Are you sure that the Universe can cope with that much Sparks McGee awesomeness? Especially if there's male and female Sparks McGee cosplayers!

I have to pick a more than minor nit with that game list - specifically, #7. And truthfully, Wil, with your gaming experience, I would have expected you to have picked up on it as well. Not all games played on computers are "action video games". Truthfully, from what we see, Sheppherd could as easily have been checking off spam from his e-mail account prior to mass deleting it - but even if he was playing a game, it could have been any one of thousands of turn-based games, including various RPGs, 4X games like Civ or AlphaCent, or puzzle games such as sokoban, sudoku and shisen-sho, or even card games like Solitaire. Maybe he had XMAME/XMESS up and running, emulating the original Final Fantasy game. Damn game community has convinced itself that immersive 3D shooters with highly detailed hyper-polygonized models are the only thing you can play on computers. And damn near, they're convinced that that's the only thing that actually qualifies as games. There's kids growing up today that don't realize you can play D&D with three people, an active imagination, and no dice or paper at all! (Ok, it's not necessarily extremely D&D like, but really, the essence of the game is the role playing, not the roll playing.) But that's just how I role, dudes.

Actually... no. Jamie Hubbard, from _The Dauphin_, was much hotter in my opinion.

Ok, that is *SOOO* perfect an idea! I can't wait to do it!

While UPS is not great - and I think that since they failed delivery when they said they would and you'd paid for extra-fast delivery, you'll get at least a refund on that - though it's not that big of a help. USPS is worse, much worse, in general. Part of the problem, though, lies in the Just-In-Time society we've come to live in. I understand that companies can't keep *all* of the inventory on hand that they'd like, but unfortunately, they've gotten to holding *no* reserves, which leaves them critically vulnerable to shipping disruptions such as you've had.

Do you trust reviews for books, or movies, from the professional critics? I know I don't - haven't for 25 years or more. Why would gaming be any different? I don't have to have the latest & greatest - I'm still playing Heroes of M&M 3, Civ:CTP, and Alpha Centauri after all these years. Heck, the game I've played most lately is an emulated copy of the first Zelda game on the NES. What I'd really like to see is the same style of gameplay as that first Zelda, on a much larger world map, with tiles that use more colors, but without losing that tile-based feel - you know, where you count the trees to find the hidden cave, and stuff like that? Zelda I, the early Final Fantasy series, both NES/SNES, and the gameboy games, the early Dragon Warrior games... I don't need huge towering towers hiding half of the landscape, or intricately painted backgrounds making 3D fields where my character can actually only move on the lower 1/3rd of the screen... Truthfully, except for Second Life, I could really do without the 3D engine in my graphics card.

Can I ask if someone has a link to a version of the song where the singer is singing it, and not just shouting it into the mike, and trying to hide the fact with instruments boosted in the mix to hide the voice? I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble getting past the first 3 lines on any of the dozen versions of it I've found on YouTube...

I notice, as well, the classic Crown Royal bag we all used to carry our dice in!