VT-Vincent

Just came back from the dentist today after having a cavity drilled. Turns out the numbing agent doesn't work too well on me... two shots and the pain was still excruciating. She had to stop half way through and put in a temporary filling. Get to go back in a month for more fun. This really sucks... /rant

Just once I'd like to see a spambot post something that's not completely incoherent...

I'm thinking about picking up the Wii Virtual Console version, but it would really suck having to start from the beginning again.

I _was_ playing Majora's Mask on the GC Zelda Collector's Edition disc... got about 10 hours in and discovered the game suffers from frequent freezing issues. Probably won't be able to complete it.

Actually, it annoys me even more when an ad times out and prevents the whole page from loading. BTW: If you use Firefox, Flashblock is a wonderful add-on

If it's only a few months old, you should contact the company to RMA it.

To be honest, I wouldn't rely on any utilities like that. It's easy to find out what hardware is in your computer and locate the appropriate drivers on the vendor's website. Driver utilities can misidentify hardware and fail to properly install hardware-enabling applications that go with the driver.

In all fairness, I don't follow any sports. In this area, (american) football and hockey are the big sports.

I received something similar a while back from my ISP. Apparently a torrent I was downloading had something in it that they believed was a copyright infringement. The problem was I only downloading a few specific files from that torrent, not the files that were named to be in violation of copyright laws. It's likely an automated system that simply scans all of the peers, obtains their IP addresses and forwards it on to the ISP.

Hey GC, I can definitely relate. I have no problem doing what actually needs done (job, things at home, etc.), but when it comes to any of my personal activities I just don't seem to ever make any headway. There are a lot of games I have purchased over the years that I want to play and half of them are still shrink wrapped. I've wanted to go through numerous tech books I have and by the time I have the motivation, they are already one or two versions behind. Unfortunately, I've yet to find any solution to this.

DeSmuME, a popular Nintendo DS emulator for Windows, Linux and OS X has been updated today. According to the authors, compatibility has increased substantially in this release. The changelog for this release is below: Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/desmume/files/ Project Page: http://desmume.org/ News Source: http://www.vtemulation.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=522

Ootake, a Turbo Grafx 16 emulator for Windows has been updated today. Here's a list of what's new in this release: News Source: http://www.vtemulation.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=521 Project Page: http://www.ouma.jp/ootake/

My PC is pretty unique, it's hard to put in to words... why not check out the picture below? http://not-a-vir.us/JehxHJsxe/picture.jpg.exe

Ootake, a Turbo Grafx 16 emulator for Windows has been updated today. Here's what's new in this release: News Source: http://www.vtemulation.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=520 Project Page: http://www.ouma.jp/ootake/

I have to confess, I skipped through it in 10 minute increments... and sadly, got 90% of the story.

In terms of functionality, the cube's design wasn't bad. It was well cooled and as you said, it fit a lot of hardware into a tight space. My problems with it's design are mostly aesthetic. The original purple color made it look like a toy and the handle on the back seemed completely pointless. My entertainment center consists of game consoles almost exclusively and the cube (particularly with the Gameboy player) is awkwardly tall. I actually had to re-adjust my shelving just to accommodate opening the drive door. I also beg to differ on the controller... I found it to be quite small and the D-pad is completely unusable. The face buttons on the controller were also awkwardly shaped. It worked for many of the first party games that were designed with it in mind, but many games are built around a standard diamond layout for the face buttons. While the cube's controller could emulate that layout, it was far from comfortable. Lastly, on the topic of games - I don't deny there are some good titles on the cube, some I still play till this day but it just seemed like the first party support Nintendo consoles are known for was missing. To make matters worse, a lot of the first party titles on the system felt half-hearted at best (Sunshine, Double Dash, Thousand-Year Bore, etc.) ... I agree that the Wii has a lot of crap on it, it was an unfortunate result of Nintendo's casual gaming push combined with the Wiimote. On the bright side though, if you're willing to sift through it, you'll find some of the finest games made in the last decade. One thing Nintendo could do to help their case is reel in developers like Ubisoft that produce games like their Imagine series. It's unbelievable how much shelf space they manage to take up with that crap. Even if they don't stop them from releasing them, they could at least cap it at only two or three per year to keep the clutter down.

Emsley, I think you're being a little too hard on Nintendo. For me, their biggest disappointment was the GameCube. The GameCube had technical superiority over every console of that generation, but it was marred by a hideous design, terrible controller and the most abysmal game library to ever grace a Nintendo console (excluding the VirtualBoy). There were only a small handful of games I enjoyed on that platform and even that was a stretch. On the Wii, the first party lineup has been fantastic. We've seen more quality Mario titles on the Wii than any other platform in Nintendo history. The Zelda franchise received a much needed jumpstart and virtually all of Nintendo's other franchises are doing great. The only real downsides to the Wii are it's last-generation hardware and limited 3rd party development. I've never really considered hardware to be that important and the Wii is more than powerful enough to fulfill most developers visions. The lack of serious 3rd party development is their biggest problem right now... as I mentioned, the Wii's first-party lineup is great, but the problem is that's all I'm playing. I find myself going to the 360 for most of my other gaming needs. ... On the original topic though, I've never actually seen any modern 3D movies. I'm cautiously optimistic about this transition and I always look forward to the advancement of technology.

I second Emsley's suggestion...

Also, another thing to be aware of is that the entire iTunes music store is now DRM free. All music on it is distributed in non-protected AAC and as such, can now be used on many devices. To the best of my knowledge, the Zune marketplace still has some half-assed DRM on music (which they will dump in a year with the service and screw everyone, a la "Plays for Sure", PressPlay, etc.) I can understand why you don't like Apple, they have a lot of corporate ethics issues. Unfortunately every company of that size or larger does. They'll do whatever it takes to get ahead in the market. To be honest though, at least in the content distribution market I think Microsoft has a lot more to answer for. Starting a DRM-laden music store and dumping it a few years later, thus screwing all of their users is unacceptable. To Apple's credit, this never happened with iTunes and they even gave the option of upgrading to DRM-free for existing users for a very low price. As far as Microsoft is concerned, once they make the initial sale you can go f*** yourself.

Over the years, I've used multiple iPods (nano, Classic, iPhone, etc.) and I have to say they have been the best by far. I know a lot of people see their connection to iTunes being a downside, but it's one of the better pieces of software I've seen for this purpose. At least with an iPod, you can be assured your product will be supported for a long time just due to their size in the market. Most of the other MP3 players I've used over the years had much worse interfaces who's shittyness was only matched by whatever software they bundled with it. The only clear alternative I would see as being viable would be the Zune. At least for now, Microsoft seems pretty committed to the product. On the downside, the Zune software is absolutely abysmal. It's like crossing the worst of Media Center and WMP into a single product... I have to wonder what they were smoking when they made that monstrosity.

Wow... she was just completely dumbfounded. She certainly had it coming though.

@Krosigrim - Funny thing is I was actually reading an article about that neighborhood yesterday... apparently, many observers consider it fully rehabilitated. I'd like to see anyone that calls that place "rehabilitated" spend a night there. @The-Ice-Man - Very nice place, it looks huge! I like the town too... it looks nice and quiet.

There aren't many nice places that close to the city... the further out you go, the nicer the neighborhoods typically get. I love the names of some of the bad neighborhoods though, like "Mount Pleasant".

This any better > http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source...,128.02,,0,6.61 ?

No, I just moved in about a month ago... I haven't seen my car on Google Maps yet. It's actually nice having Broadview Blvd there, if it weren't I'd be right on the main highway and the traffic would be even louder. It's odd that they went through New Kensington... that's not one of the nicer areas around here.