Randox

Just went through Catching Fire, the second book of the hunger games in a single sitting (like I did for the first one). In all honesty, if I thought my brain was up to the task of 12 consecutive hours of reading, I'd still be in bed with book number 3. I think this series has finally knocked the Belgariad and the Mallorean off the pedestal of my favourite series, which is no easy feat. I loved those books. Next time I can line up 6 or 7 hours, and I can spare the sleep, I'll finish off the Hunger Games series, and then next on my list is Inheritance which I am afraid is large enough that I doubt I can get through it in one go (I'm guessing 12 to 14 hours to get through that one), no matter how compelling it turns out to be.

This mostly only happens to me when I'm chatting (especially in RuneScape), but some days I will consistantly omit entire words from my sentences to the point they are total gibberish. Like "I'm having a good day" will become "I having a day", and I normally don't notice until I read the comment later. I've also had cases where my fingers type things that are totally not what I was thinking. At best, I'll write out the same thing but using different words, and at worst my mind randomly selects another word with at least the same first two letters and types that out.

Dress in full nightingale and become a Sith. :lol: Omg, back when I was using dual sparks I felt so much like a sith. If only I had had a red sword, I could have pretended I was using a lightsaber too(I still don't have a red sword, but I have a black one with a red enchantment knoking around still I think).

People who smoke up wind of me, especially at the bus stop. I guess once you smoke for a while it makes you forget how bad it reeks. For me, it makes vomiting in my near future a very likely possibility.

Smoking a pipe is superior to all other forms of tobacco. Doesn't matter how you smoke it to me. It all makes me want to vomit something fierce (sometimes it succeeds). It also turns my eyes a spectacular shade of red. I actually hate the smell of pot too, but it doesn't make me gag and nauseated. I will admit though that pipes aren't as bad as cigarettes and cigars. Still pretty bad though (in terms of smell).

:shock: Yeah, that was beautiful.

There are two solutions to your problem. You could moisturise your face so that it isn't so dry, or you could stop looking at your face in the mirror right after you get out of the shower :razz:. There are plenty of unscented moisturisers though. People who show up to work hungover. That said, my employer (not that I'm working right now) is actually really good about getting people who show up hungover (which is really rare since most of the people there are beyond partying, at least on week nights) to do all the work that no one else wants to do, and is totally unrelenting about getting them to do as much work as possible, so it does have some upsides.

You'd probably have to put effort into getting an argument out of a non fundamentalist. And the non-fundamentalists certainly do exist. The Church I belong to is also known to some people by the name 'the thinkers religion', because it is very much about allowing and encouraging people to find their own faith, not telling you how to live your life or what to believe. My Church does not consider the bible to be literal, but rather a very important story book. And for me, that's really where you draw the line of fundamentalism. To me, a fundamentalist is someone who believes that their story book is the literal true word of their deity(s). On that note, how long has it been since I said I hate it when people try to push their personal religious beliefs on other people (this applies to atheists too) :evil: How does an atheist push religious beliefs if they hold none? "God doesn't exist" is a religious view. Athiests wouldn't be cool with me pushing the existence of god on them any more than I like people pushing his non existence on me. I am more than happy to talk about why people might or might not believe in a God, but a flat out 'your wrong, god doesn't exist, your a moron' really doesn't fly with me. I don't give a flying [bleep] what you believe, as long as your polite about it :D

This is somewhat mild compared to people, but I've either repressed all the memories of when I made a total ass of myself, or I've been very lucky thus far. Anyway, I used to go to band camp, and I also have my moments of being a super heavy sleeper. Anyway, its a week long thing, and for whatever reason I guess my body decided to active its super sleep mode in the morning when I was supposed to get up. I woke up on the floor beside my bed about 20 minutes after my first class (for lack of a better word). It was only embarasing because (a) I obviously had no time to sort myself out or take a shower, and (b) I just hate showing up to a group thing late. There was also a little bit of snickering which would suggest some people thought I was late and dishevelled for an entirely different reason. Honestly, that might have been preferable since I would have at least had fun first, rather than waking up in a panic <_< I got the story about what happened from my room mate later. Apparently after shaking me and yelling at me to wake up, they tried rolling me out of my bed, and when that didn't work they gave up and went to go eat. Also, despite never quite achieving a hang over, apparently I do a damn good job of mimicking one when I wake up and am still tired. I actually had to put up with a 5 minute interrogation from my parents once because they were convinced I had a hangover. I'm still not sure they believe I was just tired.

You'd probably have to put effort into getting an argument out of a non fundamentalist. And the non-fundamentalists certainly do exist. The Church I belong to is also known to some people by the name 'the thinkers religion', because it is very much about allowing and encouraging people to find their own faith, not telling you how to live your life or what to believe. My Church does not consider the bible to be literal, but rather a very important story book. And for me, that's really where you draw the line of fundamentalism. To me, a fundamentalist is someone who believes that their story book is the literal true word of their deity(s). On that note, how long has it been since I said I hate it when people try to push their personal religious beliefs on other people (this applies to atheists too) :evil:

I don't know how it works for other people, but I have never been able to see either why you would go to someone else to interpret your dreams, or how people can't understand their own. 99% of my dreams fall into two categories. Fantasies (this could be doing something impossible like flying, or having a major problem in my life solved or non existent), and nightmares. And I don't have nightmares very often (I think I have had entire years without one). Since my dreams are pretty much all fantasies, I am already aware of what they are about. Sure, my mind might add psychedelic content to keep them interesting, but I can almost always follow the main point. That said, some of my dreams have given me great personal insight into my own mind. The inspiration for them had to come from somewhere, so I consider my dreams to be a way to see just what my subconscious is thinking about, and sometimes it's thinking about some really interesting things. Other times its just trying to remember where I put something. And once or twice every year or so, its totally losing its shit (nightmares), normally over the most asinine things you could think of (actually, I don't think anyone could possibly think up the stuff my mind goes to pieces over, myself included).

Have you ever had a dream realistic enough that at some point after having it, you can't be sure if it was a dream or not? I get this sometimes with dreams where I find something that I lost, and was looking for. Sometimes, about a week after the dream I will remember it, and I cant be sure if I dreamt the whole thing, or if I really did find the object and then lost it again (I still can't know for sure as it relates to a couple dreams, but I am 95% certain they were in fact dreams).

Ha, on the subject of playing as a good guy... Apparently, once I am in a situation where there are no consequences or real people involved, I have absolutely no qualms about killing and stealing anything that gives me the slightest justification (after all, the more people I zap the faster I level). Unlike fallout, where I had to worry about karma, in Skyrim my new occupation is breaking into shops that dare not be open 24/7 to loot them. The only problem is that I can't sell stolen goods for some reason (seriously, I should just have to travel to another city or something), so this limits me to stealing things that are of use to me. I don't kill hunters or other innocent people on the road though. They have to be rude to me first. I found the perfect mage sword for me. It causes everything level 10 and down to flee for 30 seconds, which is still a good portion of my enemies. Not only are they not stabbing me, they aren't even attacking me. I can now get chain lightning off at half cost, but dual casted its still eating up my magicka like mad. I also finally remembered that I am a high elf, with the highborn power. I get a minute of virtually unlimited magicka out of that, enough to launch at least 5 dual chain lightinings without giving the dragon to much time to shoot back. Once it gets to low, I just go to dual lightning and if I can time it right, I can keep the dragon perpetually stunned and kill it before it can do any damage at all (and my etheral power totally has my back if I [bleep] up). Nexct time I am fighting with highborn, I need to try using a dual cast ward against the gragon breath, or maybe the medium grade ward in one hand with lightning in the other. I can't think of a better way to give the dragon a nice big symbolic middle finger except to stand there behind my magical shield laughing at it. And speaking of wards, they seem fairly useless to a pure mage. All it does is eat my magicka until I can't return fire or heal myself. Even if I time it right its still a major drain (plus I prefer to dual cast to take advantage of two of my perks). Much to my annoyance, wards in enemy hands are not only able vastly reduce my stun effect, but are totally blocking at least one of my shouts (I need to test my ice shout against the next mage with a ward I find). Tomorrow, I think I'll hunt down the rest of my ice shout. Just one word is really strong, so I'd love to see what I can do with two or three of them (the recharge on 3 is going to be like 3 minutes >.>).

Nah, mechanicals are the best. I use really fine pens and pencils (.5mm) for both, and I have been that selective since like grade 7. I can't stand writing with a wooden pencil because I would have to sharpen it every 30 seconds lest it get to dull for my liking.

He's not a brother so it's okay. Well he is black... Is it kinda bad I'd feel no remorse over putting a hoe before a bro? Gotta stop saying [garden tools] and bros. Ugh went to the supermarket with my mum today and it took 1hr 30mins to shop. Now I remember why I avoided these trips. Err, it actually means friends (I think) but whatever. Maybe it only applies if you call your friends your bro's? (While I'm at it, I need to get 'brother from another mother' and 'sister from a different mister' out of my system because there is never a good time to say those in a real conversation) Its a silly rule anyway. Spend some time with your girlfriend. As long as you still spend some quality time with your friends, and are available to help at least some of the time, I doubt they'll mind to much. And today I discovered that my radiator was mostly full of water, and I got it flowing today. After 2 winters with no heat in my room, the heat is back on. It will need careful managing though lest I accidently turn my room into the sahara come morning.

I had one of those dreams that's so awesome, and you believe it so much (while asleep) that its a real downer when you wake up and realize it isn't true. In a nut shell, I dreamed that my room here in my house was somehow connected (through a mall, because my dreams have to meet their quota of craziness nightly) to like an apartment complex, where I had a really nice...well apartment. Living room, Kitchen (some weird hole in the ground style that's hard to describe), a small bedroom with its own bathroom, and then a master bed and bath. In terms of scale, probably about 1500 sq ft. Not bad for a flat. I can't remember now why having this second house essentially was so awesome, but I remember I was super dissapointed when I woke up and realized that no, I only have one house, not two of them connected through a mall that was turning a 6km separation into a 200ft long walk (which I noticed and ignored while dreaming).

I'm still liking the dragon that was dumb enough to attack the mage collage in windhelm. I've never seen a dragon die so fast before, seeing as there were like 3 mages outside at the time, and they all seem to be fairly powerful (or at least the destruction girl sure as hell is). I barely had time to get in some pot shots and stand behind a pillar. I guess my strategy doesn't seem complicated to me because I'm just doing what comes naturally, and I've gotten very good at it. It's easier to do when you see the dragon in advance, sine that allows you to select your battle ground before you start shooting it. Today I would like to see about getting a more powerful freezing shout, since its perfect for imobilizing a small group for a long time. I am also hoping that with more words, it might be able to affect larger creatures. The best my single word has been able to hurt is a giant, but their mammouths shake it off even easier than they do my completed shout of sending people flying. As a side note, if I were a theif, and I tied to rob someone and their response was to shout at me in a weird language followed by my flaying heaed over heals 40ft into the side of a cliff, I would run away. I would not charge at them. If for some reason I didn't get the hint the first time, the lightning that knocked me flat on my ass would be a good a clue. I am finding it very difficult to get a good 1 handed weapon. I have my elven dagger, and I need to see if I can do anything to sharpen it, and the mace of some god that steals souls. The mace is stronger, but I want to hold off on it since I don't want to hurt the enchanment with a dozen full stones in my inventory. I'm also going to have to make some daggers to practice my enchanting on. And I need to find more vendors who will take dragon bones and scales off of me so that I can get more money, and maybe get my armour back. I am enjoying using robes now that I have spent some time with them. The higher recharge is a god send and the exta magika is nice too, but for those times when I do get into a sword fight, I would like to have my steel armour back.

Rainy, I don't think I've ever seen you on this thread before. Glad to hear you seem to be enjoying your day off, even if it did rain. Star, isn't it supposed to be bro's before [garden tool]'s :P Winter is back. Not only is it snowing, but its cold enough that I can wear my winter coat now. Forgot how much I don't care for the freeze and thaw cycle as it applies to my face (cold wind).

Heh, only level 11 (or 12) here. I don't find my method to complicated. 1. Find big rock and stand next to it 2. Shoot lightning at dragon when its close 3. When Dragon lands stand away from it behind big rock, charge spell, step out and release, then walk back behind (and since my dual spells stun, if I have the energy I can stand there shooting it until I need to recharge) 4. If caught out in the open under breath attack, go ethereal and run to cover I only have 4 shouts. The one that throws things (lvl 3) (which does jack shit to a dragon), the one that makes me run fast (lvl 1) which is useless, the one to freeze enemies (lvl 1) (which also does nothing going by its effect on a mammoth), and ethereal (lvl 1) which immediately stops all damage and renders me unable to attack for about 10 seconds. I can't wait until I hit 100 destruction and can start disintigrating my enemies :thumbsup: I am also loving the do what you want when you want game play. The game reminds me a lot of Fallout New Vegas (which makes sense seeing as they are the same company, and share some of the same mechanics), but better. Not a huge fan of the blizzards in the north. They are well done, but at the end of the day, I prefer to ride in the south through a sunny forest rather than the north in a frozen hell hole (with wind!).

I finally caved after seeing the game, and bought it, and a little wile ago I had a little experience which pretty much summed up why this game is epic, at least for me. So I'm in the middle of a forest doing some horse riding and looking for whatever locations I can find (as a break from questing), and I've gone down this long road, and I'm about to use quick travel to get back to the nearest branch in the road. Some music starts like a second before I bring up the map, and it tells me I can't fast travel while in combat. So I close the map, check my compass. Nothing. So I'm thinking uh oh, dragon. A second after this revelation I hear the roar, and I start looking for cover. My normal MO for dragon fighting is to dual cast lighting at them to get them down to 50% so they cant fly (using the first part of the ethereal shout to make myself invulnerable if they breathe on me while I'm in the open), and then I hide behind a rock big enough to shield me from them and use it as cover while my magic recharges enough to fire another dual shot, pop out, hit them and then dive back in, using healing spells if I get caught or take a hit. But I'm in a forrest in the middle of bum[bleep] nowhere, and the local trees would provide about as much cover as standing behind a rabbit. So I'm taking all this in, and I realize I can't make a stand where I am. Also, in about 10 seconds a dragon is probably going to breathe on and incerate me (I'll live) and my horse (it might not, and I don't want to buy another one). So I jump off the horse and sprint off into the woods praying I can find a rock big enough to stand behind. About 10 seconds off the trail, I find one, just as I get blasted by frost breath, which is a first for me, and slam on the etheral shout before I can take more damage. I take my 10 seconds of awesomeness and run for cover, and then I start to open fire. I can get off almost 7 dual casted lightning bolts before needed to recharge, and the dragons fly around so much its normally not an issue before I can damage them enough that they can't fly. A small thunderstorm and a couple shouts later, I've discovered that my cover sucks and I'm running around like a crazy person trying to dodge attacks, but staying close enough that I can return fire. Anyway, the dragon dies. Now I'm standing in a forest and I'm wondering if the dragon killed my horse, because there was a few seconds at the start of the fight where I thought it might be chasing my horse, but after like twenty seconds of stomping through bushes I find it, safe and sound. Also, I thought I might be wasting a perk when I made it so that dual casted destruction spells (except for the novice ones at least) cause a knock back stun effect. That perk has been saving my ass since I got it. For dragons, its enough that if I can shoot before they do, they are stunned long enough for me to get back behind something. But its a real life saver when someone is trying to charge at you, and you keep knocking them back. Unfortunately, for most enemies where that is a big problem (especially giants, which I am finding very hard to kill), I seem to run out of magic before they die, which normally means using a shout (I have a couple that do the trick) to buy myself time, followed by creative sprinting. The pro of being a lighting mage, other than looking totally awesome, is that you don't have to lead your target. Accuracy is a breeze. The problem is that its a gigantic magic drain. I am thinking I might invest in some frost magic if I get some perk points I'm not to attached too so that I have something to use in longer battles, or when I have multiple foes where slowing everyone down would be very helpful. Also, high elf was a good idea. Once a day I get to be nearly invincible as my super magic restoration (that lasts a minute) powers my dual casted healing spells (which I have invested 3 perks into to make them more effective and efficient), while still leaving enough left over in the tank to return some serious fire. It was enough to evade and destroy two melee dudes and two mages, all chasing me in a confined space (plus my ice shout which imobalised the last two long enough to get some magic going, after I forgot I carry potions for emergencies, to kill them both when they got back up). I also took a look, and it seems I might be able to learn the same shouts that dragons use to breath fire and ice. Oh how I would love to jump out and hit them with their own attack.

Ah, interesting. I might have to read a summary of it.

You were probably hijacked via an account recovery. That is the norm for accounts that are lost that haven't played in a while, since there wouldn't be any way to get the information by keylogger or phishing. Accounts that don't play in a while seem to be easier to recover as well, probably because they figure that you forogt your pass. I think just logging in like once a week for a minute would be enough to make it harder for someone else to recover you, since it establishes that you know your pass, and it establishes where your playing from.

Is that like a sequal to it or something? I thought it was a standalone. If it is, maybe I'll get you to fill me in :smile:

Excellent book, and I will NEVER read it, or anything else by that author, ever again. I'm just a sucker for something that is at least close to being a happy ending. I just read the first book in the Hunger Games. So good I did it front to back in one sitting, which took a solid 6 hours while I was supposed to be sleeping. Kinda regretted that. I expect I will go throught the next two at a similar pace. I find the book to be similar to the Japanese movie Battle Royale. Might have even been an inspiration. The actual story though was quite different, it just shares some similar elements (specifically the hunger games themselves are a close resemblance, but better). When the movie comes out, we will finally have a battle royale in English :thumbsup: I'll be interested to see how they handle all the nudity though (nothing explicit in the book, but a lack of clothes gets mentioned in the book several times). Easily my favourite book I have ever read after the Belgariad and Mallorean co series.

To bad about the way the left click is arranged. I still feel that lighting would have made more sense since the game doesn't do it for you (so it costs more time to left click 28 times instead of once). Still an improvement over clicking the stupid tinderbox, so I'll take it. And yeah, there are other ways to train fm, if your not too concerned about actually getting to the quest sometime this year. I'll still be cool with it in the end though. I knew what I was getting into when I got my quest cape, and with this game. I'm done with my favourite skill now (except to improve my house), and my clan is pretty much a constant thing, so quests are the last thing in the game I actually get excited for. My only condition for this to not be upset at a later date, is the puzzles better be pretty freaking devious. I do quests for the lore, and for the puzzles, so this one better be a whooper. There are so few quests that have puzzles that are actually a challenge, beyond ones that are trial and error (if the only way to make a puzzle hard is to make it time consuming to solve, your doing it wrong). I couyld go for someything like a puzzle out of my 'false logic puzzles' book. The ones at the end are like 20 clues, 4 sets of information to find (for multiple cases), with a few false clues sprinkled in that have to be indtified before the puzzle can be solved. They normally take an hour or three to get through each, though I bet I would be faster now (but I can't get any new puzzles of the same time to test that on sadly, so I have to wait a few years to totally forget the solutions so I can do them again).