My new letter to chris thus far:

Hey Chris,

Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote, I keep meaning to write when I’m at work, but a lot of times I forget. To kick this off I’ll update you on the cool movies and games. As you should probably expect, this is all out of order by now.

I’m glad you enjoyed The Aviator, when you mention it as a look into TWA, it is very interesting, but as a movie, I found it pretty dull and dragging, and Leonardo’s acting to be a little over the top. The movie was too focused on him. The end also dragged a lot.

Sin City came out a few weeks ago and we all went to go see that, even Justin showed up for it. The feelings about the movie were very mixed, and a few people said afterward that they were tempted to walk out. I can guess who they were, but I’m not saying. It was a pretty enjoyable movie. I didn’t think I’d ever like anything so bad in my life. The acting was horrible, the direction overdramatic, and the dialog was a linguophile’s nightmare. I was assaulted by insanely over the top analogies, such as, “I felt like a palsy victim trying to perform brain surgery with a baseball bat.” How beautiful is that?

There was this one scene that was particularly horrible with a group of hookers dressed in the funniest costumes standing up on the rooftops firing down onto a group of mobsters. It was so incredible; they did not even try to pretend like they were actually shooting the weapons. It was like watching four year olds gunfight.

There were a couple of great parts involving a couple of thugs who showed up during Bruce Willis’ part of the film. They spoke sort of like Shakespearean actors, and it was genuinely funny to listen to them banter. I really cannot stress enough how horribly bad the whole movie is, and how it is not in the least an example of good directing, or writing, or anything. All in all though, it was the fact that it was so horribly bad that I enjoyed it. It was the best comedy of the year. I laughed quite a bit. Mike said he couldn’t decide if he really liked it or if he really hated it. Later on he decided that he really hated it, but then, that’s Mike for you. I think that even amid all the junk in the movie, there were a few good scenes.

Maybe I just liked the movie a lot more because we got in for free, since Mike’s friend was working there. We also saw Robots recently, the movie with Robin Williams and a few other people in it. That was pretty enjoyable, it had heart, and it had some really good, really funny parts. I found myself to be the only one in the entire theater laughing at certain parts of the movie. It just warmed my heart to see Robin Williams in a back alley stealing shoes (feet). Brought back fond memories of the Fisher King. The acting was really decent, but the film had several parts where it suffered from low quality rendering. It was fuzzy at those parts and painful to the eyes, during the opening credits was the worst bit. Other parts were rendered so well, I could almost have been told it was claymation. It was really on the list of the most enjoyable movies I had seen this year.

Just last week, though, we went to see the movie Sahara. I do not know if you have seen any previews for it. I think it likely that you have seen one preview, even if you do not remember it. It is based on an adventure novel character and one of his adventures in the Sahara dessert, tracking down the Merrimac, I think. It was one of the two ironclads that were built during the civil war. I really loved this movie; there was tons of action, lots of great one-liners. It had Steve Zahn in it as one of the main characters, if you remember him from Happy Texas. “The light is green!”

Really, as soon as you can, you have to see this movie; it is at least as good as National Treasure is. Be warned, it is also at least as cheesy. But I do like cheese, in the right quantities. This is another one that just about everyone went to go see, before we had a grill the next day.

I saw Constantine, had to look up the old letter to see if I had seen it, or not when I wrote you last. I probably saw it the weekend right afterwards. It was very, very cool. In the same vein as Sahara, you did not necessarily want to think about everything that you were watching, but it was lots of great fun, and action, with a twist of some horror just for shits and giggles. When you see it, stay for the ending credits, because a lot of people missed the last little bit that is tagged onto the end of the movie. It is not a wonderful addition to the experience, but it certainly is a nice touch and reward for people who watch the credits of a movie. Sometimes, I’ll do it just to learn the name of music from a film.

Those were the major releases over the past month, but coming up over the next thirty days or so we can look forward to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, and Episode III. They both look like they are going to be really good. The only thing that irritates me about Hitchhiker’s Guide is that it is like Zaphod’s second head is under his neck or something weird like that.

As far as Episode III is concerned, there is a lot of evidence that it is going to kick butt from beginning to end. First thing, we started downloading an episode at a time of the new cartoon from Cartoon Network of the Clone Wars. They were very cool, after that we went to Blockbuster and bought a copy of the DVD of the first season. It was the single best 69 minutes of Star Wars since Return of the Jedi. All in all, we have about 2 hours worth of cartoons.

Recent DVDs include Ghost Dog and Escape From L.A. Ghost dog was an incredible movie. Well, incredible may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it was indeed very cool. I highly recommend checking it out if you ever get the chance. It is about a hit man who lives by the samurai code and works for the Italian Mafia. Every time I think of the Mafia, I think of the game Mafia, which was a great game. Anyway, it has a sad ending, but an appropriate ending. Escape From LA was pretty much just vapid. It was fun in a way, but not in the same way that Sahara was thoughtlessly fun. I guess even brain dead movies have come a long way in their time. I also got a copy of Hook, which we all watched at the last grill I threw.

The Clone Wars takes place right after the second movie, and has some really awesome action sequences. In fact, it is almost all action sequences. It has both Yoda and Mace Windu kicking butt, and is full of wonderful character development scenes between Obi Wan, and Anakin. It is actually very interesting, you wont see Anakin actually become a Jedi Knight, as that happens in the cartoon between Episode II and Episode III during the second season. It is an absolute must watch. Before Episode III comes out if at all possible. We were in for an extra treat because the DVD came with a playable demo of the Xbox version of Republic Commando.

After playing it, George immediately went out and bought the game. I thought it was just okay, and I had several other games up my sleeve to finish before I even gave it a shot. Actually, the sad thing is that I am replaying Doom 3 right now, and I am not even interested in buying the expansion pack that just came out. The amount of RAM I bought right before you left actually got my machine up to playing Doom 3 on Ultra High settings at 1600x1200. I had always suspected my RAM was the biggest bottleneck on my system at the time, now it is confirmed.

Also, speaking of Doom 3, the movie comes out October 21st, and The Rock will be playing the generic Doom marine. Wow, this movie is going to be really bad. I think it will be amazing to see just exactly how bad it gets. As has been said before, the movie only needed two things to qualify as Doom, to take place on Mars, and to involve demons invading. They already fail on both counts, as they have said it will take place on a bizarrely distant planet and will involve mutants. I believe I have mentioned this before.

Really big news, the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 2 will be revealed on the 16th, and Microsoft at least will be showing off the Xbox 2 on MTV before they show it off anywhere else. Wow, what a waste of money. That’s a big negative, big, big negative for the Xbox 2. I mean, I will read about it the next day, but there is no way I am going to watch MTV just to see that. I avoid that channel on principle now. Besides, I would bet money that the people who do watch it will be treated to about 3 minutes tops of actual relevant Xbox footage, and twenty seven to fifty seven minutes, depending on whether it is thirty minutes or an hour, of xTreme footage of teenagers having lots of fun and drinking, or whatever they do on MTV now.

Sony had originally cancelled their pre-E3 showing of the Playstation 3, but when Microsoft announced they were showing on the 16th, Sony popped out and said they would be showing off 3 hours earlier. They are doing this, just for the shits and giggles of being first. How nice of them.

If you did not already know that we were waiting for Conker: Live and Reloaded for the Xbox, well, you do now. It also comes with a nice treat, though. Rare is updating the original, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, an extremely funny platformer, with Xbox quality graphics and releasing it for free with Conker: Live and Reloaded. Jade Empire is the game I’m waiting hardcore for, right at this very moment. I have already bought it from ebgames.com and it was just shipped yesterday, so I should have it by the beginning of next week or something. It is such a pain in the ass to wait for something that I know I can walk into any store and pick up right now.

I have heard from reviews that it is shorter than the average RPG, and that it is not up to Bioware standards, but that it is still really good. I am very hard up to play it and then sell my Xbox, because if it doesn’t just make my Xbox totally worth owning, then there is not anything that does. Even if Fable were worth keeping my Xbox for, it is coming out for the PC now. Ninja Gaiden is the only thing that seems to be remotely worth it. However, I have played that to death, and I do not plan on getting Xbox-live just so that I can download the expansion packs for it.

On the PC, Call of Cthulhu has been pushed back again, along with STALKER: Shadows of Chernobyl. The way those are looking, you might very well be back home from the army permanently before they hit store shelves. I mean, how long has Dark Corners of the Earth been delayed? It has been at least three years so far; I do not see what is stopping them for going for the record of another three. Okay, that is a bit extreme, you and I both already know that as long as Duke Nukem is around, no game will ever beat it for the prize of longest delayed. I’d almost like to see Duke Nukem Forever come out just for the hell of it.

The longer the game is delayed over time, the less likely it is to be worth the wait, as eventually a point is reached where simply too much time for any game to be worth waiting for is breached. A couple of other games are actually coming out very soon that intrigue me. One is called Psychonauts, which is basically a platformer with and adventure game styled story. It will be kind of like Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, only good and without the annoying mini games.

The other is Area 51, which you might have seen a preview for; it looks to have been heavily inspired by Half Life, even though its heritage is from the old arcade shooter, Area 51. I have seen several videos for it, and it is looking like tons of fun; it just shipped to the factory today, and should be here in a couple of weeks. I always love hearing when a game has gone golden.



Midway's infectious shooter conspires for its April 25 release on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
The truth is almost out there. Midway today announced that Area 51 for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 has gone gold and will be arriving on store shelves April 25. The first-person shooter with sci-fi flavor was developed by Midway's Austin studio, the team that brought The Hobbit to multiple platforms back in late 2003.
Based on the high-security military facility of the same name, Area 51 throws gamers into a potential global crisis. A distress signal from the top secret institution warns the US Army of a viral outbreak, forcing the government to send in the hazardous materials division of the Special Forces to sort things out. As Ethan Cole, leader of the deployed squad, gamers will discover a mind-controlling parasite, an underground alien colony, and enough conspiracies to astonish even the most backwoods yahoo.
Cole will be outfitted with standard issue ammunition at the onset of the game but will eventually have access to alien artillery and some psionic powers to blast infected Area 51 employees and some not-too-friendly ETs.
Midway even signed on some Hollywood voice talent to bring the game's characters to life. David Duchovny, The X-Files' Fox Mulder, exchanges his truth-hunting snooping for high-grade firearms as Ethan Cole. Powers Booth, most recently featured in Sin City and HBO's Deadwood, will voice Major Bridges. Rounding out the cast is goth-rocker Marilyn Manson, appropriately cast as Edgar, an alien who befriends Cole.
A PC version of Area 51 is also in the works, but Midway made no mention of it in its statement today. The PC version is scheduled to ship alongside the console versions.
Area 51 is rated "M" for Mature and retails for $49.99. To uncover more of Area 51's truths, check out GameSpot's previous coverage, including a recent preview of the game.



Well, that should be pretty cool, and I cannot wait to give it a try. Other than that, there is not much news on the gaming front, except that I beat Freedom Force, finally after owning it for years, and its sequel, Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich. I played through the first because I bought the second. Fortunately, I did not experience another Baldur’s Gate tragedy in which the first game was totally inconsequential.

I even wrote a review, which I will print out along with this letter and my novel, anything to give you a little more reading material. George also bought a copy of Evil Genius. As it happens, this is a VERY cool game. It is very much like a version of Dungeon Keeper that totally rocks even harder in every conceivable way, except for the music. But then, it never really had much of a chance considering the music from the original Dungeon Keeper was so incredibly awesome.

I really could go on for pages and pages about just games, but that would get pretty boring, and if it didn’t, that would mean you are as pathetic as I am. Besides, if I keep talking about them, I’ll forget about all of the other extremely cool things that have happened this month.

Where to start... Okay... well, on the Friday that we were leaving to go camping after I got up at 6 am and had a TON of work at work. Something like 6 samples that I had to run tests on of the nastiest stuff I have ever worked with came in, and I was insanely busy before I could leave work early, I had arranged to work the morning shift that day. Although, I think that if I hadn’t I would have had to test all 6 samples, because normally, Larry doesn’t do squat if he collects the samples in the morning. As it is, I was able to leave him 3.

I got home at 1...I called George and he said he couldn't come over for another hour... he didn't get over till 3:30 because he was fixing Jennifer's computer.... Man am I lucky she couldn’t come, because then I wouldn’t have had a tent at all... Turns out George totally forgot to bring a tent for me, not that he had any more after he promised his other one away to someone else. So I had to share with George, no biggie, I think I would have thrown a fit if he had brought Jennifer along and tried to just make me sleep in the van...

So, George showed up late, took me to AutoZone to buy a starter for my truck then to NTB to get all the repairs going to get done over the weekend. Then we go to George's house to get equipment, then to mine, I forgot my peppers to cook for my chicken, but that ended up not mattering, as you'll see later. Then we hit the grocery store where I bought a few peppers to replace it with, then we showed up at Marcia's house at 5:45… about an hour late, or so. After that we got up and left.

I had fun on the drive... Mike was grumpy but me and George had fun, we listened to some insane ultra conservative talk radio, Michael Savage... the guy is funny, it's like he has tourette's the way he suddenly starts yelling out the words "liberal nazis" and "rats, you vermin, you less than human scum!"

Anyway, after we lost that station we switched to some good music and I napped... I needed it... So after we got there, Mike was bitching about how we were really annoying, and everyone was setting up their tent and Marcia told ME that I wasn't on anyone's happy list because George and I were late. I felt like I should have just stayed home right at that moment, and left those jerks to enjoy their weekend. I had my truck to worry about not working and spending about 150$ to get running by Monday. I bit my tongue and didn't say anything though.

Everyone set up their tents and things got better after we started playing a fun game with a little electronic hot potato type thing where you have to get people to say the word it tells you before you can pass it off. Then, we all went to bed kind of early after we played some card games and chatted for a bit. It was pretty cold and uncomfy, but Marcia and Kayla loaned me a sheet and a blanket and that helped a lot. The next morning I didn't get up till 11, and the first thing we did was split up, some of us went for a walk and some of us went to the grocery store to pick up the last couple of things we needed, an O ring for George’s propane stove, and some charcoal to cook with.

Heather prepped her kabobs before we left and I made my orange sauce when we got back and played hackey sack with Mike and Jackson and a friend of Marcia's who had stopped by to hang out with us on Saturday who left fairly early on. The weather started out really nice, but by 5 we started hearing thunder in the distance.

Turns out Heather didn't know how to use the grill very well and asked me to do the actual grilling of her kabobs, and I was fine with that, I just love cooking, so I start with those and everyone loves them, they have kick and all kinds of peppers, and onions and everything. They're just really good kabobs.

By the time they’re finishing, George is doing his salmon, but he can never get his coals to start up right, and I'm starting my chicken, but it's starting to rain and everyone but George and I run into Jackson and Marcia's tent.

Well, the worst of the rain was about 30 minutes; George and I weathered it out under the small pavilion we set up the evening before. I never even flinch at the thought of leaving my orange chicken to run and hide from the rain in the tent, George is in his poncho propping up the pole to the pavilion, telling me he hopes it holds and isn't blown away and rain is coming in at an angle.

George's salmon didn't come out well and the peppers never roasted, but I weathered the storm beneath the pavilion with the coolers by my side hunched over the mini grill as I carefully prepared each individual piece of chicken and set it aside in the tin foil just about the time that Heather, Mike, and Kayla left Jackson and Marcia’s tent and walked out to hang with George and I.

They liked the chicken even though I couldn’t finish it and serve it right, it had perfect grill lines all across every piece and a wonderful orange flavor and even Jackson and Marcia came out to hang with us. We talked and we cleared off and sat on the coolers and we sang songs as the ground got muddy and soaked our feet, we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. Stayed up till midnight talking and sharing stories too.

It was great, but by the time to go to sleep it was just to wet and muddy for me to get to sleep, so when everyone else was gone I used a pot for a foot rest for my bare feet and sat my socks on top of the propane lantern to heat them dry and pressed my shoes on it and basically just sat there barefoot with my pants rolled up like a big ol' Huck fin.

After that, I finally got some rest, though I didn't sleep a wink.

I got up at 7 in the morning to use the restroom and got back and laid back down as things started to warm up and George, the boy scout, was still sleeping but I hear him grumble and so I asked if it was time to rise and shine and make pancakes.

He said something that made it pretty clear that it wasn't.

He's a boy scout, so he was up long before me, at 10 in the morning. I can't even imagine waking up that early, but then, he was a boy scout.

At 11 I finally got up and by that time he was trying to make pancakes, but he had forgotten to oil the pan, or I don't know what and they were sticking. I tried my hand at it, oil didn't help at all but then I put a pad of butter in the pan and the pancakes started coming out GREAT. But everyone was already mostly full by that point. I made all the pancakes, and then there was lots of batter left so I asked if I should just make them all and keep them, or what.

Someone said, use it all at once and make a giant pancake cake.

Being the impressionable youth that I am, I did. Covered 97% of the skillet.

It was clear no one thought I would be able to flip such a pancake of the gods. Even I was doubtful, but after working it clear of the skillet, and with all gathered around to watch me fail I made the flip perfectly without even folding the cake. After the pancake was done, I put it onto one of those paper plates, and it was just exactly the right size.


I poured honey and put some butter onto it, then folded it into a pancake burrito in order to eat it. After that we spent the rest of the day cleaning up trash and packing before heading home.

I spent most of that night just relaxing in front of the computer with the Internet out, and just watching TV and reading Huck Finn for school. And that morning before work I got my truck from NTB with the new starter, and after the oil change it ran better than it had since I changed the transmission. And that, my friend, was one insane weekend.

As far as my grilling goes, I have gotten much, much better. I have been drifting quite a bit as far as my cooking skill goes, but that little competition pushed me to really start trying new things, and now I can really put out some food fast, instead of just making the same stuff all the time. I think I might genuinely be switching from normal charcoal to hardwood charcoal with wood chips. They’re easier to add more on top, they light faster, they don’t burn as long, but they burn more controlled, and I can always add wood chips whenever I need to, in order to add flavor with smoke.

When I talked about that orange chicken recipe, I worked on that solid for a week, cooking way more than I normally do, and having George there taste testing with me, and it does not include all of the work that went into recipes that did not make the cut. It really is an awesome recipe; you HAVE to try it when you get back down. I have also been spending a lot of time working on my chicken wings. I have also done quite a few recipes that are 100% new. Fresh roast garlic is one. I take an entire bulb of garlic, shell it and break it up, still keeping it together, then putting it in the middle of some aluminum foil before drizzling olive oil on top of it and sprinkling it with rosemary or even habanero too if I want to make it spicy, then wrapping it up and grilling it just like roast corn.

It end up coming out extremely soft, so soft that if you didn’t split it up, you would mash it out of its casing while you tried to separate the individual pieces from each other at the base.

Computer is messing up, i've decided to reformat and reinstall windows 2000. Got the XO tonight, along with some pear stuff. I like pears. Eating celery right now. Spent most of today playing games or sleeping or working on the document for the game that Mike and I are working on. Last night there was lots of heated debate over the ships and components that would be used inside of the game.

Spent last night going to sleep early for school, and then this morning taking a survey at school. I have a 0 stuck on my english grade list because I forgot to do the make up assignment over the weekend, and she wont do anything for me. Not killing my average, but that did kill my chance for an A on the entire course, I think. I'll probably pass with a medium to high B. Made an 87 on my working bibliography. My current average is 82, but if I made a 92 on my last paper, this next one is worth 20% of my grade and I can really kick its ass. Fixing the last of the mistakes I made in the last paper, a 97 or even a 100 will not be impossible. I already know exactly what to do to fix my bibliography, so that part is done. Plus I'll be able to meet with the teacher 2 days before hand and get a carefull overview. That grade is MINE. There might be a very small chance of a very low A for the class, but I'm not crossing my fingers.

Working on the game document today for Hard Rock 2150. I like the name, I want the game to be hard Sci Fi, and I really don't see mankind really populating the asteroid fields for another 100 years at least, so Hard, and I want the majority of it to take place in asteroid feilds, Rock 2150... that about covers it all. They'll probably veto it, but it's going to be the name in the document.

It's been a really busy weekend, however, at the same time, it's really late, so I'm only going to run down the very essentials.

On friday, I left straight from work and met Mike, Kevin, and Russel at Zio's for dinner. I had the pasta mediteranian, which was simply orgasmic. One of the best tasting meals I have had in a very long while. I embarrass people when I eat food that blows me away, I tend to moan, and roll my eyes up into my head, and.. well.. lets just say, I'm very expressive. After that, we met Jake at the movies, and went in to see Sahara. George, Justin, and Steve walked in after the previews were almost over. It was a really awesome movie, it was tons of fun. It wasn't deap, it didn't make me feel, but it was absolutely thrilling all the stuff that happened. Like straight out of an action novel... which it was.

Didn't do much after that, we all hung out at IHOP until 2am. That was a good day. Then, on saturday, I woke up late, and eventually went shopping with Mike at about 4 in the afternoon. We got hamburgers, and chicken wings, and chips, and everything else you need to have an awesome grill. And, the whole world didn't show up, but it was awesome. George, Kevin, Joe, Jake, Mike, Steve, Marcia, and Jackson were all able to make it, we watched movies, and I made awesome roast corn, and I roasted garlic straight up with olive oil and rosemary, leaving it very flavorful. I have decided that I really really like fresh roasted garlic and will cook it every single time, if only for myself, as it is no more difficult than roast corn.

I used wood chips mixed in with hard wood charcoal to cook with, and everything went smoother than it has gone in a long time. I have now learned to only light half of the coals I want to use, then add the other half after the coals are on the grill, so they catch while the food is cooking, the fire lasts much longer. The chicken wings were absolutely heavenly. Things went on till about midnight as things slowly dissipated, when Jake was the last one, and I burned him 2 cds worth of music off of my computer, which he very much enjoyed.

On Sunday, Justin and Cymeron stopped by, and I loaned them some games for Cymeron's new gamecube that she got for her birthday. They said they had a lousy time yesterday, which is sad. At least she got a gamecube out of it, but she would have gotten that anyway. Then I hung out at IHOP later that night, and Marcia pretty much called me an asshole.. maybe not literaly, but how else are you supposed to interpret it when someone tells you that your only motive for wanting to join in and participate in a game of cards is to make their game longer and less fun. On top of that she had previously accused me of playing crazy eights with an annoying strategy, I mean... wow. Almost enough to just never play another game of cards with her again, as she pretty clearly doesn't want me to.

So, I just said, whatever and went for a walk till about 12 or so, enjoying the evening, it was rather nice out, and it was kind enough not to rain on me. After that, off to home, and sleep. Felt good, though it was a little restless.

Anyway, I have to go to sleep now, I have school tomorrow. Good night all, and sleep well.

Today has been really nice and relaxing. I have a test I need to finish for intro to computers, and also some things to do for english. Sahara comes out today, and that should be really cool. I don't even remember what I wrote last night, but I did my taxes finally, and I should be getting 1200 some odd dollars in direct deposit which will be sooooo nice.... good bye student loans. I really hate having debt, especially delinquent debt. I should be able to pay off sally mae on a regular basis after this. Getting caught up will be the hardest part, but not so much anymore.

Obsidian Black
Like Glass it Gracefully Flows
It Reflects Me Well

Busy day, too busy to talk about it. Working hard on Space Game comp images, started working on full graphical comp for template page. Did grocery shopping last night, ate oatmeal and carrots and celery for today, and cheap microwaveable fajitas for dinner. It was a good day, did the school thing, got my paper back, got an A minus.

Sin City. I have never before seen a movie that was so enjoyable because it was so bad through and through. Cheese acting, cheese graphics, cheese line. The whole movie was pure cheese. But as it turns out, I like cheese. I love cheese. I laughed out loud at many of the parts of this movie and found myself thoroughly enjoying it.

It was extremely gory, and everyone who died, died pretty messily. This movie is not for kids, or teenagers, this is clearly an adult film. I would not have found myself pining for this movie were it never made, but it is good enough in its own way, with some genuinely good moments among all the terrible analogies and thick overdramatic moments in the flick.

Ghost Dog. A must see. This was a really beautiful movie with some very deep and interesting characters even though they were almost all flat characters. Flat characters can still have very much depth, they just don't change. There were so many really great scenes and interactions, I can imagine that it would have been possible to make the movie better in places with better writing, but as is, it is very very good.

I grilled on monday, that was fun, and I'm grilling again on friday, as well as looking forward to Sahara. I visited my mom last night, I was really really sad to hear that she broke her shoulder while she was camping in Oklahoma. I love her and I'm praying for her, she should be better in about 3 weeks.

I write game reviews:


Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich

Style: 100%
Sound Quality: 90%
Graphics Quality: 90%
Gameplay: 90%
Average Value: 95%
Final Value: 93% at 40$

Highs: Like its predecessor, it has a highly entertaining story that both mocks and revels in the golden age of comic book heroes and villains.

Lows: Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich achieves one of the greatest goals in all of gaming; there simply is not enough of it. It may only be the feeling left by a really great game, but at the end, you will more than likely be wanting more. There are some game elements that seem obvious, and yet are not there in the package, such as some form of co-op. The closest thing to co-op is team-based multiplayer, which, is not the same. It feels like there is more art carried over from Freedom Force than there is content developed specifically for this game.

RPG Fans: For a game with so many RPG elements, this is not an RPG by a long shot. It is, more fairly, a turn based strategy game. You might like it. You will more than likely love it. Just do not expect an RPG. Other than that, it does have lots of elements that you will more than appreciate.

Strategy Fans: This is squad-based strategy, with heavy role-playing elements. If you enjoyed Warcraft III, then you should enjoy this. Fun and fast paced, and if you have skills in RTS gaming, you’ll have an edge in multiplayer where there is no pausing.

Everyone Else: This is a good game, and it is worth every penny of what could now be considered the low price of 40. If you are not particularly fond of RPG or Strategy, then keep it in mind in case you see it floating in a bargain bin. It is easily worthy of giving a look as it has the quality of production that allows it to transcend genre appreciation.



Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich is a mouthful of a name, and a handful of a game. It begins shortly after the end of the original Freedom Force, re-living the bittersweet ending of the last mission before the adventure begins with foreshadowing of a twist to come. The overdramatic moments, and old style comic-bookish animation of the cut-scenes is a signature of what is now the Freedom Force series as opposed to a singular Freedom Force game. What makes it feel so great is that there is a feeling that glows from every cheesy moment that makes this idea that everything in Freedom Force is a true homage to childhood heroes, and dreams and comic book fantasies. Poking fun has never been done with so much love.

The plot is driven by all the same characters that you know and love from the original Freedom Force, if you have played it before, but you certainly do not need to in order to appreciate the story of this one. Most of the characters are completely reverted to their starting Freedom Force statistics, though some of them come with a few upgrades that make them a little easier to play with in the single player game. In addition to this, a great many of the characters will need to be earned back and recruited using prestige which is earned during the missions. Thankfully, prestige is much easier to come by, making it very possible to recruit, at the very least, your favorite squad members from last game.

All the characters that drive the plot, plus all of the new characters that are built into the game are available, for the most part, and along with all of the original Secret Origin scenes from the original game, every new character that is part of the plot has a Secret Origin cut scene, building upon the base content rather than just filling out totally new content. This is not a bad thing, because there is still an awful lot of new content, it is arguably a very good thing as far as user mod development goes, allowing for much more pre-made content from which to build custom comic books.

Character creation is very deep, allowing for massive customization of each attack, a host of super powers and flaws to choose from, as well as a list of stats that should be carefully balanced before use. When working with a prestige limit tweaking becomes compulsive, and you will find yourself building teams in order to round out the powers for multiplayer. The rumble room is another nice addition to FFvtTR. It lets you arrange battles of varying sizes and difficulties with which to experiment and often simply kick loads of butt.

Multiplayer is solidly filled out with plenty of modes for various competitive games. These include arena, and deathmatch modes along with their team based counterparts as well several others and story based mode. Story modes are ultimately a list of the exact same game types, but you get to type in a description to the match that gives it a “purpose”. Story mode also lets the host preset the player’s teams to add a unifying orientation to them, such as all bad characters and all good characters.

With all the testing we did of the multiplayer, which was intensely fun, we found story mode to be the least useful. Multiplayer was especially deep in combination with the character creation process, and the rumble room, where we were able to test the metal of the characters we made and temper them over time even between matches of clashing in deathmatch. What would have been much more appreciated over story mode gaming would have been something as simple as a co-op rumble room.

The levels are wonderfully destructible. Everything is waiting for you to rip it out of the ground and throw it, when it comes to a car or swing it like a massive steel baseball bad when ripping lampposts out of the ground is involved. The environments are far more detailed due to the improved graphics engine, buildings have interiors, and the textures feel much nicer this time around. Sadly, there were no locations with twists that just grabbed for attention this time; almost everything took place in fairly urban locations. It is hard to push this as a negative for the game, but after Freedom Force it is a very real lack of a positive point, especially given how much more beautiful they would have been given the new lighting and higher resolution models and textures available.

Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich is more of a very good thing, and it leaves you wanting even more when it ends. It is full of twists, rich story, laughs, and enjoyable characters that let you feel the glory of being a real part of a comic book. If it sounds like a game you’ll like, it is of a high enough quality that you will love it. For some people, the Freedom Force series is a dream come true. Irrational has produced a wonderful offering, and with luck will produce more to come. As you read this, mod tools are already being made to the community, and there will be plenty to look forward to from till another installment is on the way.

Busy busy busy weekend. I got a cell phone on friday, 100 dollars for the phone+ the first months service. Chuck put me on his plan and signed a 2 year contract to get the phone for so cheap. It's a nice phone, and I like being able to call people again, though I'm having trouble with unsolicited marketing calls. I think it's time to start threatening to sue. It's one thing on a normal phone, it's another when it's taking up valuable cell phone minutes and consuming a resource. Before I went to sleep I beat Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich.

Also on saturday I went to go see the movie Robots with my dad. I'd already seen it, but it was such a good movie, and a perfect movie to see with family. Afterwards we talked and chatted about all sorts of minor things, and they fed me soup and a sandwich.

On saturday I spent the day with Mike shopping at fry's and almost bought a 2.2 gig thumbdrive, but I couldnt bring myself to spend the 70 bucks, awesome deal though it was, on something I just did not actually need. After that we went to watch Sin City with Kayla, George, Jackson, Marcia, and Justin, even though George didn't show up till after the movie started and didn't sit with us. After that most of us headed over to my house and we had a cool grill with some music and talking and star wars. Good times were had by all. When just George and Kevin were left, Kevin showed up after the movie, along with Jake, they argued so loud that it was hard to get a word in edgewise, and Kevin didn't get to watch the whole 20 episodes of Star Wars Clone Wars.

Sunday was nice and calm, went to the woodlands to eat at P.F. Chang's early in the afternoon, and then grilled with my dad. The evening was spent watching Without a Paddle with Jake, who had left it the night before without watching it. It was much better than I thought it would be.

Well, that was my weekend, and it was awfully nice, but busy. Anyway, have a good evening and I'll see you all tomorrow.

Well, after watching all those episodes of clone wars last night, I'm all set for more to come. Tonight I'm going to be watching the movie Robots with my dad, and probably eating dinner with him, and Mary Ellen. Maybe I can talk them into swinging by Half Priced books for a little bit before or afterward to look around. Probably not, but it's worth asking.

Anyway, tomorrow we're going to watch Sin City and maybe have a lan party. I'd write about it on monday, but I've decided that I just can't keep up with writing in my blog anymore, and so this is my very last entry. It's been a lot of fun, and this has been a great chance to express my feelings, and thoughts, and keep track of my life in interesting ways. Thank you to those who read this, it made me feel like it was worth doing, and like I was worth knowing about as a person. I do love all of you, unless you're creepy. With that said, thanks again for reading, and good night.

Today was a very long, but very good day. It started with school, which went okay, it was pretty fun interpreting poetry. Then at work, I actually had work to do, then I spent the rest of the day reading poetry and talking online and playing games. It was really cool, and really nice. Then, I got home and hooked up my new mouse. I love it, but for some reason, FireFox doesn't recognize the forward and back buttons on it, or, in fact, any buttons on it. I'll have to see what I can do about that.

Then I went out to eat with George, Kevin, Mike, Joe, and Jackson. It was really cool, afterwards we wet to play hackysack and see if blockbuster had Clone Wars Vol 1 for rent. They only had it for sale, and it was tempting enough, after seeing the first four complete episodes of the next season, of which the fifth is now available, that I did buy it for 18$ after tax. It was only 69 minutes long, but it was the best 69 minutes of Star Wars since Return of the Jedi over 20 years ago. It blew me away completely. We then played Republic Commando, the demo that was on the DVD, which was good enough that George ran out to buy it at Wallmart and when he gets home tonight will probably be playing for a little bit.

I am tired now though. Good night. I may have forgotten things, but I did my best. I love my new mouse.

Well, today was a pretty cool day, I got my new chair delivered, which is simply awesome, and I got to play plenty of games while I was at work. I guess that's just about all you can ask out of life.

Waiting is so hard, my MX 1000 is on the way. Free shipping is so nice. I'm certain I passed my test over reading Huck Finn at school this morning, but I forgot to take a test for intro to computers online last night, so I'll have to request a chance to take that test again and have some points taken off.

Need to get up early tomorrow to take in a sample for work.

Went to watch a commedy night for chuck at a bar across town with George and Joe last night. It was pretty fun. I went out of my mind and for some reason decided that I wanted to try going onstage and try my hand at five minutes of stand-up. I didn't get so much as a chuckle from anyone. Before I went up, my heart was beating so fast I felt it was trying to jump out. Anyway, I'm never going to do that again.

Installed outcast at work, which I've had lying around my house for an eternity. It's actually rather funny, when you consider that it crashed my computer upwards of 10 times this morning and last night, maybe more, even in scary ways. But at work, it has run flawlessly without even being patched. It's actually pretty fun, and I can't wait to find out what comes next in the games story line, because it actually does a good job of putting together an environment.

Anywho... I've been sleeping on the couch all evening and only just woke up, and I'm so tired I'm just going to go to bed after this. Nite nite.

What a very, very long weekend. Friday was nice and relaxed, spent it hanging out with Mike and George a little bit. I beat Freedom Force and began working in earnest at beating Freedom Force vs The Third Reiche. I really liked the first one an aweful lot, and enjoyed much of the work that went into playing it. Multiplayer is a blast, we just all wish that it had co-op of any kind. Heck, a co-op rumble room where we just beat up on all kinds of super villains would be awesome.

On saturday I had a grill. It was a ton of fun, and I did many very cool things. We watched Being John Malkovitch and I coooked hot dogs, hamburgers, and tons of chicken wings, along with orange chicken and some roasted peppers. Jackson, Marcia, Kayla, Chris Brown, George, Joe, Mike, Zac, Emily, and Justin all showed up and we had a very good time cooking and eating. Football was played, though I was too busy cooki food for everyone. Things went well on, and I tried inviting some friends to eat at the buffet that I was working at on Sunday, but none could make it. So 2 57 dollar buffet tickets went to waste. It was an amazing buffet with fresh cut prime rib, salmon, crab cakes that were to die for, pesto chicken, an entire omlet bar, and about a million other things that I couldnt even remember. I wouldnt have paid 57 to eat at it, but it was worth more than 30. But then, I just don't like paying that much for food. Though, eating it for free didn't bother me at all. I started working early so that Chuck could eat too on Easter, and in the 30 minutes he was eating I had already earned more tips than he had for the two hours he had been there.

By the end of it all, I earned about 36 dollars, plus the 100 for the 2 hours work, and if you count the cost of the free food, I made off like a bandit. When I got home I celebrated with some leftover chicken wings(which were magnificent) and looking up the MX 1000, an 80 dollar mouse that even with 136 dollars I was not going to buy, and found it for 57.99 on www.newegg.com and at that extremely cheap price, I had to buy it.

So, it was a profitable and extremely fun weekend. And today I read 250 pages of Huckleberry Finn in order to finish it. It was stressful, and it stretched me out thin, but I did it by about 5:20 or so, which is MUCH earlier than I thought I was going to have it done by. Needed it done for school tomorrow, and now it is. One more item off my laundry list. Anyway, I have some more things to do, I'll talk aobut them tomorrow.

Missed the past couple of days, sadly. Blogger crashed firefox every time I tried to post a new entry, and by the time I got home I had too many other things on my mind, Freedom Force, Evil Genius, paying bills. Schoolwork has been fairly light, though I need to finish reading Huck Finn by next tuesday morning. Last night was VERY cool. Joe came over. Apparently he's been out of jail for a whole month, but his motorcycle hasn't been working.


We hung out and we did lots of talking, I let him taste all the new liquers I got, and showed him all the games and gadgets we've gotten since he's been gone. He gave me a picture of his baby, a baby boy.

Anyway, I'm going to go, I have lots of Huck Finn left to read.

Where to start... Okay... well, on friday after I got up at 6 am and had a TON of work at work, I got home at 1...I called George and he said he couldn't come over for another hour... he didn't get over till 3:30 because he was fixing Jennifer's computer.... Man am I lucky she couldnt come, because then I wouldnt have had a tent at all... Turns out george totally forgot to bring a tent for me, not that he had any more after he promised his other one away to someone else. So I had to share with George, no biggie, I think I would have thrown a fit if he had brought Jennifer along and tried to just make me sleep in the van...

So, George showed up late, took me to autozone to buy a starter for my truck then to NTB to get all the repairs going to get done over the weekend. Then we go to George's house to get equipment, then to mine, i forgot my peppers to cook for my chicken, but that ended up not mattering as you'll see later. Then we hit the grocery store where I bought a few peppers to replace it with, then we showed up at marcia's house at 5:45.. about an hour late, or so. After that we got up and we left

I had fun on the drive... mike was grumpy but me and george had fun, we listened to some insane ultra conservative talk radio, Michael Savage... the guy is funny, it's like he has tourette's the way he suddenly starts yelling out the words "liberal nazis" and "rats, you vermin, you less than human scum!"

Anyway, after we lost that station we switched to some good music and I napped... I needed it.. So after we got there, Mike was bitching about how we were really annoying, and everyone was setting up their tent and Marcia told ME that I wasn't on anyone's happy list because George and I were late. I felt like I should have just stayed home right at that moment, and left those jerks to enjoy their weekend. I had my truck to worry about not working and spending about 150$ to get running by monday. I bit my tongue and didn't say anything though.

Everyone set up their tents and things got better after we started playing a fun game with a little electronic hot potato type thing where you have to get people to say the word it tells you before you can pass it off. Then, we all went to bed kindof early after we played some card games and chatted for a bit. It was pretty cold and uncomfy, but Marcia and Kayla loaned me a sheet and a blanket and that helped a lot. The next morning I didn't get up till 11, and the first thing we did was split up, some of us went for a walk and some of us went to the grocery store to pick up the last couple of things we needed, an O ring for georges propane stove, and some charcoal to cook with.

Heather prepped her kabobs before we left and I made my orange sauce when we got back and played hackey sack with Mike and Jackson and a friend of Marcia's who had stopped by to hang out with us on saturday who left fairly early on. The weather started out really nice, but by 5 we started hearing thunder in the distance.

Turns out Heather didn't know how to use the grill very well and asked me to do the actual grilling of her kabobs, and I was fine with that, I just love cooking, so I start with those and everyone loves them, they have kick and all kinds of peppers, and onions and everything. They're just really good kabobs.

By the time theyre finishing, George is doing his salmon, but he can never get his coals to start up right, and I'm starting my chicken, but it's starting to rain and everyone but George and I run into Jackson and Marcia's tent.

Well, the worst of the rain was about 30 minutes, George and I weathered it out under the small pavelion we set up the evening before. I never even flinch at the thought of leaving my orange chicken to run and hide from the rain in the tent, George is in his poncho propping up the pole to the pavelian, telling me he hopes it holds and isn't blown away and rain is coming in at an angle.

George's salmon didn't come out well and the peppers never roasted, but I weathered the storm beneath the pavelion with the coolers by my side hunched over the mini grill as I carefully prepared each individual piece of chicken and set it aside in the tin foil just about the time that Heather, Mike, and Kayla left Jackson and Marcias tent and walked out to hang with George and I.

They liked the chicken even though I couldnt finish it and serve it right, it had perfect grill lines all across every piece and a wonderful orange flavor and even Jackson and Marcia came out to hang with us. We talked and we cleared off and sat on the coolers and we sang songs as the ground got muddy and soaked our feet, we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. Stayed up till midnight talking and sharing stories too.

It was great, but by the time to go to sleep it was just to wet and muddy for me to get to sleep, so when everyone else was gone i used a pot for a foot rest for my bare feet and sat my socks on top of the propane lantern to heat them dry and pressed my shoes on it and basically just sat there barefoot with my pants rolled up like a big ol' huck fin.

After that, I finally got some rest, though I didn't sleep a wink.

I got up at 7 in the morning to use the restroom and got back and layed back down as things started to warm up and George, the boyscout, was still sleeping but i hear him grumble and so I asked if it was time to rise and shine and make pancakes.

He said something that made it pretty clear that it wasn't.

He's a boyscout, so he was up long before me, at 10 in the morning. I can't even imagine waking up that early, but then, he was a boyscout.

At 11 I finally got up and by that time he was trying to make pancakes, but he had forgotten to oil the pan, or I don't know what and they were sticking. I tried my hand at it, oil didn't help at all but then I put a pad of butter in the pan and the pancakes started coming out GREAT. But everyone was already mostly full by that point. I made all the pancakes, and then there was lots of batter left so I asked if I should just make them all and keep them, or what.

Someone said, use it all at once and make a giant pancake cake.

Being the impressionable youth that I am, I did. Covered 97% of the skillet.

It was clear no one thought I would be able to flip such a pancake of the gods. Even I was doubtfull, but after working it clear of the skillet, and with all gathered around to watch me fail I made the flip perfectly without even folding the cake. After the pancake was done, I put it onto one of those paper plates, and it was just exactly the right size.

I poured honey and put some butter onto it, then folded it into a pancake burrito in order to eat it. After that we spent the rest of the day cleaning up trash and packing before heading home.

I spent most of last night just relaxing in front of the computer with the internet out, and just watching TV and reading Huck Finn for school. And this morning before work I got my truck from NTB with the new starter, and after the oil change it runs better than it has since I changed the transmission. And that, my friends, was this weekend.

I'm sorry I didn't write friday or thursday.. One of these weeks I'm going to have a full five day blog.

Last night was pretty cool, I started playing around with the recipe for the chicken and I've gotten it even better. It's warmer, with less sweetness and more tang, so it tastes better. I cooked it indoors, which ended up doing well. Everyone liked it. I bought a ton of peppers since there was a huge sale and it will save me work later on. They had red pepper for 50 cents each and it must have just happened because I was able to find 7 HUGE and NICE red peppers that I bought and will be roasting on friday or saturday. For desert I'll be grilling peaches and making a cinnamon sauce out of butter and brown sugar and strong cinnamon flavoring, dunno how else to make a sauce, I'll play around with it tonight and thrusday to see what I can do, and then I'll serve the peaches on vanilla ice cream with the sauce drizzled on it.

We'll see how people like that, maybe I'll do grilled pineapple and rosemary. It's a tough decision, i really need to learn how to do a good cinnamon flavored sauce so that the cinnamon is the strongest flavor.

Anyway, I'm visiting my mom tonight, and I'm going to maybe do the peaches after that.

Oh, and Jackson and George came over last night after Jackson was hanging out with everyone at IHOP. I wasn't expecting them, so I was practicing my orange chicken and I let them eat some while we all watched Flight of the Phoenix. After George left, Jackson played hackey sack with me for an hour or so and we got to do a lot of talking and catching up. I wish he could hang out more often, that would be cool.

I wrote an editorial:

The strong issue of the separation of the sexes over the past fifty years or so has left a strong imprint on all of society. Throughout all of history, boys have had boy toys and girls have had girl toys, and only relatively recently, even within the lifetimes of many who are still around today, have these ideas been challenged. Should men and women be targeted as different groups and developed for differently by companies who produce products designed to address specific needs of a demographic?

There are some strong questions tied up in that. Certainly the genders do differ in many ways that anyone can see. Is it even right or fair to teach children from the time of birth to be as different from each other as possible though encouraging or discouraging their tastes based on what their tastes should be and suppressing what their tastes in reality actually are. There are those who feel this is a serious issue with raising people in general. All this has been around, but it is only slowly pushing its way into gaming as gaming grows up and achieves the audience that it lacked when it was ruled totally by guys playing with the most basic and difficult programming you can imagine in a basement while being frowned upon as a social misfit.

No company can be taken to task for doing what it feels is the best way to produce value for their stockholders. On the other hand, it is very clear that by producing games of extremely low quality that focus on Barbie and Ken and dressing them up, the entire industry is failing as a whole. The concept of a female gamer should be the same as the current concept of the male gamer. That is to say, the average girl gamer is the mature woman, rather than the Barbie doll, bright eyed little girl. Despite this statistical fact, there are calls for games that appeal to women as a specific demographic. There is something inherently sickening at the concept of Laura Croft being a champion of women everywhere, when it’s clear her entire appeal is as a giant pair of breasts with nice, long legs to carry them around with. Such “championship” is degrading to the gender as a whole. How is anyone supposed to take that seriously?

Certainly there is something to be said about finding new and untapped markets, and developing products that they’ll enjoy. As with every other point here, true success in this venture can only come from objectively marketing to people as individuals. Not all women are the same, as not men are all the same. Suppose that studies found that the majority of women are not playing computer games for the same reasons that old people do not play games. There are serious what ifs involved in this, what if women who avoid playing games do so because all their lives they have been simply taught that it is not an activity for them. It is a constantly supported image of the entire industry that it is solely for adolescent boys rather than for people who are genuinely interested in it as the form of expression and entertainment that it is growing to become. In this case, it is the stereotypes that people build themselves on, and the attitude of the market, which needs to mature. Like any other industry, gaming will most certainly mature along with the market it serves by integrating developers who come from gamers and wish to produce games that they would themselves love, and as more voting dollars call for games with different focus.

There are certainly counterpoints available to this market. Certainly the very definition of a game denies the potential of The Horse Whisperer for the Playstation 2 ever being made. By very nature the conflict of a video game requires the player to be actively seeking a resolution to a conflict. This has never before stopped quality games from being released that have great emotional impact on players and even equal literature, though, it must be pointed out that such games never did well at retail even when they were heralded as brilliant.

As an emerging medium, and as a new form of entertainment, gaming has a great deal to learn about from more established forms such as film. There are strong advantages to this, as the advent of film was recent enough that gaming can not only look at where the state of the medium is now, developers and gamers alike can easily look back on the development of the medium to draw examples of how others dealt with the very problems being faced now. As a medium, gaming is not going beyond the boundaries of what literature, art, and film have previously charted, but it is clearly finding a whole new path to all the same destinations. Film, music, and even literature are all at their lowest and most base form when they pander or target any single specific group of people based on a difference that makes them feel different. Children’s books for children are never as good as books that are accessible to children, and still maintaining a quality to be enjoyed by everyone who reads them.

Can anyone say whether a movie such as Shawshank Redemption was targeted at men, women, or instead was simply made with the intention of telling the best story possible for whoever watches it? Something can be said for the fact that Everquest has such an extremely large following of women. The quality of games, eventually, and in many cases currently, appeals to girl games and guy gamers equally. It is funny that no one ever notices the poor sales of games that are targeted at men, purely on the stereotype of the immature and base behavior of the common gaming guy. Take for example The Guy Game. These markets have as much legitimacy as the Dress Barbie genre.

Equality is there to be had, but it is not there in the way that the most vocal supporters of the games for girls’ movement are asking for it. Better quality, better story, better game-play, newer fresher ideas, and truly original settings and designs are better for the industry as a whole. The dollar is a vote, and the women who like to play games are already voting, and they are not voting for crud, or divisive programs. That, after all, is the defining point of the whole system that allows such passions and marketplaces to develop for the world.

In the worst case scenario, there is an inherent challenge offered up to those who feel they are not being represented by the games on the market, but who feel that gaming should appeal to them. If the passion is strong enough, then make the game. Rather than place the burden on the marketplace, be an active participant and develop what others have failed to develop. Challenge people by putting out what is lacking, and changing the face of what is considered acceptable and unacceptable by the whole world at large when it is confronted with its own questionable segregation of the sexes based on stereotypes of media demographics. That is the beauty of the whole system after all, and if the idea is right, the execution well done, and if the demand exists, why feel guilty about doing something that could net a genuine career and a successful reputation in a growing and profitable industry. The whole world is waiting.

Okay, I forgot to post on friday, I'm forgetfull, I know it. As it happens, friday was a very good day, where I got to install Freedom Force at work, which I have very much enjoyed, though over the weekend, I played it much more at home. And on the way home I was in a fender bender. Some kids decided to ride across the street in the middle of traffic after a light had been green for a good while and about 5 cars nearly ran over them, me included, and in my braking, someone tapped my fender. Everyone was very cool, and no damage or harm was done. I was between manslaughter and a hard place, and it's really good I saw those kids. It was a less than a second reaction that probably saved 2 lives.

Over the weekend I played lots of freedom force, and I went to watch the movie Robots, which I loved, and spent most of saturday just hanging out with Mike while he ran errands. Chris called Mike and we got to talk to him for about an hour before he had to get off the phone and go back to work. Army must be hell, but he's doing awesome. He's earned the rank of sharpshooter for accuracy, and he's played with more guns now than I've ever even seen in real life. I'll be sending him my novel when I write him next time so that he'll have plenty of reading material.

Sunday.. I didn't leave the appartment all day long. It was a nice day. Played lots of Freedom Force. Went to sleep. It was very very nice. This week is spring break, but I already got my vacation from work, so I still have to work all week. Discussing getting a bit of friday off, but I might not get it for when we go camping next week.

Some very cool things today. Got some very good feedback and advice in class today on my critical analysis paper from the substitute. Was up all night working hard on that, didnt get to sleep till a little after one. All in all it was about an hour and a half of work interspersed with lots of chat and talking Chuck about rent, etc.

Today has been a really cool day as far as news on the next generation consoles go. It looks like even with the Cell chip, the other two consoles should very well be able to compete with it considering the specs of what they'll be pushing as well. Top that off with the fact that Nintendo isn't stressed about graphics and is looking at a totally new direction. Well, you can bet that I'll be keeping my eye on that. To top it off, the DS is going online. There will be free access to worldwide games for the DS, with games like Mario Kart and others. That will blow away even the Xbox's online capabilities. The revolution should have Wi-Fi too, in fact, it's confirmed.

later tonight, I think I'm going to be doing cooking. I'll let you know how that goes later.

Well, today was a nice relaxing day. But I didnt do any work at all on my critical analysis paper, so I believe I'll be spending the evening working on that. Other than that... life is good. I like cheese.

I had the most bizarre dream last night. I dreamed that Mike and Jerry of Penny Arcade hung out with my family. I think through some kind of screw up or other, basically incompetance on my part I somehow got them killed or something at an amusement part. I honestly don't know how to feel about that. It sounds like a fun weekend, but the loss of life wasn't worth it. I don't think, anyway.

Well, I'm getting involved in a competition for forum signature design that pays off with a top level domain name paid for one year. So far I've finished what might end up being my entry, as you can see. It was three or four hours of work, and so far I'm very happy with people's reactions to it. Most people are reminded of sunrise, which is interesting because it's made out of sunsets. But I like that it gives the impression of sunrises better.

I mentioned that I saw Constantine this weekend, but I don't know if I mentioned how much I liked it. I liked it quite a bit, a lot of people said that it was pretty shallow, but to be honest, it wasn't particularly shallow, it was internally consistant, and it was extremely enjoyable. I liked the ending, the happy ending didn't feel tacked on and the characters didn't do everything you expected, still maintaining a distance. It was the best movie of the year so far, but there's still a lot to look forward to. Notably, Sin City, and A Scanner Darkly, at least. Whenever it's an adaptation of a PKD novel, you know you're in for something cool on some level or another.

Finally made the s'mores with orange peel, and they were indeed most delicious, though they wont be the desert, that will be determined later, maybe grilled peaches, I'm thinking.

School today was nice, we discussed Death of a Salesman, which was an incredibly depressing play. It was probably more so for me because it touched on my family with similar isues caused by parents who weren't in full possesion of their faculties.

Ironically, between Death of a Salesman, A Doll House, and Hamlet(my favorite), I picked Death of a Salesman to write my thesis about. Decided to write about the tragic flaw of Willy Low-man. I think somewhere in my critical analysis I should point out thy homonym of his name wiht that term.

Anyway, on that note, I'm out, see you all later.

I was bad last week, and didn't write hardly at all. No particular reason, just felt drained. It's particularly funny too, because I actually had quite a bit that I wanted to say. I finished reading "A Doll House", and it was indeed enjoyable till the last scene. There were clearly a lot of problems and dishonesty in the relationship, and both characters needed to change fundamentally, and other characters, who I liked, made a point of forcing them to air out their dirty laundry. But then the main character made a 180 change, and goes through a list of all the political points that the play is trying to make, and the writer doesn't even try to mask this, and divorces her husband without ever giving his character the chance to change. I just felt as though they didn't even try to make things better. There was this, oh, it's all broken, time to give up and start over someplace else all over again. That's an attitude I just can't stand, that's not airing out dirty laundry, that's throwing it away, as though it has no value at all.

Now we're reading "Death of a Salesman", which I need to have finished reading by tomorrow, and I have sixty pages left to go. It's not impossible, but it wont be pleasant, especially since I haven't finished all my work from the weekend. I visited my mom, and she is fixing a cell phone that I'll be able to use, and that is really amasing news. I'll be able to make calls again, with unlimited nights and weekends that start at 7 pm. Unfortunately, while I was there I learned that Alan is getting drunk, and maybe worse on a fairly regular basis, and still doesn't have a job since the last one. I can't believe mom is considering moving so far away with him and taking such a big risk considering all the things he's done. He blames me for wrecking their computer, when it was pretty clearly his porn surfing that picked up the harmful programs.

Surfing for porn is the number one cause of crashed computers, I would bet. I'm really mad at him, and I don't know what to do about my mom. I can't tell her what to do, and she knows more than anyone else everything that's happening with her. She simply never should have married him. That's what you get for getting married after 2 months.

That's where I was on thursday and friday evening. I started to watch Shaun of the Dead with her, which is a pretty funny movie, but I had to leave at 11 so that I could get home at a reasonable hour and not fall asleep on the drive. Then, when I got home, chuck had Hamlet, the four hour version by castlerock on VHS waiting for me from the library. I have had plans for what to do when this got to me since we first started reading hamlet in English 1302.

See, this particular version of hamlet, the best, and full four hour play in it's entirety acted out in a real castle in denmark, isn't available on DVD. So, somebody has to make a copy of it that wont degrade over time because it's on a VHS. I'll get to this later though.

Saturday morning, I woke up and played around, after I beat silent storm, and eventually got washed and went over to my dad's at 4 o'clock. We were going to do some grilling and have lots of fun. I brought all my laundry to do at his house, and i forgot to bring recipes and to bring some of the other stuff that I wanted to show him when I got there. And, I think, I forgot to bring a thing or two back from his house, my GURPS books, mostly. Anyway, so, when we went shopping for ingredients, we stopped by my house where we found Chuck pretty much wasted, which made me pretty unhappy, but I didn't dwell on it. I showed my dad Nubbs all finished, and a few other things before we grabbed the recipes that I had and we went to H.E.B. where we got a pineapple, and a red pepper, and some potatos and porterhouses and everything else we needed for the recipes for the evening.

When we got back, we got straight to work at cooking. We were grilling artichokes, and garlic potatos on rosemary skewers, and roasting a red pepper to go with it all, and grilling a pineapple. I only recently found out about rosemary, it's a powerful flavor, and it was so fresh on saturday that I had the sap all over my fingertips, when I picked up a piece of pineapple to eat, the flavor of rosemary was all over it, and it was so perfect, that it was just like the two flavors were made to go together. When I grilled the pineapple after everything esle, I sprinkled it with rosemary leaves, and it was soooooooo good. We used all the extra pineapple juice to tenderize the porterhouses, which was a very good idea.

Before I went home, they gave me some fresh rosemary in a ziplock bag so that I could do some cooking of my own(they have a whole bush of it in their backyard), as well as a potted little cilantro plant for me to start growing near my appartment so that I will always have the very freshest cilantro as I start growing my own herbs. I think, before all is said and done, as a cook, I will have my own herb garden where I will grow most of the spices that I use. They even told me about the woman who started growing herbs of all kinds in Texas, way back when people thought that parsley was the only herb that would grow here.

After that I stuck around and talked and did laundry and we watched sponge bob, square pants together, and I went home around midnight and Pattie was online so I talked to her, and we had some really good talks, that ended up keeping us up till 5 in the morning my time, 6 her time, but there was no school or work, so that was okay. I had made plans to do the hamlet thing with George at noon, we ended up meeting at 2 instead because of sleep. We ate lunch at pizza hut, cheese pizza with peperoni. Then, after that, we took so long deciding what to do and getting the ingredients together, that it was six by the time we got back, then 8 before we got all the cooking and eating done.

We made honey mustard glazed salmon fillet, and grilled rosemary pineapple(had to show the new recipe off) and we started work on some really gormet s'mores. Everything came along great, but we didn't get to finish the s'mores because they have a part where you candy an orange peel that takes 24 hours, so we're going to finish that tonight, maybe, the candy peel should be finished, and then, finally, it was around 8:40 before we got ALL the bugs ironed out and the movie was started recording. We had so much trouble not messing with it while we watched it, we had to go to the movies and just let it record. So, we went to see constantine, which was an awesome movie, I liked it a lot, it had some very cool moments, and some very cool graphics, and it had a happy ending, which should put me in a good enough moood that I won't mind the unhappy ending of "Death of a Salesman." I know it's going to be an unhappy ending, I can just feel it.

Anyway, we got back just in time, George's computer only had about 20 more minutes before his hard drive filled ALL the way up and maybe crashed his computer. So, we recorded the first tape of Hamlet, and that should be encoded by now, and we'll be ready to do the second tape tonight, again, if I have time after reading the aforementioned play. After all that is complete, we can give the video files to Mike, who can then make up menus and burn us some DVDs of the movie, which should be nice to have.

Anyway, all that cooking was practice and searching for good recipes to use on the cookout on the 18th through the 20th. Salmon and s'mores are both out as my only dishes because Mike, at least, doesn't like salmon, or chocolate at all, so I need to come up with some other recipes too. It's really fun, means I get to do LOTS of cooking over the next two weeks in prep. Anyway, Pattie has been giving me a ton of recipe sites to look at, and that have given me some very good ideas from. Right now, one of my favorites is orange grilled chicken, made with chicken breasts and then sliced and served on a bed of multicolored peppers that have been roasted and sliced into thin tender strips, with a side of garlic potatos, and maybe a third main dish, but maybe not, with grilled rosemary pineapple for desert. But the desert might change too, if I find a really good recipe to substitute.

After that I went home and played on the computer some and went to sleep, only to wake up groggy. Then it was time to go to work, and here I am. Well... on with the rest of the week, and hopefully a new blog entry every day.

Last friday I stayed home and just sat around. I enjoyed excellent conversaton online, and even played some games. Went to sleep at 5 am. Woke up at 9 when Jake showed up. Talk about luck, I mean, it wasn't luck, I made plans to spend the day with Jake all week long, but I'd forget it the instant we talked about it. I swear, every two days I'd be talking to him, and he'd remind me and I'd be like, wow, cool, I'm so glad I didn't accidentally make other plans on Saturday, because I didn't remember at all.

Well... I had totally forgotten friday night. Until Chuck let him in Saturday morning, so, a little sick, I got up at 9 am, dressed and we left instantly. We stopped for a lite snack on the way into down town. I don't think I mentioned what the plans were. His dad is a part of a competition cooking team of electritions, the kilowatt kookers. Competition BBQ. So week before last, or last week, dont remember which, Jake told me about the competition and invited me to come along. To be honest, I was a bit nervous because he was talking about learning and being around real pros of the art of BBQ. I'm a decent little home cook, but what I do is like playing in the sandbox compared to what these guys are doing. Fortunately, they said they didn't want me doing anything before I ever met them. When I got there I mostly talked about games, and some cooking with Jake, I ate bbq just about every time I was remotely hungry.

Started with chipped beef or chicken sandwich. I went with the chicken. And had a beer, mostly because it was what everyone else was having, so I stomached it just to be polite. It was the only one of it's kind for the evening, after that it was mostly water, lots of water, plus a seabreeze(1 part vodka/1 part grapefruit), a kahluah and pepermint schnapps(2 parts kahluah, splash of schnapps), Apple martini, tasted a genuine quality cognac, I like cognac, a poor quality cape cod(1 part vodka(they used low quality vodka), 1 part cranberry juice), a parrot ice, splash of cherry liquer in a frozen lemonade. Now, back on that, it sounds like a lot, but it was spread out over 12 hours easily, and there were also Dr Peppers, Cokes, and once again LOTS of water throughout the day. A day that I only sat down to eat during while I ran around and burned lots of energy. Leave it to me to have access to multiple open bars and not get drunk over time. Woot, I'm not an alcoholic.

Well, we watched all kinds of cooking, one of the highlights of the day was the band that kept visiting our private party. It had more brass than the army. Horns, trumpets, saxaphones, and one or two other instruments. They played some of the sweetest jazz, and they played it loud. Easy tunes that drive you, beats that make your feet tap, and they played it all loud. Talking over it left me squeaking sunday... monday... and most of today. Maybe I'll have my voice back tomorrow or the next day. One does hope.

Later that day we walked around, looked at other booths. The Jack Daniels booth was giving out bandanas, they were tying them on as armbands, and doo rags, and they gave us both one as an armband. It was very nice, and then we got back and we watched the cooking, and preperation of pico de gallo. One of the guys pulled out an onion, tomatoes, cilantro, lime, and jalapeno and he was wicked fast with his knife. In no time flat he had diced his pico de gallo from scratch. He mixed it plane, then made 4/5 of it hot by mixing in jalapenos, then made medium by mixing a little bit of the two. Later on other people were cutting apples and pineapples.. apple for apple cobler, and pineapples for straight up grilling (I missed the apple cobler, sadly), and whiile everyone else was slowly slicing and coring the apples, this guy just got all showy and did his whole pile in just a few seconds. His name was David, and he'd been a chef for 13 years. I want to be like that guy with a knife, practically surgical.

Then we went to go eat, ribs that were sweet as honey, brisket that was flavorful and delicious, the chicken was ssweet and tender, (it was ALL better fresh of the chop block, but those were exclusive backstage privledges... 10 times better), sausage was spicy, baked beans were awesome, as well sa the potato salad. I ate so much when dinner actually happened that I got a little sick. I wish... I wish I could have just tasted the food, because becomming full on that food seemed to be a crime. As though it were so delicious, that tasting it was a delectable activity all it's own, with awesome party music blaring in a tent full of smoke from the smokers. It was something akin to paradise to spend it with a friend. I can't thank Jake enough for bringing me.

After dinner, Jake and I hung out in the back again, when Jakes dad said that he had an invitation to another private party and that we were welcome to go if we wanted. We took the invitation and walked through the rain, oh yeah, it was sprinkling ain all day, my shoes were soaked through long before we left, because we didnt let that keep us in, and it was about 40 to 50 degrees, so the best place to stand most of the day was next to the fireboxes on the smokers, and we went to one of the most eye catching booths, with multiple fake mountains with red glowing lights inside. We had seen it earlier and it had particularly taken my attention, just my luck that we actually got to go into it, with a fire lamp in the center, uncovered though, so exposed to the light rain while they slow roasted an entire pig on a giant spit. I REALLY wish I had stayed for that.

Turns out they were competition winners... for skits. They had a funny act, with such sayings as, "we mountain men are not proud of our meat. Well, that's not true, but our meat, is quite simply, easy to beat, " pun intended. They even had a fake snow machine, blowing off suds into the air adding awesome atmosphere, especially at night. This was where I had the cape cod with the lousy vodka. Well, not lousy, but I've gotten spoiled on really good vodka in mixed drinks as I'm very particular now, as I'm not particularly fond of the flavor of alcohol, but in the right mixtures it can add something nice to a drink. And the meat, was good, but by no means competition good. However, they did more than make up for it, and it was very enjoyable to stick around and watch it.

Whenever we were walking, every tent we passed, wooden front, or straight up tent, had loud enough music that it could be heard from the street, people were dancing and it was simply wonderful.

We ended up leaving at 9:30... and sadly, on the the way out, after all the thank you's were said, I lost my bandana. Alas, maybe next year. Jake says he'll invite me again. The ride home was uneventful except for lots of talking about the evening. Wasnt till I got home that I realized that the combined forces of yelling all day and a phlegmy cold were taking out my voice. Either one of which would have been enough for most other peoples voice. Mine.. took them both.

All day sunday was literally spent in recovery, my calves were sore from all the standing and walking, my throat hurt, my caugh was really bad, and I had tons of drainage. I did play lots of Silent Storm, getting the cool armoured suits.

Monday was nice and busy. I finally got the title of my truck put into my name. Only cost 150, then I payed rent and electricity and cable, 375, together, both were larger than a single paycheck, so... I'm losing for the month and it hadn't actually started yet. On the other hand, I got a 30 dollar discount on my car insurance because of my move. I should have told them about that a year ago. Then I had to deliver a sample for work, and at work itself... I loafed and didn't go check on something. When I was reminded to do it, it was 6 and it was ready for me to do. I worked till 10:30 so that I didn't look like a jerk for waiting till 6 when I didn't have time to do it, and I could have done it at 2.

Got home just in time to say goodnight to Miss Taylor, and go to sleep for school today. Turns out I didn't miss anything last class, but I only got a 78 on my critical analysis paper. That's pretty disapointing, I was really proud of it. We finished Hamlet, and started reading A Doll House. I'm liking it so far. It's no Hamlet, but then, what is? After that I came home in time to relax a little, change for work and head off to finish cleaning from yesterday. After that, no responsibility. Met George at the grocery store and we got everything we needed to make fresh pico de gallo, like at the cookoff.

Before we left we stopped by EB Games where George bought a seriously wicked game on my recommendation, and I browsed the used games, promising I wouldnt buy anything. Till I found a copy of Blade Runner, one of the best adventure games ever made right at the end of the generation by Westwood Studios.. who no longer really exist. Chalk them up to the list that was bought up and dismantled by EA Games. We got up to the front, Blade Runner didn't have a tag, and my poor, not buying a game for two months, mouth said, " hehe, no tag on it, does that mean it's free?" James, being the incredibly kick ass dude that he was, looked at it, the run down cd only package of bladerunner, a 4 year old game, at least and just said sure, and then checked George out, charging him the full 40 for his game. Woohoo... so, I still haven't bought a game. I'm doing good. I had to get it because I've been wanting to play it, and suddenly all my copies were gone.

George is STILL playing his game. And I have to be honest, it looks REALLY awesome from here. Like a space opera with amazing stellar warfare. He's cracked it, so I'll be able to play it later on without the CDs. It's called Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Frankly, tonight was an awesome find, my instinct calls a wicked cool game from a distance, yet again.

And that leaves me at right now. Tomorrow I'll do fun stuff and post links and have some fun. For right now, I'm done. Good night.

Well, this weekend was really incredible, I have an awesome story to tell about saturday, but it's late, I was stuck at work and just got home at 11:30, I'd write it anyway if I didnt have school tomorrow, but bedtime is saying.. I dont have time. I'll do my monday post on tuesday.

After well over a year of development, Nubbs the alien is complete! Hurrah! Spent some time today putting lids on jars at the office since we ran out and they ordered a whole bunch more boxes, susan asked me to do it, only took me 30 minutes to do a palet 3 stacks high. Had a flow that let me work quickly. Got some school work that I'm going to get done tonight, a couple of tests for Intro to computers, and I have to be ready for my cout date on monday for not signaling a lane change. Meanie Cop. It's houston traffic, NOBODY signals. Signalling lets people know, and when they know, they try to block you.

Well, I'm finishing up my alien. Nubbs is finally getting feet, I only stopped long enough to type this while I remembered to do so. Later I'm going to go see Mike at IHOP. I missed school this morning because of rain and traffic, so I got a little extra sleep. Anyway, I might write more later, but I need to finish my alien.

Man, it's starting to feel cramped in this little office after I spent all day writing a letter to Chris. I'm going to print it out to send it to him tomorrow. It ended up being a full 10 pages long, I mean, wow. It took six hours to write, and after 6 hours of writting, places like this tend to feel a little claustrophobic. Anyway, in about 30 minutes, I'll be headed home where I'll eat a nice big meal, play some games and then go to bed in time to get up for school tomorrow.

I may even read more of Where the Pirates Are. That book is really awesome, I mean, wow, more children's books should just be so amazingly good that anyone can read them.

Easy school today, finished reading through Act IV of Hamlet, turned out we were only supposed to read through Act II, and further, we read through I and II in class together, so I didn't even NEED to read that.

Anyway, I'm not feeeling too good right now, it's about time to go home, and I'm kind of hungry. I'll write more tomorrow.

Fairly short weekend. Spent friday evening with my mom till about 9:30 or so. We ate spaggetti, and I met the people living nearby that they spend time with. She gave me skittles for Valentines day, and I hugged her, and we talked about the Bible. I told her that I wasn't sure what to believe about whether or not heaven and hell existed, and that I didn't feel that the bible was clear on it, and that, if anything, it simply isn't mentioned in any place in the bible that cannot quite simply be considered to be metaphorical to the results of how you live your life. And most references to heaven are talking about the sky.

After that, I told her that I didn't think God meant for there to be peace on earth, and she really disagreed with that. She said, certainly not earthly peace. I pointed out that Jesus said he was going to turn brother against brother, and if he hasn't done anything else, history shows that the life of Jesus has most certainly been among the single greatest reasons that people have gone to war over. Moreover, I also pointed out, that people who don't struggle grow fat, people who don't ever go hungry know not what a joy it is to eat, and all life thrives when it's faced with adversity, whereas it stagnates and grows worthless and withers when it's not. Being confronted with challenges are as necessary to us and our souls as food and water to our bodies.

I also told her that even if I believed in Jesus, I didn't think that people had to know about him to be Godly people. Jesus said he was the way the truth and the light, but can't someone know Jesus in a metaphorical sense? I mean, Jesus says that he's an idea, and ideas aren't tied to physical objects, someone can understand what it means to be Jesus without ever knowing about Jesus, but when confronted by Jesus and his ideals, that person can immediately recognize a sympathy between the two concepts is to such a degree that he might as well have known about Jesus all along, for all along he was obeying Jesus' teachings without ever having heard them. Each and every person knows right from wrong in their hearts. You don't need the bible to tell you that murder is bad, or that it's not good to want things that you don't have.

God made us in his own image, and is inside every one of us. We can't escape that, regardless, and so, do we really need the bible? The bible helps, but I don't believe that it's the only way, especially considering that it's an incomplete collection of stories that lacks the compilation and addition of all other writings about that time period. It's a selective point of view writen by a relatively small number of philosophers.

I believe in the Jewish Torah, it is unabridged, and it is complete. And, I do believe in Jesus. The things that he says resonate with me as true, and I just don't see in his words the same things that everyone else says he says. I don't think God feels love. It's not that I think God can't, as I think God doesn't. John says "for God so loved the world", but that's JOHN... it's not Jesus, it's not God, it's a human interpretation. I think John may very well be wrong about that. God is unlimited. That's a statement that doesn't really mean much from a limited point of view.

I cannot make any definitive statements about God, because any limited statements are limiting, and as such, are wrong. Can God make a burito that's so hot that even he can't eat it? A rock so heavy that he can't lift it?

Such a question is meaningless from the point of view of an unlimited figure, it's a paradoxical statement, and unfortunately, the flaw is in the question, not in the lack of a correct answer. The questions fail to take into account WHAT God is, and HOW God works, and it begs concepts that work in relative measurements.


Anyway, after that I spent the rest of the evening cooking beer chili with Jake. When we were buying the ingredients for the chili I told Jake, "You're going to have to cut this, cause I wear contacts and you can't touch your eyes after you've been cutting habanero, so fair warning, after you cut the habanero, DONT touch your eyes, your nose, or even take a piss, it burns. " Jake looked at me and laughed and he said, "I'm not afraid. " I dropped it, I'm a jackass, I gave him his warning and that was that. So, Jake cut up the habanero for the chili and then halfway through the cooking and simering Jake reaches up and rubs his eye with his right hand, which only had secondary habanero that rubbed off his left hand.

Mind you, now, I warned him. He yanks his hand away from his eye and starts to groan in pain, "My eye! My EYE!" And I look at him and tell him, "I warned you. " Then, Jake does something brilliant, he reaches up with his LEFT hand to try to rub the habanero out of his eye... I guess that was the logic, I don't really know, but I guess I don't have to tell you, it didn't work. So I look at him and I said, "What did I tell you? " Oh, and believe me, he remembered it word for word and recited it through tear stained eyes, " DON'T touchn your eyes, your nose, or even take a piss, because that stuff BURNS. " And, being the jackass that I am, I had forgotten what he had actually said in response at the store, I remember things in paraphrases, I remembered he said something stupid, but exactly what it was escaped me, and so I asked, "And what did YOU say? "

Again, through tear blinded eyes, he cried, "I'm not afraid. " To which I replied, "uuuuh huh. "

Poor bastard. Anyway, so after that I told him not to wash his eyes, it would only spread the heat around, and that eye drops wouldnt work, and that the pain would go away soon enough if he just didn't mess with it. It may have felt like an eternity, but after awhile his eyes were all better, and good as new, and we were enjoying the chili. And so Jake learned his lesson.

On saturday I finished reading the Phantom toll booth and hung out with Mike, Jackson, Marcia, and Kayla at IHOP early in the evening, and then I went to Half Priced Books with Mike at nine. I bought a copy of a GURPS supplement, Undead, which should go really well with my Horror source book. Half Price Books has a whole BUNCH of GURPS sourcebooks and theyre all like 5- 10 dollars a piece instead of 20 or 30 that they are retail, it was really hard just buying one. After that, George met us at my house, and we hung out and discussed projects and operating systems until about 2 am, though mike went home around 12:30 or so.

On Sunday, Mike came over and we worked some on our project, and I finished my alien's hands and started working on giving him feet, and after Mike left, I started reading more Hamlet for class, I have to be through Act IV by tomorrow morning, and I think it's possible, only 40 more pages to go. I just finished Act II before I started writing this at 2:30, and that Act only took me an hour, and the next 2 are shorter.

After I finish with that I'm going to work on writing a letter to mail to Chris, who's letter I got last friday, and who is probably eagerly waiting for me to write back to him, and I do need to. I have an aweful lot to say, and it's tempting to do some cutting and pasting from here.

Well, I really don't know how to feel about this. I mean, certainly, in my heart, I know that Vampire: the Masquerade was the only RPG to be released on the PC in over a year, and by all means it was no slouch whatsoever. It was indeed awesome, and it did indeed let you do many things many ways. However, it was buggy, and there were enough points in the game that required you to be so weapon savvy, that it really left you feeling that by taking the sneaky way around instead of killing everyone, you were just being a nice guy.

In fact, all their games feel sort of half made. Lots of good things, but enough bad things that it solidly balances out. Interesting, that. So I guess the best way to sum up my feelings for that is to say that I'm half sad that they're probably going to close.

Which is half better than I feel about how close Interplay is to the brink, considering that there is nothing left of the Interplay I once knew aside from a name that evokes fond memories. Fond memories are perilous, and keeping them means not playing any of the new games from them, which is an interesting dilemma. I hope they at least stop ruining things I love and just start making things that are totally bad on their own merits.

As it happens, I am looking forward to this. Realism is an important thing to me. Enemies spawning and shooting me in the back from rooms that I have just cleared out are not fun, neither are unlimited respawning enemies when you have a limited supply of health and ammo available, and neither are enemies who are a perfect shot every time. Some of you may have guessed that I'm reffering to Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and perhaps agree with me. Here's hoping that Brothers in Arms does all the things that MoH didnt do out of fear of an M rating, and being a good game, and then some.

Speaking of the big double-double-you-too, I'm playing Silent Storm, a science fiction turn based strategy game that takes place during WWII. Gameplay-wise, it's the spiritual successor of the combat in X-COM: UFO Defense. All the improvements are fun, and the game is challenging, the characters are interesting and the gameplay is superb. If you enjoy X-COM at all, then this game is for you. Trust me, it's an underdog that necessitates playing. I'm not going to tell you anything about it, as I believe that whoever plays it will take their own deep joy in uncovering all the facets of the gameplay, and the detail in the environment.

Before that though, I downloaded and replayed through all of Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters. Truly an amazing game by any standard, despite it's age, it is a superb play. If you haven't you should definitely give it a try, and please don't be put off by the initial controls of the main ship. It's not old gameplay, it's because the ship is just a skeleton with only a few thrusters and turning jets, so it moves like a lumberjack on vikadin. It's ported code and it runs excellently on modern computers, though if you've never played before, you might want to look up the intro and ending sequences somewhere so that youre not lost when the game begins, and so that you know what happens when the game ends. Heck, just go and experience everything Star Control. Even Star Control I is a wicked game. Star Control 3 is really just good, not particularly exceptional, but after you love Star Control, you love it anyway.

Chris wrote me a letter, I want to say finally, but I can imagine it's been really really busy for him, and it has only been six weeks. We've been missing him, and it's cool to hear from him, I'm going to write him back ASAP, cause man, it sounds like he needs something to read, badly. Maybe I'll finish my novel and send it to him. That will kill him with boredom, most likely, but it will be something to read. He's missed a lot of things, like my new recipe for shrimp, and potatoes, and the experiments with deep frying, lots of stuff he would have really enjoyed to be here for. Plus, it sounds like he's going through candy withdrawl. No candy or sweet cake food stuffs for him. Gotta get him in peak physical condition. I'm surprised how low the physical reqs are for the PT test he's going to take, 31 pushups, 45 sit ups, and 2 miles in under 17 minutes. I can easily do the first two and I'm in pretty poor shape, and the second I could do if I pushed myself. I didnt have any problem doing a mile in 8 minutes in middle school, and I was not in better shape then.

Should be no problem at all for Chris, he's in awesome shape, maybe not the best he could be, but he's in very good shape.

Tonight I'm going to be spending time with my mom, tomorrow I'll be spending time with my dad, and between it all before the end of the weekend I'm going to read four acts of Hamlet and try out a new Mexican restaurant. I'm sure other stuff will happen, but I'll talk about that on monday.

When one contemplates a single grain of sand, what facet of its existence is to be considered first? Perhaps its shape, or maybe the way that it glistens in the light. It may be considered on the grounds of why it is worth considering. Sometimes I do wonder how significant a single grain of sand is in all the history of man. If such a grain of sand may have significance in something as grand as the history of man, perhaps the history of man may prove to be of actual importance to something as grand as the entire universe.

I like cheese.


So anyway... I finished Star Control 2 last night before I went to bed. Around about 2am I was tempted to quit, but I was so close ot the end I decided, what the hell, there's only one fight left. So I spent the next 30 minutes doing it right. At the end I noticed that Silicon Knights did some work on the game. In retrospect, if I'd known that, I wouldn't have been so surprised that Eternal Darkness rocked as hard as it did. I want to see more games with their work, they're awesome story crafters.

Speaking of story crafters, Obsidian Entertainment.... new kids on the block responsible for Knights of the Old Republic 2. Forced out the door early and cut short. However, what is done right, is done REALLY right to say the least. The first half of the game is deep, and the characters are spread out and each have much more interesting motivations and turns and facets. The main character has much more potential for depth than in the first game through conversations about your past. It blows the first game out of the water. The second half of the game.. is condensed into about 2 levels where it pretty much throws away everything you worked for. I mean, it wasn't totally disapointing, it could be called wide open for a sequel, except that isn't the half of it. It's SO wide open for the sequel, it's pretty clearly cut off in the middle of the story.

What they did with a one year development cycle though.. is amazing. It IS large enough to be a full game. And TONS of it IS satisfying. I can only imagine another six months or a year. These people are clearly dynamos with a yearning to be let out. I wish I cared about their next game. Since it's them, and since I like them, I'll give it a try, I think. I didn't like Neverwinter Nights though, and I don't see myself liking the second one.

Going to try a brand new restaurant tonight. Talk about that tomorrow.

Played games and relaxed last night. Vday wasnt so bad this year, I liked it actually. Called my dad today to say happy vday. I was a day late... so sue me. Also turned in my Critical Analasys paper in English. Started reading Hamlet too. I've recently gotten a craving to rewatch the version by Castle Rock that came out in 1996 that was the best I've ever seen.

Long weekend, it felt like. Friday was pretty normal, spent friday night lounging around playing Star Contol 2, one of the greatest games ever made. Then, saturday.. I almost stayed home and played it all day long. But as it happened Mike messaged me on yahoo and said he was leaving right then and that he'd meet me at the store.

I could not in good concience let Mike just sit at the store for forever and wait for me while I played SC2, and so, I got up and ran out the door and drove to the store, ariving there a little late, and so my mind was made up for the day. A grilling was imminent. Shrimp Diablo on a bed of angel hair pasta. It was delicious. The recipe called for the shrimp to be devained but not peeled, however, next time I plan on peeling them. When theyre cooked theyre much more appealing and easier to eat if they're peeled. It was the biggest hitch of the evening, everyone said they should have been peeled. It was a fun joke to say that at least it felt like you had to work for your food, so that when you ate them, it was more rewarding.

They were very delicious, and more people showed up than I expected. Mike, Justin, Steve, Zac, Emily, George too. That's a fair number, though there were enough shrimp for more. I never see Justin anymore, and it was good to see Steve too, I havent actually seen him since Chris left. He says he got a one paragraph letter from Chris that didn't say much, except not to send cookies. They're contraband, and he could get in real trouble for it.

I can't believe after all the fun I had, that I even considered just playing SC2 all day.

Sunday night was spent at a Valentine's Banguet at one of Chuck's jobs. Got to see his routine, and eat some VERY exellent Itallian food and deserts. The act was funny, and it was a good evening. Then I got home, and played SC2 till 3 am, which I can't do tonight, because I have school tomorrow.

This morning Chuck got into a bit of an argument with me about the equality of cleaning up. I do my fair share, and he doesn't appreciate it. I feel like a Jackass because I have to broadcast everytime I clean anything or he wont notice it. He leaves the livingroom and the kitchen messy for days and sometimes a full week at a time, and 70% of the time when I'm cooking, I have to clean the kitchen before I can cook and I leave it cleaner than when I started. I don't always remember to do the dishes, but I take out the trash and I clean up the trash from all over the apartment. I'll pick up his stuff and put it in a neat pile in the livingroom sometimes, when I'm having company over. He says he feeds me and my friends. He offers to share his food, and if he feels that I'm not sharing enough food back, then he should stop sharing so that he's not a martyr. I share food with him WHENEVER I cook, or have any. The food I don't share with him? My last box of cereal I told him not to touch under any circumstances. Why? Because the last three boxes of cereal I bought.. I never got to eat a single bowl of because they disapeared in a single night of the munchies after he was smoking dope. Do I ever tell him not to eat my chips? No. My crackers? No. The last two batches of beef jerky that I made he got to eat a significant amount of, between an eith and a quarter. The second batch wasn't even mine to give. And he ate it anyway.

How much did I get from his last batch? Which was more than mine, btw. 1 piece. 1 lousy piece.

A bit late posting this... Thursday evening. Got my first colony ship in ogame, and it is rocking. Cashed last week's paycheck just in time. I'm living paycheck to paycheck now, no cushion. That means I'm losing money, more going out than coming in, and that is really bad. Taxes need to be taken care of still. At least I'm only a week away from my next check.

Got my first rough draft for my critical analysis paper in 30 minutes last night. That was fun, and it was passable too, even though I missed last class. Anyway, I'm going to go now, I need to do more work on my novel.

Spent most of today playing games, spent last night at my mom's house. She told me that she was moving away with Alan. I don't know how often I'll see her or even talk to her after that happens. I visit her every so often as it is, but if she's out of town. I don't travel well. I could end up going years without seeing her. That's hard to imagine. This could change me as a person. My perspective on people going away. It's never happened to me before.

Eventually it's going to be friends. I really dont like that.

Last night was interesting. The power went out at 8:30 and I had to spend the rest of the night without computer. It's funny, the power only took out the half of the apartment with the tvs and computers, so I was still able to cook, and had plenty of light available for reading. So that's what I did. Plenty of short stories from my english book, read carefully and slowly, and even got to the halfway point in the Phantom Tollbooth.

There are so many wonderful parts to that book, the whole thing is rather brilliant. I can easily see why it would get so many comparisons to Alice in Wonderland, but where Alice in Wonderland is an opium induced fantasy, the Phantom Tollbooth is a brilliant allegory about wisdom and reason and other important aspects to living life.

Missed school this morning cause my computer is my alarm, but power was back up at 10:45 just in time for me to check ogame and email before going to work.

This weekend was good. I grilled fajitas on saturday and had a very good time hanging out with all of my friends all day. I returned my cell phone saturday afternoon because of poor service and a broken phone, as of now I am still cell phone-less. I don't mind, I can make calls from work and I can use Chuck's phone when he's around. I need a phone, but it's not going to kill me to go just a little while without those abusive services. Sunday was spent reading for school, and playing games. In ogame I'm starting to get attacked, and I wish I had an alliance to take care of me.

Last night I stayed home, played games, did a little grocery shopping and decided that I am definitely going to cancel my Verizon contract because my phone doesn't work and there is no way to get the video or pictures off the phone without emailing them, which is abusive. So... goodbye verizon.

Today I haven't done much but work work work. I was busy till 4 today working with hot tar. Nasty stuff. Horrid in every way. I might grill tonight... or I might just fry up some stuffed peppers.

Not much to say today. I plan to do some writing, some reading of the phantom toll booth. Got the prompt for the paper I have to do for english on fiction, and what stories to do it for. Hung out last night at walmart.

It has been a long long weekend. Vaccation as it happens, getting rid of a week's worth of time that I had left for the year. Didn't have anything special to do, but that doesn't mean I didn't do tons and enjoy (almost)every minute of it.

Things started off slow with wednesday, a day dedicated thoroughly to accomplishing nothing. Nothing at all. Not totally, I got my reading done for thursday and set my alarm and even played plenty of planetside. Thoroughly harmless activities ended in a nights sleep.

On thursday, my true tasks began, with waking up, 6:45 am, cleaning up and shipping out for school. Took the quiz, then packed up after the lecture and headed downtown to deliver the EPA sample from last month. From there, I went even further to south houston, mind you, I left school at 9:20, and dropping off the EPA sample took 5 minutes to get off highway 59, drop off the sample, and get right back on to head straight for the DPS office in southwest Houston. I did not arive at my final destination until 11:00 or so. I spent a good bit of time there waiting, though not as much as I might have, it was clear I was in an easy line and the place was far from full, so I must have picked a fair day and time, and eventually came to accomplish and reap the fruits of my labors and waiting. I payed off the fine for my driver's license, and renewed it so that I am now in possesion of a valid driver's license and all the privlidges of such. Namely, I can drive and not get arrested if I pull over.

After that I headed home, stopping only for a little bit of grocery shopping.

The rest of the day was spent reading, or with planetside, with one or two calls to my dad. I think I might have hung out at IHOP with everyone.

Friday was spent mostly in lethargic waiting, waking up late, and then eating late, and then heading to my dad's house and bringing his birthday present with me. I got there around 4:20 or so, just in time to help Mary Ellen move things around and clean out the upstairs to prepare for company for the weekend. Then, when they were both gone, I watched the food network until Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Karen got here for the weekend. It was great to see them, and I really enjoyed talking to them about everything they had been up to. (Dad didn't open his bday present because we were all opening presents that day, even though his bday had been last week)

We all ate soup that Mary Ellen made for dinner when both she and dad got back home. Presents were opened, dad and Mary Ellen got tons of dishes, and cups and very nice trinkets, I got some soup, and some chipotle peppers in a glass pepper grinder and a recipey book from Aunt Karen, and I got the Star Wars Trillogy on dvd, and a couple of books that I really wanted from grandma and grandpa. Everyone got something though, I got some dishes for Aunt Karen, artichoke styled, and a kangaroo for grandma, and for dad's birthday I got him some cookies(extremely fancy) and a case of the best hot chocolate I could find. He is a chocolate nut, I personally need other flavors mixed with my chocolate to make it palpatable. Then, when everyone was good and tired, I departed, around about 11 o'clock.

I stayed up late and didn't get back till 12:30 the next day. On the way I stopped to pick up a male male hose connector to let me bypass my heater core in my car. It was leaking and letting coolant in the cab. It's really cold all the time in my car now, but better that than breathing antifreeze all the time. When I got there, it was too hot to work on, and only Mary Ellen and Grandpa were there. We talked about maybe using my recipe book to do some cooking for dinner that evening and we ended up going to the grocery store when everyone was back at the house. We ended up buying the ingredients for cooking Shrim Diablo, rosemary roasted and skewered potatoes, and corn on the cob.

It was all awesome when it was finished. I'm going to cook the shrim again this weekend I think, and I'm going to put it on a bed of pasta instead of serving corn on the cob. I might even flambay it instead of grilling it, and do some deep frying of some other small recipes in conjunction with it, adding some rum so that I can light it up in a frying pan. The potatoes were really incredible, since we had fresh rosemary from the backyard, and we used it as skewers too so that it flavored the potatoes from the inside. From now on, when I want fresh rosemary, that was the first time I'd ever had rosemary, I'm going to jump my dad's fence with a pair of scissors and steal it from his backyard. As for the corn... it was good enough that Grandma wrote down the recipe I used for it, which was really simple, butter, black pepper, garlic, and ginger wrapped up in foil and grilled till the foil was darkened and seared.

Went home around ten that night, everyone was tired early, probably cause we ate so well. My dad and I had had a bit of a disagreement about me fixing my truck just as soon as we were starting cooking. I had to do it, and it had to be done before it got dark. We talked it over and we're all better now though.

I got there early enough to have breakfast with everyone the next day, even though I went to sleep at 3 a.m. I stayed for quite a while watching documentaries about star wars with dad after everybody left to go back to Dallas. I got my sister's telephone number and then I went to hang out with Mike, Marcia, and George for the rest of the evening at IHOP, and then George came to my apartment and we watched Star Wars docs.

Monday was spent sleeping mostly, and reading for school on Tuesday. Tuesday was spent getting rejected for title transfer for the truck from my boss to me. That will finally be taken care of later on this month, after a few other things are done, and then there was more card playing with Mike, Marcia, and George, and then George and I watched Return of the Jedi.

At around 3 am last night, I went to sleep and considered my vacation officially over. I loved it. I'd do it again if I could. Work will be nice though. I spent too much money on things like driver's licenses, books, and rent. I need to save.