korolev

I've had some serious colds that have lasted many weeks. Apart from that nothing.  
 
Oh actually, I did have a problem - a congenital defect that needed to be corrected with surgery. But it wasn't serious, it was easily treated and I was too young to even remember the surgery, so I don't think it counts. 

It probably won't be "game of the year", purely because of when it was released. Game reviewers have to play a LOT of games - probably more than 40 to 50 a year if they're very hard working, 20-30 if they're not. But your average consumer like you or me, probably plays about 10 games a year if that. I've played maybe 5 totally new games this year, six if you count mine-craft - but that's more of an ongoing addictive crafting project than a game (Minecraft is still great, by the way, just not a game per say). For me, Mass Effect 2 is absolutely my game of the year, with Fallout New Vegas coming in second place. The memory of ME2 is still fresh in my mind, since I played the DLC.  
 
But consider how many different games a reviewer must play - the memory of ME2 is far back in the distance. And replaying it just makes one more aware of the bugs and flaws of that game (yes, it has bugs, yes it has flaws). They also know that a lot of consumers have also forgotten about ME2 over time, and will probably chew them out if they give it game of the year.  
 
I certainly expect it to make many "game of the year" lists but I don't expect it to win many, if any, awards at all. Maybe a few specialist awards like "best story" or "best soundtrack" (the OST of ME2 was awesome), and definitely best RPG. But I'm afraid it probably won't get Best Game simply because it's been a long time since it came out, and it has no Multiplayer.  
 
Sad but true.

They're useful SO LONG as you have a medical condition that can be treated by them. Many people who take them have no need to, or have been misdiagnosed.  
 
And they do have side-effects, although the seriousness of the side-effects varies from mild to dangerous, depending on the drug and the dosage. My father takes Serotonin daily - and it helped. He is noticeably and visibly happier now (no he isn't "jazzed" and "peppy", just back to how he used to be - happy). He takes very little and it appears to have no side-effects. It was absolutely necessary - as he got older, he got more depressed. His life circumstances didn't change, but he just started feeling blue. He tried many non-drug routes to get rid of the problem - none worked.  
 
I'm generally against drug use - although I recognize the importance of medical drugs, like anti-cancer drugs or anti-retroviral drugs, for treating medical diseases, it's my policy to examine whether or not I really need them. And sometimes I do. But I have noticed that some doctors (only a few bad apples) have tried to push uppers on me, when I had a case of insomnia and tiredness. In reality, all I needed was an adjustment to my sleeping cycle and less caffeine, but I got doctors trying to shove all kinds of pills down my throat. It's one thing to suggest pills to a patient who has a condition that needs them - but it's another to straight away jump to "here, take these" right out of the gate.  
 
My brother has had to take anti-depressants. In my opinion, he doesn't need them. He only takes them around his university exams, when he's stressed out. But he's only stressed because he doesn't study hard enough. It's cases like that which don't need anti-depressants.  
 
But of course, there are cases in which people DO need anti-depressants. People with genuine chemical imbalances in their head, which can't be treated by anything other than pills. I took a course in neurology when I was doing my under-grad - I've forgotten most of it, as it wasn't very useful to me, but I do recall learning that some cases of depression are more akin to a mental illness - receptors in the brain just don't work right no more, or certain chemicals just aren't secreted, or the vesicles containing the neurotransmitters across the synaptic gap just can't get reabsorbed. In those cases, there's nothing the sufferer can do except take medication.  
 
So anti-depressants are valuable and can improve people's lives and are a great addition to medicine in general. But some (few) unscrupulous doctors try to push pills to patients who don't need them. Some doctors have unfortunately, taken too much of a shine to anti-depressants, viewing every case as a case that needs medication. This leads to over-prescription, and over-use. Then there are some patients who have self-diagnosed themselves with depression and have lied to a doctor to get pills they don't need. There's even more people who decide not to listen to a doctor's advice and take more than is recommended. I've seen this happen as well - the patient starts off with a small dosage, but then starts getting worse over time. Rather than report back to the doctor to discuss an appropriate course of action, the patient decides to take more of the medication, which can lead to disaster.  
 
I'm not a doctor - although I did take medical courses and I keep up to date on medical advancements. I've read the papers and examined the studies. There are genuine cases of depression that warrant medication. There are genuine drugs that can help with those cases, and can make a positive impact. But there are also many cases that do NOT require medication, in which the drugs can make a decidedly less-than-positive impact. And just as there are drugs with mountains of stats and evidence to back up their effectiveness, there are some drugs whose studies I have read and found VERY questionable. Not every peer-reviewed paper can be treated with the same respect - I've seen a lot, and I mean a LOT of crap getting into some prominent journals. Usually these crap papers are proven wrong over the course of time and replaced with better studies. 
 
But just so you know - be wary. Accept anti-depressants if you need to, but also be a bit inquisitive. I'm not saying you shouldn't trust your doctor. I'm saying you shouldn't really trust some pharmaceutical companies. They can do good work, I know, but they're also motivated by profit. 

I was scared about the size of the universe. Funny thing to be scared of as a kid. I would spend nights thinking about how huge the universe was, and it terrified me. 
 
Another thing was the length of eternity. At that time I didn't know that the universe hadn't been around forever, so I was thinking about how long an eternal lifespan would last, and how horrible it would be to live for an infinite period of time. Not a billion years, not a trillion years - but FOREVER.
 
I was about 9 years old at the time, and I don't really understand the existential dread that afflicted me. Now, I marvel at the size of the universe and I would jump at the chance for biological immortality. Maybe my 9 year old self was... wiser.

There are no known black holes anywhere near Earth. Granted, being completely black, they aren't easy to detect - but so far, there doesn't appear to be any threat of any black holes to Earth. The sun is not nearly massive enough to form a black hole after it runs out of fuel.  
 
If (somehow) a black hole managed to get near Earth, it would depend on the size of the blackhole and how close it passes us by. If we don't fall into the event horizon, nothing happens. If we do cross the Event horizon, you'd be dead without even knowing it.  
 
In any case, there's no point in worrying about it. It's far more sensible to worry about things like meteor strikes that could definitely occur.

It's a tough market. I live in Brisbane - didn't know these guys, but they were pretty much the only relatively big developer we had. Krome made some decent games - Viva Pinata Party animals for one, and they ported Force Unleashed (hey, I said decent not good ). This doesn't surprise me - they were in trouble since last year, and have always struggled with investment. I suppose after the dismal reviews of "Blade Kitten", the rest of the investors decided to take their chances elsewhere. 
 
I think there were many people who were somewhat capable at Krome Studios. Viva Pinata Party Animals wasn't...... bad. True, for the past few years, they've mostly been doing ports, but Gearbox started out the same way. I suppose they've gone the way of the Tassie Tiger after all, eh? Farewell, Krome. You were the one trick pony of Brisbane. Now we've got no pony, no tricks, and now no game room, barring anyone stepping in to save it. 

Well, as long as they give us the option of playing it with a controller, then that's fine. If they get the fundamentals down, they can be as experimental with the motion controls as they want to be.

I didn't even know it was launched!

Bah - you can't justify what the Taliban have done to the Afghan people. Yes they aren't demons, no one is a demon - the Taliban are made up of people. They're just very bad people. Go read a list of what the Taliban banned when they controlled the majority of Afghanistan (they never controlled all of it) - they banned music, they banned kites, they banned plastic bags, they banned women's education, they banned all other religions, they banned and they banned and they banned. Most Afghans HATED the Taliban, and the Taliban weren't even Afghan! They were originally from Pakistan, and most of the Taliban leaders are not native Afghan people.   
 
Yes they aren't demons. They're just evil people who are fighting for a medieval patriarchal society in which women have no rights at all. Say what you will about the West, Anwar, but we allow our girls to go to school. The Taliban didn't. We allow women to divorce their husbands and retain property. The Taliban didn't. We allow people to listen to MUSIC. The Taliban didn't. We allow gay people to live. The Taliban didn't.
 
Renaming the Taliban to "Opposing Force"?  I don't like it either by the way.