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As I understand it, birds are fine because their legs are insulated but bats are a different story. I'm not sure exactly how it works but I think it's because they hold on to two wires at once. (The same goes for possums too, they usually climb along one wire but if they try to move to another, they get electrocuted).

I think...

Customs, at least in australia, are no better. They'll open anything they want and have no problem with sealing the package again in a really clumsy way. I've won competitions and had art supplies delivered to me only to find half of them missing because customs took the sealed top off of those tube containers and only put it back on loosely (whereas they were originall sticky taped). I get those things without lids and some of the contents.

Customs REALLY need to be made to take more responsibility for this sort of thing.

Oh, possum noises are SO scary when you hear them for the first time! I remember one night I was asleep upstairs (we have a computer downstairs), I wake up and I hear this "Ch ch ch chch ch" sound that sounded EXACTLY ... E X A C T L Y like keyboard typing from downstairs. I just lay there with no doubt in my mind that downstairs there was a ghost typing on the keyboard and it knew I could hear it, and was waiting for me to come downstairs and die of fright. I woke up my boyfriend and it stopped (as always) which only freaked me out even more. Eventually, he told me it was a possum and I guess I must have believed him in the end. Still, as funny as it is now, it was so scary at the time ^_^

I had a similar experience when I woke up in the middle of the night and a possum (which typically run around in our walls and ceiling) was snoring. It was so much like a deep, human snore. I'm very used to them now and they're almost comforting to hear scurrying around.

Like you said, they have a bad habit of getting electrocuted In my area, it's bats more than anything. It's hard to wander around the area without seeing at least one dead bat hanging from the power lines.

It's almost like he has some sort of real issue about leaving this world before his legacy is PERFECT.

I don't have a problem with director's cuts, a lot of movies have them. As long as the original is released as well because, I'm sorry, but once you release something, you live with it. It's out there in the public domain and you just don't have the right to -own- it the way he wants. Let the public make their own decisions. Release another version, release 10 other versions if you like, but leave the original out there too.

Goddamn, I haven't seen that Southpark episode yet! Argh, it sounds great!

Holy hell, I leave this post alone for 24 hours and it turns upside down. What IS all this extremist fighting for? Let's just say that like every country on earth, there are many good points and bad points about the US, and it's language.

Ryukage - you need to cool down. You'll never, ever win an argument like this, and it's just pointless. I must admit, I was quite shocked at your firm stance on English (American-English in particular!) being the best language and I can tell you that this is bullshit. I've had the pleasure of learning at least a bit of many, many languages so far in my short life, and meeting many, many people who are currently learning English from all sorts of countries, and English is honestly one of the most difficult languages to learn. I think that overall, the difficulty of learning a language depends on what your first language is, and your general way of thinking (some people find Japanese to be a complete bitch to learn, whereas I find it the easiest language of them all).  I'm not going to get into a linguistics debate because this thread is supposed to be a relatively friendly discussion about cultural differences. Just try to open your mind to a bit more international reality. It's great that you love your country, I love mine too. I just don't let that get in the way of being able to see Australia's faults, and I don't let myself think that just because something we do is good, it doesn't mean another country's way is bad.

One thing though...

Farmers can eat all the hamburgers and drink all the coke they want and still stay fit and trim.

...and let's not start thinking that 'trim' is any indication of health. No matter how much exercise you do, eating and drinking that stuff all the time is gonna have a big effect on your health. Just just seem healthy right now because they haven't been diagnosed with diabetes or had heart failure yet. I just thought this was way too big of an exagerration.

Getting a bit back on topic... I was wondering with all this news on the Olympics, are there any countries that DON'T get the Olympics shown all over television when it's on? As much as I generally enjoy them, Australia gets bombarded with the Olympics.

Ah, you use the "Sierra style w/background" speech style and thus all text overlays are drawn within a text window!

Gee, I must have forgotten to mention that ^_^;; er, sorry. Probably would have made things much easier.

Anyway, thanks heaps! It works beautifully now. I was already going to use different functions for different sounds so I might as well use them to change the colours too. It's no big deal, because there will be one main text colour and a couple of others for only a couple of characters.

CJ: That'd be awesome ^_^

Yep, you've gotta do it because you enjoy it, not so much for the finished product and the praise (if any). Up until this year, I was mad about art and making comics and had been for almost a decade. This year, I just got a little ... well, not tired of it but I lost the spark, and game making filled the hole NICELY. For the first time in a long time, I was finding it great fun to be obsessed with something, figuring out problems in scripts, designing cut scenes, touch ups... it was just exactly what I wanted to be doing at the time and I just got my second wind lately so I'm making another one.

If I tried to force myself to draw, it wouldn't come out so great because my heart wouldn't be in it. You have to do what you really have a drive to do. Don't worry about tying up loose ends and finishing old stories just for the sake of it. Do it because you have a real desire for it.

Oh, in Brisbane, in my place at least, we've been getting lots of lizards lately. They're FANTASTIC ^_^ I've never had such a welcome pest in my house. We even have "regulars" who appear in the exact same place at the same time of each day... man, lizards are so cool.

Another American/Australian difference... in America, "fanny" means bum, so it's not uncommon for anyone to use this word, even small children, or parents to their children.
If you say this word in Australia, do NOT say it to a child! It means something much worse *cough*. A certain part of a female ^_- I'm always shocked when I hear Americans say things like "a slap on the fanny"...

I had a couple of rabbits when I was a little kid. It bit me on the finger and blood was everywhere. They escaped from their pen one day and I'm rather glad they did. I still like rabbits but I'll never put my finger near one again.

also Sydney has the most deadly spiders in the world. They are also quite easy to find if you know where to look, but the average person won't see them or get harmed by them.

What spider is that? The funnel web?

Brisbane is the biggest city by area

I didn't know that @_@

if someone says  "did you remember your budgie smugglers" make sure you remember to bring your swimmers, boardie's, cozzie's, bathers, speedo's, which ever you call them.

I have honestly never ever heard of that one before.

We have plenty of bats on my street, and cockatoos, rosellas, etc. Cockroaches, too. QLD has WAY too many cockroaches, it's ridiculous. When I lived in WA, you hardly EVER saw one and here you just expect to see one whenever you open the laundry door at night.

I thought I'd discovered why it was happening. I only have 2 GUIs at the moment (0 and 1) and I created 0 first (with my current style of text window) until I realised it wouldn't allow the number 0 in the "Text windows use GUI __" option. Then I created 1 and that worked fine, but I just realised that GUI 0 still had the "Text window" box checked. I unchecked it, but I still get the flashing.

I unchecked the "Text windows use GUI __" option, tested the game, and the same thing happened but with the plain white text window (and a plain white text window flashing in the background for a second, same as before). I also tried unchecking the "Text window" box back in the GUI controls but no change...

So, it seems to me that it's some problem in the script. I'll repost my script but I'll keep mucking around, changing various things to see if I can pinpoint the problem.

In the script header:

Code: ags

import function TypeLine(int message, int vspacing, int xpos, int font, int colour, int width, int delay, int wait);

In the Global Script:

Code: ags

function TypeLine(int message, int vspacing, int xpos, int font, int colour, int width, int delay, int wait) {
string line;
GetMessageText(message, line);

//declare local vars
Ã,  int length=0;
Ã,  int i = 0;
Ã,  string displayedline;
Ã,  int textid = 0;
//initialise vars , overdoing it a bit ;-)
Ã,  length = 0;Ã,  
Ã,  i=0; 
Ã,  StrCopy(displayedline," ");
Ã,  textid = CreateTextOverlay(xpos,100,400,font,colour,displayedline);

Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  //get string length, to know how long the loop must run
Ã,  length=StrLen(line); //set string length
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, //start loop
while((i<length) && (1||(WaitKey(delay)==0))) {
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, // pick character at position "i"and stick it at the end of string "displayed line"
Ã,  Ã,  StrFormat(displayedline, "%s%c", displayedline, StrGetCharAt(line,i));
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, //set textoverlay as displayedline
Ã,  Ã,  SetTextOverlay(textid,xpos,vspacing,width,font,colour,displayedline); 

Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, // if a space is added to the string do not play a sound, else play a 'tick'
Ã,  Ã,  if (StrGetCharAt(line,i) == ' '){
Ã,  Ã, }
Ã,  Ã, else{
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  PlaySound(1);
Ã,  Ã,  }
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, //increase the loop counter
Ã,  Ã,  i++;Ã,  
Ã,  Ã, if (i==length) if (wait>0) WaitKey(wait);
Ã,  Ã, else if (wait == -1) while (WaitKey(100) == 0) { }
Ã,  Ã, }
 RemoveOverlay(textid);
}

In the room script:

Code: ags

TypeLine (501, 100, 50, 1, 12, 200, 0, -1);
TypeLine (502, 100, 50, 1, 13, 200, 0, -1);
TypeLine (503, 100, 50, 1, 14, 200, 0, -1);

As for the colour, changing the parameter in the TypeLine line does nothing. I just figured out though that it's dependant on what the foreground colour in the options for the GUI is set to. If I'm not supposed to be using a GUI with this TypeLine function, how can I get the style of text window I want?

Btw, how do you use a text window (it's a GUI?) with text overlays.

I simply have the TypeLine script as it is above, and the "Sierra style w/background" style of speech selected in the options. With that, the text types out on the white text window perfectly. If I then specify a GUI, I get the current text window I have.

Ah, one more thing I forgot, though this is more a difference between Australia and America. In Australia, when we say "pie", we generally mean (in fact, probably all the time) a meat pie... meaning beef. In America, pies are generally sweet pies, right? Like, as a dessert. This is a pretty strange concept to most Australians, I think. We don't have much of a culture for it over here. I've always wanted to try pumpkin pie though, just because it seems like such a odd thing yet Americans -always- seem to like it.

My family occasionally bought these mini berry pies you can get in the freezer section of the supermarket and we'd have them with icecream, and apple pie has always been around over here (as far as I know) as a fairly common thing for desserts, but that's as far as I think it goes.

Well, here's my experience of Australia, and since 've never been anywhere else, it won't be tainted ^_-

-Yes, as OsUltimo said, you can see a Kangaroo if you go and look, but they don't hop down the city streets. There used to be a family of about 20 kangaroos that lived about 700 meters from my house, but only because our house was very new, and the rest of the area was undeveloped, so the 'roos all lived in the bush.

Hmm, the only time I've ever seen a kangaroo is in the zoo, and once or twice in the bush (when I lived in a country town in WA). The others have all been dead along the highways I've driven down. If you drive along a highway, it's pretty hard not to see at least one or two dead roos. My dad's hit two within the last year and believe me, they fuck your car up. It's expensive to hit one ^_^ You'll never see one outside of a zoo if you live in a major city, at least in the inner city areas. I think that's a good thing, they're much safer away from people. Ah, and yes, they are scary. they're kindof impressive/interesting from afar but close up, a large kangaroo is a scary thing. Joeys (baby kangaroos) are gorgeous though.

- The most-played sport in Aus is soccer, although I don't believe it has the largest fan-club. Most people seem to know a lot more about football (yes, football, that game played with the brown, eliptical ball you throw at each other) than soccer, which is understandable, seeing as soccer is gay and crap and should be banned.

Yep, it was just recently announced that the most played sport is soccer, but like Peter said, that's not by far the most popular sport. That figure I imagine comes from children's weekend sport. The sport of the average person is AFL (Australia Football League) and quite frankly, kicks soccers ass ^_^ It's called "footy" everywhere and if you say "football", AFL is what you mean - EXCEPT in Queensland, where I live. Here, the major sport is Rugby League and that's what "footy" means.

- 13 year old girls in GENERAL don't dress like whores. They are slowly becoming MORE whore-like (and I completely 100% blame America's media domination of Australia for this), but as I see it, the whore-age doesn't arrive until about 16/17. Of course, there are exceptions, and these exceptions are increasing by the day, as girls realise they can get away with shorter and shorter and shorter skirts and skimpier and skimpier tops. I want to shoot them (mainly because if you are going to wear sexy clothes, you must AT LEAST have breasts to show off in them, so you aren't pulling up the front of your shirt every 5 seconds! And I mean that seriously)

Hear hear! ^_^ Yeah, young kids dressing like prostitutes isn't such a big problem here, but the one thing I can't STAND that is EVERYWHERE is hipster jeans. BUTTCRACKS! Am I the only one that finds this sort of thing just plain obscene in public? It also really pisses me off because it makes it SO hard for me to find a decent pair of pants that come above the waist (and pubic area). Girls these days know nothing about leaving things to the imagination.

- Women's Lib is undergoing a change in Aus. More and more women are reverting back to 'tradition' - that is, staying at home and being a housewife. Not by force, but completely by choice.

Really? o_O I haven't really noticed... it isn't a big trend yet. It'll be good when it is though, I'm sick of women thinking they NEED to take liberties just because they can.

- Some of our delicacies include Kangaroo/Platapus/Wombat meat, as well as Dingo Steak.

...Though, we never eat them. Tourists eat them. You'll have to go to a pretty weird place, or an expensive restaurant to get this sort of thing. I've never had them, but I hear kangaroo meat is awful. I've actually never heard of people eating platypus or wombat.

Some other facts

- We're a very Americanised nation (though who isn't?) but we seem to do what the US does in a small way.
- Burger King is called Hungry Jacks here. I remember seeing American tv when I was a kid and thinking "Hey, Burger King has the same logo as Hungry Jacks!". The suck as much here as they do anywhere else though. Blech.
- Noone but farmers in the country wear those big, brown, wide-brim hats and hardly ANYONE would wear them with the corks hanging from the brim. Again, you can buy them in tourist shops.
- We use PAL here ^_^ Not NTSC.
- We do ride camels. In Broome, a tropical tourist town in the north west. My parents got a ride on a camel along the beach. I don't think anywhere else though.
- Our capital cities are small on a global scale, though Sydney is as ugly as any of the big ones. Brisbane is beautiful ^_-
- We have the best chocolate in the world - Cadbury. As I understand it, In the US you only have chocolate bars? You don't have large chocolate blocks split up into little pieces or anything? Of course, I love overseas chocolate too, but I think Cadbury is the best all-around, normal chocolate you'll ever get.
- We eat beef all the time. The impression I get from tv is that in the US, steak is considered a bit of a ... not a delicacy, but a special meal? Not at all here, though we love it. We just have it often enough that it's nothing special. I think in America you tend to eat a lot of pork, right? Australia is definitely a beef country (though nowadays, chicken probably takes over).
- Uggboots belong to us, you stupid foreign company trying to own the name. Fuckers! (sorry, it just gets me mad...)
- Sydney likes to give the impression overseas that they're a big harbour based city but again... for the tourists, really. Whenever I see Sydney portrayed on overseas shows, I'm like "All they -ever- show is the harbour!".
- There may be a lot of spiders and stuff in the outback but you hardly ever see them in a city environment. My biggest problem this year is ants.

Hmm, I'm sure I'm missing heaps of stuff I'd like to say but that'll do for now.

Yes, let's have a moment of silence... Maybe we could have a bunch of blank posts. Or posts with ... in them. Or 'silence.' Or 'SILENCE!!!" ... yeah, I like that one ^_^

Or maybe we could just post normally.

I haven't seen it, so... no! ^_^ (phew!)

BAM! ^_^

It annoys me that this sort of thing is soooo common. I know they're just people like you or me, but I've had so many problems with mail-related things, and I ALWAYS try to do the right things to make it easy for them. I don't know anyone who doesn't have at least a couple of horror stories about couriers and various deliverymen. Why isn't there some kind of standard when it comes to hiring these people? It's just WAY more common than it should be. It's a cliche to bitch about the mail because it genuinely does have so many problems, and it's such an important thing! For all they knew, I might have had a spare organ in that package

Where are you from, Zooty?

I almost wish there was some kind of law that stopped you from coming up with collaboration projects without making a game of your own first. Still, there are people out there who could pull it off, but it just doesn't fill people with confidence when it's someone relatively unknown doing it. If you're serious about it though, Tanker, do your best ^_^

Why that sudden interest, Kinoko?!

I don't know, it just seemed interesting. Something came on the news or something that made me think about emergency numbers and I wondered what kind of numbers they were in other countries. Plus, I like trivia ^_^

You never know, I might be on who wants to be a millionaire one day and the question might be about what Canada's emergency phone number is!

I don't know WHY they'd do it, but they certainly are capable of it.

God, how can some companies be SO FREAKING incompetant. Me and my boyfriendÃ,  ordered something from playasia.com awhile back, and it should've arrived last week. We checked the tracking system and it arrived in Sydney (usually a good sign that means it'll be here in one or two days) on Sunday. Thursday - still not here. We check the tracking again and finally, four days later, they tell us that it's waiting for a phone number to be given to the order. See, that's funny, the phone number should be all over the order in various places, we know for a fact that they have it. Well, whatever, call their Sydney branch up and give them the phone number anyway.

Because my boyfriend has to work, I agree to stay home on Monday to receive the order. I make sure I don't play any music that day, and keep a constant ear out for a door knock. I can hear the people who lives 3 doors away when someone knocks at their door. Hmm, keep checking the door, wandering around the door all day. Go to check the mail at 4pm. Got one of those 'Undelivered package notices' - "Came at 14:40pm" - nothing else checked but the notice comes with a phone number to the Sydney office. Where was I at 2:40pm? Why, downstairs, sitting a couple of metres away from the door.

We give their office a call (pretty pissed off at this stage), and they can't do anything until the delivery guy comes back but promise to send it tomorrow. We confirm the address once again and, of course, we have that promise.

We check the tracking system online once again and lo and behold, the package was scanned in as undelivered at 2:17pm. Hang on, that's 23 minutes before he supposedly dropped the undelivered message in my letter box? HMM! I can't help feel that someone just got tired of working at the end of the day and delivered notices instead of packages.

So, once again, I sit at home all day. I leave both doors open, and I sit a couple of metres away from the door ALL day. There's no undelivered notice in the mail so I keep waiting. Once 4pm rolls around I call my boyfriend and he calls them again. What was that, phone answery person at UPS Brisbane? The package is sitting right next to you on your desk? You've been trying to call to confirm the address? Oh, and I was on the internet for most of the morning. Of course, it's our fault then, because it's NOT like we CONFIRMED THE ADDRESS WITH YOU LAST NIGHT right before you promised us that after that, all we had to do was await the package delivery tomorrow.

Of course, they can't deliver it today. Can't dare put any of their workers out to deliver a package after they come back into the depot, so we're getting it tomorrow.

Is it just me or should this company be slaughtered in awful, awful ways? I don't think I'm overreacting. They've put us out for over a week (for NO good reason but incompetance) and I've had to stay at home all day for 2 days near the front door waiting for a package that may not even exist. I can see this turning into one of those eternal struggles where I spend my life waiting for a package that was actually lost at sea only days after being sent out.

Fuck UPS. Yes, and that's what they are too. Fuck ups.