Thrik

It seems odd you can't find it, it's largely quite linear. From memory:

I had my PS3 sat on Netflix with the volume way up, and then just left it there on the other side of the room for ages while writing something up on my computer. The PS3 just turned itself off and my TV defaulted to a normal channel, and the fucking volume of some fucking weather man just made me jump through the fucking roof.

I take it he isn't going to be at PAX...

That doesn't seem bad, although I haven't once volunteered my number or asked for a girl's number before asking them to meet, unless asked first (which I have been). If she agrees to meet then at that point it kind of just seems sensible to swap numbers. Thus far I've met six girls via dating sites. I generally chat and then after three or four days find a way of slipping in the suggestion that we meet, usually jumping directly off of some existing part of the conversation (e.g. chatting about favourite drinks conveniently becomes 'let's have a drink'), which I may or may not guide in that general direction... I find that going any longer than a few days is counter-productive, because by that point the conversation starts to wear a bit thin in terms of how much you want to invest into someone before just going ahead and meeting them. Of course this all depends on how much you're messaging each other and the lengths of those messages, I have successfully asked sooner but that was because we chatted quite a lot over just a couple of days. You have to just recognise when it feels right and go with it without hesitation. If you've been having good conversation for multiple days then it's overwhelmingly likely she's open to meeting, and if she needs more time she'll generally be very open about that rather than just disappearing on you. If you wait longer, you run the risk of her thinking you lack the initiative to ask the obvious. I guess there are endless factors to this, but those are my thoughts anyway.

Well, how quickly do you do it?

I've fucking ordered Battle of the Gods.

You can actually get hold of it new weirdly easily, at least in the UK. Maybe they produced so much stock they still have lots left, or perhaps it's retained some level of sales popularity so they keep it in every shop's minuscule PC game section. I think the chances of a new iteration are pretty slim. I kind of feel like Lionhead has just became Fable Team now — which is pretty shit and likely why Molyneux got out of there. It really winds me up that we're in an age where god/simulation games could be so fantastic and even reasonably playable on consoles thanks to the widespread motion control we have now, yet what do we get? What do we get?

I'll tell you what, everything I've been reading and seeing about this game recently has just made me want to dig Black & White 2 the hell out — it still , and I at least enjoyed the gameplay. The only problem is I kind of played it to death and it likely has technical issues coming out of every orifice. That said, I never played the expansion pack. Did anyone? Is there enough gameplay to warrant it? Ugh, why can't all my favourite god/sim franchises return and not be shit? Sim City, Zoo Tycoon, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Black & White... all these have the potential to get sequels that are so not shit. But every attempt seems to fail.

Really enjoying this electronica group right now, who seem to put a bit more emphasis than usual on getting some violins in there — along with those video game-style synthesisers we all love.

I enjoy the 'how to hold the controller' graphic in the video preview.

God man, the conversations while saving the game are a core part of the Metal Gear Solid experience! Yeah, the idea of not being able to find the furnace seems literally ridiculous to me. I can see the exact route in my mind right now down to every last enemy and interaction encountered on the way.

The UK voice for Siri is a bloke so I guess the name is gender neutral.

I have like four actual bookmarks in my bookmarks bar which are always the first ones, then if there's a tab I want to make sure I deal with but haven't got time during that session I'll stick it in my bookmarks bar so it's there as a constant reminder of my burden. Regular tabs I'm indifferent to I just leave open. I find that this helps me get through the perpetually growing list of 'should look at that' shit more easily, because every time I go to open my everyday bookmarks it's there like a slap in the face. Comparatively, tabs are just so easy to ignore.

Bookmarks bar.

James, could also be some kind of network compression thing. Many mobile broadband providers re-compress images which invariably results in shit quality, and also there are various plug-ins and such that do the same thing. Only other thing I can think of really, although generally you'd notice obvious JPEG compression in such circumstances.

The photo looks fine to me. I haven't used a hardware calibrator but my monitor was factory calibrated as many higher-end screens are, so if something looks outright wrong I'd usually be able to tell. I certainly don't see any elements of green in the kid's shadows so I have no idea how you're seeing that. The only thing that does strike me as off in both your photos above is that the highlights seem a bit too muted, as if the photos were underexposed. For example, I'd expect the brightest parts of the kid's t-shirt to be approaching actual white. With that said, this is heading into subjective territory. All I can imagine is your OS has some weird colour settings in place and/or you didn't save your images in the sRGB colour space. In fact, if you're saving as ProPhotoRPG or something that might explain the muted look I'm seeing in your photos as its large colour gamut produces exactly that effect when viewed via something that doesn't support it. As colour profile support is very inconsistent it's generally best to use sRGB as software that doesn't support it typically uses it anyway. I like the last photo a lot by the way, the random dude on the lounger makes it.

Maybe just play less shitty games that require shitty grinding.

Yes. How is this accomplished? Also, I need to get Super Mario 3D World soon. I was kind of into New Super Mario Bros U for a while, and it is actually a really fine sequel to the classic 2D games in virtually every way — it could have done without its predecessors existing so that it felt less iterative, but nonetheless it's good. But that fucking music! I'm actually finding it really hard to get past the third world because rather than the music of each new chapter being a joy to discover, it's actually the opposite and feels like a huge kick in the dick. If it's a sign of what Nintendo games would be like without Koji Kondo then colour me disinterested. It seems silly but music really is a huge part of the Mario platformer experience, as important as the soundtracks to Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that a lot of people would feel less hostile towards NSMB:U if it had a top-class Mario soundtrack rather than a recycled cheap imitation.

Agreed.

I ended up sending her a text that spelt out what I guess most people would just figure out themselves (i.e. second date made it apparent we didn't have enough commonality in terms of taste or how we want to spend our time). I'd rather not bump into her in town and have it left as it was so hopefully that's the end of the story. This kind of thing always sucks because she's a really nice girl, just not one I want to pursue. As Nachimir kind of said, she definitely strikes me as the 'will clutch at any straw to keep things going' type rather than just being realistic about the vibe not being right.

I had a couple of dates with a girl this week and it didn't really work for me. First date was pretty much great and we kissed and all that, probably more than we should have done due to moderately copious alcohol consumption. But during the second date it became rapidly apparent that our common interests just didn't go far beyond the surface — she wasn't particularly interested in my passions, I wasn't particularly interested in hers. At this point I'm loving my life so much that if a girl isn't ticking the boxes in terms of conversation I'm not wasting her time or mine. An added factor that certainly sped up my decision is that she seemed really (really) into me. As in, telling all her friends and family about me; joking with them that she was meeting her future husband; literally telling me about a dozen times how happy she is and how amazing it is to be with me; and making comments about having kids on more than one occasion. So I gently broke it off by saying that I don't feel we're really a match because holy shit I've just come out of a 3.5-year relationship and am not looking for an immediate marriage. Now more than 24 hours later I've just received a text that looks absolutely ginormous and begins with 'Excuse me but...'. I don't think I even want to open it. This is the shitty part of dating.

Hahahahahaaaaa. Such a great summary of what this game's all about.

I'm only on the third world but I've been loving Tropical Freeze too. It really does feel like a worthy successor to the original trilogy that has an eerily similar vibe to it. Returns was a decent shot, but it's like comparing Uncharted to Uncharted 2 — it's hard to quantify why exactly, but it just feels a lot fucking better. An excellent platform game that every Wii U owner should have. And that music... man.

I'd say phpBB is the best free option, IP.Board is the best paid option — vBulletin really isn't what it used to be. I use IP.Board for my forum (see signature) and so does Idle Thumbs. I previously used phpBB, and while it was great as forum software it was way too much work if you want to expand beyond that into articles, chat, and basically customisation in general. IP.Board has a seriously awesome web-based theme colour customisation thing too. As for hosting, in all honesty you should be able to find innumerable decent options if you have like $10 a month tops. WebHostingTalk can be a good place to find reputable hosts rather than the shit you'll likely find when using Google (where almost every review site is full of paid-for BS). Future Hosting is great if you have a bit more and want a managed virtual server (should you hit that point). Gandi Simple Hosting is great if you know what you're doing and don't need email hosting, etc — it's basically a pre-configured virtual server which is very fast.