Fatherpeteus

By far the biggest gift I've ever received - A 50" plasma TV! (Yep, physically biggest too iirc) Slim it may be, but that sucker weighs a ton! (OK, not literally. I managed to wrestle it from the truck to the table essentially by myself, at some physical toll.) It's nice, but ironically I find myself watching a lot less TV now. Apparently this sucker draws 550W, like a house full of light bulbs - If I left it on in the background all the time like I tended to with my old CRT, the electric bill would be ouch! Also some fantasy literature from Robin Hobb and Ray Feist. And some amusing ankle socks! Oh yeah, and the complete Firefly series on DVD!

Friday/Sunday works for me this week, but Fridays are hit and miss for me. Jan 2 OK Jan 9 OK Jan 16 Jan 23 Jan 30 OK Feb 6 Could be on by 8pm if needed Feb 13 OK Feb 20 Feb 27 OK Sunday evenings I can generally be on if needed... Except for Superbowl! TMI probably, but I'm all about teh advance planning!

Man, that's a whole bunch of points right there!

Heh - Thanks Paigow... The Pioneer elite is the ultimate, but unfortunately it isn't in my pricerange. For whatever reason they cost almost 4x the LG with the same specs, 2.5x the Panasonic even. Future Shop doesn't even carry them, I assume because they know they wouldn't get much volume. I'm not that kind of consumer, I suppose. Wish I was!

Thanks for the thoughts Sploit... I should have mentioned - There is no console plugged in at all (although I'm half-convinced to get a Wii, especially after finally finding a decent dueling game on my brother's this Christmas. Star Wars - Force Unleashed is more fun than a barrel full of monkees, in duel mode!) No Blu-Ray player yet either - I really don't rent movies, just catch them when they come around via satellite a few months later. So yeah, I'm looking for the best fit for standard def / soon to be HD digital TV watching, without being noticably bad if I eventually hook up a Wii (480p iirc) and a blu-ray player.

OK, so I'm looking at big-screen plasma TVs. Plasma because my living room is quite dark, and big-screen because... Well, they're big! Current situation - Standard def digital, but will almost certainly upgrade to HD in the next year or so. I'm looking for some quick thoughts on what I should be looking for, and avoiding. Geek that I am, I'm not completely ignorant about the whole deal - But I find myself rethinking some of the stuff I thought I knew. I kindof had my eye on the Panasonic Viera 50" (or maybe 46"), 1080p, 20,000:1 contrast version: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetai...=&langid=EN One thing that I'm kindof questioning now is the necessity of 1080p, based on the reviews for the 720p, (10,000:1) version of the same product (for much less $$): http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetai...&langid=EN# Am I really missing out without 1080p? Then there's this one, for 25% more $ - Looks like the same thing as above at a glance, but seems to have a lot more contrast: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetai...=&langid=EN ...and things start really confusing me. Contrast ratio seems like another spec that probably only really matters if you are sitting way too close to the TV - Any thoughts on what's truly sub-par for that? This LG 50", 720p, 30,000:1 - Looks a lot like the more expensive 720p Panasonic above, features and customer rating-wise - Normally about the same price but happens to be on a $200 discount: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetai...amp;catid=23526 One LCD competitor, based more on the nice sale price than any buzz about the product - LG 47", 1080p: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetai...=&langid=EN ...But I really think a plasma will work better in my room. I hear plasmas are uber space-heaters and electricity hogs - Are LCDs just as bad? Anyone have an eye on something else that seems as good or better, or much less expensive and almost as good as the Panasonics?

$1 Trillion / ~150 Million taxpaying Americans = wut?! $35 billion / year just to pay the interest on that added debt. And after your taxes go up, half of the country will blame Obama, that damn socialist and all his spendy programs. American politics are funny! Now we Canuckleheads have our political moments too, but sheesh! At least we don't have a deep-seated societal belief that we need to maintain private arsenals so that we can defend ourselves when the government inevitably comes to round us up for the camps.

Welfare payouts for your oligarchs. Ain't life grand?

Got mah pants already!

Lovely experiment, but fails at explainations!

:: Thing that ticks me off for the day :: - The UAW negotiating a "concession" that screws down the salary of future employees, so that those people (not currently in the union) will end up doing the same work for much less money. What ever happened to that whole equal pay for work of equal value concept? And how do existing employees get to call that a concession, when it only hurts other people? Booooo.

I don't get that at all. How does it make sense for DKs to be rezzers? And aren't they just a tich OP already? Meh.

$70 per hour total cost of labour, I suppose? Seems like quite the little fencing match going on atm between the UAW and the US Senate. It'll be interesting to see how that turns out! Not surprisingly the union still don't get it, despite brave words about how they are willing to sacrifice, become part of the team to solve the problem, etc... I still hear "But we've given up so much, you can't expect us to give up any more! See - We gave up on some new perk that we had already been promised by GM and Chrysler!" and "Working at an auto plant is hard! We deserve to retire at 55 with full pensions!" In my understanding of a sane world, taxpayer money going to subsidize autoworker entitlements that the taxpayers don't have (how many taxpayers have a pension these days?), is crazy talk. O_o It seems like structured bankruptcy is the only way to avoid that trap. Interesting times, in any case!

Ouch! Aaand the spell that has become the core tool of most healing priests is reduced to an occasional toy. Should be interesting - I'm kindof glad I always under-used it! Casting Levitate on others is kindof amusing though.

Looking at the requirements for cloth frost resist gear and the blue post, I'd guess that the change will just be to add a frozen orb to each recipie. That's not insignificant though!

Two MIG-29s crashed into each other at a UK airshow a couple of years ago. What's frigging amazing about this is how fast they hit the eject. Talk about split-second reflexes (and decision-making, considering they are well aware of the ~$50 million price tag!)

I would be there with bells on except... I'm hosting a christmas party Next time!

Lacked Kari Byron. But very cool otherwise!

It'll creep ya' out even more after it chugs down a couple hundred barrels of crude and morphs into something from HP Lovecraft!

As a guy who has done some interviewing in the business world, I would say keep it positive at all costs. While the first question does ask you about downside to your highschool experience, you should ask yourself "Do they care if my highschool had an experimental curriculum?" I don't think that info does anything to sell you, and every single thing you put in your application should be to that purpose alone. Remember that the person who reads these essays is going to be looking at hundreds or thousands of them. They are going to be skimming hardcore, and looking for something that jumps out at them. See if you can come up with a list of ideal characteristics that the college would be seeking in students, and make sure that every answer clearly explains how you fit that list. (The same goes for job applications, btw.) - "Good student" (successful with grades, accepts the challenge of difficult courses). - Self-motivated - Hard worker - Leadership potential - Extra-curricular involvement etc. You might find an excellent picture of what they are looking for somewhere on their website, in a statement like "We are proud that our students are ..." So for starters - I recommend that you replace the whole first answer with something that talks about how you meet what the college is looking for - Then go from there. Answer their "What wasn't so good" question with something that also shows your good points (ex. "The curriculum was experimental and left gaps, but I overcame this by exploring the topics further on the internet.") <-- That's gold, free of charge! Good luck!

Kir'in Tor is the first thing that grabs me (for Father), for the spell enchant on hat, the spellthread, and Exalted will save me 4000g on my Travellers Mammoth, iirc!

Think of all the wasted loot! ^^

Yaaaay curling! (I curl 3-5 nights a week all winter. The semi-competitive team I skip is 7-0 so far!)

Yep, still about a 45 minute queue. I'm going to try a WCIII game while waiting in queue, then maybe say the hell with it and go to bed. After all, coming off an all-nighter, I could use the sleep! Queue time will likely be significantly shorter at 7am Good thing I thought to make sure all my toons were parked in an inn to accumulate the rested exp (that seems to be piling up really fast, doesn't it? ~18 hours in, my mage was close to a full level of rested already, and I think they started at none (at least my pally did.) Seems odd...

The only thing worse is how they fixate on pro athletes, celebs, and even worse, socialites. *facepalm* At least Obama will have the power to wipe everyone off the face of the earth soon. You have to admit, that's somewhat compelling!