Take Your Lumps

I wish I had something interesting to say. But if there's anyone else out there who's interested in grilling with lump charcoal, I've found a couple of interesting links:

http://www.nakedwhiz.com/nwindex.htm - an amazing set of detailed reviews of many different brands of lump charcoal. I am now manfully struggling with myself to keep from explaining why charcoal briquets are bad. But they are.

http://money.guardian.co.uk/ethicalliving/story/0,,1751392,00.html - an interesting article about the benefits (environmental and otherwise) of different kinds of grilling fuel.

Take Your Lumps

I wish I had something interesting to say. But if there's anyone else out there who's interested in grilling with lump charcoal, I've found a couple of interesting links:

http://www.nakedwhiz.com/nwindex.htm - an amazing set of detailed reviews of many different brands of lump charcoal. I am now manfully struggling with myself to keep from explaining why charcoal briquets are bad. But they are.

http://money.guardian.co.uk/ethicalliving/story/0,,1751392,00.html - an interesting article about the benefits (environmental and otherwise) of different kinds of grilling fuel.

Choices

I need to make some choices, and I could use some advice.

There are two different computer games that I'm thinking of buying: Guild Wars, and Oblivion. Both are getting outstanding reviews, with Oblivion (in my judgement) getting slightly better ones.

Oblivion, by all accounts, is an incredibly detailed and cool solo game, with a world that's so dense that you can ignore the main story line and head off in a thousand other directions.

Guild Wars was created by the people who made Diablo. It's an MMORPG, but it doesn't have a monthly fee; instead, you buy expansion packs if you want to be able to make use of added functionality.

They both cost $49.95 downstairs in Best Buy.

Oblivion interests me slightly more, but of course as a solo it's more lonely. On the other hand, that doesn't sound like such a bad thing. I've been staying up way the hell too late lately, and if I'm gaming with other people, I'll be more likely to kill myself with lack of sleep.

On the other hand, the video card on my computer might not be able to play either one of them. It's a GeForce 2 (I'll look up the exact specs later). Guild Wars requires an ATI Radeon 9000 or a GeForce 4 Ti series with 64 MB of memory. Oblivion requires an ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or better.

I suppose I could get a new video card, although I'd be nervous about trying to install it on my own; my track record isn't good. Still...what do you think I should do?

Choices

I need to make some choices, and I could use some advice.

There are two different computer games that I'm thinking of buying: Guild Wars, and Oblivion. Both are getting outstanding reviews, with Oblivion (in my judgement) getting slightly better ones.

Oblivion, by all accounts, is an incredibly detailed and cool solo game, with a world that's so dense that you can ignore the main story line and head off in a thousand other directions.

Guild Wars was created by the people who made Diablo. It's an MMORPG, but it doesn't have a monthly fee; instead, you buy expansion packs if you want to be able to make use of added functionality.

They both cost $49.95 downstairs in Best Buy.

Oblivion interests me slightly more, but of course as a solo it's more lonely. On the other hand, that doesn't sound like such a bad thing. I've been staying up way the hell too late lately, and if I'm gaming with other people, I'll be more likely to kill myself with lack of sleep.

On the other hand, the video card on my computer might not be able to play either one of them. It's a GeForce 2 (I'll look up the exact specs later). Guild Wars requires an ATI Radeon 9000 or a GeForce 4 Ti series with 64 MB of memory. Oblivion requires an ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or better.

I suppose I could get a new video card, although I'd be nervous about trying to install it on my own; my track record isn't good. Still...what do you think I should do?