What famous person do you think would voice Twile, if he were to be animated? Respond with a video link, if possible, which best demonstrates the voice you'd associate with my character!

I shall be there with  sepffuzzball,  kipfox,  darkshift, and _________.

Fill in the blank!

No, of course I'm not taking them personally, I'm not an artist.

But  donryu is an artist and is taking them. For $5 you can get a sketchy drawing to your liking, he's done everything from furries eating pancakes to a mini-series of some guy fapping off. I think his preference is more for the former, but you can work out the details with him :3

Examples: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2518769 and http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2523505

Also he draws a pretty cute fuzzydragon.

 kipfox likes it in tha butt. So, so much. Mmm...

 retna ate it D:

When I originally got into this fandom I was a dragon. Due to Furcadia requiring you to pay for a dragon avatar, I took up a fox form (but still kept "Dragon" at the end of my name). A few years ago I switched back to using a dragon as a primary avatar when A) I said "Fuck it, I'll say I'm a dragon whether or not my avatar looks like one", B) I stopped using Furc for the most part, and C) I wanted to be more memorable. When I had the need or urge to be foxish, it wasn't an alt, but a somewhat common transformation. I call(ed) it my "fox form". Since then, said fox form has appeared in, at best, a few pictures. I wanted to get a picture from  jace of my dragon form, ah, disposing of my fox form two years ago as an official send-off and switch to fuzzydragon named Twile, but that picture is now going to be featuring someone else being nom'd. Good that we have other hyenas handy to help thin the ranks of unwanted forms, right?

Ohhh, don't worry. I can still change physical appearances, including species, at will. I just no longer have a "fox form". It has lost its official name and preferred status, and is now as fair game as other equally hot and generic critters, like jackals.

Memorial service to be held at  retna's userpage. Just don't be fooled by his attempts to hug you and offer condolences.

To  sepffuzzball. I have ring and everything.

Edit:
D: D: D: JUST BECAUSE HE PROPOSED DOESN'T MEAN I'M THE BITCH! It means he's more romantic ~_~

Alright. I've got DVDs, and I want to rip and re-encode them. Perhaps you can give me advice and links to cool tools?

What I want are x264-encoded MKV files with at least one but potentially several, audio streams. I also want soft subtitles (not burned into the image, what Handbrake does). Finally, being able to retain the chapters would be nice. Ideally, the process would be as streamlined as possible, but I certainly don't mind clicking a few checkboxes and picking bitrates and things of that nature.

So, are there any highly-recommended tools for re-encoding AV streams ripped from DVDs? I guess the question can be extended to include Blu-ray discs as well, because we've got some of those handy.

Caffeine doesn't normally have much of an effect on me. Nothing that I've noticed so far, at least. It keeps my mate up for 4 hours after having a can of soda, but for me? Nada. So I'm doing an experiment. I got an energy shot thing and I drank it a little bit ago, and I'm going to try and go to sleep in about 40 minutes. If that doesn't work, I'll try to find something stronger for another night. I need to get to the bottom of the Substances Don't Affect Twile's Body mystery.

Semi-random journal partially made to get that 250+ comment journal off my front page. Hey, I can't be Mr. Serious all the time!

Also, Sepf and I made french onion soup tonight. It wasn't the best I've had, but it wasn't half bad. Maybe a bit less onion next time, caramelized for longer, with more bread and shredded cheese.

Edit: Although I laid around in bed for 20 minutes fantasizing before I went to bed, I wasn't wired enough to avoid falling asleep for any longer than that, and woke up <7 hours later.

If you ever call me a "Furry Friend" or "Furry Fan" and refer to someone else as a "furry" I will never talk to you. Ever again.

Seriously, what is this shit? A recent article/interview, which was admittedly opinionated and fallible, claimed that a furry is someone who believes they have an animal spirit, or are truly animal on the inside. Us posers who have the sense to realize that we're humans all the way to our meaty cores, we're "furry friends". I've also heard us referred to as "furry fans".

Quick and probably biased poll here. In your opinion and experience, does/should "furry" refer to a person who has spiritual beliefs that they are in part not human, or a person who enjoys anthropormophics and possibly has an anthro character?

In MY experience, most people seem to realize that they're thoroughly human. It is a small minority which seriously believes otherwise. They even have their own name. Names. Therians. Otherkin. Weres. Those groups can also be furries, but they do not DEFINE furries. Only their love of animal anthro stuff does that.

On a related note, I do find some of the aspects of animal spirit stuff to be offensive to me as a standard human who recognizes his humanity:

1) Embracing and celebrating your non-human nature is usually a thin veil for the spoken or unspoken opinion that animals are better than humans. You've heard it before. Some video of a terrible thing that a person or group of people did, and furries saying they're disgusted with humanity--animals don't do such terrible things. First up, humans are no better or worse than any other sort of animal. They simply are what they are. Animals do some really awful shit too. And regardless of the reality of the situation, if you think you're not truly a human and that I am, and you're proud of what you are and are disgusted with what I am, then uh, that's offensive, and fuck you.

2) Calling me a "furry fan" while calling yourself a "furry" implies that I'm a fan of yours. Or if not you personally, your spiritual friends. In any case it has the undeniable implication that this community is here for you, all about you, and I'm just some supplementary guy who's tagging along for the ride. And that's just fucking offensive too.

"But Twile," you say, "wouldn't you say that the Star Wars fandom is made up of Star Wars fans?" To which I reply, "Yes, but we don't have a group of people running around claiming that they are Star Wars and everyone else is a Star Wars fan."

So either we're all "furries" or we're all "furry fans"--none of this "I'm X and you're Y" bullshit. We're "furries" if you define a furry to be the cute term for someone who enjoys (typically fur-covered, hence the name,) animal anthropomorphics. We're "furry fans" if you define a furry to be an animal anthropomorphic character. But we already have names for animal anthropomorphic characters. Fursona, character, furry character, anthro character... take your pick, depending on who you're talking to and what you're talking about.

Short and simple version of this journal: You can delude yourself into thinking you're not a human "on the inside" to your heart's content, but if you try to create some bogus terms which imply that you're the core of the fandom and I'm a peripheral fan, you can just fuck off right now >:/

Sepf and I were planning on kidnapping  fluff-kevlar, but he drove up to visit us by his own free will! Now he is all ours >=D Got some red satin sheets just for the occasion.

(Ha, I kid, I wanted them anyway. And I doubt Nyt will want to sleep in the same room as a big red dragon ;~; )

Or at least, that's what lots of people seem to be saying about it. Porn bed, Hugh Hefner bed, circle bed, whatever you want to call it. It is now Twile Bed.

Check it out in its full glory: Twile Bed (with 21" box fan for size comparison).

No, it doesn't spin, although it would be awesome if it did.

This thing is huge. King Twile size mattress, which is 6'4" wide and 6'8" long. Just under twice the size of a Twin bed. And it's got a padded, black leather-like rim around it (obviously) to make a 10'8" wide, 8'8" long ellipse which is more about looks than actual utility... although it can assist in getting in and out of bed, protecting you from an otherwise long and painful drop if you roll off, and giving you something to sit/kneel on. Also, it has those two semi-floating-looking tables, which can swivel and hold things... laptops, drinks, clocks, dildos, remotes for your stereo with Barry White queued up, etc.

Bedding is Twile red and the same texture and feel as a T-shirt. Backed up with multiple body pillows and regular pillows, a ton of blankets, and an unreasonably fun-to-touch microplush blanket.

Just got it delivered this morning. Available at RoomsToGo.com if you're interested ;3

Anyway, enough from me. The picture says just about everything.

The past week, in chronological order:

 sepffuzzball flew in on Thursday and spent the next 6 days meeting my family.

I graduated on Sunday. I am now a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University's college of Arts & Sciences.

Today, Sepf and I flew back down to his our place in Orlando. We will reside here for the next 13+ months.

It's been a busy fuckin' week.

In 24 or so hours,  sepffuzzball will be flying in, to be picked up by my parents and I. Then he will meet my family, including: Me, my two sisters, my brother-in-law, my niece, my mother and father, my aunt, my grandmother, and my grandmother's husband.

D:

I have a bottle of it. So, so tasty. I don't like regular Pepsi. After about 30 minutes, once it starts to warm up, it tastes basically like semi-sweetened dirty water. It's just foul, and I can't stand it. Not Throwback. While it still tastes better cold, it's actually drinkable after an hour of non-refrigeration. As  manojalpa puts it, it has a more "clean" taste.

May we forever enjoy this non-disgusting beverage (or at least until mid-June when they stop making it)! Who's with me?

(For those who don't know, Pepsi Throwback is regular Pepsi with sugar instead of corn syrup).

3 years ago, the professor for my English writing seminar on Star Trek lamented that in 5 years nobody would be familiar with the series. She said, with the failing Star Trek Enterprise and the movies doing progressively worse, it was over. I pointed out that there were rumors of a new movie, and she dismissed them. On the last day of classes, I came in with the previous day's confirmation that they were making Star Trek XI. And they finally got it out there today.

I have to say, it wasn't bad. It could've certainly been a lot worse. It was a wonderful audio/visual experience, as well as a fresh introduction to the characters from The Original Series. I've only seen a couple dozen episodes of it, as well as a few of the movies, so I can't tell whether the fan service would be more amusing or annoying for TOS veterans.

In fact, the movie was enjoyable. The 94% on Rotten Tomatoes was... well earned, I suppose. There are a few things in the plot which made me upset... but otherwise it was fitting, and exciting, and had me on the verge of tears 5 minutes in. I got shivers a couple times too.

But I also got shivers 7-8 times during the Terminator 4 trailer... hm...

I think you can learn a lot about a person from their Start Menu. It summarizes the things that people do most often with their computers, and as computers become increasingly important tools for people's daily lives, it thus summarizes what people do with their time. I can't think of any better indicator you can get from a person's computer by pushing just one button.

So here's mine. From it you can tell many things:

1) I'm on Vista. I'm not curious enough to try Windows 7 (because of the time involved in re-installing all my software and fixing all my settings), and I'm not whiny internet faux-nerd enough to stick with XP.

2) This is a furry laptop! My user name, icon and background (you can barely see a topless blue folf with a collar through the menu :3) are all furry-related. So I'm not a deeply closeted fur who uses non-furry user names and such. See also: Sardonis.

3) I care about utility and aesthetics. My Start Menu isn't filled with all the fluff that it ships with by default. Help and Support? Default Programs? Run? Connect To? Unnecessary, and the functionality is often offered with just a few keystrokes.

4) The primary uses of this laptop are internet browsing and chatting. I even took the time to pin applications for those up at the top so they're always available.

5) Secondary uses for this laptop are tracking my FA userpage stats (Excel), saving quick memos to myself (Notepad), editing images (GIMP), composing documents (Word), programming (Visual Studio), a couple games (Steam), and manually checking for updates and file fragmentation levels.

6) Although I have Chrome, it isn't my primary browser. I still have issues with it, and until they're resolved, it will remain used only for Gmail and other Google sites I keep open/open frequently.

7) I use a lot of "official" software, stuff which is legitimately purchased and isn't open source and/or third party. Yahoo! and AIM, not GAIM or Trillian or whatever fake chat clients are popular these days. Excel and Word rather than OpenOffice.org. Steam, which implies that stuff is actually paid for.

8) I'm too poor/stubborn for Photoshop. It's expensive and I can't justify the cost or time it would take to learn new tools and keyboard shortcuts.

9) I care about my software! A lot of it is in the newest editions, and given that a lot of it is Microsoft-made and I have Windows Update in my Start Menu, it's all patched too.

10) I'm picky about my file defragmenting. I don't trust any program that won't let me visualize the spatial layout of my files and their fragmentation status, i.e. Windows Disk Defragmenter.



SO! If you're bored, take a screenshot of your Start Menu, upload it to Photobucket or some other site (not FA, it isn't allowed), link to it in a comment and tell me what it says about you. Or let me look at it and tell you what I think it says ;3

In the past week, I've seen a large number of people complaining about Twitter. Get the fuck over yourselves.

So you don't like random streams of ideas, web links, and status updates from your friends? Then you should be GLAD we're using Twitter. By using Twitter to publish things which are typically inconsequential, we have a dedicated outlet for such things. We might say "Just in from work, going out with friends for the evening in a bit", or "This video is adorable: [link]" or "Diablo 3 release date announced!" (not really). These are little nuggets of information, insight, personal status, or just randomness. They're explicitly made that way by having a strict 140 character message limit.

By using Twitter for such things, it means we don't have to put up an FA/LJ journal every 36 hours when we Ustream or find some delightful little waste of time. Journals can be meaningful, so people can be more assured that reading through them won't be -as- full of frivolous and insignificant chatter. We are removing such things from your presence, so you can subscribe to them if you're interested, or completely ignore them if not.

Maybe it's a fad that will die down. Maybe it's something that everyone will use in 5 years. In either case, we're not forcing you to use it, and it's a pretty harmless service... so stop complaining about us using it.

I wasn't going to announce it for a while, because I wanted to see how many contacts I could make without using FA, but whatevs, this is the most relevant place to mention it: http://twitter.com/Twile

>_< Why didn't anybody tell me about this? It came out over 20 years ago. Damnit!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_(OVA).

For those of you who aren't familiar with the universe, Starship Troopers is basically what you get if you mix Halo, MechWarrior, and the Zerg from Starcraft. It's possibly the earliest instance of the powered armor-wielding "space marine" everyone knows today, soldiers in armored space suits who can kick ass on land, under water, or in deep space.

The book was published in 1959 (that's half a century ago, guys... 2 years before the first man in space). It featured powered armor described as being like a steel gorilla. Deployed in pods launched from orbital dropships, these bad boys came down from the sky and used everything from flamethrowers to portable thermonuclear missiles (each suit had several of these) to execute coordinated strikes. They had jump jets, radio communication, heads up displays, and motion amplifying airtight armored suits... a delicious middle-ground between Halo's Spartan armor and powered mechs/exoskeleton suits. They spend a lot of time fighting the "bugs", a race which is so like the Zerg that it makes Blizzard look unoriginal (seriously, they've got a bunch of obedient and expendable drones who obey "brain bug" overlords, as well as a queen... and when they need new fighting capabilities, they evolve).

In 1997 they made a movie loosely based on the book, called Starship troopers (and two sequels in the years since). Even at the tender age of 10 I was so disgusted by the trailer that I couldn't bring myself to see it (not that I could've, with the nudity and violence...). For the sake of being able to see the faces of the actors, they replaced these motion-amplification armored vacuum-sealed suits and H-bombs with... open-faced partial body armor that wouldn't protect you from a squirt gun, much less a bullet or knife. The only redeeming quality of the movie, I figure (having not seen it), is that it has Neil Patrick Harris. NPH!

In 1999, two years later, they made a CG "kids TV show" adaptation, Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles. Although it wasn't high in gore, it was definitely too grim for most kids to watch. No cartoon violence here. It's actually rather enjoyable. The suits are much more like Master Chief's (seriously, check it out: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped.....Roughnecks.jpg ) which is an acceptable compromise. Up until present, I figured this was the most accurate non-book item in the Starship Troopers universe.

But apparently back in 1988 they made a 6-episode OVA of Starship Troopers. So... Starship Troopers anime. Subtitled, but still. Wikipedia claims that it's the most accurate, and just from the little snippet I peeked in on, that seems to be the case.

I am so glad I downloaded it on a whim...

60 Hz LCDs look very jerky to me. Dragging a window around at 60 Hz = tear-wrenching, while 120 Hz is dreamy. Thank you, 120 Hz display. You have broken my eyes.

Now I just need to hope that 120 Hz stuff mixes with 24"+ screen sizes and better quality screen technologies. While 120 Hz is gorgeous, 6 bits per pixel is not.

Just to pass the time. More music on demand/as I see fit :3

URL: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/twi-stream
Password: redfuzz

EDIT: That's it for today, guys. I had fun! =D

So for whatever reason, an hour ago I got the urge to set up a Ustream channel. I don't really know what long-term use I might have for it, but for the time being, I'm streaming random music. Lacking a proper software solution, I plugged my audio jack into my mic in. It actually doesn't sound half bad, until I find a better solution.

Anyway, as I said, I've got random music and a chatroom, if you want to hang out for the next couple hours :3

Link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/twi-stream
Password: redfuzz

UPDATEWell, I had a blast! While there were only 10-11 people on average, it was 3 hours of spontaneous music requests and sharing. I'll try to do it some other time too :3

Me: Nope, I'm not settling in Atlanta. Orlando instead.
Mom: Why?
Me: Because my boyfriend got offered a pay raise to do the exact same job in Orlando. It wouldn't make financial sense to stay in Atlanta.
Mom: So, what kind of work are you looking into?
Me: Whatever's available, really. Couldn't look into jobs until just now because it wasn't certain whether I'd end up moving.
Mom: I thought things were tight in FL... but evidently not so bad... [your cousin] is in Orlando today and then leaving to go to Miami. I think tomorrow. But his line of work is much different. Not sure exactly what his line of work is. Do you have any leads?

It's like we were discussing the fucking weather. Apparently my mother couldn't give less of a crap about me being gay. ¬_¬

PROS:
* Sukebe badge is fucking sweet and gorgeous. So pretty.
*  mobianfox was energetic and awesome. Totally cool guy. Shame he was in the Dealer's Den so often, I loved spending time around him.
* 6-8 hours of  nek0gami a day. What the hell? I'm trying to figure out why I got in so much face time with him. I guess he just recognized me on the first day and figured my table was as good an area as any to settle down and socialize. We kept coming back to the table every day, so it was a convenient place to find my friends and his. But still... only folks I saw more often than him were Sepf and... uh... Sepf?
* Got to meet new faces and catch up on some old ones.
* Free sketch from someone who Neokai needs to link me to. Must not forget to bug him for the guy's FA link!
* Elevators were very nice. Fast, two had glass sides overlooking the downtown area, and they would detect when the elevator was full and respond appropriately, also announcing the floors they were stopping at.
* Having the con area in the hotel was much nicer than the arrangement at AC.

CONS:
* Folks who I was hoping to hang out with but who were never around. You know who you are.
* Sleepy Twiles are sleepy.
* Long drive, 12 hours, each way. Sure I don't do the driving myself, but still... 12 hours without internets or moving.
* Food selection didn't feel as nice as at AC, where we could easily walk to a number of nice places nearby. Here we almost always had to get delivery.

MISC:
* Vore Meat (Meet) was ungodly awkward-looking, even just for the half hour that I poked in for >_>
* Didn't get much art, only from  lapseph.

BOTTOM LINE:
* Pretty good time, I'll go next year.

First up, yeah, I'm going to be at FWA. Heading up on Tuesday/Wednesday, leaving on Monday I believe. I could fill out that convention meme, but I don't feel the need to brag about who I'll hang out with.

Next,  torovellos is in a bit of financial trouble, and needs help to keep from having his power turned off: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/659511/ . Normally I don't whore out my journal space to advertise when people are taking commissions or want donations so they can travel and stuff, but electricity and rent are kinda important things.

Yes, I caved in to sparkling reviews and curiosity, and got the Nvidia stereoscopic gaming setup with the 22" 120 Hz display. Now, I haven't really owned it long enough (<24 hours at this point) to call myself a highly experienced user, but skimming some people's supposed "expertise" on such topics in the past week, and given that I took an entire fucking course on this stuff, I don't feel too out-of-place trying to spread some more accurate information about things which are potentially very confusing but also very cool when applied to gaming.

120 Hz displays
The most awful thing I read this past week was that the human eye can't see anything over 18 frames per second, which is just bogus. Movies show 24 a second and look less smooth than home video. Why? Because you can see more than 18 fps!

I know what you're probably thinking, though. "WTF 120 Hz? My monitor does 60 for games and it looks totally smooth. Why do you need double that?" Sadly, I don't really have a great answer to that. All I can say is that when you play a game displayed at 120 fps, it just looks... buttery smooth. Like, the motion is surreal. Spin your character around, watch somebody run past... shit, even drag a window around on your desktop. When going from 120 Hz to 60 Hz on my display, the difference felt like 60 fps vs 15 fps on a regular display. It's inexplicably and disturbingly smooth. It even takes a bit of time to get used to the sensation. Perhaps the reason has to do with the fact that you're not just looking at a static target, your eyes are darting around to follow things on the screen, which can result in temporal aliasing. Anyway, summary of why you want 120 Hz displays for games: they're fucking gorgeous in ways that can only be understood when seen.

Of course, they have an added bonus for people watching pre-recorded video. Movies and TV are/were generally recorded at 24 and 30-ish fps, and as luck would have it, 120 is the smallest number which evenly divides both 24 and 30. So whether you're playing from 24 or 30 fps video, you can display each frame for a consistent amount of time (5 or 4 frames respectively). Add in the potential to interpolate frames, and you get a much smoother viewing experience. Compare this to current displays which do something silly and strange, like alternating between showing a frame twice and showing the next one three times (2*12 + 3*12 = 60 fps), and it should be pretty apparent that you're getting both potential for smoother motion, and more even timing between frames.

Now, on to the cool stuff about 3D, which I'm sure is the only reason that all 5 of you are reading this.

3D displays and game/movie effects
I'm pretty sure that by now, most everyone reading this has seen some form of 3D illusion in video format. Amusement parks, polarized glasses in a theater, red and blue lenses for a TV, maybe even real VR stuff that. If you haven't seen that, I hope you've seen Magic Eye or other autostereograms--they follow a similar principle. Basically, every practical method involves getting a different image to your left and right eye. Why? Because it is the difference in images we get from our eyes that lets us feel depth on totally static scenes. Polarized lenses, often seen in amusement parks, use the orientation of light so to say, to project two images onto a screen and block out a different one for each eye. Red and blue lenses do similar things, though they do it using color (red light seen through a red lens is visible, but almost black seen through the blue lens, similar for blue light through blue and red lenses). Head-mounted displays obviously have it easy, they just have one display in front of each eye... if you consider the optics problems and very fine quality of the displays to be easy to deal with.

Anyway, on to how this all relates to what I've got. What I have is a system with active glasses. What that means is that the lenses actively alternate between being dark or transparent, 120 times a second. So 60 times a second one side is dark while the other is clear, and 60 times a second that side is clear while the other is dark. By synchronizing it with a display that can show 120 frames a second, you can display alternating frames and ensure that each eye gets the frame you want. So yes, to get the 3D effect, I have to wear what basically look and act like $200 sunglasses, meticulously timed with the redraw of my monitor. At least they're wireless.

But the effect is very cool. In theory, it can make stuff look like it's infinitely far away, or as close as your nose. Obviously (to me at least) it can only make things appear to be in the virtual tapered box from your eyes to the edge of the screen and continuing out to infinity behind the monitor. Perhaps the more sensible way of thinking about it is, it can make any point on the image appear to be as close or far from you as you'd like. In practice, it does that to make surfaces and objects appear to stick out of the screen or recede into the distance, giving you the exact same sort of feeling of depth that you get when looking down a hallway, or really over any complex scene.

I've heard people claim that it's just a gimmick. I disagree heartily. The 3D placement of the objects in the game world is used to precisely display objects as they'd be seen in 3D were it the real world. The effect itself is something that we're used to seeing every day on just about everything except 2D drawings and images. Really, calling it a gimmick is about as inappropriate as it would be to call color a gimmick. It's something which we're used to seeing, but couldn't always be reproduced effectively, and is just becoming technically feasible to incorporate (well, it's been around in PC games for 10+ years, but the point remains). Although you might be able to get along without it, it's really just not the same.

How is the effect, though? It's hard to describe, but I will say that it's not like adding texture or polygons to a model. You're not so much changing the look of the world as you're changing the feel of the world. I'm dead serious. Close one eye. Keep your head entirely still, look at a motionless scene. Maybe put some objects on a table and view it from a really shallow angle. How does the scene look? Flat. You can tell what's in front of what other things because of visual overlapping and relative sizes and shadows, but you can at best guess how far away something suspended in the air is. Now open your other eye. The portion of the scene that you could see before looks the same, but you can feel how far away things are. Your brain combines the two images automatically and gives you a feeling of the depth for everything you can see. Stereoscopic displays do the same thing with your virtual game worlds.

The good and bad
The good stuff about the system? You could play an RTS and have air units engage in a dogfight which occasionally takes them out of the screen, above your keyboard. You could zoom in close enough to something that it sticks out at you and you recoil instinctively to keep away from it. Zombies don't just look, but feel like they're running towards you. Close things, such as your limbs, weapons, sniper scopes, and the insides of vehicles, all feel very real. Most of this (except for the stuff popping out of the monitor, that's only in some games, like WoW) works with hundreds of popular DirectX titles (and some obscure ones, like No One Lives Forever 2... though I'm glad they support my favorite shooter evar). You can even adjust the intensity of the depth effect to get yourself used to it.

Now the bad stuff. It doesn't work with every title. Audiosurf doesn't do the effect at all, OpenGL games (Doom, Quake, etc) don't work with it. Even before you start the 3D parts of games there can be random quirks where it tries to draw the menus in 3D, but with so much depth that it's simply impossible to both focus on the text and the button frames which are at different levels. Your best bet for menus is to push the button which toggles the effect, really. In the games themselves, there are issues abound with the effect. In Valve games like TF2 and L4D, it draws names and icons at screen depth, so while you're focusing on a 3D world you have names popping up in your face, which are impossible to read quickly--immensely distracting too. In games with mouse cursors, the cursors are also drawn at screen depth, not so fun for picking units in 3D space in an RTS. Fire and other effects are often done by drawing something 2D in 3D space, the idea being that it won't look bad in 2D. In 3D the illusion falls apart somewhat, and it indeed looks like the 2D texture in 3D space that it is. And some games have much more serious and annoying issues, such as having clouds drawn at screen depth, making them appear to be very close to you. You get weird issues with crosshairs too--Portal and some other games are unplayable for me because it draws the crosshairs at screen depth and getting them to line up with something further back in the scene is hard and distracting. The same thing happens when using sniper scopes, you're trying to both focus on something very close and something very far, and it doesn't work--your best bet is to use it like a real scope and close one of your eyes.

And don't let me forget about weapon depth! Normally, when you hold a weapon, it recedes into the distance just fine and everything looks good. And when you look at a wall, you can feel how far away it is, and that's fine. But when the game devs are retards, which they usually are, things get messed up when you're too close to a wall (within a foot or two). They let you get so close that the end of your weapon is further away from you than the wall, but the two don't intersect, because they probably render your character differently from the rest of the 3D world, and then just overlay the two. This looks odd in 2D when your face is 6 inches from a wall but you're holding a sniper rifle 3 feet from your chest, but in 3D you can feel the depth of the two things and you know that the gun is further than the wall, but it feels wrong because the gun is clearly in front of the wall.

There are technical issues, too. The lenses of the glasses don't go to complete opacity, so you can see some faint ghosting from the other eye's image--especially noticeable when the scene has a lot of contrast. Because each lens is black half the time, you only get half the light at best, so the scene is twice as dark--you don't notice this terribly in some games, like L4D, but in really bright games it's odd to have a lot of stuff washed out and darker. The glasses make other things look weird, too--my laptop display seems to have a rainbow sheen on it, and my other desktop display and some other light sources appear to flicker and need to be turned off so as not to distract. And of course, after trying games at 120 fps, the mere 60 that you get for the glasses feels inadequate!

Even the display itself isn't the highest quality. It's a TN panel, which previously wouldn't have meant a whole lot to me, but I now realize is the reason that my two current widescreen displays look kinda crappy. TN panels are popular because they're cheap. The color reproduction and viewing angles aren't so great and the displays are a tad on the grainy side, extremely visible in the upper right corners.

Conclusions
But... don't ask me whether I'd get this or not if I knew what I know now. I can't yet make that call. I mean, the 3D effect is very cool, and I'm assuming that as I become more used to it and games better support it, it'll only become more immersive and useful. And even when I don't use the 3D effect ($200 in hardware) I can still enjoy the 120 fps that the display can put out ($400 in hardware).

What I will definitively say is that I fully intend to buy another 120 Hz display when they come out in larger sizes and higher qualities, to hell with price premiums. I forsee myself sinking a lot of money into graphics hardware to push games out at 1920x1200@120Hz in the future, ha. 3D stereoscopic vision is something I'll keep a close watch on, though I don't see myself buying another pair of glasses any time soon... the current ones work reasonably well, and for better or worse I own them.

In other news, my GTX 260s finally have to actually do work on a daily basis.