Darklink42

Well, I'm still in anyways, so you have at least 2.

Sounds like a good deal to me, I'll take it.

well, in an amazing reversal of fortune, I no longer have a ride down there. Anyone coming from all the way up in jolly old Sacramento and willing to give me a ride? I'd still love to go, but either way I'll help out any way I can. We need more of these west coast meet-ups.

Man, I'm gald you're feeling better Zircon. I try to avoid hospitals like the plague, only ever been in one maybe three times in my life. Sorry to hear you had to go.

Eh. I'm down if the situation comes up. Just thought I'd throw the offer out in case it comes up.

I'm not sure about transportation yet, but I'd be coming down from near Sacramento. No promises at this point, but I could probably give a ride to someone from this far up north.

I own Yoshi's story (I don't know how or why). Not a very memorable soundtrack. Far too many yoshi sounds, and I believe the singing yoshis actually lowered my intelligence every time I listened to it. Thus my not wanting to go back and try to remember the BGM.

I'm less inclined to like pop music simply because it all sounds the same to me these days. Most (and I mean most, there are exceptions to everything) of the female singers all sing in exactly the same way, about exactly the same things. I can't really comment on male pop artists because I stopped listening to the radio and following pop music after a while out of disgust. Last time I checked, the fad was to be as emo/post-punk as possible. I could get behind some of that music, but the problem remained: They all sounded the same. The reason that pop music is pop is because it's all in the same vein of whatever is pop(ular) at the time. Unfortunatly popular has become less about variety and originality, and that's pretty sad. When people look back at the 80's, and the kind of "pop" music that came out that era, there are many artists with many different kinds of sounds. The 90's were more of a hint about what we have now. Artists started out original, with everything from Sugar Ray to Brittany Spears. But what was at first a craze out of left field in Brittany, suddenly has become the only way to do it. And with the advent of hip-hop/rap, it's becoming increasingly hard to define yourself in the pop genre. As for the internet, I'm inclined to agree with Zircon. On the one hand it is a boon to artists that they can get there works out there, take this site for instance. But there are just too many sub-par artists, or artists that don't know what they are doing, that have to be slogged through before you can find a great sound, like Myspace.

I went through my older games library and found a real gem. Remember the first Driver? Before they went and messed the series up with the second and third ones, this one rocked. You can do the missions, or free drive the city which is the best part by far. I have very fond memories of the San Fransisco level, just because of the awesome hills with which to launch off of.

I'm up in nor-cal, so I'd definitly be up for going if this goes through. Hope it does, I'd love to finally get to go to one of these.

Play Diablo 2, but not Diablo 1. Even if you don't play online, it's still a pretty awesome game. You may think you're missing out by not playing the original, but really you're not. Unless, that is, you're into the kind of frustration that comes from a game whose sequel trumps it in every way and then some. Um...I always recommend the original Doom as well, it's still pretty entertaining. God of Thunder is also one that I enjoyed back in the day.

Speaking of California, I sympathize. All of the meetups I've seen thus far are on the East coast. If we did have one out this way, even up north in Washington, I wouldn't complain. Hopefully with the summer season upon us we'll see more OCR people in our neck of the woods. Sadly though, I'm not one to plan anything myself, at least not without some help from someone who can.

Sadly yes, but not for long... In regards to the "surface" though, I'm inclined to agree with the idea of it being a novelty kind of thing. It seems highly doubtful that it even could replace the PC's of today, given the many issues presented in which a PC will continue to prove superior. Unless it was like a permenant tablet Laptop, but even then it would probably end up too clunky to use. The possibilities in terms of alternate technology though, seem more viable. I remember when the first touch-screen computers made it out (there was one in the museum I used to go to), everyone thought it a great idea, but with little practicality outside of places like that. These days, everyone wants a tablet laptop, because for things like drawing and 3D modeling, they prove to have certain advantages. What if, like Star Trek, the Surface was mounted on a wall in a medical office? Or maybe in the home, and used as a digital tracker/calendar? So no, I don't see it as a replacement, or even as an upgrade to PC's, but the potential uses are not diminished because of it.

Got mine yesterday and have been listening to it as much as possible since. I've got to say that it does not disappoint. I like it enough to post via PSP if that says anything. Absolutely awesome from start to finish. My one comment about it is that "Throwdown" and "Speed of Light" should maybe have been spaced further apart if only because they both make use of very similar sound style (for lack of a better description). Other than that it is definitly one of the best CDs I own.

Man, I'm suddenly glad I never made that Starcraft map of my old school. *shifty eyes* In all seriousness though, this is bordering on complete retardation. Since when is a hammer a "Terroristic threat"? Or a lite brite a bomb threat? (Think boston) Since when do large groups of people turn into terrified rodents? I can't even imagine what is going to trigger the next major panic. How about a Tickle-me Elmo that drops out of a tree and starts giggling? Or maybe a kid that gets caught with the Calvin and Hobbes comic which talked about him blowing the school to a crater somewhere in his backpack? I predict that by the end of a two year period, the jails will be overflowing with deliquent third graders who dared to play cops and robbers and fake shooting each other.

I really love your work Zircon, I am so going to preorder this when I get a chance. Sounds damn sweet from the previews, can't wait to hear the full deal.

I knew this was going to be a friggin circus. There hasn't been any murders in forever, except Iraq, so every news company is jumping up and down. They've got Jack Thompson, they've got Charles Gibson down there doing interviews a day after the shooting, they've even got the guy's manifesto on live television. That being said, I don't think they are purposfully glorifing what the guy did. He's obviously being made out to be a psycho, but unfortunatly other psychos are seeing all this fame as a positive, and now we've got copycats making threats. We had some nut out here making a threat, so they locked down all the K-12 schools in the area until he turned himself in. I just hope this goes away after a month. I mean I feel bad, but I really don't want them tapping this for all it's worth, which is probably what they'll do anyways. All it does is breed apathy.

hmm...I'd still be more inclined to not be standing there. From what I saw, it looked like he was just standing out in the open. Of course, all I saw was the stuff they showed on TV, so maybe I missed some vital stuff.

I'm still amazed that guy jsut stood there with his camara phone recording. What the hell was he filming before the gunshots went of? In a related not, I didn't find out about it until 12, when they said there were thirty dead and they had no idea where the killer was, though they seemed to know he'd killed himself. My first thought was "I jsut know someone, somewhere in the media, is going to tie this to either videogames, or Columbine." Sure enough, Charles Gibbons was less than two minutes into the ABC special report when he brought up Columbine. so damn sad. Can't even imagine what I'd do if something like that happened around where I live... Edit: Does it strike anyone else as particularly retarded that Fox news interviewed Jack Thompson of all people about this? I mean, it's bad enough people lost their lives to this guy, but do we really need an extra dash of over the top sensationalistic media to make it worse? Personally, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth...

I'm in complete agreement. If they did, it'd likely end as a port of the first SSB, or an even worse spin off, similar to Mortal Kombat.

amen to that

Well, I don't know about it being your average retail job, but I worked at my local bowling alley for a year. After i moved up from basic janitorial services (And let me tell you I never knew women could be so damn messy), I got put into their equivalant of Chucky cheese. The prize arcade, as it was called, was the easiest and the worst job I think I have ever had. While all it consisted of was me sitting on my ass for hours on end, when birthday parties came through or a bunch of stuff started breaking down, I had to deal with massive amounts of irate children, and then their parents. Nothign beats the fury of a gyped child, who then goes and brings their already pissed parent over to see what they can do about it. On the other hand, I really loved handing out the prizes to kids and even sneaking them a little extra when they were nice. When the kids were genuinily cool, that was probably the best pay out of the whole job, because minimum wage sure wasn't. I've never worked at any major retail, fortunatly or unfortunatly, but i've known many close friends that have. And what I really came here to mention was their experiances with gamestop/EB. From what I read of The Coop's post, it all sounds about the same as the countless tales I've heard. Although I don't really have a choice in supporting their buisness (it's not like there are any other videogame stores in my town), if there were an alternative I'd be there in a flash. They treat their employess like crap, and unfortunatly this translates out to about every third visit or so being a bad one for me. There's always some pushy guy trying to sell me stuff I don't want, or some guy that trys to talk abotu videogames with me that has no clue. That's not to say that I entriely blame it on them, but man...that commision shit sucks. I don't like being pressured to buy the newest strategy guide to go with the 40 dollar game I just bought.

Damn, makes me wish I had the kind of computer to play Civ IV, because I'd buy it just to hear the song. Congratulations!

This song is easily now in my top ten from this site, I love it. Everything just plays out perfectly. I caught the Forest of Illusion theme in there, but it sounded so natural in the song that at first I had to actually think about whether or not is was from the original castle theme or not. What I really love about this song though is the ending. Hands down, that is the perfect ending, not only because of the build up, but also because I played the game, so that it immeaditly calls up an image of Mario standing on the roof of Bowser's castle just as the evil king appears.

Well, I've only been around this site for maybe a year and a half, but it rocks. Thanks for the continued service to gamers everywhere, I for one love it. I bow to DJ Pretzel, you've made my life complete.