You are fav'd and I shall be reading

What's your update schedule going to be, do you think?

PP: Taxes. Still waiting to hear back from the accountant as to what the damage is this year. Kinda expected to hear back before, y'know, the day before they're due...

As far as college/life/etc. goes, I went to college because it was expected, and wound up enlisting in the Army after three years. I went back afterwards and finished my degree. I really wasn't ready the first time around.

Yutz, I don't know where you live, but have you considered maybe a government or civil or military service? I wouldn't say that the Army is for everyone, but there are other programs that you could work in that might be more in tune with what you want to do. Military service, in the US at least, is a great way to get some money in your pocket and make sure that you're not saddled with student debt later in life. And on the other hand, the Peace Corps, for example, gives time off and pays room and board while you're serving with them, as well as a (modest) bonus when your time is completed. They apparently offer some sort of student loan repayment/deferment as well, though I have no idea how that works exactly.
If you're not sure what to do with yourself, it can't hurt to serve society and/or make the world a better place in the meantime. If nothing else, it may provide you with a look at various jobs you Never Want To Do Ever Again

And trust me, saying "I don't ever want to dig ditches again" can be great motivation in college later.

That's silly. >:C

Yeah, 'tis... but, it's how they alphabetize. They start from left to right without looking at the entire sequence of characters.

PP: Isolating bad .package files in Jenny's MASSIVE LOAD OF SIMS MODS... Jenny, you has an addiction!

I honestly don't get why people get so butthurt over the remastered versions. Sure some of the CG aliens stick out like a sore thumb, but seeing them for a few seconds doesn't take away from the movie for me.

There are a few reasons-

First, it's because the changes were just BAD. This has some good comparison shots: http://www.screened.com/news/behind-the-scenes-of-harmys-star-wars-despecialized-edition/2917/
So, y'see,
A) Lucas changed the story a lot. The remastered editions changed how the various characters interacted, which changes *who they are*. If you liked Han Solo before the changes, you probably don't like post-changes Han Solo, as one example. Changing who shot first, or (from that site) how many people are in the scenes, or what they were doing, is another example. A dude who charges like... four guys while shooting at them? Brave and/or bluffing. A dude who charges an entire ROOM full? Dumb as a sack of hammers.

B) In the same vein, the proportion of forces really just got silly. A few beleaguered rebels doing stuff, sure. Entire fleets just tooling around? Wha? Why did we need more ships/troops/etc?

C) Adding in extra cruft detracts from what we *should* be looking at, which is to say, the characters who are Doing Things. In the scene with the two characters in the curving (in the cloud city, if you know which that is ) hallway, Lucas added in a fuckwhack of bright, contrasting orange windows through which we See Things. And so the characters who *should* be a very important focal point are suddenly just kind of shoved off into a corner of Not Very Important. Similarly, the shot with the fellow standing watch under the giant red planet scene? He's just standing there alone, which emphasizes how insignificant he is in the scale of things. Adding in a bunch of godawful-looking clouds, and a wing of fighters... again, it distracts us. And more importantly, it breaks the story. Now we don't get an impression of a lone, insignificant group with no help on the way... now we just have Shiny Things Moving Around. Michael Bay would be so proud.


Second, it's the attitude that goes along with it. Lucas made enough money off of those movies to give everyone on this forum a few million dollars and STILL have like 90% of his money left over. But once he started making all of his changes, he seemed to adopt the attitude that everyone who liked the original cuts was dumb for liking them. Essentially, he's saying that we're stupid for liking what he made, and stupid for giving him our (or our parents') money in the first place. That he then spent on his 'better' shows.

If you don't mind the presentation style, Red Letter Media has a great takedown of how off-the-rails-of-sanity Lucas became with his episode 1-2-3 films. The RLM shows are fairly long to watch, but I highly recommend them as a good dissection of storytelling dos and don'ts. They address not only the story-writing, but also touch on how the movies were filmed, getting into the shots-on-set vs. shots-on-green-screen that Lucas wound up turning things into.

AP: Thanks for telling us about these, Outlaw! I've been wanting to show Jenny and Sammie the original versions and had no idea how to get ahold of them.

and then this happened? :<

KILL. MAIN. BURN. ECETRA.

That would be *delightful*

We shall cleanse the unbelievers with fire.

That'd be nice, yeah.

PP: I can't get on the forum with my phone any more. Some weird russian thing pops up and blocks me.

I've got it fixed for now but I'm still trying to make sure it can't be done again. Fun times.

Actually, it turns out that I was wrong about how they did it. I've fixed it for now, but need to do some more to make sure it doesn't happen again. Fun times...

EDIT: I was wrong about how it worked. It's fixed for now but now I need to figure out how to prevent it from happening again... fun times.

PP: I feel kinda bad for using Adblock for free. 
Related AP: The money donation scale's subtitles were amusing.
*I'm curious: how does TZH get money from ads? (Like, cost per click?)

*Edit: Okay. Guess I'll adjust the settings, just in case.

We actually refuse to use the ads that only pay if you click- we're of the opinion that if the product is actually interesting, then readers will click, and otherwise they won't. We're selling the opportunity to show an ad- not a guarantee that anyone will *care* about their product

We use the impression method that Amadeus posted. Rates are based on thousands of impressions loaded, so some ad campaigns might pay $5 per thousand while others might only pay $.05. But advertising is a hugely important part of our revenue, which is why I always want to make sure that the ads aren't offensive.

PP: AGHSLKFJSGF AUDIO ADS AGAIN!?

It's like I'm stuck playing whack-a-mole here. If you guys see or hear any ads that don't belong, make noise, etc. you know the drill... drop me an email, with a description and preferably with a screencap if you can grab one.

One man's tale as a comic/card dealer

This is really interesting! Thanks for posting it

Thanks, the only thing preventing me from opening my latop is that i need it for the next days (I'm too afraid to not be able to close it to risk it now lol), I'll to that in the week-end.

scotch tape, and either tape the screws next to the holes they came out of, or, draw a crude picture of the laptop and tape the screws to the picture next to the drawing of where they came out. It makes it pretty easy to make sure you've got everything in the right spots.

Thanks, Milly, I'll keep that all in mind. It's hard some days, I've been drifting in and out of little depressed spells lately. Finding a job is difficult with the economy, I'm almost 19 and I'm stuck at home while everybody else is making something of themselves.

In the US, some of the census numbers I've got- and they're probably out of date by now- give an unemployment rate of 29.7% for 16-19 year olds, with only 26.2% employed (the rest being students or otherwise not part of the labor pool). For 20-24, it's hardly much better... 59.8% employed, 16.9% unemployed, the remainder not counting as part of the labor pool. For 25-44, things are somewhat better, with 73.7% employed and 10.0% unemployed.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf - this report is more up to date, but doesn't really split things by age group other than 'teenagers 16-19' and 'everyone else', but it also gives a 25.4% unemployment for that group.

Bottom line, you're not alone there, man. You'll get something eventually- just keep trying. I can't recall if you're in the US or if you're one of our folks from other countries, but... yeah. If all else fails, you might consider the military- the education benefits have certainly done me a great deal of good over the years. Depending on your nature you may prefer the Air Force, as a more technical and less personally combat-heavy branch. Figure it this way- you can take control of things that are within your reach, and *make* a better future. Start a small business selling things that you can make, whether it's furniture, fishing lures, or websites, maybe. Enlist, serve the country for a while, and grow jaded and bitter as we all do

PP: The economy crushing everyone. But hey... Conquer the future!

Not doing anything stupid, it was just one of those one millionth visitor oh for sure you're not clicking on me now ads.

ah, okay. So long as it doesn't bother people, then... 

Testing and fixing these ad chains has taken way longer than I had initially anticipated. Every change made means waiting at least a day to check the performance afterwards...