I don't know what's worse, blaming all of America for a joke news item in a whimsical tabloid, or the fact that some of the CPers here can't tell it's a joke... not a "hoax." This is the same newspaper that gives us updates on the status of spider-boy (the half man, half spider) who was kidnapped by Venutians in order to repopulate the dying planet of Venus.

We used to do that with c64's back in high school. 'course, since their processors weren't as advanced, the explosions were mere firecrackers. :->

John Cardinal wrote:

http://carcino.gen.nz/images/index.php/42e23aa3/63ed627e\[^\] Probably the safest thing is to just shut off your computer right now and walk away from it in a calm and orderly manner.

I have to throw myself in with the OP on this. A partner and I have a consulting company on the side and provide a variety of tech services; one of which is web hosting. Right now we're on HostDepartment's premier reseller plan because frankly it has the most freedom we've seen when it comes to choosing how we resell. We really hate the "referral programs." HostDepartment gives us near infinite freedom in plan pricing and features, as well as unlimited domains, and plans. Most importantly, we set our own prices and the H-Sphere back-end takes care of the billing for us, and we have finely tuned control over credits, refunds, debits etc. Now the downside: It has absolutely horrible customer support (livechat only), the pings to our servers are 2 to 3 times more than acceptible, the mail servers seem to be out 2 or three times a day, and they don't allow ColdFusion and PHP on the same server, so we have clients who have to have 2 different hosting plans because they need both. I wish we could find a provider with H-sphere hosting on either a VPS or dedicated server. ColdFusion MX6+ (prefferably 7) is a must.

I've used H&R Block's TaxCut for the last 8 years or so. They did the same thing this year eliminating the free federal e-file, and raising the price to $15. Since I owe about $75, I'll just print it and paper-file anyways. On the H&R Block topic though, I refuse to EVER use their tax prep service again. Two years ago I thought, "I just moved, changed jobs, and cashed out 3 retirement plans early (don't even ask); maybe I need some assistance." Bad idea. What you get is a glorified secretary typing into software nearly identical to the TaxCut program. The supposed benefit of their "tax expertise?" Please! The woman that did mine was clueless, made numerous errors (that cost me upwards of $3000 and put me in hot water with the IRS) and suggested I lie in various places and take deductions I had no documentation to prove. To top it off, she talked about nothing but her family history and how long she'd lived in our city. There was no professionalism whatsoever. This was at the main Regional H&R Block store to boot! Let's just say, I'm glad I paid for the extra audit protection service. lol That was 2004 taxes...and I just made my last $750 payment to the IRS to clear things up. X|

Good luck with the transplant. BF2 is not the game you're looking for if you're looking for some single-player action. While you can play against bots in an offline match, they are stupid (walking into walls and grenading themselves stupid) and don't offer much competition. Additionally, there are no goals in these offline games other than the capture the flag rules used for online play. It's a great game! Don't get me wrong; I've logged my share of days playing it. It's just not a single-player game. The strength of BF2 is the teamwork that is required (and encouraged) to dominate the other side.... you just can't get that in the single-player matches.