your own bandwidth. If only 0.1% of your targets reply to you, the [size=1]PRINCE OF NIGERIA'S BEST MATE WHO NEEDS £1000 TO SAVE ORPHANED PUPPIES[/size], you still have 1000 potential sources of cash. That's a big return for a relatively small investment, if you can call it that :p Also, I've just read that the name of the US anti-spam act is CAN-SPAM. :D

Cripes, you're a modest one! Drop the thesaurus and get a grip mate - you can't moan at someone about generalisations and people 'having the authority' to decide if you're right or wrong, moments before you swear you're right based on generalised opinions of others. Find a peer-reviewed study to back up your conclusion regarding excessive tattooing; a doctor supposedly saying that it = self harm doesn't cut it (ho ho ho).

[quote name='Somegirl']The only MAJOR problem I have right now is if I lost this computer I lose about $1500 in just files alone. Another $800-$1000 in programs and an *** load of time.[/quote] There is nothing stopping you from hooking up your hard drive to another PC or mac and rescuing your files, even if it's a laptop. Neither is there anything in the way of re-installing your software on another PC (or mac if you use boot camp) if it is legitimate, just use the cd-keys. [quote]I need to buy a new one. Are Macs really worth their price? The notebook I was looking at was $1099? which is outrageous to me but I am going into Graphic Design for college in 2009 and I will have to have a laptop. Another thing that bothered me was how fragile they look. I?ve dropped this one at least twice and it withstood but if I drop a Mac is it going to total it?[/QUOTE] Everyone here has pretty much covered it; macs are the don when it comes to design work. Boot camp is there if you ever desperately need windows, while there isn't really anything for windows that allows you to boot OSX as easily. If you do go for a mac search the model number you're interested in on google, they've had some recalls and cracked case problems recently. Other than that, though, they're as sturdy as any other laptop.

No steam users, eh? If anyone has any of the Orange Box games but hasn't posted their details here, add meh if you're up for a game of CS/TF2 or the like! [url]http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197960439601[/url] As for WoW: Character: Aritias Faction: Alliance Class: Mage Character: Quadra Faction: Alliance Class: Rogue Both are on the Darksorrow PvP server (EU).

[quote name='MistressRoxie'][color=#9933ff][size=1]P.S.: If any of you *looks meaningfully in some directions* have experience with the club scene in London, much appreciated. [/size][/color][/QUOTE] If you mean London in the land of tea & crumpets then Retribution's advice is still pretty solid, just replace $ with £. Fabric is a decent place to go if it's your first time, lots of d&b/hip hop/breakbeat & plenty of people go on a Friday. Ignore me if you meant a London in a different country :p Regardless, can't stress keeping an eye on your drink enough, especially if you're only with a small group or on your own.

Tough choice, they both go well with a cuppa! Nothing quite like a few diges on a Saturday morning after a particularly rough night, though, so I'd have to say biscuits. Cookies are the nobbly things with chocolate chips in them, bloomin' yanks :p