TheFlyingGerbil

if it is the thing with the god-awful brain and talking stomach advert, then no - the advert would forswear me from using that site. Joe edit: although coincidentally we did have a chinese meal. Deep fried duck was gorgeous but the Cantonese sauce was a bit too sweet for me.

so how close are you to your 28" monitor, because if you sit 'normal' distance (less that a metre) then does the picture take up most of your vision so you have to 'look around' at the different corners of the screen? Joe

I don't know if you can do this but you need to try and find out if the behaviour is a function of depression or innate to his character. Did you know him before his depression and was he nicer then? One of the traits of depression is self-destruction which can take the form of ruining the good things in your life because you feel you don't deserve them. In this instance it has focused on your friendship. If you think he is just a bad person you can put something like this in an email: "I put a lot of effort into our friendship and don't feel I get that back. I was OK with that when I thought you appreciated it but if you don't there is no reason for me to expend that effort. I you want to put the effort in too or just realise and appreciate what I've done then I'd love for you to contact me." If however you think he is a good person but that is masked by a genuine depressive illness then it is more complicated. While you could just say it's not worth the effort, and you could certainly be forgiven as you have done more than may be expected of you, do remember depression is a disease: how would you react to a friend with cancer when they needed you? That might sound overly dramatic but if he is suffering from real depression it's how you've got to think about it if you want to help him get through it. It will help you put up with his crap if there's a person worth helping at the end of it. You would of course have to explain that to him too. i.e. you think he has some problems he needs help with but you're not able and it's not fair to put it all on your shoulders but if he is willing to try and sort things out your would be willing to help him. If you laid out what you think the matter is and how you think his life might be better in the future, hopefully he can see what he is doing and stop before he pushing someone away who can help him down the right path. It would have to be his decision if he wants to get help but you should make it clear you would leave the door open for him if he shows willing. Anyway. Hope some of that helps but only you can know what feels like the right thing to do. You sound like a good guy if you are concerned enough to worry about him and to have it upset you so you have to feel that whatever decision you come to (and ultimately that he comes to also) you made it from a good place and that is the best that you can do. Joe

Is that because of how close you sit to a PC? Or would you not even have a big screen for a HTPC when you are sitting across the room from it? Joe

i LOVE yorkshire puddings. Did you have a proper Sunday Roast? I am totally jealous. Joe

It seems like more of a replacement for renting games than for buying them. Since I don't rent games I don't think it is for me. Joe

I wander all over game worlds anyway. I'm not a A to B gamer so backtracking is fine. I.m quite looking forward to playing it now. Joe

David Braben agrees with me. Joe P.S. I got that from the News Feed, Dean. Do I get bonus brownie points?! EDIT: The originating article with Braben is interesting he does veer off topic to second hand sales but it is a nice short read.

I just bought (all new) Cursed Mountain for Wii, Blue Dragon for 360 and Animal Kororo for DS for £20 total. It was from a website I've never used before so I hope they actually turn up. Fingers crossed everyone! Joe

I hope this isn't a stupid question - if he hacked the system himself and used it for his own entirely legal reasons then that wouldn't be a problem (I believe the mobile phone jailbreaking rulings say this is OK). it's the fact that he released to it to the wider world knowing it would lead to circumvention of DRM etc. (which I believe is still illegal to do?) that means he's in the spotlight? Like I implied, I have no real clue about this stuff but it seems logical to me that these two situations are very different. Joe

It's like those parodies you got when the wii first came out except I don't think you were meant to watch those and actually think it was a good idea to make them into a real game. Joe EDIT: anyone know what the song is that singer sounds really familiar.

Congrats, that is some pretty cool news. Joe

...I did it on purpose...? The thing that bothers me about people pointing out grammar/spelling is that they just as frequently make mistakes in their replies. Joe

EU box art. It is better. Joe

That reminds me that I don't like Grammar Nazis. Fair enough if their are a load of mistakes on a professional website, but if it is in the comments or a personal blog etc. then just get over it: it just makes you look really petty and I will probably not even care if you make a valid point after your little diatribe. Joe

No tuition fees at all until Labour introduced them. Don't get me wrong the Conservatives said they were probably going to introduce them which was one of the reasons Labour did so well - they got in on a lie and boy did they start as they meant to go on. I don't really think you can say the same thing about the Lib Dems, they are not the UK Government. They're part of a coalition and having only 15% of coalition seats means yours is not going to be the main view holding sway in the Cabinet. I'm sure they argued their corner and I think they actually got more concessions from the Tories than their number of seats would warrant but they aren't going to get it all their own way. Joe

Damnit, my post just disappeared. I won't type it all out again as it is making me angry to think about for too long! You didn't pay anything to go to uni before labour got in. Their 1997 Manifesto promised not to introduce tuition fees which brought out a lot of students to vote for them for the first time. One of the first things they did when they got into power was introduce tuition fees. They broke the specific and unambiguous pledge as soon as they got the opportunity. For there next manifesto they pledged not to raise income tax and implied they wouldn't raise the overall tax burden. They then raised national insurance. You know, the other mandatory PAYE tax so exactly the same as raising income tax. Not to mention all the other taxes they raised massively increasing the tax burden on every pound you earn. They also got rid of the 10p tax. That's Labour the working man's party. Of course by then they knew that working class people are never going to change their votes from Labour so they thought "fuck those morons - they'll take whatever shit we fling at them and beg for more" So they pandered to the middle income earners -typically Conservative voters - by changing income taxes to increase the burden on lower income earners and lower it for middle income earners. That is the exact opposite of what tax is for which is to spread wealth down the chain but that wouldn't increase their voting base so that's not what they did. Basically, while Conservatives may be no bunch of roses at least they are doing what they said they would do before the election. Labour gave deliberately misleading (income tax) and blatant lies (tuition fees) to get into and to maintain power in successive elections. Joe

I just finished The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher I enjoyed it but she dragged it out to much in the middle it could easily have been 100 pages shorter. Anyone have any opinions on what really happened? Joe

Yes. 13 years old because labour introduced them after promising not to in their manifesto. After it was introduced it was inevitable it would be raised. You're angry at the wrong Government. Joe

My copy of Fragile Dreams just arrived. I got it because it was mentioned in a thread on the Nintendo board about games that don't get the love they deserve. Joe

I'm on my second though it's not because the first one broke. I bought a 160gb slim with a pretty decent bundle. Only a few weeks later the 250gb one came out with uncharted 2 as a pack-in, I traded in my 160gb with two old Wii games and £20 and got the 250gb with UC2 and GTA IV. Bargain. Joe

My first pokemon was Pearl. I don't remember which one I started with because the game just assumed you'd been playing pokemon all your life so I had no clue what the heck I was supposed to be doing and gave up. Joe

My vote is for "luk wot I dun made!" Joe EDIT: Is it possible that when you press 'mark forum read' it kicks you out to the main page? I assume every who presses the button is because the are done with that particular subfoum.

I found a mini orange inside my main orange - much better than finding Jesus in there! Joe

Mother/Earthbound. I don't know why they don't release them on the VC (I think it's something to do with licensing all the bits of song they used?). It is such a famous game I really want to play it and I know you can get it illegally but I don't want to do that. Joe