So apparently a woman put a baby in a microwave and well... Baked it. I was watching a video on NBC where she just broke down when it was mentioned that her baby had been cooked... And well I'm not sure that she did it but it's still extremely sick.

I mean when I think of murder it doesn't really bother me when there is a short death like someone being shot in the head or bleeding out their stomach but the thought of dying from a microwave and the pain of the hyperthermia is just stomach-churning.

So, what do you all think is the worst way to die? I'd imagine that the microwave is up there on the list...

Thanks to this amazing game (and project Reloaded) I've made some friends here back then, hope all is fine with you guys. ( and Dinochick)

In fact, I'm happy to share that we had a little SWR Bash in August with Scathane and the Mask (who the f* are those guys anyway) in Rotterdam. It was nice to finally meet some of the board members in RL and have a couple of beers BEAKing about Life, the Universe, geeky stuff.

Oh, and is there a way to download the whole site so I can have an archive of these years stored like somekind of a diary?

Best wishes,

LLF

(Wow, I'm still an admin. I could make this a stick.. Never mind)

For me, I'm still up in Indiana, graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, and just got a new job working as a service engineer with a large machinery company. I get flown out around the world (mostly US) on the company's dime to help with start-up of the equipment (making sure that it's up to spec after shipping, that it's installed properly, and providing training and basic maintenance instructions to the foreman and the operators of the equipment). I'm still new to it, but I'm liking my coworkers and liking that I get to see the world while I'm still young, so that's pretty awesome.

So... who's gotten married, had kids, moved someplace new, gotten a degree, etc?

So, now for something completely different, I mean random ...

Ride of the Valkyries

I forgot to add this little tidbit in the Movies thread

Xan asked if I had played Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in addition to having previously (and now restarting) ES3: Morrowind, and which I thought was better.

The answer is yes, I have played Oblivion. The game mechanics themselves are equivalent: every action results in some sort of experience boost, though from memory I can't say whether of not the classes of magic are the same. Trainers work the same, and you can join, and eventually lead, any clans/factions/guilds which aren't in direct opposition to each other (not entirely sure there are any either/or options).

The biggest change, aside from improved graphics and a new location (new timeframe, too?), is that they fixed the journal system. Pre-ES4 all information regarding mission/quest status was entered in personal journal style (information learned regarding quest x on day 22 gets buried by information learned regarding quests a, b, c, d and e on day 23-50), and the information is not always easily found if you get a quest but don't act on it right away. In ES4 they adopted a system that made it much easier to find quest info.

But this thread isn't strictly for those video games- feel free to discuss any other good ones you have on any console... Except the Wii. Yes, Rob, I just made that condition to tick you off. Feel free to break it.

Apparently it hasn't been sold, an independent studio is trying to fundraise for it. I really doubt they will get the property easy, but I will be watching what they do.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i248/Mitth_raw_nuruodo/image.jpg

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/-star-wars--vs---the-avengers---vote-for-the-greatest-summer-movie-ever-214507324.html

It's sponsored by Stanford, and my sister is involved with the team, so I can contend that it's fully legit. You aren't giving anyone a "handout" (so no worries, Tex ), but a micro loan, one that has to be paid off. You get twenty-five bucks free, which you can distribute in whatever increments as you see fit. I imagine you can't be a dick and give one cent to 2,500 people individually, but you can give five dollars to a baker in Brazil, ten to a farmer in Libya, etc. They have to pay it back, and when that money is paid back, you can start giving it out to different people. You can track the profiles of your people, see who else is supporting your people, etc.

There's a brief profile on each of the people applying for loans, BTW. So sign up- it's completely free.

If you don't know about SOPA yet, go look it up somewhere and email your representatives in Congress to let them know SOPA is a horrible idea.

This is pretty awesome

Remember how, when I was in high school three years back, I would always entertain you with tales of what banal thing I had done this week or that week, and the nicer members of the forum would act like it was actually something anyone cared about? Well I'm doing that again with a charity fundraiser at my university called The Bonnie Fund. Started it up after a heartbreaking conversation with a very sweet old lady named Bonnie who works at the sandwich shop (Subway) in my residence hall.

It was pretty late, near the end of her shift, and I was getting some dinner, and we got to talking. Her hands shake, so she's slow to put together sandwiches, and I've often wondered why she still works there at her age and with her condition. Tonight, I found out-- apparently, some time ago, her daughter (only child) and son in law both passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. I thought it had been a few years; after talking with her coworkers, I discovered that it had only been a few months.

She's been raising their three children on her own as a single grandmother ever since they became orphans. She has only the income of a local Subway manager, and as I mentioned, she's at least in her seventies, and has a condition that makes her hands shake (not sure what the condition is-- it's never seemed appropriate to inquire). Anyway, they're a broad age range (9, 15, and 20, respectively) and she wants to take them on a family vacation this summer while their schedules still allow for it. She told me that she had to be very careful in planning it, or she'd break the bank and screw up their budget, but that she'd managed to figure out how to drive them all down to Destin, FL and back up to Indiana without it being too taxing.

Well, I decided that life isn't nearly fair enough, and that I'll be damned if I'm going to let it stay that way. We decided that we were going to give Bonnie the best dang summer vacation she'd ever had, and that Rose-Hulman students were going to fund it. I picked up an Easter basket from the holidays, sent out an E-mail to the local service groups, Resident Assistants, and Sophomore Advisers (I am an RA, was an SA last year, and am a member of literally all of the service organizations on campus) telling them Bonnie's story and asking for their help in collecting money. I received a very limited response, but a few people had their hearts warmed and donated generously; one guy e-mailed it out to his freshman floor and got $50 out of the blue. I was impressed with the generosity of that guy, but $50 was hardly a lot. A lot of the Res Life staff didn't e-mail their floors about it-- they didn't want to spam them, which I fully understand. So I took matters into my own hand and scrounged around my building, knocking on any doors that were closed, barging into rooms with open doors, and asking people if they'd like to contribute. Turns out, Bonnie's been the nicest old lady anyone on campus has ever met.

On her name and story alone, I raised nearly $150 more. Other floors chipped in when they heard about my success. In one day, we accrued $307 for the Bonnie fund. The next day, I hit up the rest of the apartments (another three floors) and my old freshman hall. At the end of day 2 we were just shy of $500. Then it got real: Day three we stormed three more residence halls, I did a presentation for all of the Greek Presidents after the whole thing went viral on Facebook, people I didn't know, or hadn't seen in nearly three years accosted me in the hallways to donate, and we jumped up to $1080. Today, I got a check from one of the fraternities as well as even more out-of-the-blue donations. We counted up all of the spare change we'd collected from half of campus. We added it all up.

Right now, on day five of collecting money, we've raised $2,250 for the Bonnie fund. Keep in mind, this is almost all just going door-to-door asking college students for money to help a woman with a tough life. While many of them had met her before, some of the largest donations came from people who rarely or never had cause to interact with her; freshmen who never came over to Subway due to their meal plans. On average, I got around $50 per floor from upperclassmen residence halls, where the students had known Bonnie for three or more years. I got $215 from one freshman floor after one guy declared that he wouldn't spend the $50 he was donating on anything more worthwhile than this, and a second guy won a 50/50 raffle from a fraternity's charity event (March of Dimes), then turned around and promptly donated $50 of that to my cause saying, "It went to charity in the first place; it doesn't seem right if it doesn't go back where it was meant."

Long story short, I'm very, very proud of my friends, classmates, and fellow Fightin' Engineers for the ridiculous amount of capital we've raised in just five days. I have another $200 pledged from Circle K International, and the service fraternity (APO) has promised to darkhorse their way to victory the night before we finish our final tally due to first prize for the top donating floor/organization. I haven't heard back from 14 out of the 15 fraternities yet with a confirmed donation amount, but I know that at least one has been collecting and has at least another $20 to give. I have four more residence halls to storm for money (for reference: $1750 of the current funds are the result of storming five residence halls, with one of the smallest floors on campus making the largest individual contribution of all). We're planning to present her with it on Tuesday night at midnight, right after she finishes her shift.

When we brought her coworkers into the loop to learn about the surprise we had planned, we were worried that they would reply by saying, "I've had a tough life, too. Where's my handout?" Instead, they donated upon hearing that we were collecting, and requested that we change the donation date based upon when they would be working with her.

TL;DR: Man is good, and in just five days my school raised $2250 for a single, working grandmother to go on one last family vacation with her three orphaned grandchildren whom she has been raising all by herself, and we're only expecting that number to go up between now and Tuesday.

So excited, one of the best storyline games mixing scifi and fantasy. Can't wait.

If you're into adventure games at all, check it out.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/08/15/planetary-annihilation-a-new-rts-uber-wants-to-get-kickstarted/

http://mmander.smart-url.info/

You can apply for my game alliance in #dlr on irc.netgamers.org where I should be op'd if I am idling or pm another op and tell them budious sent you from swrebellion to apply to the DLR alliance.

Note: You need to register an account at netgamers and be logged in to it to be able to join #dlr (registered user enforced) and to apply for alliance membership.

But there is one other thing that infuriates me to no end. It started a few months ago, but now the theatre in my hometown shows COMMERCIALS before the movie. So not only do I have to sit through 5-6 trailers (which usually suck), but before that I have to watch commercials for Levis jeans and Coca Cola, and some hair spray brand. It is so nuts. You would think that if the theatres are getting more income from advertising, then they would lower prices elsewhere (like maybe the freakin popcorn). But no. Instead they are just further lining their pockets. Grrrr...it gets me sooo mad!!!

Tomb Raider survival.. awesome. I like how dark the environment is. Lara doesn't have her usual toolkit of weapons (rocket launcher haha) to deal with things.

Mass Effect 3 - totally psyched, wanting to see how Bioware ends this. I'm not a 360 player, but the voice recognition is a nice touch.

Like mine

------------------------

My own machine I used for Windows Home Server seems to have died. The P4 in it works fine in another system, but that one does not have all the ports to support my hard drives.

My requirements for a motherboard

- Has Windows Server 2003 drivers for Windows Home Server

- Supports Pentium 4 LGA 775 (Core 2 Duo support is a plus)

- Has TWO IDE slots (ala support for 4 ATA drives)

- Has FOUR SATA slots (more is obviously a plus)

- Integrated graphics is a plus

- eSATA port is a plus

Something that I can that is available at Newegg or Fry's is preferred... at a good price. Hard to search for one with the two IDE slots, but that's a requirement for me because I'm running 4x500 GB ATA drives.

Any suggestions?

I'm sure everyone knows about motivational posters and the parodies of them Floating around the Internets.

Well here's the parody source. http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php

Give it a try.

Here's one I found.

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h293/Defender_16/Motivational/Motivational-TANKS1180156474164.jpg

And one that I made.

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h293/Defender_16/Motivational/poster37745162.jpg

(Ironically it did take me a few tries for my poster to turn out right.)

Lastly, the old classic I posted in teh Randomness thread Waaaaay back, along with the DS 'Firepower' one.

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h293/Defender_16/Motivational/1140059680649Ackbar.jpg

EDIT: HEhehehehe!

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h293/Defender_16/Motivational/poster62781813.jpg