If you can do any electives related to Quality or Validation and Verification I'd recommend taking them too. After I graduated with a BSc in CS about 8 years ago I spent about 3 years working 12 hour days and doing courses in C#, .Net etc in what little spare time I had left. It was just expected that you keep your skills up to date and worked whatever unreasonable hours projects required. Some people I know live and breathe computers but I couldn't handle the stress and pressure and took up a Validation Engineer role, I haven't looked back since. I still use all the skills I learned in CS but these days I arrive for work at about 10 and leave for home at 18:30, I can have a life outside of work. The skills you'll learn in CS will give you great opportunities and I wish you every success with it.

I don't understand the tax situation in the States, if someone is earning $8.25 an hour is that after income tax? From the sample budget the person has a take home pay of $2060, does that mean that they'd have to actually earn closer to $2500 to take home that amount or am I missing something? From the sample budget it looks like the person worked a 300 hour month to me, or close to a 75 hour week. If that's how much you're working and you are only getting by then there is something seriously wrong.

If you're using it solely for gaming(not everyday tv viewing) I'd recommend getting an Optoma GT750 projector instead of a tv. I bought mine about a year ago for 600 with one pair of 3d glasses included. The PQ might not be up to your standard(it's only 1080i) but I have it in my living room for when friends call over and the only way I could get a bigger screen is if I buy a bigger house. Bulb life is limited at about 4000 hours so that's something to be aware of but when my buddies call over to watch a movie or play some FIFA it gets nothing but compliments. Your budget is quite good though so you might find a fantastic tv for the price.

EDIT: forgot to mention there is no input lag so that might be an incentive.

I wear a watch all the time, it can be a bit annoying when someone notices you like to wear a watch and buys you one as a gift. I think they're a very personal item and even when someone knows me well it's impossible to pick out something I'd want to wear every single day. It usually takes me a long time to find one I like but I've had the one below for about a year now. It's impossible to see in the dark which is a bit of a pain(if I wake up in the middle of the night I check my phone) but I like the minimalist style, hopefully it'll keep going for another few years before I have to find a new piece.

Midnight Sting is a really good boxing movie with some nicely choreographed fights, I watch it every couple of years and I always enjoy it. Rocky from the list, it's an enjoyable show and even the bad sequels are worth a watch for the unintentional comedy.

Hows the battery life?:P I mean, I buy a phone to actually USE it as a damn phone first and foremost.:P

sanim02

Have to agree with this. It annoys me to have to charge the iPhone 4 twice a day, if I had, what admittably looks like a great gaming machine built into my phone I'd imagine the battery life would be almost unusably bad. Until companies start to dedicate more resources to improving this aspect of devices I'm going to live without it. The alternative option would be to make devices bulkier and less cosmetically appealing but then I probably wouldn't want that either.

I have to agree with the TC on this one. I had a few buddies around last weekend to play a bit of GT5 but the mandatory updates just got in the way. We watched a movie, played some wii bowling and some Forza while the updates were downloading. Eventually, it was well over three hours after we started the process, one of my friends went home and got his ps3 which had downloaded the update earlier. I don't remember exactly how big the download was, my internet connection is nowhere near 32mb/sec and I'm not sure it took 5 hours but I want a console so I can pick up and play games when I want to play them. Just like the TC I enjoy my ps3 but when I have to wait upwards of 3 hours just to play a quick game it irritates me.

I really enjoyed "House of Leaves" by Mark Z Danielewski and have seen it's influence in a few games, notably an adventure game '5 days a stranger'. I've seen games almost entirely based off of "dice man" by Luke Rhinehart, a character that initiates his actions based on random rolls of a dice. I'd imagine books impact the developers of most games as storylines are plucked from other media.

Depends on how much the extended warranty costs but i'd get it if i were you. The optical drive can be dodgy, mine broke about a week out of warranty and a friends did too. Maybe I'm just unlucky, my ps2 is still running fine and i've had a few sony tv's that had fantastic build quality. For peace of mind if the price is reasonable I'd go for it.

I think the wii is the only essential console this generation. I own all 3 and my Ps3's blu ray drive hasn't worked since January. I haven't gotten it fixed yet because I can play similar games on my xbox. When my xbox had RROD I didn't get that fixed for a few months either. Games like trauma center and PES give a unique experience which can only be found on the wii. I've played Konami soccer games since International Superstar Soccer in the arcades and I can honestly say PesWii is the best simulation I have ever played. People who have decided to not play the wii because it's considered 'kiddie', because the graphics aren't going to make their eyes bleed or because not even a single one of the many excellent games mentioned in the opening post appeal to them are missing out.