:) well it's friday. You know what that means. Yep, it means I have successfully blogged 5 days this week. Talk about a challenge, writing down your feelings and what's been happening.

This weekend I'm going to be helping Tera move into an apartment with Marcia. Was supposed to help on wednesday, but had forgotten that I had made plans to visit my mom. I had already failed to visit my mom for a week and so I really had to visit here. She's doing much better.

I'm thirsty, before I got to bed I think I'm going to brew some tea. I'm going to watch Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tomorrow. I seem to be the only one super hyped about it. Oh well. Anyway, have a good night.

Today, Pattie Sue Taylor asnwered my secret question and unlocked my Yahoo account for Beneath_the_Sea. :D I AM Beneath_the_Sea again! It feels so good to have my old address back. But I really dont know how often I'll use it. There is something really satisfying about having peace and quiet during the day and being able to work. I may switch between accounts depending on what my mood is on any given day, or whether or not I have work to do.

Read tons of poems by various artists this morning while looking for a poem to do my final critical analysis for class. I dont want to do the one I initially wanted to do by Robert Frost, it's too easy, too many people have probably done it.

Anyway, I bought Guild Ward Collectors Edition on my way home from school today. Came with a logitech headset, and it runs great. I'm loving it, though I haven't actually played much, been getting the sound fixed, and letting george play. Had spagetti for dinner, I love cooking my own food. When did I start living exclusively on fast food except for special occasions? It's time I changed that.

It's amazing how tired I feel today. I think it's because I got into the bad habbit of sleeping at work. It's really something I should never do, but I get tired every day now unless I'm doing something. There's even lots of things I need to do, and I still get sleepy and take a nap.

I need to work on my novel, and get to 50k words, and 100 pages.
I need to work on my game, I've done so much on it already.

I have reading I could do, I need to stop sleeping at work all together. I need to do things. I need to write poetry, and run and play around, and I need to talk and learn new things.

Expression:

I came from no where,
There is no depth to my existence.
I watch the world grow there,
On the other side of my personal fence.

I have no culture,
A thousand cuisines pass my lips.
The wisdom of ancient cultures helped me mature,
They are at my finger tips.

But these things are not mine,
That feeling in me is strong.
They are like the taste of brine,
To have none of your own feels so wrong.

All these things make me feel something,
Churns in my chest and plucks at my heart.
A truth in these feelings does sting,
And to you I will impart:

I have a spirit!
It is creative!
My spirit is free! No rules or structures bind it, only guide it!
Songs pour from it,
Feelings flow through it,
And a richness that is untapped,
Burns, burns hot inside of it!

I will make my own culture,
Be the source of my own history.
I will make stories with alure,
The world will get something from me...

Read some poetry by Langston Hughs today and last night. It was inspirational and it made me feel a lot of things. It made me feel this emptiness, not through the content of the poem, but in comparison to the poem. It talked about exploding dreams, and it was passionate, and it talked about spirit, and sometimes I feel like I'm missing those things. I know I come from Scottland, but I haven't really inherited anything from that. I don't know anything about my great grandfather other than he was an accountant, or about my grandpa other than that he was an engineer and spent lots of time in Australia. I mean, I don't really know all that much about my dad.

At least that's how it feels a lot.

I got some sleeping and I finished a document.

*sigh*

I dream, too.

Well, I ended up not posting much at all last week. Probably my lowest post count since I started trying to post every single weekday. It had a lot to do with me getting really sick and having lots of school work to do.

I worked on my Huck Finn critical analysis paper until I couldn't force myself to read it anymore. I couldn't find anyone else to proofread it, so I'm sure I have more mistakes than I should. I am really proud of the work that I did on it though, my dad liked it.

I was having the worst stomach issues all day long, and eventually muscle aches and pains, but after 13 straight hours of totally solid sleep, I felt so much better.

The weekend was nice and relaxing with some of the best weather I have seen in my entire life, warm sunshine, cool air and almost no humidity. It was something amazing.

Well, I didn't sleep at ALL on monday night. Was nearly dead all day tuesday, finally got rested. Didn't get a full proofreading from my teacher, that would have been nice. So now I'm done with all the editing that I could find on my own. Only thing left to do is turn it in and see what I get. I am worried though.

Spent today working on my critical analysis paper. Not very hard though. I'm going to pay for it tonight. My court date was reset so that I could afford the cout fees on the date I go. The other two tickets, for not having my license and for having the wrong address, were dismised.

Tomorrow I'll get to have a 30 minute talk with my teacher and get to show her what I have of my research paper, so I'd like to have as much done as possible, and all of it if possible. I slacked off at work, and I had other school work to do as soon as I got home for Intro to Computers, so here it is, 11 o' clock and all I have are 3 pages that are totally disorganized, and need to be written from straight quotes into full body paragraphs with topic sentances and expanded into 4 more pages at least. And I need a few more quotes.

Looks like it's going to be a late night. Doesn't have to be, but the more done by tomorrow for my teacher to look at, the better the revisions and final draft on thursday morning.

Well, I was up late late late last night working on the restoration of my computer, and I will be up again tonight late late late working on it some more. But at least now it is useable right now. lol, it was a tough decision, and I'm sticking with it. Already lost a few things due to not thinking first, so cest la vie. I'll live.

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.