Moseph

Yeah, you may have to read manuals for your sequencer program and the Korg and maybe do some googling, but the basic idea is to run MIDI cable from the computer's MIDI-out to the Korg's MIDI-in. There will be, in the sequencer, some way of setting a MIDI track to broadcast to the Korg and trigger its samples. The sound will play back from whatever speaker you have the Korg hooked to. If you want to get the sound back inside the computer, as Overcoat said, you'll have to record the Korg's audio output. Sorry if that didn't make a lot of sense; it can be a bit hard to explain without a hands-on tutorial kind of thing. This site may (or may not) help.

a somewhat better song about video games

I feel like I'm back in aural skills class. Good times, good times.

Fastest I can even get is 768 Kbps. Where I used to live, there was only dial-up.

sig test . . .

Just thought of something. Wouldn't it have been hilarious if instead of focusing on Harry and co., the epilogue had revealed what exactly happened to the Dursleys? Maybe we'll get that info if Rowling decides to write that encylopedia.

Joining in a little late, since I only just now had time to finish the book . . . But otherwse it would have felt like, "We just had a big ol' battle with the most dangerous mob of cutthroats in wizarding history! And no one I knew even died!" You're right, though. Rowling does seem to have pulled her punches regarding character deaths in previous books (e.g. all the people who indirectly saw the basilisk in book 2, Katie Bell and the cursed necklace in book 6, lots of people in addition to Sirius who could have died in the finale of book 5 . . . ) Up until this point, it was restricted to deaths which directly advanced the plot. The last chapter, which I gather means the epilogue, was finished early on in the series (source), so it certainly wasn't included on a whim. I think it's less of a fan service than it is Rowling's way of simply bringing the story to its complete and natural conclusion. I personally could have done without it, but it doesn't do any more than state what I would have expected to happen. (Of course, I guess that's as much an argument against it as it is an argument for it.) Nineteen years later would be 2017-ish, I think, for whatever that's worth.

The King's Quest games . . . but only if you can put up with the fact that you eventually will need an item that you forgot to pick up earlier and can no longer get, and you'll need to reload your game from 2/3 of the way back to get the item (and you do still have that save, right?)

nostalgia + robots beating the crap out of each other = win

It's not underhanded; it's quite common. http://www.indie-music.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3811 Har. No, I'm an amateur stalker.

Yes, record companies do that. Specifically, they hire promotional companies which assemble street teams which do that. Judging by the other stuff this guy has posted elsewhere, though, he seems more like a general pop culture tool than a street team member. My guess is that he works for some advertising company that pays him to post on message boards in ways that would increase traffic to certain sites. He has membership at Metacafe (http://www.metacafe.com/user/4309483/justdecent/), which indicates that he's interested in making money on the web. It seems reasonable that he would jump at other money-making opportunities such as advertising on forums.

*cough* http://forum.deviantart.com/entertainment/music/886690/ I Googled "Spoon: dig em?" and unearthed this deviantART music forum thread of the same name which was created within an hour of this OCR thread. It is almost exactly the same. If you check the user's history on the forum, it's pretty clear that he regularly does this sort of thing. Googling other stuff he's got on the deviantART forums turns up almost identical posts on a bunch of other forums. His preferred user names seem to be idowhatiamtold and justdecent. In some cases, he replies to himself under the different names. Anyhoo . . . The Damned is correct. This guy deserves all the abuse we care to heap upon him.

You've tried safe mode, right? Have you tried booting from the XP CD and seeing if it will let you do a repair? And, just to be thorough, have you virus-scanned the old drive? Exploring the unpleasant possibility of drive damage . . . is there lots of dust in the room where you keep the computer? Has the computer been bumped around (e.g during transportation)? Is the drive just really old?

I agree with you. But they're gonna make a sequel anyway, because money is more important than story arc. Still, whatever they do, it can't possibly be as bad as the sequels Disney has been churning out for its animated movies for the past several years. Come on . . . Pocahontas II?

I eat my pudding snacks with a spoon!

Eh, maybe that's why when he died he just sort of fell down instead of exploding into high-velocity bite-size Megatron bits.

Jaffar in the original Prince of Persia is a pushover. By the time I was good enough at the game to beat it in the required hour, all of the sword-fighting had become so formulaic to me that it was just WHAM WHAM WHAM and he was dead.

I wonder if he'd still be mega-vulnerable to missiles . . .

It kind of makes me sad to say this, but I hope they retire the OoT game engine/game mechanics as soon as possible. Yes, it works brilliantly and has been used for all of the 3D Zelda games, but everything's starting to feel the same. I just started playing Twilight Princess, and really, it feels like OoT 4.0 instead of a new game. It's the same gripe I had about Wind Waker. Maybe they could make a sort of spiritual successor to Zelda II?

Can't really make any comments about pattern-based capabilities of any of these programs, since I mostly do linear stuff. Pro Tools -- Pro Tools is designed for audio recording (and does a really, really good job with it), but its piano roll capabilities are limited compared to more MIDI oriented programs such as Sonar and Cubase. In my opinion, the biggest problem Pro Tools has is that you cannot view multiple tracks of MIDI data on the same piano roll (as far as I know, this is still true for the most recent versions). If you go with Pro Tools and are using a PC (especially a laptop), check the Digidesign site before you buy to make sure your computer is supported. I understand that some people have compatibility issues when running it on a PC. Sonar -- Sonar (which I use and like) can do multiple tracks on one piano roll, and I think Cubase (which I've never used) can also do this. This lets you see all of your notes in one place without having to switch among lots of different tracks. Kinda important, at least to me. As Fray mentioned, the difference between Sonar Studio and Producer is basically the number of plug-ins they come with. I think you can upgrade to Producer after buying Studio for about the same as the price difference between the two versions, so if you want Producer but don't want to spend that much, you can always get Studio and upgrade later if you decide you definitely need the additional stuff. Also, Sonar is Windows-only. Not sure which OS(es) you use, since you have both Sonar and Logic (Mac-only) on your list. Reason -- Like Pro Tools, it can't do multiple tracks on a single piano roll (this refers to Reason 3; I'm not sure about Reason 4). Generally limited piano roll features, as I think you've discovered. Cubase -- Never used it, so I can't say much about it. FL -- Never used it. I think it's the cheapest, though. Logic -- I've only used it for basic audio editing, and I'm not familiar with its MIDI/piano roll features. Mac-only. If you're using a Mac, you might also want to check out Digital Performer. It basically does anything Sonar and Cubase can do. Acid -- Loops-based, but I haven't used any recent version of it. I think it does audio recording now. Pretty sure it's Windows-only.