Grats!
yep, congrats!
Dude, that sucks. Any word on what happened?
Wow. I gotta admit, it's really interesting playing Kara - she's so pessimistic and unlike me. I'm often surprised at the kinds of things I come up with for her to say, because I very much disagree with most of it. But it's also kind of fun to try and put myself in her shoes and find the right reactions to fit her, and try and think about things from her point of view. She can be very sour and controversial - be sure not to take it at all personally. She's just had a really rotten life so far and has yet to be exposed to genuine goodness, so she doesn't think it exists. It's fun exploring the more cynical side of me I guess.
Anyways, one of the ways I see her growing is as she sees the good in her fellow party members and begins to change her opinions and outlook on life. Depending on how things go, that may even mean an alignment change.
I'm looking forward to playing it out.
edit:
That and it's REALLY going to take some work before she ever learns to trust men. At all.
poor Kara... I'm glad you're having fun with her though... sometimes it's a hoot to play someone SO different from yourself, isn't it?
Tolus is the same for me. Playing a pro slavery character is an odd thought process to have to think through.
I also think Kara and Tolus are in about the same place philosophy wise, though hers is a more sour outlook, understandably. I like how this is shaping up. :)
Then you have Taldor and Khatijah. Khat may not agree with all that Taldor says, but they essential think that even in chains you can have control over your thoughts and your fate. That's one reason the memories from the mold freaked her out as much as it did.
good question... I'd probably go with Asus myself. or alienware, but that's a bit on the pricey side... but good computers.
I only use laptops too, and i don't play MMO's either, but I just replaced my Alienware with an ASUS, and while it's not as keen as the old computer, it does run faster (it IS newer with a faster processor). I haven't used an HP in 10 years or so and never had a Toshiba, so I don't really know anything about them.
Toshiba, we've gotten a number of year-old HPs with busted power connectors.
I like my Asus, and they build good stuff.
I love my Mac air. only real drawback is the 256gb hd. On the bright side, it is SSD so the load, read/write, and boot times are phenomenal. Also, the thing is silent as can be. I don't do heavy workload things. Mostly a glorified word processor and forum browser.
Of my PCs, I have had the best luck with Lenovo, not because of the hardware, it breaks down once a year or so, but the customer service and repair time are great with the 3 year no fault warranty.
I second Sony. that is what my main machine at home is.
Unless you get an ultrabook, you should be able to get at the hard drives fairly easily to replace them. HDDs are cheap and a full 1TB in a 2.5 inch form factor is probably going to run $100 dollars. SSDs are also coming down in price, but you get about a tenth of the storage for the same price.
If you're not opposed to it, and have the spare cash, a Macbook is pretty solid. Personally, I would never get one because of how much I dislike the UI they have (strangely, I'm okay with Unity in Ubuntu.)
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I would never buy anything from Apple, but that's an entirely different discussion.
I'm actually running Linux Mint right now with Cinnamon. I hated Unity and it drove me to OpenSuse for awhile before coming back to Debain-land. Cinnamon gives me a user experience more like gnome 2 and binary compatibility with Ubuntu and all its repositories and software.
Well, I just reloaded my main machine this year. I like Mint, though I've never got that deep into it. My Asus is currently my mom's laptop until she gets a replacement (I'm hoping to get her one for mother's day.)
I would never buy anything from Apple, but that's an entirely different discussion.
I'm actually running Linux Mint right now with Cinnamon....
(This registered as a food post the first time I read it)
heh.
Throughout my Undergrad, I used a laptop by MSI. It was great, and survived 2.5 years. It would have lasted longer, but a backpack failure landed it in a rather large snow bank. Apparently large quantities of slush and snow are a bad thing for delicate electronics.
I 'upgraded" to a Toshiba. It was a miserable experience. The venting was completely inadequate, and the cooling fan would regularly clog with dust, requiring me to disassemble and blow it out every couple of months. When I went to law school, I invested in a Lenovo with the no fault warranty. In two and a half years, I went trough two motherboards, one hard drive, and some thing or another that works the backlight on the screen (it went out, and the screen was completely useless). The final hard drive / motherboard a couple days before finals in my second year prompted my macbook air purchase. I was just fed up with PCs. In over two years, it has never had a problem. I use it for the same things I have used all my other computers for.
I do not game per say, I indulge in occasional Guildwars 2 with a couple friends, but I consider MMOs boring. 99% of my use is either word processing, graphic design, or posting in online forums. I do not visit 'bad' sites, or download anything, other than books and music (all legitimate sources such as iTunes, Amazon, Lone Wolf Games, and Paizo).
So, I love apple, but I admit fully that I do not use my computer for anything resembling a processor intensive tasks.
So, if you want a PC, MSI is dirt cheap, and really decent.
For what it is worth, I was a PC 'lifer'. I built my first computer, an 80386 with a whopping 10mb HD. I hated apple until I got my iPad. Now, I am not sure you could convince me to go back. They are way overpriced, you cannot upgrade them easily, and if a part breaks you have to, in general, replace the system, not the component. I don't care.
I look at it as the difference between a top of the line Mercedes Benz, and a 1970 GTO. You can do a hell of a lot more to the GTO than you can to the Benz, but if you had the Benz, what would you really want to do to it anyhow?
I think part of the blame can be laid at the feet of the idea of Return on Investment. Most companies do everything to maximize profit by cutting corners and rushing production. This leads to a lot of designs that feel, and are, cheap. Cheaply made machines tend to be very hit or miss on quality and while someone could have one that lasts for years, another could have one that lasts three days. It's one of the flaws in the current way of thinking among a lot of top execs. If a company focuses more on the experience and the quality of the product, then all it takes is a good marketing campaign and you have profit.
I can point to two examples of this happening and I'm sure there are many more. Apple and The Lego Group have a very similar experience. (Caveat: I have never owned an Apple Product, but I know people who swear by them. My boss being one) Both are of a better quality than their competitors and both are very, very good at what they do. They are more expensive, but they still sell like crazy because people know that they are good products. Companies try to emulate the look, but totally gloss over the quality and the experience of the product. That is why people who switch, and get over the initial culture shock, tend not to switch back.
I'm not an expert, and I have no training in economics or human behavior, but sometimes a little common sense can go a lot further. I just hope it went far enough in this case. :)
PS: Sorry for the Stream of Conscious post there.
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Another option you might want to consider is a business line laptop. In my experience the degree of quality between the consumer and business models of say, Dell for instance, is enormous. I would never buy a Dell laptop that's meant for consumers, but have used one of their Latitude laptops as my daily workstation at work for almost 3 years now and it's been pretty rock solid.
Anyone can buy their "Enterprise" laptops, you just get them at a different part of the web site.
Khat just got rocked, guys. Let's take this thing down quick.
No kidding, that hurt!
BTW: I'm changing Khat's Avatar, this one's starting to feel wrong for her.
It's nice to know that Malak could drop me cold in a single spell. :)
no kidding. .. .
Pretty sure anyone in the party could drop Khat at this point, but yes, it's a good thing Malack is on our side.
Why did I have to roll a 1 right there? Why? D:
The dice just aren't with me, apparently...
Or me. :'<
Well, next round I am making you a little stronger Khatijah, if it is still alive...
Too bad I'm not playing my beat-stick fighter in this one. He'd be having a ball right now.
BTW who is controlling our Gnoll "buddies?"
Each of us has one, but I am not charging mine in just yet.
Ya, I plan to use my gnoll against the gnolls.
I am sorry, I ended up with a bad case of strep throat that progressed to a tonsillar abscess. I hope to be on my feet again by Friday. Until then I plan on sleeping, a lot. It kinda hurts.
Hope you feel better. I cracked a rib playing soccer and caught the flu so I am there with ya feeling crappy.
Hope you both feel better soon. I have no tale of woe or illness so all I can do is sympathize and wish you both quick healing. Get some rest.
Yesh, that doesn't sound fun. Seconding the get betters.
And to top it off, my aunt died today. Bad week