Father Xmas

I just got mine, also used a code from the first NA list: 34FZ-ZB5Y-HC77-JYL8-ANMG.

Yes Star Trek the Motion Picture was, well, ponderous, but in 1979, to see the Enterprise on the big screen instead of a "large" 19" one was a sight to behold. Trekies at the time didn't mind the slow tour around the ship when it was in dry dock or the gathering and the introduction of the old crew or even the long slow pan over of the V'ger super ship. You wanted to feel the scale, how small the Enterprise was relative to it.

Sure it was a variant of the Nomad story. Sure Robert Wise tried to out 2001, 2001 with it's pace. But at the time, we didn't know it would become a series of movies, or that in less than a decade the first of a many new Star Trek TV series would start up. This movie was it and for the fans who had seen every TV episode enough times that we could "name that episode" usually in 5 seconds or less, it was our celebration for a series that was long over. It was our Serenity.

Eva changed everything at Gainax. Pre Eva, there was a several year gap between the last major Gainax led production and they were making ends meet simply being just another animation sub contractor for other people's projects. The did have a mildly successful computer game where you raise a virtual daughter and see if she comes out OK but it wasn't exactly paying the bills. After Eva there were major internal restructuring, a tax scandal (Eva brought in a LOT of money) several of the original founders moved on, suits took over. By the time they started putting out original work that wasn't an Eva tie-in or reissue, five years had passed and they were a very different company.

As for your example about Lucas, at least he went to film school and did notable work there. These guys were literally just hobbyists who made a big enough splash to get noticed at the right time. They had more in common with Jobs and Woz than Lucas and Spielberg.

Since you still haven't posted a HiJack This report, it's difficult to tell what else could be interfering.

Also, I just noticed, playing the game at 1920x1080 on a GT 430 may be asking a little to much for that card at your current settings. Have you tried selecting a lower resolution as see if it affects your audio problem?

Otaku no Video was a studio going away present for one of Gainax's original founders (THE OkaKing, Toshio Okada), who left to teach at University of Tokyo (think Harvard and MIT rolled into one) about the impact of anime and manga in modern culture. The character Tanaka was based on him and the pretty female illustrator Misizu, his wife.

Gainax was founded by hard core fanboys who actually got off their backsides and learned how to make the things they love. I have a couple of live action shorts they did back in college, one being an episode of a Sentai show and a later production which was an homage to the Ultraman series which showed off their skills at miniatures, forced perspective camera work and composite SFX. It wasn't like their college had classes in this, they researched and figured things out on their own, with questionable success (an early test to duplicate those explosions you see behind Sentai when they pose, burned off the eyebrows of Hideaki Anno who became the animation director at Gainax who was either a little too close or the charge was a little to large as the story goes). Others went to work at animation studios over the summers learning the craft from the bottom up, like Anno.

Sorry, I admire the gumption of a group of college students who actually got off their butts and made something of themselves in the hobby they loved.

Well they had to gate something so the tossed both reward and Vanguard merits into the same Tier as lifetime Auction House, 2 Billion Inf limit and Mission Architect with Rewards. It's sort of the currency tier.

True but OpenGL is graphics only. The audio in the game is handled by DirectX's audio component.

Dollhouse was high concept science fiction. It probably would have made a decent multibook series.

Well Angel was cancelled ahead of it's time, they were sort of rushed to tie up some of the story elements.

Vanguard Merits unlock at Tier 4.

ParagonWiki: Paragon Rewards Program - Reward Level 4

Turns out that Joss is only going to be involved with the penning and directing the pilot. If the show is picked up his brother Jed and sister-in-law Maurissa Tancharoen (duo who helped with Doctor Horrible) will be the showrunners.

Huff Post article

Speaking about Dr Horrible, it'll be aired on the CW Oct 9th at 9pm. Sadly I think some of the funniest lines will be altered for broadcast.

All of those shows are on SyFy or BBCA, not really a broad following in comparison to the numbers it would have to have on ABC to be successful.

One that I thought they missed was The Last Airbender. However the whole race bending controversy about the cast may have turned the hype down enough that the poor acting and special effects wasn't as disappointing.

As for Iron Man 2, I think it was more because Iron Man was nearly flawless. Plus the first movie gave the comic fans their first hint of something greater, an honest to God team up with that after credits scene. It didn't help that the merged to classic Iron Man villains into one and made Hammer a bit too much a buffoon trying to be a Tony Stark wannabe and his malfunctioning weapons.

Well it was announced when they signed Joss to do Avengers 2 that there was going to be a TV series that was Marvel based that Joss would be involved in as well. Didn't expect a SHIELD one but I guess it's something that hadn't been explored to any extent in the current crop of movies and doesn't tie a single "super hero" IP that could be tainted if the series goes down in flames or interest sold off to another interested party.

I wonder if it will lay the groundwork for some of the other Marvel bad guys that may show up in the movies, like AIM, which makes at least some appearance in Iron-Man 3. Define the various worldwide threats as well as notable institutions and persons of interest so the general public will recognize a passing name drop as much as the comic fans do.

Why do people seem to make it their life's work to necropost threads?

Well Win 7 Home has a 16GB limit so Pro would be required if you want to use all 32GB of memory.

In that case perhaps a pair of OC GTX 670s may be an alternative you would consider. It could also save you a bit of money as you pointed out, GTX 690s are difficult to find and probably run at a premium due to their rarity. Plus how big of a market is there for a $1000 video card? I can understand why they didn't make a boatload of them.

Also I think I shot too high for frame rate in the latest version of Metro 2033. A stock clock GTX 690 only breaks 60FPS at 1920x1080 without antialiasing. At AAx4, low to mid 40s.

Edit: And here is another review comparing a pair of GTX 670s Vs a GTX 690.

First it's serious overkill for this game but it should top 60FPS in Metro 2033.

For memory, it's usually just a trade off in price, the 8x4GB should be cheaper, but there is a downside when it comes to overclocking memory or reducing memory timings, in which case more isn't better.

64-bit Win 7 Pro and up is 192GB of system memory.

Sorry, I don't normally work with such an unlimited budget but I don't see anything that I would classify as a problem.