Pain_Man

and now for something completely unhelpful... I went wireless so I could surf the Net on my laptop. I bought a Linksys Wireless Router (WR54G? something like that). Assembly was easy. Popped the Linksys CD in the burner. Followed the directions: plugged the ethernet cable from the cable modem into the router (and another e'net cable into my desktop). A Wizard came up, generated a gazillion alpha-numeric password, bada-bing, bada-boom and it was secured. Unfortunately, I live in radio/cell hell so the router's signal gets dropped more often than it should. (It's so bad, we couldn't use our cell until we changed the type of network we were using! And the cordless phones are plagued by all kinds of crap.)

I'm wasn't really surprised. Doesn't lessen my annoyance though. I was hoping for at least digital cable quality. I never got around to buying "New Hope" on VHS, believe or not, so I wanted a copy of the original theatrical release. Like I said, I wasn't expecting much and I didn't even get that. Shame on you, George! 50 views and Minty's the only one who's commented? How very odd... Could it be that I said it all?? (Or almost all?)

It's not like I have statistics, but it sure seems that way. I've seen a number of feature films released in the UK before the US. I'm just envious, that's all. And I hate to wait. As for Sony PS3, or what have you, I'm not a big console gamer. It does seem bloody odd that Sony can't get its shit together and release them everywhere at the same time. I can understand they would release them in Japan first as test marketing. But once it's been greenlighted, why not alot each country or region a quota of machines corresponding to how many were sold of the previous generation? It doesn't seem like rocket science. Been arguing with the wife over my getting new rig. She's adamantly against it. She'd rather I bought an Xbox 360 (at $800!!) than buy a new PC. 'Ceptin' I don't want an Xbox 360 or PS3 or Sega 4 Zillion or whatever--tho they would look bad ass on the HD. Besides, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think I can send email, read pdfs or rip CDs, or run ImbBurn with an Xbox 360. Whilst almost every video game is ported to PC eventually.

Is there anything you guys won't bet on? Say, who Prince Harry'll feel up next? (Says the guy who lives 20 miles from the Vegas strip... ) BTW, do they tax your winnings? Is there a minimum amount? If you win a pound, do have to pay x amount of pence? (Here, above a certain amount, it's 26%.)

...ass. If this what laser disc looks like, I can see why my parents never bought one. To the DVD.... I didn't have high expectations in the first place, and it has signally failed to meet even those. First, it really is the original theatrical release. There's no "Episode IV - A New Hope" above the crawl (which Lucas was allowed to add after the movie became a mega-hit and Fox was ready to do anything, even fellatio, to keep him happy). The "theatrical version"--which isn't true because it's the laser disc version!---is on the "bonus" disk. Another little from George to us. The picture quality sucks. Some of that, I suppose, might have to do with my TV being an HDTV. But it's grainy and it's also a 2.35:1 ratio, so there are huge black borders above and below the picture. It's also dull, lack the sparkling color of the "official" version. The sound is only 2.1 Dolby but it's bad. It sounds like the stock stereo on a Hyundai. On the commentary track on the "official" version, Ben Burtt, sound editor/editor, says they did a 5.1 Dolby mix--which was brand new so only a handful of theaters were equipped for it--for the theatrical release back in '77. But we get 2.1. Even if they had to use laser disc video, they couldn't have remixed the sound to produce 5.1? All, in all, it almost feels like spite from George. As thought he was pissed off that we--the people who made him a friggin' billionaire!--have the balls to ask for the version that started it all. And I don't believe for a goddamn second that they had to "destroy" the original print in order to make the "official" version released in '97. It just doesn't make sense. When you're rewriting a book, you don't destroy the first draft during the re-write. What if you fuck something up? Same thing with a movie. When a movie's edited together, do they just chuck the dailies in the trash before they're finished with it? Of course not. Given the fact that Star Wars is the highest grossing movie in history ($1.4 billion dollars, 800M pounds?) does anyone really believe that they just through the master print--or just made one?!--into a shoebox in Lucas's closet?* I bought it for nostalgic reasons. Unless it touched your childhood the way it did mine (I was six when it came out and I'll never forget that Star Destroyer when it filled the screen), I would definitely buy the boxed set with George's "official", "final", "ultimate"--until the-he-gets-bored-and-decides-to-fuck-around-some-more versions come out. One thing's for sure: I won't be buying the other two supposed "theatrical versions." After all, the only real differences in the version of "Jedi" are the fucking "Ewok Song" (I HATE EWOKS!!!) and the original actor who played the "old" Anakin (who really looks like shit for just over 40, on the other hand, he was burned from head to foot.) And I felt the the changes made in "Empire" were improvements. "This station is now the ultimate power in the universe! I suggest we use it!" --General Motti (the "Force Choke" surely improved his manners.) *More likely it would have been treated as the Beatles' masters were: kept them in a climate controlled vault in the depths of 20th Century Fox (since "New Hope" is the only one that Lucas doesn't own completely)? And the sound from Beatles' CD's sound a lot better than this!

Curious about that myself. I have 1.5GB PC 2700 in my "main" machine. 768MB on the eMachines/Gateway laptop I'm writing this with. However, the damned Intel "integrated" graphics steals 32MBs of that . My third computer, a gift from the wife's company, a PIII 800, has a Gig of RAMBUS. It's also go more fans than a factory in mid-summer. Well, that's the reason they retired it, right, too much heat? But I tell you what, it's really fast for a PIII with less than a gHz of clockspeed.

Yeah, the Internat'l Union of Astronomers (or whatever it's called) has decided that Pluto is a "dwarf planet" instead of a full-fledged planet. For the sake of sensitivity, shouldn't it be referred to as a "Little Planet"? After all, we don't want to harm it's self-esteem. Seriously, it's mostly methane ice with some rock. It's probably more of a really, really big comet than any kind of planet.

You're the programmer. I use IE so seldom, usually only when I can't get something to download via FF, that I hadn't noticed. FF isn't perfect, but you don't have to update it every .068 seconds (anyone name the cineamatic allusion???).

According to AP reports, the Queensland cops say that he wasn't annoying or provoking the animal. And it was a bull ray, apparently the biggest kind. It's barb is much bigger than the smaller species, being about 4 inches long (according to the head of the largest aquarium in the US which is in Atlanta). So it's not much different than having a four inch dagger jabbed into your heart. Apparently, one of his ventricles was destroyed and there was simply nothing that could be done. ----- I doubt we'll ever see the video footage. His manager wants it destroyed. Ultimately, it'll be his wife's decision. Unless some asshole gets ahold of the tape and sells it to a tabloid show/newspaper. Personally, I don't think it should be shown. Other than trauma surgeons or ER docs, I don't really see the value (of its being seen). Of course, opinions'll vary.

No, Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, South Africans, and Americans we all have our own slang. I saw Trainspotting for the first time this weekend and I had a hard time understanding all of it. Remember Bernard Shaw: The US & UK: two nations separated by a common language. LOL! I thought I didn't get that as well because my broken english

Yeah, never mention NTFS to Minty. He goes apoplectic.

DUDE! That's just a metaphor for life: entirely random with no fucking answers.

though it requires one egregious break of Occam's Razor To be fair to ol' Bill, the "razor" is more of a guideline. Plus, we're not even sure he's the source. The proposition, in it's modern form, doesn't appear in any of his extant works (tho' since he died in prison accused of heresy, it's possible other works were destroyed by the Inquisition). I should probably change my middle name to Tangent.

Not to digress, but this happens to me too occasionally. Since it hasn't happened with other chatboard sftw, I wonder if it's not an Invision thing?

Hey, hey, hey...hey-hey-hey-hey!!! You guys (in England anyway) always--well most of the time--get the hottest new American DVDs days or even weeks before we do! And the Japanese almost always get their own products before we do as well! They had the "honor" of paying $25,000 for the first Blu-Ray drive, for example.

Jay Leno did a tribute to Steve on Tues night. He showed a montage of clips from Steve's various appearances on the tonight show (only when Johnny was behind the desk was it the Tonight Show), with a particularly funny moment. In one appearance, Steve had a beaver on Jay's desk. He tells Jay, "eaver is my favorite animal in North America." Russell Crowe--also on that night and--was sitting on the couch, on camera left, and says, "I'm rather fond of beaver myself."

According to an AP story, he's going to have a "private funeral somewhere in the Outback" and, some time in the next two weeks, a public memorial. Whether that'll be a state funeral, hasn't been said. http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/09/07/i...=20060907100030 He was, arguably, the world's most well-known Aussie. (Mel being US-born and Russell Crowe, what is he, Aussie or NZ?) My daughter is still sad about his death. She doesn't want to talk about it or even see his picture. When a re-run of Crocodile Hunter and she wouldn't look at the screen. The more I think about it, the more it sucks. But he did die doing what he loved. A lot better than rotting away in a nursing home wired to half a dozen machines. Funny that Mel Gibson came up. But I think that's comparing apples to oranges. Gibson's an actor/producer. Steve was an entertainer, but he was also a herpetologist and conservationist. Besides, Mel is a born US citizen. He's as much ours as Australia's--for better or worse.

Since there's no link, I assume you're jerking our chains? On a more serious note... The J.J. Abrams (Lost) Star Trek feature is going to happen. Development has already started...

He never saw the stingray. He swam over and in a millions to one shot, it struck him in the chest. The moment I put my child in the car and pulled away from the curb into traffic she was in far more danger than Steve's son was from that croc. 50,000 a year die in car accidents a year in the US alone. The number of peole killed by crocs is a fraction of that worldwide. I'm not saying it was the brightest thing he ever did, but it shouldn't be blown out of proportion. The Aussie authorities didn't find a problem with it. He also stopped greeting visitors entering his zoo because he saw a 2 1/2 yr old girl knocked to the ground and hurt by an idiot fan rushing to meet him.

I've been using ZA for several years now. I've never had serious problems with. Before I got the hardware firewall that comes with the wireless router, ZA was excellent at swatting down any and all "intrusions" and my machine was regularly getting hit by fuckers from China and Hong Kong (90%+ of the attack attempts). ZA stopped them cold. Also, you can always turn off ZA's spyware function. Every firewall should be tested using Steven Gibson's free firewall tester called Shields Up! It can be found at grc.com. Click on Shields Up! and scroll down the page and you'll see it. Click that link and then choose "Probe all ports." As a control, then turn off your firewall and run the test again. Gibson has loads of good information on firewalls and he rates ZA as the best. Here comes the "However"... the recent update to 6.5 contained a bug (I have Zone Alarm Security Suite, so I don't know if the problem is limited to the other versions). I don't know if it's been fixed yet, so I'm waiting. They've already released another minor update. I'm going to wait until the next one b4 I give 6.5 a try. As for Symantec, imo bourne of experience, their products are shitware: wildly over priced, buggy and prone to crash my systems. And trying to uninstall their shit is a nightmare. There was one excellent product they had, WinFax 9.0. When the released WinFax 10 I installed it and it screwed up my system so bad I had to to completely reinstall. I won't touch any Symantec product, period.

I bought my DW1655 for $62 incl/shipping. More than double that is way out of line. If you're in the US, check meritline.com or supermediastore.com. You should be able to get it for way lower than that. So far I've found the DW1655 to be the second best burner I've yet had (second only to the Plex 716A which sadly retired itself earlier this year). It outperforms my Pioneer 110D FW1.41 (judging by the DIP scans and I've run direct comparisons to make sure). As for the best DVD+/-RW, I've had good performance Sony branded Riteks (4x, the 8xer's performance is too spotty to recommend). I got a great deal on a 25pk spindle of Ritek 6x -RWs. They've performed well. Unfortunately, the best manufacturer Taiyo Yuden, doesn't make RWs of either flavor (at least for the US market). #39;(

For a second there I thought you were talking about DLs! But I don't see "MKM" on the disc info you posted. That would have been a helluva a deal. Nay the less, 10 for $7 Canadian is a great deal (if not as a great a deal as it used to be vis-a-vis the US$). As I posted a while back, my pharmacist ("chemist") had Sony branded Yuden00-T02 (sp?) at 25 for $10.

I'm not voicing an opinion here, just looking to see what my cousins Down Under think of giving Steve a state funeral? (Since I'm not an Australian I don't think I have a right to an opinion.) Here in the US, the state funeral for Reagan was the first one I remember. I can't tell you who got the last one before he did. But I believe it had been over a decade. And the last president to get one was Kennedy. So, did "the Crocodile Hunter" do enough for Australia to have earned the honor?

Thanks, corny. As soon as I shut down the laptop, I realized what it probably meant (i.e. cricket). Every hour on the hour Animal Planet is running tributes to him. On the Discovery Channel website, they say they're working on a tribute.

@blu Can you, ah, translate that into Yank?