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This could be the description of Mr. Bean, but it is not.

It is this:



Found a good source, copied into paint, found a decent text and sprinkled it with various colours from the original text to make it look authentic. I'm really quite pleased with it. I don't intend to use it in this board, it's for another where people are slightly sillier (hard to believe, I know), so don't worry about that. I'm sure you weren't.

Anyhoo, yeah. I'm so productive.

You'll see what I mean.

(Banners not too business-friendly, work-bound AGSers).

Well, woe might be a *tad* OTT, but certainly it's giving me some slight cause for agitation. Some of you may know I'm building a PC, and some may also know I'm having a few problems.

My two sticks of RAM don't appear to want to go in. I'm pushing them as hard as I dare, and I've followed the instructions (simple enough) and they ARE compatible (PC3200) with the mobo, put they just don't quite seem to fit. I can only imagine I'm doing it wrong, and maybe I should pull the clips up to normal a bit when pushing the RAM in?

Secondly, although I've done it before, I'm uncertain as to where to apply the coolant for the CPU. Presumably it doesn't matter if it's on the top of the CPU itself or on the base of the cooler, but I'm anxious not to get this wrong, and that makes me unsure.

Lastly, some of the wires are new and unfamiliar to me, especially those stemming from the front of the case, so I'm a little stuck on some of the wiring.

I have a digital camera now, thanks to my sister's birthday, so if there are any pictures that anybody would like taken I can.

Thanks in advance.

[I want to break free]

Right, here's the deal. Think of it as a sort of Karaoke thing.

I name a song to start with, and the person(s) dumb brave enough to sing it uses the ol' sound recorder (windows > programs > accessories > entertainment for Win OS) to record his or her version (or however much they know of the song, even if it's only a few lines), to the ensuing hilarity/impressed murmurs of others. Like the paint game, I suppose it'll be first come first serve, with the entrant setting their own song.

Oh, and best keep to the known songs.

First up...

I want to break free by Queen.

Happy chanting.

Sort of. About 3.5 megs. Funny. Musical.

Right. I was thinking this board could do with some new smilies, and with the vunderbar Personal Study time, I picked up on some I started a long time ago. I may have got a little carried away, but here they are:



A full set of smilies, complete with Ninja and a KKK (for no apparant reason, I just thought I did a good job on retaining the shape through the cloak). I was thinking, sans the KKK member, that they could possibly become the new set of smilies? I can also animate if need be. I'll take requests, too.

For your... consideration.

Y'ello. Some of you might know I'm building a brand spankin' new PC*, and to bide time until HL2 comes out, I've decided to add to my somewhat limited online FPS collection (ie: Counterstrike). I've never had many games, but now I'm getting some real money I can buy them. I have narrowed it down to the following:

Call of Duty. Hailed as a very awesome game by most magazine, won alot of awards, including editor's choice and game of the year. Movies of in-game footage look amazing, I must say.

Soldier of Fortune 2. Meant to be good, don't know much about it.

Battlefield 1942. I've actually played this one, maps are HUGE, planes are hard to fly . Weapons are decently balanced, but I can't help feeling it'll be over-run by scouts with sniper rifles, and blokes with rocket launchers.

Remember, I want, ultimately, the best multiplayer. I'm aware that they're all good single player games. I have confidence that someone must have decent knowledge of these games, first-hand.

Thanks in advance.

I'm sure I haven't done a full job, but nevertheless, here's some soap-box style English writing:

The Rise of the English Language

   The English language was first standardised by the great writers: Chaucer, Shakespeare etc, and with the arrival of the printing press and Samuel Johnson's dictionary in 1755 it conformed to set spellings and pronunciations. Since then, it has grown, mutated; new words have emerged and others have tumbled into obscurity. English from the 17th Century has changed into the everyday tongue we hear and observe around the world. Indeed, the globalisation of the English language, and the subsequent influences and inflections (and occasionally entire words) have dramatically altered our concept of what our language truly is.
   Let us start with the Empire. In the heady days of imperialists and colonies, Britain was not a superpower. It was the superpower, presiding over an Empire that was bathed in the proverbial eternal sunshine. Explorers colonised countries and continents and reaped the rewards. Britain's industrial edge and seemingly inexhaustible supply of suicidal (sometimes mistaken for intrepid) explorers allowed the Empire to move into the Far East, Australia, and India. This first set the way for international communications. The acquisition of servants was a pretty poor asset if they did not understood what you said.
   English spread throughout the New World, sweeping through countries and tightening the grip on the Empire as more and more people took it up as the second language of choice. That is how English first became an international language, but what happened then? And why is it still the first tongue for business, travel and diplomacy? In a word: America.
   The USA, with its vast (inhabitable) land mass and ludicrous resources, rose to a world power relatively quickly, the World Wars in particular boosting its status (and decreasing those of its possible superpower rivals). Come the digital age of Capitalism and cappuccino, world business started to become a viable option. True, there were global businesses before that â€" the East India Company, for example, but America took it to a new level. Fax, television, radio, email, courier services, planes, envoys… ‘The Business of America is Business'. And so it was. English once again was employed as a mutual tongue for trade and commerce - a Japanese salesman pitching to a French buyer will undoubtedly converse in English. The language was a solid platform, and those eager to get into the dizzying world of high business in countries such as India and Singapore learn the language as an undeniable prerequisite. This further enforces a sense of the necessity of English.
   Diplomacy affects us all, too, and there is not a better example of the neutrality and mutual use of English than the splintered map of India. The huge variety of languages available meant that on gaining independence, far from the English language being removed from common use, the multi-lingual country kept it as a neutral language (as opposed to Pakistani etc), to quell fears that the new President would tip power in favour of a certain tongue, and therefore a certain section.
   So with English established as the international language of choice, how has it developed? Much of the use of slang stems from America once again, with the multi-faceted culture so indigenous to the USA. Surfer dudes, punk chicks, goth freaks, cosmopolitans, haûte culture, emo kids, 60's hippies, ‘Nam vets, hick farmers, and so on all established a broad base of word association and new meanings. I believe the latest addition to class someone as is a ‘metrosexual' â€" a man who thrives in the city, whilst keeping fashionable and presentable, utilising the same self-care and personal diligence that may have been previously solely associated with women. Strange but true.
   Single contributions are not uncommon either. Quotes from movies, music, comedians, and some commentary (social or sport) are as famous and used as any other turn of speech you'd care to name. Ask anyone what their favourite quotes are and you're bound for a response. It's ingrained into communal consciousness, as a sort of vital tool for communication, and once more English grows and thickens.
   Various social movements have affected the language too, maybe more than we might think. The gay rights movement coined the phrase ‘coming out the closet', and created the necessity of re-sculpting the meaning of the word ‘straight'. Feminism created slightly less savoury terms: ‘ball breaker', anyone? Another example: the age of the computer was heralded with numerous, and seemingly entirely Scottish-accented helplines telling people how they can check their email. ‘Helpline' has just received a big nasty red line on my spellchecker â€" but it's a word! No doubt about it. Can you tell your RAM from you ROM? Could you explain what a polygon model is? How about texture rendering, no? What's a GUI HUD, kernel-compiled with bump-mapped 3TX?
   Techtalk, geekspeak, call it what you will â€" it now runs the world, operating behind the scenes, fuelling the double-edged sword of the internet and industry and making almost â€"virtually, if you will- anything possible. Technological rule, bending and shaping new words and with a dire need for acronyms.
   And that's at the heart of it. We are all linguistic revolutionaries. We know the old tongue. We know what's acceptable. We know what's uniform and what's normal.
   Then we try, we really try to completely and utterly destroy it, thrusting aside the boring nouns and adjectives in favour of new ones, wrecking archaic and revered colloquialisms and pulling down the great glass architecture of the English language.

And isn't it such a brilliant job that we do?

BUTT!!! PLUG!!!


/Hilarious.

Dial 0 to hear this message again.

Great little game, this.

Qu'est-que ce?

Just out of curiousity,

Having the need to put more stuff on to my ever growing mp3 player's collection, I'm curious as to what the answers will be. Mine would probably be:

10. Bon Jovi - Living On A Prayer.
9.   Steely Dan - Do it Again.
8.   Coldplay - God put a Smile Upon your Face.
7.   RHCP - Under the Bridge.
6.   Frank Sinatra - Come Fly With Me.
5.   Beatles - Day Tripper.
4.   Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
3.   Dire Straights - Sultans of Swing.
2.   Queen - Don't Stop Me Now.
1.   Eagles - Hotel California.

Incidentally, don't feel the need to be elitest and post JUST certainties that are Acceptable. Post your actual opinion.

All I can say is wow.

Being a drum player, I guess I find it more fascinating than most, but check out the co-ordination! Shame it's such a poor quality video.

Hurrah! With help from the fellows in #AGS and a certain forum, I was able to configure certain things enough so I can connect to the net WITHOUT having to use the CPU and connection-consuming software of AOL. I'll still use the software to check email and webpages, 'cause it's got my favourites and hotkeys and such, but I can now change to the no-software mode to play games or transfer files on msn (AOL's built-in firewall was messing around with the transfer rate, slowing it horribly).

So yay! No more crashing in-game! No more bloody INIT packet errors!

Hoo-hah. This is muchly awesome.

It's like a dream come true!

Professionals, recreating one of The Best Games Ever in fully flavoured 3D! Check out the music! Check out the screens! Check it ALL out!

All hail Independent game making teams with an idolisation!

/Rather excited.

Basically, I'm really, really fed up with this terribly archaic PC (128 RAM, 1009 mHz, etc), which is starting to show it's age, so I'm going to be getting a new computer - or to be more precise, building one.

Here are specs and pics of what it'll consist of (in no particular order), for those who are interested.

Case:

Benz Black Super Midi

CPU cooler:

Scythe Samurai P4/AMD XP/AMD 64 CPU Cooler

Graphics card:

Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb

Motherboard:

Asrock K8S8X
Socket 754
DDR1 up to DDR 400
AGP 8x
5 PCI slots

RAM:
2x 512Mb PC3200 (PC400) DDR Memory (Elixir Major) Retail, making 1.24 gigs of the stuff.

CPU:
AMD Athlon 64 3000

Sound:
AC97 5:1 onboard sound, but with a 2:1 system.

Power supply:
480W with passive PFC and 120mm fan.

Total Cost: £540 without adding the speakers (I need to find the link to the speakers again).


All in all, good stuff! I'll be able to run anything for several years to come with ease, and my PC will actually be able to do stuff competently! Yay!

Streams on Broadband, absolutely amazin' rhythm and such.

Delightful.

I've shown you one before, but that was a long time ago, and there's new ones now. Enjoy (perhaps for the second time).

[Babylon Zoo: Spaceman]

What's your playlist, bub? Or song of the moment?

How about telling us a new discovery you've made? Found a kickarse new artist lately? Revived a golden oldie?

What about your musical taste, has that shifted, or stayed the same? Found something that you would have happily betted money on hating slapping you pleasantly in the face?

In short, do tell...



Looking at the songs, I'd like to talk about a few of them.

Babylon Zoo: Spaceman.
Never really remembered much about this except the signature starting line. Never knew it was number one for aeons, so I was surprised at how well it had stood the test of time. Quite fun to listen to.

Hot hot heat: Get in or get out.
So... my cousin comes down and recommends this to me. On hearing the opening bar or two it sounds less than impressive, but it's a real grower. Worth it.

Lovin' Spoonful: Summer in the City.
Always meant to get this. Finally, when I did, I wasn't disappointed. Bloody good song.

Scissor Sisters: Laura.
Funkadelic.

Franz Ferdinand: Matineé.
Good band, actually. A pleasant change to the generic R+B flooding the market at the moment. If you haven't heard it, try to.

Reactor: Feeling the Love.
The music from the Lynx Touch advert, and pretty catchy. Good song.

The Eagles: Hotel California.
Found a brilliant, brilliant live version of it, absolutely superb. Listened to it relentlessly.

PPK: Resurrection.
Damn near forgotten this, too. Recent-ish, very popular tune, but faded away somewhat. I located a shortened version and am enjoying it immensely.

The Thrills: Big Sur.
Best album of last year for me. Stunning, stunning sound.

So, those are what I've found/rediscovered/enjoyed. How about you?

I have the answer... can you get it?

If you find out DO NOT SAY, not even in a {hide} tag. PM me if you really want to confirm it, although if you get it you will probably know.

If you want to try this out on your friends, include that you will tell them the answer each time if need be.

This tests your ability to think in a certain way. Enjoy. Bill Gates took 3 hours, for your information.