Games are art and as such quality is subjective. If journalist A honestly thinks Halo sucked and journalists B, C and D think Halo is great, who is to say who is right?
Which makes game reviews totally different from movie or music reviews.
Oh wait, no... it's exactly the same. There really is nothing new about "game journalism", except that it's typically done by far, far less experienced writers.
Except for the fact that most open-source projects are not conceived as "incremental improvements" to existing software.
They are free-as-in-speech mimics of existing software, which endeavor to behave as much as possible like the original.
GIMP does not aspire to be the world's best image editor. It aspires to be "just about as good" as Adobe Photoshop (which is the world's best image editor) while also being free.
Linux these days has a few advantages over some versions of *nix, but the project still began when Linus T. decided, "I would like to build a free kernel that works just like Unix."
Funny you should say that. I've been buying a lot of Italian reds lately (because the secret is out on the Australian Shiraz, and you can no longer get outstanding Ozzy wine for seven bucks. Former el-cheapo labels like Black Opal now usually cost $12-$18 in retail liquer stores.)
I've found that some of the wine from Italy is extremely good, and some of it is paint thinner. It's a real gamble, but an Italian Chianti is so much cheaper than a California Cabernet that it's worth the risk. Just buy three bottles from three different labels, and at least one of them is bound to be as good as a Cal-Cab that costs much more. Then buy twelve of whatever the good one was and put it in your cellar.
The game, as far as I'm concerned, is to never spend more than ten bucks on an "everyday" table wine to go with a social dinner. It saves cash so I can buy a bottle or two of the really snobby stuff for more important occasions. Also, wine bargain-hunting is a lot of fun.
Sure, sure... you can always get an okay-tasting blended wines for next to nothing... but isn't it fun to serve a vintage wine (which tastes pretty good) to your guests? They don't need to know that it didn't cost you any more per volume than the mass-produced box wines would have.:)
At the risk of sounding anti-capitalistic: everyone is so freaking concerned about money in this country!
Of course it is. Economy is life. If you increase the cost of a person getting to work, the fat-cats of society will still have their caviar, but poor folk see their lives become harder. There is little you can do which is more compassionate to your fellow man than keeping the basic cost of living as low as possible.
I would put it to you that gas is not only cheaper, it's also cleaner than many of the alternatives. Electric cars are charged from the grid, which comes mostly from burning crude-oil and coal, except in places like the west coast, where they already ruined their environments with huge hydro-electric dams. (... and hybrid cars are unltimately just slightly more-efficient gas cars. Take out the gas engine, and they don't move.) Don't even get me started on battery disposal.
In short, in both respects, I'm talking about the greater good.
Heaven save us from people who want to talk about the Greater Good. Especially those who don't always stop and look at the unintended consequences and costs which are tied to the reforms they demand.
My post was, "if you are stupid with debt, it will kick you in the face, and according to your countries own statistics on consumer spending, most of you are bad with debt, and save very little".
No, your post was, "the people I see in line in front of me at the grocery store are stupid with debt, and it will kick them in the face. Worship me for being so much more responsible than they are!!!"
I was pointing out that your assumptions about many of the people around you may be wrong. You proved my point by showing how poorly you were listening to what I said about my brother. He pays off the full balance of all his cards every month. He is able to do so, because he already has the cash which will be paying off those cards. How is he "over-extended," as you say?
What has been driving up the value of your home? Location? The US running out of land? No.
Actually, yes.
Low interest rates made home-buying slightly more attractive, but the rates were low because the economy was tanking, so this factor was balanced out by the fact that many Americans had no money with which to buy a house.
My house is in a nice neighborhood within jogging distance of the Mall of America, and a short drive from downtown Minneapolis. Land prices have steadilly gone in this town since the Carter Administration. You can't put it all on interest rates.
A friend in the National Guard brought back a crate of various premium beers from Germany.
Don't get me wrong... Sierra Nevada is a pretty darn good American beer... but after drinking the really good stuff; the stuff the Germans choose not to export to us; the Sierra Nevada we switched to after running out tasted like bitter pine needles to me by comparisson.
Many of the widely-distributed "mircro brews" (which are often made in the same breweries as the Big Three on a contract basis to reduce shipping costs) manage to be "okay" beer. Stuff like Shiner and Anchor Steam even manage to be "good enough."
However, when it comes to easy access to genuinely outstanding beer, we live in poverty.
That said, we don't get enough credit for the good beer we have, because most European visitors find themselves in bars which only pour stuff like Bud Lite and Old Milwaukee. What would you expect them to think? As bad as they are, these beers are actually quite popular over here.
Also, for the record, I have never tried wine from Poland, but it seems to me they would be able to make some rather interesting whites, if the German Reislings are anything to guess by.
Most people who play a lot of RPGs don't care much about any of the things you are looking for in an entertaining "world sourcebook" to read.
Tabletop RPG folk like to creat their own worlds, their own histories, and their own mythologies, and then let the games take place in those worlds. Any setting info is simply used as a guideline for the tone which is supposed to be represented. (Or a template... I wish I had a dollar for every time I pulled out the old "Keep of the Borderlands" map that came free with the old D&D box-set because I quickly needed a generic military outpost in one of my campaigns.)
The only exceptions I can think of are the famous "Ravenloft" scenario book from AD&D, and the entire Paranoia & Acute Paranoia line. Both of those were such fantastic works that almost any game master who thumbed through them immediately wanted to take their players through them, right out of the box, with minimal changes. (I'm sure there are others, but those seem to be pretty universal stand-outs.)
What a shame. There is nothing more broken in all of RPG's than the combat damage system, and this system follows in the same tradition.
D&D used it, because the creators borrowed the concepts of "armor class" and "hit points" from a naval-combat simulation tabletop game. Not much thought was put in to it... like most of the original Chainmail and D&D rules, it was all about keeping things simple for experienced war-gamers.
The vast majority of RPG's have borrowed the concept, as have most combat and RPG computer games. I like to call it the "Big Red Bar" system of damage. You fight like nothing is wrong with you as you continue to take generalized "damage" from combat, until a wound to your big toe takes away those last couple "points", and then you drop dead.
It was understandable in 1978, but there's no reason for it in this day and age. In my RPG group, everybody has a laptop. Why not come up with a combat system where the computers calculate for you just how much harder it is to swing a sword with a deep shoulder laceration (or a bruised hamstring, or a slight concussion, etc.)
For that matter, on-line RPGs and combat games should be doing this already.
Armor does not evade blows, it distributes impact to mitigate potentially lethal damage. Yet even the latest computer RPG's, such as World of Warcraft, use armor as a means of calculating a "to hit" target number. There's no reason it has to be this way.
A few maverick games out there have come up with some very novel solutions. The fact that this one does not is further evidence that the Open Source community rarely, if ever, really innovates. Linux is a UNIX-alike. StarOffice is an MS-Office-alike. KDE is a Windows-alike.... and this game is an Open Source D&D-alike. (Except D&D is already Open Sourced now, so nobody really needed it.)
There are a very low number of instances that you can liquidate part of a retirement fund without getting smacked by the IRS.
It's called a Roth IRA.
You pay taxes going in, and can withdraw the entire principal without penalty if you need to (because the money has already been taxed.) You can't touch the gains on that money until you retire, but when you do retire, there's a huge tax advantage.
If you don't have one as part of your retirement plan, talk to your financial advisor about it.
Because it's still the cheapest way to move a car. Even driving a big 20 MPG gas-guzzling SUV, and even with gas going up to two bucks a gallon, that's still only ten cents per mile spent of fuel.
The typical gasoline car, driven about 20,000 miles per year, ends up costing a total of about $0.23 per mile to drive, including the cost of the vehicle and all maintenance.
Hybrid and electric cars seem like they are nearly as cheap to buy, but that's only because the R&D, the manufacturing, and the sales of these new cars are heavilly subsidized by the government. If you had to pay all the real costs of a Toyota Prius out of your own pocket, you would end up spending a hell of a lot more money over the life of the car that you would if you had bought a Toyota Camry.
Why, for crap's sake, is it not okay for the government to provide free wirless broadband access in Philadelphia?... I'm pretty sure there are not many people in Philly who would not like to have free wireless internet...
Government Provided != Free
Why should Hamish furniture salesmen share the cost of your broadband Internet use? If you want to NAT out broadband in your neighborhood, form a co-op with your neighbors and buy it! Stop begging your city and state governments for hand-outs.
The old saw that "the cheapest car to drive is the one you already own" is certainly true, however the safety features of cars made in the last ten years or so compell me to urge anybody driving a car from before the mid-90s to consider scraping together the cash for an upgrade.
My 2000 Nissan pickup truck had an off-set front colission at 35MPH (each way) when a drunk driver coming the other way swered right into me. Both cars were totalled, but I walked out of it with nothing but a seat-belt bruise and a couple little friction burns on the backs of my thumbs (from the airbag deployment). It was a thing of beauty how the engine compartment gave itself up to preserve the shape of the cab. If I was in a late-80s Ford F-150, I would have spent less money, but I would be dead.
Cars cost a lot. Extended hospital stays cost more.
Take your account balances, and subtract the amount outstanding on your house, your cars, your toys, and your plastic. OK, lets be fair. If we call your home a long term asset, and unrealistically assume that its value will continue to increase, or stay where it is now (it won't, not once the interest rate correction hits, and removes all demand for 15% mortgages, not to mention the flood on the market as current owners find they can't afford the payments when they renew their mortgage at current rate +8%), just look at your short term debt.
First of all, my house is a huge asset, so it's not like you are giving me a pass there. "Buy land, because they aren't making more of it," as the saying goes. My inner-suburbs house going down in value is not something I fear. Quite the opposite... I sometimes worry it will go up in value so far that I can't afford the property taxes any more.
I paid cash for my car, like everybody should if at all possible. I keep a low limit on my credit cards to prevent runaway debt spending (and offer a sliver of security in case of theft.)
Do I occationally run up a bunch of debt which has to revolve for a few months (such as for vacations and so on)? Yes. Is it breaking me? Hell no.
If you count ALL of my assets (my 401k, my Roth, stuff I could sell off if I really had to), it doesn't even come close to a "negative" value, even at the worst of times.
Do I have a large savings account? Hell no. Does that mean I have no assets saved? Hell no.
Only a complete fool socks away anything more than a simple "rainy-day" fund in savings. Retirement plans offer much better ROI and tax advantages, and you can still partially liquidate some of them without penalty if you become suddenly hard-up for cash.
Groceries, consumer electronics, clothes, lunches, anything and everything. I love watching people do the "credit shuffle" as they try to decide which CC is still in good standing, or has enough room left for that 100 dollar purchase.
A lot of people you see using cards for mundane purposes are really just simplifying their finances. My brother buys everything with plastic, and pays all his bills with it. He frequently maxes out several of his cards. His credit-card negative balance at the end of each month? $0.
By using cards for everything, and paying it all off right away, he makes interest on the float, while the cash gains interest in his account. He also gets cash back and frequent-flier miles. The card companies put up with this in the hope that he will someday screw up and find himself unable to pay them off, but since he is already sitting on the money which will pay his card bills, there's really no risk of that happening.
But you go ahead and roll your eyes next time you see him in line in front of you at the grocery store, fishing through three cards to find one with an available balance. You are soooo much smarter for paying cash for everything, and he is obviously one of those gluttonous, debt-ridden Americans you've been reading about in your favorite opinion journals.
We have beer, but the typical NASCAR fan doesn't know about it.
I would put Schmalt's Alt (from Schell Brewery in New Ulm, Minnesota) against 90% of what they serve in.ch
Anchor Steam, made in San Francisco, is also a real treat if you like a dark beer.
Samuel Adams Boston Lager gets a "mostly okay" rating, though it pales in comparison to some of the better beers I've had from central Europe.
Budweiser is not really beer. It's made with rice. This is not intended as flamebait directed at Bud drinkers. It would be illegal to label that stuff as "Beer" in many nations around the world.
Miller comes closer to using the right ingredients, but it tastes terrible and smells worse. Foreigners weep for us when they taste it. Even Mexicans, who produce genuinely terrible beers, must wonder how it sells.
The real crying shame is that it's nearly impossible, in most US cities, to get a pint of Guiness served at the correct temperature. Pubs here don't know how to store it, and don't know how to pour it.
That assumes that the Mac platform was ever appealing to gamers.
Don't get me wrong, I use my Macs every day. One runs my music studio, another is about to become my new web server, and my iBook goes with me everywhere gets used for just about every other computing task that I do.
But when I want to play games, I do so on either a Windows PC or a console. I'm all about using the right tool for the job.
Yes, I could play World of Warcraft on the eMac I use for recording music, but why bother when an el-cheapo PC with a decent video card, which I can keep anywhere in the house, does the job just fine?
And that same alien probably would have created a light-reading device which converts light into easy-to-understand audio information, allowing the alien to hear far away objects, and even hear the shapes of distant planets.
So if we were to tell him that we detect light with a biological organ, he would eventually be able to wrap his head around the concept, but if you told him you could read minds by detecting unconfirmed mystical energies, he would scoff at you and say something like, "yeah, we've got crackpots and swindlers back home on pltz'grb, too."
Slashdot Mirror
Games are art and as such quality is subjective. If journalist A honestly thinks Halo sucked and journalists B, C and D think Halo is great, who is to say who is right?
Which makes game reviews totally different from movie or music reviews.
Oh wait, no... it's exactly the same. There really is nothing new about "game journalism", except that it's typically done by far, far less experienced writers.
Except for the fact that most open-source projects are not conceived as "incremental improvements" to existing software.
They are free-as-in-speech mimics of existing software, which endeavor to behave as much as possible like the original.
GIMP does not aspire to be the world's best image editor. It aspires to be "just about as good" as Adobe Photoshop (which is the world's best image editor) while also being free.
Linux these days has a few advantages over some versions of *nix, but the project still began when Linus T. decided, "I would like to build a free kernel that works just like Unix."
Pardon me, did I say anything about Microsoft being innovative? Ever? In my life?
So... what was your point?
Funny you should say that. I've been buying a lot of Italian reds lately (because the secret is out on the Australian Shiraz, and you can no longer get outstanding Ozzy wine for seven bucks. Former el-cheapo labels like Black Opal now usually cost $12-$18 in retail liquer stores.)
:)
I've found that some of the wine from Italy is extremely good, and some of it is paint thinner. It's a real gamble, but an Italian Chianti is so much cheaper than a California Cabernet that it's worth the risk. Just buy three bottles from three different labels, and at least one of them is bound to be as good as a Cal-Cab that costs much more. Then buy twelve of whatever the good one was and put it in your cellar.
The game, as far as I'm concerned, is to never spend more than ten bucks on an "everyday" table wine to go with a social dinner. It saves cash so I can buy a bottle or two of the really snobby stuff for more important occasions. Also, wine bargain-hunting is a lot of fun.
Sure, sure... you can always get an okay-tasting blended wines for next to nothing... but isn't it fun to serve a vintage wine (which tastes pretty good) to your guests? They don't need to know that it didn't cost you any more per volume than the mass-produced box wines would have.
At the risk of sounding anti-capitalistic: everyone is so freaking concerned about money in this country!
Of course it is. Economy is life. If you increase the cost of a person getting to work, the fat-cats of society will still have their caviar, but poor folk see their lives become harder. There is little you can do which is more compassionate to your fellow man than keeping the basic cost of living as low as possible.
I would put it to you that gas is not only cheaper, it's also cleaner than many of the alternatives. Electric cars are charged from the grid, which comes mostly from burning crude-oil and coal, except in places like the west coast, where they already ruined their environments with huge hydro-electric dams. (... and hybrid cars are unltimately just slightly more-efficient gas cars. Take out the gas engine, and they don't move.) Don't even get me started on battery disposal.
In short, in both respects, I'm talking about the greater good.
Heaven save us from people who want to talk about the Greater Good. Especially those who don't always stop and look at the unintended consequences and costs which are tied to the reforms they demand.
My post was, "if you are stupid with debt, it will kick you in the face, and according to your countries own statistics on consumer spending, most of you are bad with debt, and save very little".
No, your post was, "the people I see in line in front of me at the grocery store are stupid with debt, and it will kick them in the face. Worship me for being so much more responsible than they are!!!"
I was pointing out that your assumptions about many of the people around you may be wrong. You proved my point by showing how poorly you were listening to what I said about my brother. He pays off the full balance of all his cards every month. He is able to do so, because he already has the cash which will be paying off those cards. How is he "over-extended," as you say?
What has been driving up the value of your home? Location? The US running out of land? No.
Actually, yes.
Low interest rates made home-buying slightly more attractive, but the rates were low because the economy was tanking, so this factor was balanced out by the fact that many Americans had no money with which to buy a house.
My house is in a nice neighborhood within jogging distance of the Mall of America, and a short drive from downtown Minneapolis. Land prices have steadilly gone in this town since the Carter Administration. You can't put it all on interest rates.
A friend in the National Guard brought back a crate of various premium beers from Germany.
Don't get me wrong... Sierra Nevada is a pretty darn good American beer... but after drinking the really good stuff; the stuff the Germans choose not to export to us; the Sierra Nevada we switched to after running out tasted like bitter pine needles to me by comparisson.
Many of the widely-distributed "mircro brews" (which are often made in the same breweries as the Big Three on a contract basis to reduce shipping costs) manage to be "okay" beer. Stuff like Shiner and Anchor Steam even manage to be "good enough."
However, when it comes to easy access to genuinely outstanding beer, we live in poverty.
That said, we don't get enough credit for the good beer we have, because most European visitors find themselves in bars which only pour stuff like Bud Lite and Old Milwaukee. What would you expect them to think? As bad as they are, these beers are actually quite popular over here.
Also, for the record, I have never tried wine from Poland, but it seems to me they would be able to make some rather interesting whites, if the German Reislings are anything to guess by.
Look at the header of the parent to my post. A .ch URL is featured.
Since I was replying to a Swiss criticism of American beer, the comparison is fair game.
In other news, AOL is still in business.
Most people who play a lot of RPGs don't care much about any of the things you are looking for in an entertaining "world sourcebook" to read.
Tabletop RPG folk like to creat their own worlds, their own histories, and their own mythologies, and then let the games take place in those worlds. Any setting info is simply used as a guideline for the tone which is supposed to be represented. (Or a template... I wish I had a dollar for every time I pulled out the old "Keep of the Borderlands" map that came free with the old D&D box-set because I quickly needed a generic military outpost in one of my campaigns.)
The only exceptions I can think of are the famous "Ravenloft" scenario book from AD&D, and the entire Paranoia & Acute Paranoia line. Both of those were such fantastic works that almost any game master who thumbed through them immediately wanted to take their players through them, right out of the box, with minimal changes. (I'm sure there are others, but those seem to be pretty universal stand-outs.)
I'm very pleased to stand corrected in this case.
-Aud, level 17 Warlock, Silverhand server
The fact that this one does not is further evidence that the Open Source community rarely, if ever, really innovates.
Oh... I should point out that emacs is the exception which proves the rule. That program is a shining example of totally insane creativity unleashed.
I'm more of a vi user myself, but props where credit is due...
What a shame. There is nothing more broken in all of RPG's than the combat damage system, and this system follows in the same tradition.
D&D used it, because the creators borrowed the concepts of "armor class" and "hit points" from a naval-combat simulation tabletop game. Not much thought was put in to it... like most of the original Chainmail and D&D rules, it was all about keeping things simple for experienced war-gamers.
The vast majority of RPG's have borrowed the concept, as have most combat and RPG computer games. I like to call it the "Big Red Bar" system of damage. You fight like nothing is wrong with you as you continue to take generalized "damage" from combat, until a wound to your big toe takes away those last couple "points", and then you drop dead.
It was understandable in 1978, but there's no reason for it in this day and age. In my RPG group, everybody has a laptop. Why not come up with a combat system where the computers calculate for you just how much harder it is to swing a sword with a deep shoulder laceration (or a bruised hamstring, or a slight concussion, etc.)
For that matter, on-line RPGs and combat games should be doing this already.
Armor does not evade blows, it distributes impact to mitigate potentially lethal damage. Yet even the latest computer RPG's, such as World of Warcraft, use armor as a means of calculating a "to hit" target number. There's no reason it has to be this way.
A few maverick games out there have come up with some very novel solutions. The fact that this one does not is further evidence that the Open Source community rarely, if ever, really innovates. Linux is a UNIX-alike. StarOffice is an MS-Office-alike. KDE is a Windows-alike.... and this game is an Open Source D&D-alike. (Except D&D is already Open Sourced now, so nobody really needed it.)
There are a very low number of instances that you can liquidate part of a retirement fund without getting smacked by the IRS.
It's called a Roth IRA.
You pay taxes going in, and can withdraw the entire principal without penalty if you need to (because the money has already been taxed.) You can't touch the gains on that money until you retire, but when you do retire, there's a huge tax advantage.
If you don't have one as part of your retirement plan, talk to your financial advisor about it.
No they get cooler gadgets. Personally I wouldn't buy them all, but damn they're cool.
Congratulations. I'm not sure if it was your intention, but in one sentence you answered the question far better than the entire article did.
The Japanese have lots of cool gadgets because they are willing to buy them and we are not. Simple as that.
Why are American cars still dependent on oil?
... I'm pretty sure there are not many people in Philly who would not like to have free wireless internet...
Because it's still the cheapest way to move a car. Even driving a big 20 MPG gas-guzzling SUV, and even with gas going up to two bucks a gallon, that's still only ten cents per mile spent of fuel.
The typical gasoline car, driven about 20,000 miles per year, ends up costing a total of about $0.23 per mile to drive, including the cost of the vehicle and all maintenance.
Hybrid and electric cars seem like they are nearly as cheap to buy, but that's only because the R&D, the manufacturing, and the sales of these new cars are heavilly subsidized by the government. If you had to pay all the real costs of a Toyota Prius out of your own pocket, you would end up spending a hell of a lot more money over the life of the car that you would if you had bought a Toyota Camry.
Why, for crap's sake, is it not okay for the government to provide free wirless broadband access in Philadelphia?
Government Provided != Free
Why should Hamish furniture salesmen share the cost of your broadband Internet use? If you want to NAT out broadband in your neighborhood, form a co-op with your neighbors and buy it! Stop begging your city and state governments for hand-outs.
The old saw that "the cheapest car to drive is the one you already own" is certainly true, however the safety features of cars made in the last ten years or so compell me to urge anybody driving a car from before the mid-90s to consider scraping together the cash for an upgrade.
My 2000 Nissan pickup truck had an off-set front colission at 35MPH (each way) when a drunk driver coming the other way swered right into me. Both cars were totalled, but I walked out of it with nothing but a seat-belt bruise and a couple little friction burns on the backs of my thumbs (from the airbag deployment). It was a thing of beauty how the engine compartment gave itself up to preserve the shape of the cab. If I was in a late-80s Ford F-150, I would have spent less money, but I would be dead.
Cars cost a lot. Extended hospital stays cost more.
Take your account balances, and subtract the amount outstanding on your house, your cars, your toys, and your plastic. OK, lets be fair. If we call your home a long term asset, and unrealistically assume that its value will continue to increase, or stay where it is now (it won't, not once the interest rate correction hits, and removes all demand for 15% mortgages, not to mention the flood on the market as current owners find they can't afford the payments when they renew their mortgage at current rate +8%), just look at your short term debt.
First of all, my house is a huge asset, so it's not like you are giving me a pass there. "Buy land, because they aren't making more of it," as the saying goes. My inner-suburbs house going down in value is not something I fear. Quite the opposite... I sometimes worry it will go up in value so far that I can't afford the property taxes any more.
I paid cash for my car, like everybody should if at all possible. I keep a low limit on my credit cards to prevent runaway debt spending (and offer a sliver of security in case of theft.)
Do I occationally run up a bunch of debt which has to revolve for a few months (such as for vacations and so on)? Yes. Is it breaking me? Hell no.
If you count ALL of my assets (my 401k, my Roth, stuff I could sell off if I really had to), it doesn't even come close to a "negative" value, even at the worst of times.
Do I have a large savings account? Hell no. Does that mean I have no assets saved? Hell no.
Only a complete fool socks away anything more than a simple "rainy-day" fund in savings. Retirement plans offer much better ROI and tax advantages, and you can still partially liquidate some of them without penalty if you become suddenly hard-up for cash.
Groceries, consumer electronics, clothes, lunches, anything and everything. I love watching people do the "credit shuffle" as they try to decide which CC is still in good standing, or has enough room left for that 100 dollar purchase.
A lot of people you see using cards for mundane purposes are really just simplifying their finances. My brother buys everything with plastic, and pays all his bills with it. He frequently maxes out several of his cards. His credit-card negative balance at the end of each month? $0.
By using cards for everything, and paying it all off right away, he makes interest on the float, while the cash gains interest in his account. He also gets cash back and frequent-flier miles. The card companies put up with this in the hope that he will someday screw up and find himself unable to pay them off, but since he is already sitting on the money which will pay his card bills, there's really no risk of that happening.
But you go ahead and roll your eyes next time you see him in line in front of you at the grocery store, fishing through three cards to find one with an available balance. You are soooo much smarter for paying cash for everything, and he is obviously one of those gluttonous, debt-ridden Americans you've been reading about in your favorite opinion journals.
We have beer, but the typical NASCAR fan doesn't know about it.
.ch
I would put Schmalt's Alt (from Schell Brewery in New Ulm, Minnesota) against 90% of what they serve in
Anchor Steam, made in San Francisco, is also a real treat if you like a dark beer.
Samuel Adams Boston Lager gets a "mostly okay" rating, though it pales in comparison to some of the better beers I've had from central Europe.
Budweiser is not really beer. It's made with rice. This is not intended as flamebait directed at Bud drinkers. It would be illegal to label that stuff as "Beer" in many nations around the world.
Miller comes closer to using the right ingredients, but it tastes terrible and smells worse. Foreigners weep for us when they taste it. Even Mexicans, who produce genuinely terrible beers, must wonder how it sells.
The real crying shame is that it's nearly impossible, in most US cities, to get a pint of Guiness served at the correct temperature. Pubs here don't know how to store it, and don't know how to pour it.
Post-It Notes?
Oh... those yellow tabs attached to the monitors of people who can't remember their passwords!
People in your office keep their client lists on those things? Why? The computer is right there on your desk, isn't it?
For that matter, any decent phone should store all the contact information you could need.
And you're calling me a luddite!
In other news, there are still MMORPGs out there besides World of Warcraft.
That assumes that the Mac platform was ever appealing to gamers.
Don't get me wrong, I use my Macs every day. One runs my music studio, another is about to become my new web server, and my iBook goes with me everywhere gets used for just about every other computing task that I do.
But when I want to play games, I do so on either a Windows PC or a console. I'm all about using the right tool for the job.
Yes, I could play World of Warcraft on the eMac I use for recording music, but why bother when an el-cheapo PC with a decent video card, which I can keep anywhere in the house, does the job just fine?
Maybe there's some kind of psychic emanation that comes from the breasts and is blocked by clothing.
Ph34r my n3kid m1nd r34din6 sk1lz!
And that same alien probably would have created a light-reading device which converts light into easy-to-understand audio information, allowing the alien to hear far away objects, and even hear the shapes of distant planets.
So if we were to tell him that we detect light with a biological organ, he would eventually be able to wrap his head around the concept, but if you told him you could read minds by detecting unconfirmed mystical energies, he would scoff at you and say something like, "yeah, we've got crackpots and swindlers back home on pltz'grb, too."