David Hingtgen

I've never heard anything about accounts being "permanently locked as silver" due to simply not being gold any more. I mean, you can never play online for years, keep your tag as silver for all that time, then one day go on and be gold with no problems. But as soon as the first time you're ever gold, you have to keep using it to ever be allowed to use it again in the future? That really makes no sense.

Wha? MS can make accounts permanently silver simply for not playing? Because I downgraded to silver like 2 months ago. I don't want to have to keep buying 1 month cards every 3 months just to "keep the account active".

Quick review----so what stores delivered to MW'ers first? I need to pre-order my Nora, but I don't want to wait 2 months extra like I did for my -19...

Thing is--the whole "dialogue low" problem occurs with every TV, VCR, DVD player combo I've tried. I still blame the mixing/studio/factory. IMHO, I shouldn't have to buy extra stuff just to hear the dialogue normally. As I've said--I don't care much for audio. If people want to spend $$$$ on a receiver for multi-channel surround sound--go right ahead. But I shouldn't have to do the same to hear mono dialogue...

But then it'd be harder to have so much angst...

Never knew bitchy was in the filter...

I like it more for the "child-like wonder" at all the new gadgets to him we take for granted. All depends on how long that'll keep amusing me. But for his actual methodology of crime investigation---he keeps making me think "if Dr House was a detective".

But was it intentionally mixed so that I still haven't ever heard half the dialogue and have a hard time following it due to that? (I never saw it in the theater)

Quick Macross geeky note for those not aware: Sulu's first name is Hikaru.

Not IMHO. In both looks and acting, I think Jeri Ryan's far superior. I consistently found T'Pol to simply be bitchy, not cold/emotionless. Seven was a better Vulcan, ironically.

I've tried every option I can find--and as I said, they only ever seem to make it worse. On those few that offer a "stone-age" simple stereo 2.0 option it's a little bit "not as bad". I suspect part of it is intentional mastering---the studios want the sound effects pumped up, so that you buy it as a "audio show off" disc etc. (It also explains VHS with the same problem---Heat is probably the best example--darn near unwatchable (or unlistenable---you have to shake the walls with bass to have any chance at hearing people speak)

I have no reciever, and likely won't for years. Straight "player to TV" (via switchbox). But older stuff never had this problem with dialogue--only new stuff. They changed something. If recievers can tweak everything individually, there was no need to change to "improve it for them". But it sure messed up the average consumer simply watching a movie on their TV straight from the player. (I am Joe six-pack when it comes to audio---I want a good PICTURE and will splurge on that, but don't care much about audio---if it's one of the few things I want better audio for, I have my stereo hooked up to my switchbox's audio outputs--- works well, and sounds much better than the TV alone---also was effectively "free")

My point was any illusion to contain/fool him could be maintained without revealing her true self---another "true" self that'd fool Sylar, yet still not be her real form. If it was all an illusion, I think she'd be generating a different form for Sylar to see. (I get the impression she doesn't want anyone to know her real appearance ever---and there is no need for her to reveal it--no matter what, she can always just make yet another one--even an ugly one if needed that's still not really her)

Arrrgh. It never ends. Suncoast just emailed me to say they fulfilled my backorder---which I cancelled. They'll probably send it overnight too. This has become the most expensive CD I've ever acquired. PS---half the tracks are slightly altered from the movie. (the ones with asterisks--mainly all the notable themes). Very close, but "not quite it" in places.

I really enjoy the show that comes after it however, "Life". Though the last ep wasn't as good as the first two.

Even though I reserve airbrushing for only the "most uber-important" areas (I HATE getting the paint ready and cleaning up afterwards for 10x longer than the actual spraying)----even bad airbushing looks better than good hand-brushing. That said: Try thinning the paint. It solves a lot of problems in my experience. Brushing, spraying, etc. Sharp blades. And cut towards you. Years of experience (and talking to everybody else who uses knives for more than just chopping carrots) shows that most "common sense" suggestions about blades and cutting are BS from people who tend to injure themselves a lot. SHARP blades and cut towards you so you can see where the blade's going. Explanation: most people get cut by the blade slipping and rapidly heading off in an undesired direction. Why does the blade slip? Because it's not sharp enough to slice in. Why does it go off at speed when it slips? Because you're putting a lot of force into it because it's not cutting. And cutting away from you--you can't see it working (or likely, not working). Sharp blade cutting towards you---minimal effort, low speed. Because the blade is doing the work, not you. And you can see what it's doing. If it does somehow slip--it'll be going so slow you can probably stop it in mid-air before it actually cuts you. And even if it does---it'll be a very shallow, smooth cut that'll heal in a few hours. And often won't bleed even a drop.

A bit OT that the above reminded me of: On many movies, old to new, VHS to DVD---the dialogue is really quiet. As is often the music. But the sound effects (from footsteps to rain, to explosions) are very loud. It seems MUCH more common on DVD however. I often find myself being torn between hearing the dialogue, and not blowing out my eardrums. I have to turn it WAY up to hear dialogue sometimes, which makes everything else 5x louder than I want. Yet it certainly wasn't that way in the theater--I could clearly follow the conversation, with a subtle ambience of sounds and music in the background. Exact opposite experience at home. Now, some DVD players offer various "tweaks" to sound settings, but I never find any that really help--maybe a SLIGHT improvement, but usually they just make it worse.

My guess is that it could be the US and JP versions of AC3 being so different--they might overlap in their memory/saves or something and overwrite each other or something--games always scan for "their own" saves and can identify them, and report all other games as "other game/unusable space". Some games are so "compatible" that you can actually us a US save on a JP game, because the ONLY difference is going to be menu language etc--all it saves is level/time/money etc. I don't think there's a single game out there so different between versions as AC3. It may partly recognize the other version or something, and try to overwrite it or read from it and use it as its own. Just a theory. Or it could be that the US version is so hacked up that the save system is weird, but the flaw only shows up on JP systems or something--a situation they'd never test for bugs.

Well, my CD was waiting for me when I got home, glad no one stole it. Haven't listened yet, just got back. Scorponok is spelled correctly on both booklet and disc at least.

Quick thought I had about the end of the ep: Now I'm thinking it was real, not just an illusion---otherwise---why would she reveal her real self?

I'm buying the cheapest, single-disc version for now. Will buy the obviously-coming-in-the-future mega-uber-version in HD later. Maybe 18 months from now when it should be out on Blu-Ray.

We were talking about it a bit in the Heroes thread. My quick summary of episode quality: 1. Second 2. First 3. Third Hopefully ep 4 won't be fourth.

Gah! That could instantly ruin the entire rest of the Mass Effect series. It would also explain why so many people were leaving Bioware as ME was getting finished...

I was flipping past the TV Guide channel and they revealed a spoiler or two. But they're really obvious, predictable things that'll probably show up within 2 or 3 eps.

I like Mylene...