appalachian_fox

Or bad aim? I have that in spades!

I hear you can wear baby seal boxers while clubbing. Perhaps their anti-static properties improve your dance skillz when electronic dance music fills the air?

Next, he would have told you that only the Monster cables are good, and that with a $12 optical you'll still get lots of static... Of course they do, silly goose: You need the optical cables with gold connectors! You have to worry about impedance matching, too...

That's not fair. Most of them have..umm..well, there's... Y'know, that's really about it.

I imagine you wouldn't want to use the WHOLE hotel. Even the one building is pretty big, and adding in all those hotel rooms is just asking for someone to be a jerk and hide in one at the end of the round. Lots of Admin-slapping will ensue, and really, who wants to do that kind of babysitting? Just trying to help justify a cut in the space you plan on doing. Neat, can't wait to see what turns out!

Now, it seems that there are lots of ideas of what is required for a mod floating around here, and since I've never modded I'm a bit confused myself: Do you need actual blueprints with dimensions and such? Do you need a general sketch (like Anonymo posted)? Do you need something in between? Last year I had all sorts of layout images I captured from hotel websites that were pretty darn good, but obviously lacked the dimensions and details of, say, the rooms, utility areas, etc. It also lacked the information of what was actually in the rooms (which is why I imagine you want pictures). You know, the more I think about this, the more fun this project sounds. I'll see what information I still have. Also, the more I think about it, it's been two years since I went to FF, so I'll have to dig deep...

I think this can be said about each successive woot-off.

Got the demo the other day. Meh. The NES port was better. But I'm a curmudgeon.

Are you talking specifically about this card or mobo?

You could write the local equivalent of the building department. "I'm looking for the blueprints for a hotel. You see, there's going to be a bunch of people there in a few months and I want to create a game mod of the hotel so that we can have terrorists bombing the hotel and counter-terrorists trying to stop them." Make sure to include your complete name and address so they...I mean, the blueprints...know where to find you.

I'll second the Dell monitors having a port for the USB cable to go to the computer proper. In fact, I haven't seen a screen that had USB ports which didn't require a USB cable to the computer, but I admittedly have not seen many monitors with USB hubs.

kills SLI'd 8800's? That seems a bit of a stretch, from what I've read the graphics aren't the best ever seen for dx9, although they're still very good. I'd bet my 7800gt would perform admirably at 1280x1024 at least Oh, and if you're still running AGP, I'll chip in $2 for the "buy Mo some new parts" fund! Sheesh, if it's simply having an AGP video card that gets you a new parts fund, I'ma gonna apply!

Something like that...I think these realistic shooters don't interest me because of the realism...I need to be able to take some bullets before dying...same reason I really dislike SplinterCell games...it's just me I think I didn't like one of the Clancy games I played (I think it was a Rainbow Six) where I could shoot a "terrorist" in t-shirt and shorts four or five times and he wouldn't go down, but one or at best two hits on me (in Kevlar) and I'm out. In general, though, I actually like those games. The original Ghost Recon was great, as were its expansions (I refer to the PC version) and I've always liked Splinter Cell...But I can see where the frustration would come from. I've been playing R6: Vegas and man, it's neat, but if you can't quicksave they need to add many more save points. Nothing frustrates me more than clearing a whole area of baddies to get to a "situation" then flubbing it by nudging the "nipple" and opening the door instead of using the snake cam. For us casual gamers who aren't comfortable with console controllers, flubs cause a lot of heartache. That, and frankly, I like trying different things. I'd really like to jump back to a spot I just finished flawlessly and try a bunch of other things. And for what it's worth, I like being able to take a bunch of bullets as well...Simply because I'm so bad at these games, I need that n00b-assist. How come I can heal my teammates for a minute or two after they fall, and I can heal them as many times as I want per level, but they can't be bothered to do the same for me? Oh, and to stay on topic, I plan on renting GRAW 2. I played the GRAW demo, and was far more impressed with it on XBox 360 than on console, but I still like the original better. Is 2 pretty much the same game as 1, or are there major differences?

And so God separated the console games from the PC games, and gave half the 'Net to the console games and half the 'Net to the PC games. And God said, "This is good." ?

Oof, I dunno, how do you appraise one-of-a-kind works like that? Check your traditional economic notions at the door. I wouldn't pay that much, because I don't have that kind of cash kicking around and it's a strictly aesthetic improvement. However, it looks like some darn good work. I wonder if heat will be an issue. Don't they get kind of warm? I wonder what an extra layer of paint does.

No thanks. *droolz*

Wait a minute. They made books about The Lord of the Rings?

rofl...did you throw your beer at him at that point? Actually, that was as he was putting on his protective vest and checking his handgun and two rifles before he took us out into the middle of the Everglades. I asked him something stupid like if we were 'gator hunting or what, and he gave me the whole deal about how rangers often end up in the middle of nowhere , heavily outmanned and outgunned. I heard a similar thing from a Great Smoky Mountain NP ranger as well, when I was helping a friend do some back-county research on birch tree stands or something similar -- Apparently we were going into pot-growing regions, and were told to always watch where we were going and not to approach anybody we might come across when we got way off-trail. Of course, it's definitely a small population, so that kind of throws off the numbers a bit. I still went out both times. Just was a bit more careful.

Why go through all that trouble when you can do this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16832116213 Or this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16832116215 Of course, be warned these are OEM copies, licensed for one machine and with some other restrictions befitting an OEM, but if that fits your requirements it is even better on the budget. Do you own a copy of Windows now? ANY copy from Windows 2000 on? If you do, that should satisfy your upgrade requirements as well. Old Dell discs/CoAs, anything like that?

Sweet! Nice work.

If you can drag the family to Hooters, Mr. Fatty, the missus and I will be glad to swing down to the ATL and see ya. Since the Mustards, my better 15/16ths and I have been to FragFests, I think that counts as a business trip and that makes the gas a tax deduction. Or something like that.

Nice.

eBay. I got a few replacement parts (keyboard, almost bought a new LCD/inverter, hinge covers, some small stuff) for an ancient laptop off of eBay. No guarantees, but I never found a price I could turn down when I found what I want...well, except on the LCDs and inverters. Those got expensive.

I picked up a pack of brand-name rechargables at Wal-Mart a few weeks back, with charger, for about $17 as I recall. The charger had a USB adapter in it. Reading the instructions, It seems you can use a USB port to charge your batteries. There's also this puppy: http://www.x-tremegeek.com/templates/searc...?productID=5281 Not quite as compact as having the charger in the battery, but still gets the same point across.

I'll second the Axim. Wait until there's a sale (happens about once a month, as I recall) and get yourself an Axim X51V for $400. Of course, there are other Pocket PCs with different feature sets, but for the price range you can get a lot of bang for your buck out of the Axim and having known a few people who have them, myself having owned one (which I got used) for the past two years, they are remarkably stable and resilient if patched.