Reaif

I think the first game I ever played would have been either Centipede for the Atari, or it would have been Civilization 1 for dos. I remember not reading too well, so my brothers showed me which keys I needed to hit in order to start the game. What's funny I guess was that Civ 1 was so hard for me back then that I would only get just a little way in before I would have to give up. I can't even tell you how many times I have started that game, then quit "forever" because of frustration, only to go back to it again the next day.

I think that what you are doing is pretty cool. I vastly prefer keyboard/mouse for fps games, and would really like it if consoles that have usb ports on them would allow that. To the people who say "just stick with pc gaming." I would like to say that not all games are made equal, and if it was just fps that was desired, by golly I would just stick with the pc. However there are some games that are only on console that I'd really like to play, but have such a hard time using a controller competitively, and as such it seems a waste of time and money to invest in those games in the first place. Back to the topic however, I say good luck in your endeavors Lithe!

True enough. The insides on this one aren't very pretty though. Basically it is just 3 components stacked very close together with a bunch of messy wires all over the place. The second rendition had the most interesting interior because the hard drive and power supply were positioned above the motherboard instead of just sitting on the bottom green piece. There were some internal support structures built into the sides while at the same time trying to maintain looks on the outside. I was very pleased with the interior. This one though has very little going for it on the inside. If I wasn't so tired of building with Legos for the exact same parts (like if I had a laptop hard drive to work with) I would totally redo it using the body design of number 2 while trying to have it look at least as good as number 3. Next time I think I will go back to that design type because it feels more stable and is less crowded inside.

OK. I know I should stop beating dead horses, but I had to do it one more time. I believe this is the prettiest it has so far ever been. Every time I redo this case, I seem to run down to the bottom dregs of the colors I use, and this time was no exception, except for red. I had to upturn my Lego bin to find the last 3 green 2x1 blocks to use near the top. I probably would have keeled over if they had given me any more trouble. And by the way, any time you see blocks with holes in the side, those were intended to be vents. Even the ones you can barely see in the second picture. And again of course, there are LED's in the clear block on top for power and HDD indication.

I had been thinking about that comment for a while, but couldn't really remember its relevancy. Now that you say that I think I remember. Didn't he have a pretty neat looking Lego case a while back?

That's a pretty good idea, though I have to admit, I don't really have anything that could qualify as Ridley... or Samus for that matter. I would have to buy more parts, which I can't do at the moment.

Thanks guys. Once again I did run into the problem of not having enough colors to do everything I wanted, but alas, I'm probably not going to buy any more blocks. Perhaps I will try to redo the top half and put something else there like a picture or spelling out a word or something. My most favorite part of all is that because I didn't cut any pieces or glue anything, I can tear it down and build it up again as many times as I want. I'll probably call it quits for now, but maybe if I get bored again I'll whip up something better. The one thing that make this the hardest is the fact that I've been using a standard sized hard drive. If I had an extra laptop one to spare, The overall size would diminish significantly. For example, see that red section on top? That would be gone entirely with a smaller drive. Edit: I know this wasn't directed at me, but I can definitely see why Prophet would say no, even if the original offer was in joking. It would be really hard to put the hardware into a case that was designed without having the hardware on hand. Even if you had the exact measurements, it is still quite difficult to see where it would need to go. Of course, that is assuming that you want to be as conservative with space as possible. If you were to just make an atx case like what was in one of the other pictures posted, it would undoubtably work for quite a few configurations, but there would be loads of wasted space and bricks.

Ahem. I was thinking of how mugly this thing was, and seeing as how I had already done tons of searching for pieces, it would be fairly easy to deconstruct and reconstruct it to look a little nicer. So here it is. Basically the main changes are that it has more empty space inside, it looks better, and the power button is way better. It's the little clear block with lights in it. I have a picture with and without flash so it can be seen better. An interesting fact about this, is that while I was building it, my wife saw the thing on the side and told me it resembled a metroid. I was a little surprised at first, but if you really stretch your imagination, you can kind of see it. It was just a random design I was putting in to make it less boring, but hey, I'm good with that.Do enjoy.

The ventilation is actually pretty good. I have the power supply's vents completely isolated so that it actually is very cool while running. As for the rest of it, it have some technic blocks that are open enough for it. The motherboard was designed for cramped little cases with little ventilation. You can see the via M series board for yourself if you like. As far as anti static, no. It doesn't have any of that kind of stuff. Mostly it is just exactly what you see. Lastly, I realize it isn't pretty lol. When I was starting it out I attempted to make it look pretty, but I realized shortly that I don't have enough blocks to really do the one color thing. I was thinking of tearing it down again and trying to reorganize the existing pieces to look better. The original purpose was to make it as slim as legos could be. One thing I've noticed about lego cases in general is that they are huge. This one is pretty small considering that most blocks are super fat. When I first had it finished before putting some dudes on it, my wife was saying that I should spice it up and have a castle battle on top. Figured because it has s-video on it that I might hook it up to my tv... Course, if I put an extra nic in it I could use it as my router instead...

My PS2 PC is no longer for sale. It got turned into this instead.

Anyhow, I was sitting around last night wondering what to do besides try uselessly to sleep, so I pulled out my old Legos and decided to get creative with an extra mini-itx motherboard I had lying around. Here is what became of 6 wasted hours. (Bit of a disclaimer here: Looks can be deceiving. It really is a computer.) More pics Pic3 Pic4 Pic5 Pic6 Pic7 One Thing I would like to ask anyone who sees the pictures is which character on the chassis is your favorite? This project was somewhat of a walk down memory lane for me and the nostalgia was running high.

Well, I just joined the ranks of ps3 owners. Picked up one of the slims for $255 when the deal came around on slickdeals.net. My psn id is the same as my id here: Reaif So anyone can feel free to add me as a friend. One thing I am very pleased with so far is the media sharing abilities. Just installed the Nero Media home software on my file server, so now I have about 600 GB of videos and music that I can watch on my ps3. The codec compatibility is pretty good too. There are only a couple of things that I can't watch.

I'm surprised to see a thread about this here, though I don't know why. This game can be pretty fun, though I tend to get frustrated when I always play against the same imba chars lol. I haven't been playing recently, in hopes that they will balance things some more. Maybe I'll play one now.

Wow, so violently opposed. Isn't there an option to turn off the in game pop up? I don't own a 360 so I don't really know, but there ought to be. As far as the list spoiling things, just don't look at it. Problem solved. The whole achievement thing is definitely here to stay though. In fact, getting those achievements is the only reason some people pick up a game again after finishing it. They bring replayability to a game that otherwise would have been dropped by many. I figure that is a good thing, though the pop up shouldn't be a required option. That can spoil a bit of the immersion if it comes up at a bad time. One great thing about achievements as well is that they give old school gamers new reasons to go back and play old games. Don't all the XBL ports of old games have achievements added to them? Edit: And just for kicks, here is a really cool video with an awesome chip tune in it.

I suppose nostalgia is pretty big, but it isn't all powerful. I've been playing games since the good old NES days, but I like both old and new games. I think the reason that I don't play a lot of new games is the money factor. I have lots of old games, but buying new ones just costs money. I haven't bought a new console in 3 years, when I got my Wii after having camped out for it. As far as the graphics thing goes, it flies both ways for me as well. I am OK with pixely graphics, but the graphical annoyance that keeps me from playing a game is unskippable pointless camera movements. A prime example of this would be Skies of Archadia for Dreamcast. I had heard such good things about this game, and the blockiness of it didn't drive me away. It was the fact that every battle scene took about 2 or 3 times too long just because the camera was busy running around trying to show things from every angle. I just couldn't handle it. That being said, I'll be happy to play FF7 or Mischief Makers. As far as being unable to like old games because of graphics, it just has to do with the type of things that can immerse you. I had never really played Zelda 2 as a kid (had picked it up for 5 minutes at a time only to get frustrated and quit), but I picked it up again recently, and I loved it. I ended up staying up all night one night trying to traverse Death Mountain. There was a stretch where I was on my last life, and had about 1 hp left, trying to get past all these monsters without getting a single hit on me... That was rough, but totally immersively (is that even a word?) fun. The sense of accomplishment was huge as well when I finished the game. I kind of felt like I was more complete for having finished that game. Like how in life you have a list of achievements (not too unlike current video games) and you have finally done that one which has been nagging you for a while. EDIT: btw, just picked up Oblivion for PC and it has been sucking my life away. I love treasure hunting, and there are so many dungeons to empty treasure and monsters out of.

I'd be willing to give it a go. I've done a couple of pretty large scale editing/plot grilling/hole filling works on whole books that family and friends have written. PM me and I'll tell you what I think.

I'll throw out a second recommendation for Gem TD, a WC3 tower defense. Not quite as boring because of the random element that keeps you on your toes, and then trying to defeat the damage test at the end can be quite fun. I've done it once, though I can't remember what version. That one is kind of fun to try mixing things up as well, like trying to beat the game using nothing but malachite, silver, jade, and that other fire based gem I can never remember the name of. Basically the first 4 gem combos in the list, and that can be quite challenging, especially on Hard mode. Oh and did I mention originality? This one is great if you like tower defense, but are sick of the same-old-same-old that has largely become the genre.

I just watched the first FF8 vid and half the second one. I have to admit, the guy kind of annoys me. Watching those two was enough to make me want to stop going there. He seems to have some conflicting feelings about the game. He obviously hates the game, and is determined to let everyone know. That in itself isn't so bad, but then he proceeds to play through it and go through the pain all over again. If he hates the game so much, why does he put so much time into it? Given, FF8 has some really annoying aspects to it, which is why I will never play that game again unless it is emulated and I have loads of frameskip options. But still, he is making it worse than it needs to be. He doesn't even use the memory option so that he doesn't have to move the cursor to select the same option (draw) every time. Definitely causing himself unnecessary pain there. I think that this guy is either a masochist, or that he secretly likes the game, and is embarrassed about it, so he makes videos of himself poking fun at it, while he is secretly enjoying it. You saw the way he reacted to seeing Quistis for the first time. Don't get me wrong here. I didn't come into this meaning to rant about the guy ranting. That guy just makes me feel the same way about his videos as he feels about FF8 lol. I think it is mostly that the video moves too slowly. This guy really wants you to empathize with the pain he feels. Maybe I'll go and watch one of the non-FF8 videos. Perhaps, in smaller amounts, it will be more enjoyable.

I used to play Super Mario Kart endlessly. At one point, Rainbow Road at 150cc wasn't hard enough, so I would play the game via the reflection in a glass window. That certainly spiced things up, for a while at least, until you get used to the reversed-ness of it. I tried playing that game again the other day, and I was having a pretty hard time. I no longer have the paths memorized for the (as always) 2nd and 3rd placers, so I couldn't just lay bananas where Princess would always hit them.

Let's lay out a couple of facts real quick. 1. ALL the major voice actors are being replaced by ones who will accept lower salaries. 2. In the recent interview with John DiMaggio, he has expressed very fond feelings for the show. Other voice actors, based on interviews taken long before this whole "Futurama actor replacement" thing, have shown similar feelings for the show as well, though feelings may have faded with time. If it were one actor who was being cut out because of salary demands, I could understand calling the actor unsentimental, greedy, or just bored of the show. However, because it is the ENTIRE cast of leads who is being replaced, and because of the fact that they (most likely) LIKE the show and harbor sentimentality of some kind towards it, I can only guess that Fox is being REALLY stingy on salary. Why else would the whole cast's salary get denied? As far as what will actually happen, I think that both sides, fox and the actors, are sitting on their heels for the moment, waiting to see what one or the other will do. Meanwhile, fans get worked up and Fox appears to be getting hate mail like crazy. I figure at least a few of the old actors will cave and accept lower salary, or Fox will give in and give them what they want (deserve in my opinion).

Man, whenever I see these kinds of custom jobs, it always makes me want to hit up my local nickelcade. All you need now is a stool and a cup of nickels, and you are pretty much set. On a similar subject, Ben Heck did a pretty sweet arcade machine. He also has a few layouts and instructions. Granted it is a NeoGeo and not an emulation box, but with a case that big, putting a pc inside would be no trouble. http://benheck.com/bens-neo-geo-arcade-cabinet

This is an interesting topic. Communication changes with the times. The only thing limiting communication these days preference/mode of choice. As such it can be anywhere from very easy to very hard to get in touch with people. I'd say the only major problem is that there are too many methods. There are a lot of convenient tools that make it easy to be lazy in our daily communication, and too many tools to make it easy to use them all. I'm actually not very comfortable with a lot of the changes I see in the way we communicate. I see more and more people who use internet lingo in their regular, face-to-face conversation, including myself. Weird? Decreasingly. Language evolves over time. The English that was spoken 100 years ago is very different from the English spoken now, even in the same geographical locations. The change-in-communication thing has actually been on my mind for a while before now. As far as I can tell, the whole "impersonal yet personal messages" and "lazy corespondant" (sp?) thing first started cropping up in people's personal lives when cell phones started getting commonplace. When I was younger, it bugged me that my dad would drive up to pick me up from somewhere like a friend's house, and instead of getting out of the car and knocking on the door, he would call up the people on his cell phone. Yet nowadays I find myself doing the same thing all the time when I pick people up, but it's even worse now because the people I want to pick up have their own cell phones, so I don't even have to speak with someone I don't know, much less see them face to face. With technology these days it is VERY easy to be lazy in our communication. Trying not to be too off-topic here, all of this really boils down to one thing, that being people. People sell their souls to facebook and the like, foregoing other, more personal, methods of communication. People will purchase a WoW subscription, a game that has no inherent evils that I can see, but will then forget about babies who die of neglect because they can't take care of themselves, all the while the parents are too busy grinding away at a digital existence to take notice. Things always can get out of hand when you throw people into the equation. Its just a matter of self control. As was stated earlier by someone or other, everything in moderation. As far as the availability of information goes, people can find out anything you are willing to give them. We have all the tools we need to keep our private lives private, and our public lives public. Occasionally people will make mistakes and let too much information get out, such as staying logged into a facebook account and someone else comes by and sees a lot of private messages, or a friend sending everyone on their contact list a picture of you doing something you don't want them to know you enjoy, etc. In situations like that, it is completely impossible to undo the damage that gets done. That is why you just gotta be careful and not let things get out too far. When new methods of communication arise, and I'm dead certain we are far from the end of seeing new ways of saying LOL to a friend, it is always a personal choice as to whether or not to use them. You can jump on the band wagon, trail along behind, or just walk on. I'm in the "content to walk" category myself as far as the social networking applications go, mostly because I'm too lazy to try and keep track of all that. I don't have a facebook, a blog, a myspace, or any of that. I don't even get on MSN anymore. As far as text based/internet communication, I do some gmail chat, email, and text messages from my phone. Everyone else I generally speak to face-to-face. True I miss out on some things that way, but that is just life for you. You can't have it all. Man I don't think I've rambled so much in my life. If I tried to spit that out at someone face-to-face, I think they would get bored and leave. Isn't the internet wonderful? I can spit out a whole bunch of crap, and while people might still get mad or annoyed at you, they still read it. I'm gonna go elsewhere now.

Kind of funny... I think he may have taken my incorrect suggestion to heart, seeing as he hasn't come back yet. It's been a while since I was in Japan, and I guess I was even more rusty than I thought lol. I do seem to remember that there was SOME meaning to Saikyo... ah yes, I looked it up and it does have meaning. I was thinking of saikyou, which means strongest lol. Saikyo itself means "another attempt" or "sanction" according to an online resource. But yeah, words like kimi are very common in songs, especially in anime intros. I don't hear omae as much, but that is likely because I don't really listen to j-rock.

Sai kyo mo no shi te ru? That's 7, but is fairly close. You could also try using zon ji ru instead of shi te ru, if you were being polite or something like that. To make 6... You could try doing ii instead of sai kyo. I'm not super dooper at japanese, but I do know some. Another one could be sai kyo no shi te ru. That means basically the same thing but has 6. Anyway, have fun. By the way, what is this for?

I can hardly express how much I support the idea of having some kind of tagging system. It's great when you have memorized a bunch of songs you want to listen to, but I will very often get in the mood for piano, and have only a few mixes that come up when I search for piano (ie, they have piano somewhere in their title), but being able to see a list of mixes that predominantly feature a given instrument... I would listen to remixes WAY more often. I think a tagging system would really help people like me (the musically disinclined), who don't have the desire/patience/know-how to make music, to really contribute to the remixing community. Sure there is a forum here which people can throw out their nonsensical ramblings, but this would really encourage more participation in the music part of the site. In summary, I don't even really care if regular users are allowed to add/edit tags. Mostly I would like to see some kind of organization system will allow one to browse the instrumental content. I could care less what genre it is, but sometimes I wanna hear guitars, and sometimes I want to hear piano. OK. End of spiel.