taste_buds
Holidays provide a built-in excuse for indulgent entertaining. This all-purpose foodie community covers everything from homemade hangover cures to dinner party menus. Need quick advice? Get five-minute snack suggestions, low-fat ingredient substitutes, and even measurement conversions. Delicious recipes garnished with humorous advice. Yum.

naturesbeauty
Always on the lookout for compelling images, we were delighted to discover this flourishing community of artists who share a love of nature. Honoring the subject with photographs, paintings, sketches, prose, poetry, and other creative works, you'll be simultaneously riveted to your monitor and inspired to run helter skelter towards the nearest wooded dale.

To whom it may concern,

I've started a community, jrpgs_and_wrpgs, dedicated to the discussion of computer and console role-playing games, both of Japanese and Western origin. This is a really niche genre, and a lot of people who play these games prefer to play mainly these games exclusively. Due to the nature of these games, they can be quite addictive, engrossing, and the object of much obsession. Furthermore, there is no community on LiveJournal dedicated strictly to them. Almost all "RPG communities" on LiveJournal are fan fiction exercises, 'RPing,' collections of Final Fantasy icons, or general fangirl/boyism around a single franchise. There is no real discussion about these games going on, and there very well could and should be. This community is yet a seed, but if you like the idea, I encourage you to join, to encourage all your friends who would like it to join, and for all of us to contribute RPG related reading and discussion. That there is nothing like this currently on LJ is good reason that it could be successful, and it will be if we want it to be. I've been on LJ consistently since 2002, so your moderator will be here to stay, as will this community with your help. Furthermore, I can promise you that I am no control freak, will only mandate enough to keep order and productivity in the community, and will otherwise not be a tight ass, anal retentive fascist with a bunch of silly rules and a god complex. So, if you play JRPGs or WRPGs, please come on over, join, and start posting immediately about whatever RPG-related business your heart desires. I'm eager to find my peers in this.

xoxo,
Shane

(to be cross posted)

EDIT: Problem solved! Thanks so much to those that offered their help! ♥

Alright, so if anyone can help me, I will be pleasantly surprised and honestly grateful. I've been at this for such a long time now.

I've been playing a Japanese PC game called Ao Oni. It's a bit obscure so I don't blame you if you've never heard of it. But there's this safe I'm supposed to open and I cannot figure out the combination for the life of me. The safe requires 4 numbers to be entered, and 2 hints were given.

( Pictures under the cut )

i was reading an article about hip hop artist The Game and a tattoo he just got inked.

http://www.rap-up.com/2009/12/09/game-shows-loyalty-to-pharrell-with-tattoo/

the article later revealed a piece he is intending on getting. the piece is influenced by the evolution of video games.

backpacking
Want to embrace your wanderlust on the cheap? If you're tall on adventurous spirit, but short on funds, this community can help you plan a trip to anywhere. Offering plentiful tips on how to travel light, you can post about bargain hotels and hostels if you're into urban exploration or discuss camping gear and mosquito netting for the great outdoors. Hitch your backpack, pitch your tent, and carpe diem!

IT"S COMING!!!

GET HYPED!!!

( I didn't believe it myself... )

I wanted to give a plug to a couple of games I've been playing a lot of, lately:

Dungeons & Dragons Online, which is pretty much what it sounds like, and

Combat Arms, a modern squad combat game - reminds me a lot of Wolfenstein or Battlefield, if you played either of those.

Both are totally free to play, and perfect for a casual gamer who doesn't want to plunk down a monthly fee to level their WoW character to 60, and wants to just hop in for an hour or two and then leave it for a couple of days. You can purchase upgrades and customizations, but they're not required to play, and you can still level along quite nicely without them. They've also stated that purchased items won't impact game balance, and so far I believe them.

Anybody playing any other free-to-play games that are worth their salt?

I need Ps3 game recommendations. Please actually read the post before naming off hundreds of recommendations. I want you guys to seriously try to help find me games I'd be interested in.

( Venture foreward... )

**FINAL EDIT Thu Dec 10 02:15:47 UTC 2009**

So there is the final update... Over the past day we have processed around 11 million jobs out of the 12 million that were in queue at that time. Please bear in mind that over this past day, more jobs for notifications are also created. So while the queue has been dropping, we are still not fully caught up at this point, due to backlog and new jobs. We have roughly 3 million jobs still pending that involve the notification system in some manner. We had hoped we could have fully cleared the queue in a day, but unfortunately we can't clear it too quickly, since we need the rest of the site to operate normally. From our current perspective on the amount of jobs that are left in queue, and how many it has processed thus far, we believe it will take around another 8 - 12 hours to process everything.

And finally some answers to some questions:

( Read More and Get Some Answers... )

freeskiers
While some of us long to escape the cold, dark stretch of winter for hot tropical beaches, for others, there's nothing quite like whoooooshing down those shimmering sugar alps. If you're fond of freestyle skiing, get ready to slide down the slippery slopes in good company. This passionate, international community shares travel/gear tips, anecdotes, photos, and videos for those who can't get enough of the sweet stuff.

seasonal_icons
Need some extra twinkle to decorate your place? Check out these dazzling holiday-themed icons. If you're an artist, you can post your own creations, provided you abide by the simple rules (which is to say, all cheer and no politicking). Be sure to comment and give credit if you wish to borrow a little spirit (no direct links, please). If you're feeling a touch of humbug this season, this is an instant shot of festivity.

handmade_gifts
High on creativity, but low on cash? You'll find tons of brilliant suggestions for do-it-yourself crafts sure to please everyone on your holiday gift list. Offering detailed instructions, photos, budgets, timelines, and active support, you'll soon turn spare remnants of fabric and time into cherished keepsakes. Be sure to search entries and read user guidelines before you post for help!

12/7/2009

Safecracker: The Ultimate Puzzle Adventure (DS) [Google It]
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS) [Google It]
Wii Nerf Switch Shot with Red Reveal (Wii) [Google It]
Yoga (Wii) [Google It]

12/8/2009

Avatar (PSP) [Google It]
Bookworm (DS) [Google It]
Chronicles of Mystery: The Tree of Life (PC) [Google It]
Dirt 2 (PC) [Google It]
Puzzler World (DS) [Google It]
SIlent Hll: Shattered Memories (Wii) [Google It]
Salon Superstar (DS) [Google It]
The Saboteur (360, PS3, PC) [Google It]

So I'm jonesing to play some old school NES cartridgey goodness but my NES died a couple of weeks ago. I've google-fu'd and can't seem to find an NES clone with a light zapper that works with a flat screen tv. Has anyone heard of a clone that has an hdtv lcd/flatscreen compat zapper?

Oh, and Ebay and Craig's list aren't and option. I'd love another NES but I've had so many die over the years and better conditioned systems seem to be going for collector's prices.

Is anyone else taking Demon's Souls way too personally? Like, "Okay I've seriously died about fifteen times in an hour, I'm going to fuck you with a rake when I finally make it?"

PS: Don't get this game if you're a controller tosser.

**EDIT Thu Dec 3 23:24:15 UTC 2009 **

Hey Everyone, we are about to run the last alter job that we need to on our database servers. This will effect userpics / scrapbook / vgift images for the next few hours. Have no fear, your images aren't lost, there is just a really intensive process running on the servers which store the information for mogilefs. Thank you for your understanding and all the LJ love...

Hey LJers,

I just wanted to let you all know that we are going to be performing some mogilefs maintenance over the next few days. We will be upgrading our current version to latest stable as well as changing some db config information to better handle the amount of files we are currently hosting. This shouldn't cause a big impact on site stability, but you may see some minor delays with userpic / scrapbook images appearing or other requests associated with our mogilefs. We would love to not have that happen, but unfortunately with some of the steps we need to take we have to cause a delay with images. I figured this was a better solution than taking down all of LiveJournal because well lets face it, we all need our daily LJ fix ;)

Thanks,

Hey everybody. I'm conducting research about gaming genres and how graphics effect the experiences of games, and I have created this questionnaire to gather some answers.
Please fill the questionnaire in with at least some detail, it will help me immensly with my research :)

The questionnaire is behind this cut, thanks in advance :)

( To the questionnaire! )

Thank you for filling this questionnaire in.

( Cut for pictures )( Read more... )</span>