Mindfield

Nope. No demos. Again, just wanna know what you would expect to find, very specifically, in the package upon opening it.

Just to clarify, you feel that inside the box should have been (aside from the Family Guy DVD) 8 complete games (i.e. retail packaged, etc.) or just CDs?

All I'm going to say is that they weren't copies. They're real. I'm just interested in what everyone thinks they should see when they opened the package had they won.

A little thought experiment here. Without any details from me (other than the obvious fact that I won the auction), take a look at this auction and tell me exactly what you think the seller is offering, full details. Don't make any assumptions as to what I got in the mail, nor whether anything illegal was going on here. Just posit what you think you should find in the package once it arrived had you won. I'll explain later.

Ah-HA! William Alexander. That was him. And he did use "happy" quite frequently (one cite here). I rememered this because to this day I've never seen Bob Ross paint anything, which is why the whole "happy trees" thing triggered the memory -- I thought it was the same guy. After further research, this Wiki entry for William Alexander shows that Bob Ross was one of his disciples, so it looks like Ross got his whole "happy trees" thing from Bill.

Once again, if it looks legit, check the links! (Hover over them or view the raw text of the E-Mail to see what the links really point to) These spoofs will usually have an embedded link (usually the most important link, such as "open dispute panel" or "click here to go to your account" type links) that does not go to PayPal, or has an address that starts with "www.paypal.com" but when read will look like "www.paypal.com-whatever.info" which, for anyone who knows their domain structure, is simply the sub-domain "paypal" on server "com-whatever.info" Wherever humanly possible, do not click ANY links found in the E-Mails. Go to PayPal yourself and corroborate (or debunk) the claims of the E-Mail manually. For eBay phishes, ANY E-Mails sent to you from eBay will have a copy in your "My Messages" folder in your "My eBay." If you get an E-Mail that is ostensibly from eBay, go to My eBay yourself and check your messages. If the same message isn't there, it didn't come from eBay.

Seems like the usual assortment of ads -- only found one ad I didn't already have, and that was for Colecovision. Good place to get a decent amount of them in one place though.

Actually, the guy I remember ran his painting series in the early 80s (we're talking '82-84 or so here). He'd knock out a complete nature scene in one half hour episode using various brush and pallette knife techniques 'n stuff -- he was actualy quite good (apparently as good as Bob here), but the guy i'm thinking of is, as I said, a balding European guy, German I think given that he spoke with a pronounced accent. An older guy, probably in his 50s or 60s at that time. My dad used to watch it all the time and I usually watched it with him (for no better reason than that he had the cable converter). I just recall that all his "happy little" descriptions of things he was painting at the moment. Buggered if I can remember his name, and I couldn't begin to figure out the proper Google Fu for this. EDIT: Alexander! His name was Alexander. Not sure if it was his first or last name, but I'm thinking first.

Slightly OT: Okay... why the hell is this guy noted for his "happy little trees?" I've been hearing that for several years now, and every time I hear it I think of a similar painting show they used to show on WNED (a Buffalo PBS station) with another painter, some balding German(?) guy whose name I can't remember, and his schtick was always "Happy little trees" and "a happy little stream" and so on.

Well, hopefully the second highest bidder will take the deal -- or one of them will anyway, so it won't be a total loss. Fortunately I haven't gotten anyone whom I thought was completely clueless about what I was selling, but just to be on the safe side I repeatedly, explicitly, lay out in simple English anything I feel is an important point to make so that it is abundantly clear and there can be no arguments when the item arrives. I do this more for my own sake so I have written records in case there are problems -- then I have something to show PayPal as proof that the buyer's a dumbass. (I realize you did, too -- but some people just don't undestand basic concepts or the language they're written in, so there's really no help for it but to try and salvage what you can)

There have been numerous threads on the topic, such as this, this, this, and this one about possibilities of "Safer" frying.

What kinda hub? Network hub? USB hub? Hubcap?

Not to worry Adam. I for one at least was more concerned with your disappearance and the possibility that my package was lost in the mail. I really didn't even consider the possibility of being scammed or anything like that. It was just unusual of you to disappear without a trace for so long, so I had to assume something that happened which had caused you to disappear from the 'net for a few months. It's good to see that you are back ... you've been a solid member of the community for quite some time so I can't see anyone holding a grudge. Shit, as they say, happens, and sometimes it is of our own making. All we can do is get out the pooper scooper and start bailing.

You ought to go into your preferences and check off the box that states you will not accept bids from anyone outside your accepted shipping regions. That way even if they wanted to your listings will reject their attempts to bid. (It's located in the same place in your preferences where you also deny bids from anyone with less than 0 feedback or more than 2 bid retractions in the past month)

Aaand now it's gone again. Hope everyone got theirs. Thanks Al and Andrew for the opportunity to get what I missed the first time round.

Just tell 'em we're looking for a version of Donkey Kong Jr. that doesn't suck.

...and since Al has removed the old Nexus from archive's robots.txt file, you can now access the original Nexus thread about "ROMgen." Fun! (Unfortunately not all responses were archived so you only get to read the OP)

I've used 60/40 rosin core without any problems -- both for reflowing cracked joints and removing/resoldering entire ICs. I can't be bothered with silver + flux. Too much work.

Yeah, I started my first computing experience on a PET CBM2001. I think it was around 1980 or so. Our grade 7 computer lab had about six or eight of 'em, along with a few Apple IIs in another room. Them's were the days...

I guess that brings up a question: Is there any kind of secret to picking locks? I break more damn lockpicks trying to secure all of the pins. I'll get three secured when, sho 'nuff, the fourth snaps 'em all back into place, breaking yet another freakin' pick. My character's skill at it has been improving fairly steadily, but I just can't seem to discern any useful rhythm or pattern. And just how do you pickpocket? Use the "grab" function to try and surreptitiously lift a belt pouch or set of keys?

You need to feed some to restore a more human appearance to yourself. Find some sleeping victims and have at it. Feeding won't kill them Okay... then that brings us back to how feeding works. Is it a spell? Drain health or something?

Bugger me, but curing vampirism is a major pain in the ass. Fly all over the bloody country hunting down clues only to end up at a witches house who tells me she wants four greater soul gems in order to give me the secret of the cure. Four! I've never even found one! And I certainly can't buy any (even assuming I can find a shop that has any) because the damn shopkeeps won't deal with me -- evidently I scare the shit out of anyone I try and talk to. I appear to be doomed to be a blood-sucking night owl 'til I can scare up four of those damn gems. Wottapain.

Wow. I'm kinda surprised this didn't go higher. Oh well... good deal for someone.

Yeah you should be plenty "vampire enough" Another (in the long list of) really cool thing in Oblivion - don't feed for a while as a vampire and see how hideous you become in a few days! ...feed? To the best of my knowledge I haven't fed yet. (I don't know how!) I did notice my face was starting to get all Portrait of Dorian Gray, but I chalked that up to just being a vampire. Right then. Vicar!