Pattern Ghost

Re: OT: Anyone try out STO FTP yet? I had Malwarebytes alerts on a Moldovan IP address trying to gain access through Pando Media Booster today, after installing the game last night. I already had Pando Media Booster installed, but it was set not to run in the background. Apparently, the good folks at Perfect World saw fit to turn that setting off for me. PMB is allegedly safe, and it's possible the IP address is a dynamic one that some legit user (or even a scammer legitimately playing the game is possible I suppose) got it today. Either way, it's annoying that the bastards are stealing my bandwidth without asking. Turbine backed off on leaving the thing run in the background after taking flak for this issue. Some people have very limited plans, and have found themselves on the receiving end of very large bills or having their access cut off or restricted for exceeding their bandwidth because of this program. (Not a huge issue for me, but folks in other countries have been burned by this.)

Looks like STO went FTP on the 17th. I'm downloading it now. Anyone else try it out yet? Opinions? Is the FTP model as liberal as the CO one? (IE, lots of stuff to do for the freeps.)

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Dang, that's weird. I was actually listening to T'Pau earlier too, and forgot to put a link up. Eerie.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? I was just listening to: Who I found from her appearance in this song: Which kind of reminded me of this song (male and female harmonizing): I've also been listening to this Welsh lass a lot lately: I liked how she made a crap song into something much better. She's better known for: Just got done listening to a little PCD. (Michael Buble eat your elevator-music voiced heart out.) Then I went down to the river to pray:

Re: Order of the Stick Argh!

Re: Order of the Stick No anger about Worfing. Just that everyone here should know the term. No need to post more links to the Tropes site. The usage was fine.

Re: Order of the Stick LOL, rep for turning my outburst into genuine humor.

Re: Order of the Stick Seriously, do we need a freaking TV Tropes link on Worfed? On the Hero boards? God, I hate that idiot site, and I hate it more now.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! The books have a lot more depth as far as world building. The TV show is a decent adaptation, albeit with a lot less "stuff."

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! Well, there are tournament formats for booster drafts, or for taking a starter and X number of boosters and building a deck on the spot. Those still introduce some luck, but test your on the spot deck building skills (vs. copying a popular deck style) and tend to even the field. On the plus side, you usually get to keep the cards after it's over. If you're building a deck for a constructed format, you can use proxies to practice with, then just buy the cards you need on an individual basis. It's a lot cheaper than trying to get lucky buying booster boxes. I got tired of the game mainly because of the constant introduction of new rules and the phone book of rules errata. I still have a few thousand older cards I need to get around to putting on eBay.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! I think the fact that he actually had a planned out beginning, middle, and end and didn't milk the series past the intended length helped a lot. And there was no middle book syndrome. Each book told its story, which led to the next book, but were all pretty self-contained. Overall, very well put together and didn't fall into traps that a lot of series fantasy does nowadays.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!!

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! Especially given his environment. I still like it, but I see your point. You might like Codex Alera by Butcher a bit better. (Or you may hate it.)

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! If I wasn't me, I'd agree with you. =) Fair point, though. It does make for a pretty solid pace, though.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! He makes the main character's life difficult in so many ways it'll make your head spin. He doesn't need the magic and technology thing to do that in the least, as Dresden manages to get himself into multiple life and death fixes in every book due to his own personality quirks, whether stubbornness, pride, contrariness, or nobility. The magic vs technology thing is just setting fluff.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! Same here. Just don't like her style. I'm not going to tell you what to read, but... They are very quick reads, like a lot of Zelazny's stuff. Won't take much time at all. =) I think that one's too mainstream for you to worry about it impacting geek cred. You know, high end VCRs in the 80s and 90s had a lot of features you still can't get on digital. I do loves my Blu-Ray though. =) You're absolved by Sturgeon's Law on this one. You probably aren't missing much, really. That's on the game developers, I think. I like some manga. They can be fun, and tend to be more character driven (depending on genre) than Western comics. Liking Asian women is more of a horny sailor thing, though, so I don't think it impacts geek cred much. I liked the show, but not the goofy ending. I ended up missing a lot of the first season of B5 due to work schedule and VCR failure, and never did get around to watching it. DS9 sucked at the beginning, but got very good later IMO.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! heretic! >> What the heck is with the forum? That was supposed to be all caps, but it keeps getting changed to all lower case. Way to f-up a joke, forum software. Even if it's a pitiful joke.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! I think Tolkien's problem is more one of being dated vs. style or ability. Dickens is a huge offender in the same way. I always have trouble getting through the middle book myself. It does tend to bog down.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! Taylor Swift was on an episode of Crossroads with Def Leopard. The format is some country singer teams with some non-country singer and they sing each others' songs. I really started liking her more after that. (Actually, that goes for a lot of pop artists. Seeing them do something other than what the record company usually has them do lets you see more of their actual talent.)

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!!

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! No, I think it's Lucas who lost his geek cred.

Re: Destroy Your Geek Cred!! Same here.

Re: 11 Victoria's Secret models hit the catwalk as superheroines Here's someone with an eating disorder (Fiona Apple music video, girl in undies, nsfw) go to 1:30 mark: Big difference in the muscle tone between her and the models from the article.

Re: 11 Victoria's Secret models hit the catwalk as superheroines These women aren't skin and bones. They all look perfectly healthy to me. People really need to stop jumping on that bandwagon without taking a closer look at the pictures.

Re: Gliding = Untrackable? Not leaving foot prints or scent trails would make you very hard to track, but you don't just interact with the ground and the air when you're moving through some environments. I think Desolid is really the only power that can make someone completely untrackable. I'd say -2 probably for the level of limitation. Depending on how fast your ground movement is, though, Gliding may be cheaper and more reasonably priced. 13 points for an ability that seldom comes up in most games may be a bit high. Or we could just make a custom power or talent, call it Untrackable and discount it down to 10 pts.