until I'm free. This "No Child Left Behind Act" really made high school rather boring for me. Actually, I learned quite a bit of useful stuff in chemistry last year. But as for the rest of it, I went ahead and taught myself calculus (or at least, got a good head start on it; I can do limits, derivatives, and integrals now).

[tangent]I plan on taking more AP classes next year. Couldn't this year because we can't afford the ridiculous $90 per AP class. Was able to afford one, though: AP German. It's my fourth year of it. I'm also starting French this year.[/tangent]

I agree. This is just another reason for me to play only FOSS games. (Well, I like X-Plane and some older EA games, too.)

I agree 100% with you. You should have a license before being able to drive a car because you can easily hurt someone else if you're incompetent. With a computer, you can only hurt yourself (unless you're throwing it at someone). You have to be more than competent to hurt someone else through the internet (emotions caused by insults don't count, I'm talking hacking). Nothing you can do in the way of violating users' privacy will stop hacking.

I use my 1GB Attache flash drive for general use, but my 4GB microSD (which I use for music in my Sansa C250 (w/ RockBox)) is currently holding more than my Attache ever will.

Having always been of the curious sort who likes maps, I've never had a problem reading one or following one. That is, if I can't just plot it in my head, which I can do a lot of as long as I know where everything is (home state, max). The amount of people who can't find north never ceases to astound me. Hell, the amount of people who think Polaris is the brightest star in the sky never ceases to astound me either.

Especially since I got my neodymium magnets from United Nuclear!

I think it depends on the type of game. For FPS games, where you "are" the character, graphics really help with the feeling of immersion. For simpler RPG games, graphics are less important and the storyline becomes more important. For more complex RPG games, where exploration of the virtual world is big on the agenda (like RuneScape and WOW), graphics are a larger part of the experience than simple RPGs like Pokemon. Then there are the strategy games, like Freeciv, which depend on one's own experience and playing style to deliver a pleasant gaming experience. Of course, we can't forget older games (e.g. Super Mario Bros, Need For Speed II, Pacman), in which the fun is in the familiarity. For someone born recently who didn't grow up in a Super Mario Bros household, the original Super Mario might seem to suck because of its crappy graphics. But someone who grew up with Super Mario Bros would still enjoy it today due to that feeling of nostalgia and familiarity. Personally, I still prefer the older Need For Speed games over the new ones. Because I grew up with them, I feel more comfortable with their familiar appearance and gameplay, despite their crappy graphics (compared to today's standards).