Randox

Surprise! :mrgreen:

The problem with learning from someone who isn't an actual driving teacher is that you are going to pass on all your bad habbits, and everyone has bad habbits. If I am given a drive by someone, and the parent who taught them (the father 99% of the time), I can tell whether their child had lessons or not based on how much they drive like their parent. Never has the observation that someone drives like their parent been a good thing. We all pick up bad habbits over time, which means if you teach your own children too much, your starting them off with at least a decade of bad habbits, probably more. My mom refused to drive with me while I was learning because she backseat drives. She still does it to me a bit, and I've been driving now for 5 years. My brother actually took me on my first drive, because he was going to be the most calm about it.

I'm confused. Are you unsure of whether or not you made the order/purchase, or just whether or not you paid for it? Grats on the oil change though. It does feel good being able to take care of things yourself. EDIT: Tonight went out to a barbecue at my bf's uncles summer home/future retirement house. Had a great time, and especially enjoyed watching the (drunk) uncle jam out on someones electric guitar with a drum machine hooked up. He's quite good. Also played some pool, enough that I started to get my former skill back (not that I was ever all that talented, but the first game was embarrassing). Drive home was less fun. Longest sustained foggy drive I have ever been on, and possibly the only time I have ever been legitimately afraid that I might actually screw up. Our car is like one model too low for fog lights (the mini), as opposed to the last one which could actually have its fog lights on and its low beams off. Would have killed for that setup. I had the brilliant idea to take a better route home that I am not familiar with, which involved using the high beams in some of the turns so I could see where the turning sings were (and make a guess as to where the road was).I also learned that my brain seriously underestimates speed in a dense fog, which means that I have a tendency to drive faster than normal in these particular conditions, which puts my stopping distance at a few time the distance I can actually see. Even having the SUV would have been nice (though one of its fog lights seriously needs to be re-aimed as its high beam high right now). The xenon lights do better in the fog, and it has nice fog lights, and a better perspective relative to its headlights. Ah well, made it home in one piece, and in record time thanks to roaring through unfamiliar streets at double the speed I though I was going (until I noticed and turned on cruise control). The downside is that the mental work out has made me super wide awake.

Again thanks :D And it has been pointed out to me I forgot to change my signature, but now that I have a new one, I can say I waited for this occasion...or something like that.

Put the ice in water. If you just stick beer in a lot of ice, it takes forever to get cold. The water is a much better medium for removing heat than air is, and gives you a mcuh better surface area that is actually working towards cooling your drink. This is probably faster than using a freezer as well (because a freezer just uses air), if you happen to have a cooler of ice handy.

Well, thanks for the congratulations :) And a huge thanks to the rest of the admin team for inviting me to be one of them! This is certianly not where I expected to be, or be headed, when I rejoined the forum community in November 2011 after a 2 or 3 year break from these forums, where I promptly set up camp in the OT forum. Looking forward to being able to branch out and being able to do more for the great tip it community. And I am the skittle master! Oh, and no need for OT to worry. I still love moderating as much as ever, and I'll still be your keeper :thumbsup:

A good old fashioned recruitment drive :thumbsup: Good luck with the applications. And don't be afraid to take your time on filling them out, and even sleep on it or walk away for an hour or two, especially if your like me and don't ever know what to say on these things :lol:

You might want to try using the fridge?

This is the one who left you for your [wagon] friend right? I covered this in the relationship thread, but no matter how much you want her now, knowing what she did in the past is going to be a trust issue in the future. Since trust is a pretty crucial part of any commited relationship, I just can't see it working out long term, and you seem to be setting yourself up for failure with that one.

Steamers are terrific.

Last time I did this was with my laptop, and possibly on our old router which was broken. This is what my PC looks like when its talking to the wireless N router, with a 35% signal as measured by the router, not the PC). I want more of this at my place!

Right there with you. Which is unfortunate, because the main import of this province is wind. I like a little breeze as the temperature climbs, but yeah, not super winds. At least we don't get many hurricanes. Tropical storms are better, they have a nicer wind to rain ratio, and slower winds.

Yeah it's actually pretty interesting how she's doing it. Most authors write an entire series and then they'd go back and start another series (in this case, a 'prologue' series). But Cassandra Clare is alternating between them. She writes one book from one series and then jumps to the other one and writes a book there, etc. Kind of cool :P Heh, if I were an author, I might do the same thing. I can never choose between fantasy and sci fi for my stories, and the sort of stories I would wright would be too balanced to try and pull a Garth Nix/Sabriel and have both in the same book. I'd also probably be more inlinced to write super long short stories (or maybe novellas) than I would be to write full novels. I alternate between what interests me too quickly.

One of the realities of OT (which many of them don't even notice I think), in that until your a regular here, many of your posts will not be respond directly to. I broke in when I came back by relentlessly posting on the today thread. Once your here enough that people recognize you, it flows nicer. It can make this place intimidating at first thought to new users here.

I know it isn't what you want to do, but if you do give downloading a codec pack a shot, this one has been brilliant for me. To me, it would seem like a much simpler (And much faster!) solution to just enable your computer to be able to understand the files. I'm not sure how this would work with pro though (I use it for the benefit of WMP, which is stupidly limited in what it can play). http://www.free-codecs.com/download/k_lite_codec_pack.htm

There was an awesome Q&A and I did get my books signed but it was soooo poorly organized! To compare, the last book signing I went to was George R.R. Martin's. That one had like twice as many people but took half as long to get through the book signing. Martin was super organized. People had to have their books open to the correct page, you couldn't chat with him for ages, and there was a limit on the books you can get signed. So even though I was like at the back of that line, I was waiting less than an hour. But at Clare's.... I was about halfway down the line and we were waiting in line for about 2 hours. People would go up with 7 books and then stand there and chat to her for 10 minutes. So it was a bit frustrating but it was still great and I'm super glad I got to go :P Plus I got another City of Lost Souls signed, not signed to anyone so I can give it away :) Whoa, I didn't know both those series were written by the same author. I have read both of them, and I enjoyed the city of bones one more, but clockwork angel (or whatever the second one of that series was) was incredible. The First was great too, as was the third, but the third almost got out of hand. It almost reminded me of some sort of crazy story a child would tell where they just keep piling everything they think is awesome. Still a great series, but wow, the third book was like all the stops out. Started reading Inheratance finally. Got a 100 some off pages in; took about 2 hours, maybe a bit more, so aside from being a huge book, its slower to read than my last series on a per page basis (I was at pretty much exactly 1 minute per page for hunger games). Not that I mind. It's an epic story and I want it to last for as long as possible.

No sense I really know what I am talking about, so on with a quote: And the listed source for that is "^ David Pratt: David Bohm and the Implicate Order. Appeared in: Sunrise magazine, February/March 1993, " Just thought I would toss that out there. EDIT: oh, and the whole page is here. My understanding is that currently, Quantim Mechanics, String/M theory, and Hidden Varriable Theory are all valid theories.

[hide] To be sure. It's their job to find something with E3 they can make fun of, and I doubt that the social aspect of WiiU will be the dickopolis that Cheese is writting about. I doubt he thinks that either, since exageration is generally part of his job. However, he is dead on that people who aren't my friends being able to message me, or even my friends being able to message me, would piss me off to no end. I wont add anyone on steam, because the first person who messages me while I am playing a game (which is the only possible reason I would be using the program), would get a prompt '[bleep] off and let me play my game in peace' followed by a prompt block. I loathe being interupted while playing video games, which is part of why I only use skuype to talk to people. I can't see skype while gaming, so its not a problem (because I have a compulsion to check my messages). And while I actually think Nintendoes controller could be kind of cool, that doesn't mitigate that fact that I could literally land my toy Shinnok helicopter on it. It's too big, and I don't like needing to let go of part of the controller to get to another part. With an xbox controller (the old one even), I can hit every button on it without taking my thumbs off the controller. Some of the buttons are getting palmed, or using other parts of the thumb, but it can be done. I can't hit every button at once, but I can get to all of them. And its comfy. So I do think some of it was valid, at least for me. I know that Steam has an option to appear "Away" or "Busy" to friends so they can't message you. Those functions have existed since IMing got popular so I'd assume the same will be for the Wii U. Also, I don't think they'd be crazy enough to have a pop-up window appear while the game is playing. It'll probably be something like in Steam where a small box will appear in the corner saying you have a message, allowing you to answer whenever you feel like it. [/hide]My understanding is that they actually are planning on having a pop up while playing. That's the problem. Though for me, any kind of indicator is game ruining, even if it were a freaking led taped to the side of the screen. For me, I do have a compulsion to check my messages as soon as I am aware of them, so I effectively force myself to stop and read it. No point having friends in steam if I am never going to not be busy though lol. I would literally never use it to talk to anyone, because I would always be gaming. I am weird though. Many people do enjoy that stuff, and that's cool. I'm just not one of them, and I will always naturally gravitate to the platform with the most isolation in that respect. In fact, I am still of the old school view that consoles shouldn't be online. 'The couch is the pinnacle of furniture technology because there is room for other people on it'. In my mind, its still if I want to play with other people online, I can do that on the computer. Now, I do enjoy mario kart online (wii is the only console I have with wireless, and so the only one with internet), but I resent [console] games that are designed for online multiplay, especially if there is no local multiplayer. I will not generally play games that were designed for their [online] multiplayer. I guess at some level, I have a very compartmentalized way of looking at the world, and I don't like things that are in one compartment (consoles), and cross over into another (online multiplayer). It messes with my sense of the way things should be. A totally random second example is house layouts. I don't like floor plans where they are so open concept I don't know which room I am in. When I enter a house, my mind divides it up into rooms using queues in the design and furniture layout. It would bother me if there was say no divider between a kitchen and dining room. Now a divider can be anything from a little outcrop in the wall, going from tile to hardwood, two pillars, a bar. Maybe the dining room has 3 walls, the ends of two marking where it starts. But I need to be able to know what room I am standing in. It's very weird, and not easy to describe. Even weirder, I don't really display any OCD tendancies that you might be thinking of (except when I eat. I have to chew equally between each side of my mouth, so I normally alternate with each bit which molars get to work at it). And I think I'll stop there before everyone thinks I am crazier than the crazy cat lady...

We have a very brave wild rabbit, and another one we think is either its partner, or child (you can tell them apart because the second one is much more timid). They aren't a problem because all they do is eat the clover out of our lawn, and maybe some of the garden (they've been in it, not sure what's in there they eat though). So we like them. I saw the brave one twice today. Once, I just went out the back door, and was out there moving around for like a minute before I saw it bounce away, and it only did that after I was life halfway across the lawn towards it. The second time was letting the dogs out of the kennal to play fetch. Silly bunny didn't start bouncing until the dogs were out and running after the ball. Not sure it realized they were lose. Anyway, they are very cute, and quite large (pet rabbits like like 4 inches high I think, not counting ears. These guys are like 7 inches tall to the top of the skull, so I'm assuming a different type). Now we just need the squirrels to come back and we would be all set. We also get ravens, pheasents, and the very rare duck (they have been in our yard once that I know of during a rain storm. Normally they stay down at the lake though, and seeing them is rare). Oh, and we have garden snakes, and maybe another type. Almost picked one up while weeding, but then the weed slithered away and I realized it was a black snake. I think there is also a green one on our property. Lucky to see them once a year, and they are quite docile. Now if only we had some sort of yellow jacket hunting spider, that was still small enough to not be gross or scary or creepy (doubt such a thing exists), we would be all set for tolerable wildlife in my books. EDIT: Oh, and that toe I stubbed/whacked/snagged a little while ago...the entire left half under the nail is blue, as is some of the cuticle on that half. It doesn't hurt, though it looks painful. Just as well its not sandal weather right now <_<

To be sure. It's their job to find something with E3 they can make fun of, and I doubt that the social aspect of WiiU will be the dickopolis that Cheese is writting about. I doubt he thinks that either, since exageration is generally part of his job. However, he is dead on that people who aren't my friends being able to message me, or even my friends being able to message me, would piss me off to no end. I wont add anyone on steam, because the first person who messages me while I am playing a game (which is the only possible reason I would be using the program), would get a prompt '[bleep] off and let me play my game in peace' followed by a prompt block. I loathe being interupted while playing video games, which is part of why I only use skuype to talk to people. I can't see skype while gaming, so its not a problem (because I have a compulsion to check my messages). And while I actually think Nintendoes controller could be kind of cool, that doesn't mitigate that fact that I could literally land my toy Shinnok helicopter on it. It's too big, and I don't like needing to let go of part of the controller to get to another part. With an xbox controller (the old one even), I can hit every button on it without taking my thumbs off the controller. Some of the buttons are getting palmed, or using other parts of the thumb, but it can be done. I can't hit every button at once, but I can get to all of them. And its comfy. So I do think some of it was valid, at least for me.

Not surprising. From my limited experience with the original, it was noticeably more horror than its successor was. What I am hoping for is more of the opening of Deadspace 2, where you were witnessing the actual attack, and levels like the elementary school that are legitimately disturbing to play through (plus the children are my favorite enemy because being able to gun down swarms of weak monsters is more appealing to me than dealing with a handful of strong ones). Dead Space 2 really excelled, at least right up to the end of the solar collector, at giving you the backstory, and highlighting the changes that the marker caused. I guess, just how wrong everything was. I found this kind of fell away around the CEC level, and totally during the Ishimura in favor of just being strait up tense and action packed. By the CEC, the station had gone to shit, and the game was just trying to murder you. Though the audio logs were excellent right up to Government Sector. The Ishimura had some real gems. What Dead Space 2 really missed out on was the originals sound track. I think the difference there might account for some of it. I do hope the third is still reasonably loyal to the feeling of its predecessors. And cracked finally came out with their article on E3 (or at least the first one), which focussed soley on Nintendo on crazy. I didn't know about all the social aspects of their console, which tell me that if I ever buy a Wii U its going in an EM shielded box to prevent it from ever finding an internet connection. I do not like social media, especially not in games that aren't supposed to be social. If its not an online multiplayer, I don't want to talk to people. And they ripped good and hard on that ridiculous touch pad controller controller. Glad to see some of that. I especially like where they referred to it as a 'helicopter landing pad of a controller' while also making fun of asymmetric gaming (the 'here, let me do it' level).

From personal (and sad) experiences, you'd be surprised. More than I would have thought I'm sure. I guess, normally I see collage as the last place to meet someone in the real world (if you have a normal gender distribution at least), before your choices are: person at the bar, your co-workers and their friends, and online. Still, especially for shy people, or people in some situation where meeting people is more difficult, I can see the appeal of going online. Have fun.

Just as something that kind of jumped out at me. Normally when you find your employer suddenly giving you fewer hours, it means they are not pleased about something. Especially if you have a more non confrontational boss, rather than tell you what the problem is, they will just sort of schedule you out of existence. And if they are bringing in more people to do your job while giving you fewer hours, that's also a pretty sure sign they are essentially replacing you.

Just removed an entire conversation because I don't have the time to deal with it delicately right now, so my appologies. If everyone can hold off on the insults, passive agressive remarks and trolling until myself, or another moderator, deals with it, it would be much appreciated (this doesn't mean you can't respond to serpent eye, it just means I do not want to see the conversation take the same route a second time). Have a nice day :shades:

I only speak English. I've tried to learn french, but the number of words I actually know in french can probably be counted on my fingers and toes. The number of french words I can recognize and translate back to english probably gets me up to a 50-60 word vocabulary. However, any complete sentances I can utter are just memorized. I lack the vocabulary to actually piece together a coherent sentence on my own. If I see it written down I can sometimes divine the meaning from words I recognize in written form, but am unable to recall from memory or pick out by ear. The worst part is, I used to know more french. I was probably at my peak french fluency when I was like 11. I think after that, I started to give up.