Wow, she’s been saying quite a bit lately!
Once again I was playing games in my chair while she slept on the couch. Suddenly she started stirring.
“Rob?”
“Are you alright babes?”
“Where’d you go?”
“I’m right here, where I always am.”
“You weren’t here anymore.”
“No, I’m here now. Is that ok?”
“Yeah…what’s your mom going to say?”
“About what?”
“About the hosting.”
“The hosting?”
“Yeah.”
“I think she’ll be ok with it. What do you think?”
“I don’t think so…”
I beat Mass Effect 2 early this morning. In truth, had I known I was so close to the end, I would have stayed up last night to finish it. Anywho, it was a really fun game, and I can’t wait for the third one to come out next year! PS- my entire crew survived, so I will definitely be importing my character once again. I think it’s neat that I was able to play the same character from the first game through the third…kudos to Bioware on giving players that option.
I realized that, based on todays date and the fact that NHL ’11 releases on Tuesday, I should be able to snag it from Gamefly as my next game! A nice plus to owning a PS3 and 360 is that I added both versions of the game to my queue, so I have a pretty darn good chance of getting the game next week. Although I just don’t like the fact that EA is making me pay an additional fee to play online since I’m renting the game…
I had mentioned a few months ago that the local AHL team, the Albany River Rats, had been sold and moved to Carolina. I was extremely upset about this, since I loved being able to go to the Times Union Center, an easy twelve-minute drive from my apartment, to watch a cheap hockey game. Sure, they weren’t the Rangers minor league team, but I rooted for them anyway, because to me they were an Albany team.
Well the good news is that the people who own the Times Union Center have purchased a new AHL team…the Albany Devils! The Devils farm team is no stranger to Albany, as they were based here prior to the Hurricanes’ team coming in a few years back. So I will be able to continue seeing cheap hockey games this season. While I dislike the Devils, being a Rangers fan, I will be cheering on the Albany Devils as my home Albany game.
This year’s Yahoo! Fantasy Hockey leagues are up and ready to go! I already registered my public team, and my live online draft will be tomorrow afternoon at 12:00pm. Here’s to another great season of fantasy hockey, which is how I keep up-to-date on all the players in the NHL, especially the players in the Western Conference which I no little about since I rarely watch them play the Rangers. I have been playing every year for the past four years now, and it really got me more into the sport than I ever was. It’s funny…I laugh at people who talk about their fantasy football and baseball leagues, yet here I am with a hockey one…I’m such a hypocrite!
As I previously mentioned, I snagged tickets to go to my first WWE match for Smackdown tonight. However, I assumed it was going to be a shortened, un-televised match, so I didn’t expect much to happen. As big a fan of the Undertaker as I am, I doubted that he would win the title from Kane simply because the show was going to be un-televised.
However, as I was doing some random searches on the internet, I discovered an interesting fact…Smackdown, when televised on Friday nights, is not a live show. I have always known that Raw was, so I always assumed that Smackdown was also live. Much to my surprise, I discovered that Smackdown is generally filmed on Tuesday nights, but airs on Fridays. That means that the show I see tonight is the show that will air on Friday, meaning that it is possible for the Undertaker to win the title tonight.
The fact that I’m going to a show that will eventually be aired, and am able to watch it three days before the vast majority of the WWE fans, is pretty cool. So if you happen to be a WWE fan and want some nice spoilers, tune in to my blog tomorrow and I’ll give you the juiciest news of what went down.
It’s a short one, but funny nonetheless.
So I was in my gaming chair, and Shell was asleep on the couch. All of a sudden I see her stirring. Then she begins to smack and rub the couch in front of her, as if she’s trying to wipe something away.
“Wiping bugs away?”
“Maybe. You never know what’s there…you just gotta smack it.”
Then she went back to sleep.
The Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin continues in the fourth novel in the series; A Feast for Crows. The tale of the struggle for the Seven Kingdoms and beyond continues, and old faces and new are abundant as the politics of the realm continue. Like the other books, A Feast for Crows continues to confound and surprise readers with plenty of twists and turns, and old favorites seem to return from the dead while others fall from their untouchable grace. From a fantasy standpoint, the book is lives up to it’s predecessors. However, I think it is safe to note a few disappointments I had with the book.
Both my complaints have to do with the contents of the book. When Martin first started working on this volume, he had intended it to be like all the others, where each chapter told the story of a particular character, regardless of where he was in the world. As he continued to write, he realized that the book was going to be too long, so he decided to make it into two different books: A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. The problem I had was that, rather than continue to tell everyone’s story over the course of two books, he chose to split the characters up between the two books. That being said, as you read A Feast for Crows, you will not be hearing anything of the events taking place on the Wall (where John Snow and Stannis are), what Tyrion is up to, and, the part of the story I missed the most in this book, the events surrounding Dany and her dragons, as well as some other characters. I would have much preferred that he contained all the characters in A Feast for Crows and then continued all their stories into A Dance with Dragons, simply because I find myself missing these characters. Also, that being said, it will be important to remember that when reading A Dance with Dragons that it takes place at the same time as A Feast for Crows, so I’m sure there will be some overlapping.
My other biggest complaint, being a fan of the series, is the absence of A Dance with Dragons. At the end of A Feast for Crows, Martin has a brief note to the reader where he explains his decision to split the book into two separate books, and states that A Dance with Dragons will be complete within the year. That was written in 2005, and as of 2010, there has been so sign of A Dance with Dragons. Don’t get me wrong…I love his work, and if he really requires all this time to get it done right, then I can live with that. I just hate having to wait this long to read the next installment of the series. It reminds me of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, where there was a huge gap of time between books four and five. However, in the end he popped out books five through seven really fast and ended the series pretty quickly. I’m hoping Martin does the same thing, and is in the midst of not only working on book five, but books six and seven as well.
Ever since my first concert back in high school (Blink-182, Green Day, New Found Glory, and Sugarcult), I have loved going to them just so I could see my favorite artists perform live. Back then it was such a simple experience: you went to your local Ticketmaster dealer (which for me was Sound Trax) and they went on their computer and got tickets. Then the internets came along, and I started buying my tickets directly from Ticketmaster. Then I was plagued with crappy seats (as it was easier for everybody to get tickets) and outrageous service charges, on top of already expensive ticket prices. Today dealing with Ticketmaster for anything just makes me sick!
But that’s not my biggest concern. No, instead I am more pissed off at the actual concerts these days. As I said, I go to concerts to enjoy the music. I have never gotten drunk or done drugs or anything else like that at a concert. Call me crazy, but I just like to be clear-headed when my favorite tunes are being played live. But it seems that I am the minority in this respect, and other concert-goers are pretty much out of control. Now I have no problem if someone is going to have a beer or two to wet their whistle…they are not going to get stupidly drunk off that. However, when I’m driving to a concert and I look over at the car next to me and see a bunch of topless guys drinking 40s in the middle of traffic, that pisses me off, and I wonder where in the hell the cops are at a time like this. It also gets me going when people are literally stumbling back to their cars upon leaving a concert, and getting behind the wheel. Oh, and don’t get me started about when I’m sitting in the middle of a concert and all of sudden some moron blows a cloud of smoke directly into my face! Read More
I first got hooked on WWF wrestling back in the late 90s, after I was introduced to it by “The Legend”, who was obsessed with wresting so much that he would draw wrestlers all the time in art class. After I was hooked on the show, I really got hooked on the games. Despite the fact that I haven’t sat down and watched wrestling in close to ten years, I still continue to love the games, and buy the newest edition each year (side note: I have $62 in Amazon credit from traded in games, and I will be ordering SvR 2011.) So despite my love of wrestling when I was in high school, I never got to see a live match.
Yesterday I was driving to Middletown to visit my dad and some friends, and I had the radio on. Eventually one of the commercials was advertising that Smackdown was coming to the Times Union Center on Tuesday. I said to myself “that would be cool.” Then the commercial went on to say that tickets were available for $15. I said to myself, “wow, that’s pretty cheap, and the Times Union Center is pretty small, so there really isn’t a bad seat in the house.” Then the commercial delivered the killing blow to me…it announced that the main event would be the Undertaker, challenging Kane for the Championship. This was what made me say “ZOMG I AM GOING TO THIS SHOW!” The Undertaker has forever been my wrestling hero, and to be able to see him live in a championship match sealed the deal, and I decided to go.
Thus on Tuesday, at 7:30pm, I will be attending my first wrestling match ever, either with a local friend or Shell. I have no idea who half the current wrestlers are, I have no clue as to what the current story lines are, but all I know is that I will sit through it all for a chance to see the Phenom challenge his brother for the Championship. I’m extremely psyched for this!
Wow, two in a row! I think this is a new record!!!
So I was on the chair again, playing Mass Effect 2. Shell was sleeping on the couch. All of a sudden she sits up and says:
“You were just here”
“Huh?”
“You were just here, and now you’re there”
“You mean on the couch?”
“Yeah”
“Sorry, I came over here to play games”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Lay down?”
“Mmmm”
“Can I get you anything?”
“NO!!!”
The long-awaited Simpsons Season 13 released today, and my copy came right on time from good ol’ Amazon. I had placed an order for three copies back in June…one each for my brother-in-law and friend (their birthdays are both this week, so it worked out well), and one for myself! I did the same last year with Season 12, since the three of us are such big Simpsons fans, though last year backfired.
I’m looking forward to it, but also dreading it. On the one hand, Season 13 has quite a few episodes that I either watched and forgot, or that I haven’t seen. This is due to the fact that we are now approaching the decline of the Simpsons, where the episodes lose the great quality that the earlier seasons had. I was even seeing aspects of this decline in Season 12, so I know that it will continue. However, even though the quality will progressively decline from now on, I will still purchase each season, simply because I either don’t remember or have never seen these episodes.
I was sitting in the chair playing Mass Effect 2 while Shell was sleeping on the couch. The game was quiet for awhile, as I was navigating menus. Suddenly the game had some dialogue, which awoke Shell.
“What time is it?”
“11″
What time is it?”
“It’s a little after 11 babe”
“What am I supposed to be at?”
“Huh?”
“What am I supposed to be at?”
I didn’t know what she was talking about, but at that moment I looked at the TV screen, and there was a big 25% displayed on it (it was some stat from the game.) So I just said to her “twenty-five percent”
“Mmmmm…”
Note- I kid you not when I end most of these with her saying “mmmm” because that’s exactly what she does.
I’ve complained about Gamefly in the past for the occasionally slow service, especially since their nearest facility to me is in Pittsburgh. I got a nice surprise this time around, and experienced their fastest service yet. I dropped Mass Effect into the post office’s hands on Thursday afternoon. On Saturday I received a notice in the afternoon that they had physically received Mass Effect (not the super-fast post office scanning, but they got the disc), and later that afternoon I was informed that they had shipped Mass Effect 2. I was plenty surprised to find Mass Effect 2 waiting for me in the mailbox this afternoon. So I returned a game late Thursday afternoon, and received the next one Monday afternoon, and that includes the Sunday the post office didn’t deliver or pick up mail.
I hope this trend continues so that I can receive quicker gamey goodness.
For a few days my blog and Twitter were not connected correctly, so my blogs were not automatically being tweeted. I tried to do it manually like I do for Facebook, but it’s a lot more work to do it in Twitter than in Facebook, primarily due to the character restriction. Today I finally sat down and figured out how to get the job done, thanks to some technical support from Big Papa Smurph (yes, I did conveniently squeeze in a Simpsons reference there.)
I blame Twitter, since it not only caused me a headache when I tried to use my old Twitter plugin, but I had the same headache when I jumped to the one I am now currently using, which is WP to Twitter. Still, it is all good to go now. Make sure you check back on some of my older blogs in case you missed anything during my period of being Twitter dark.
Testtacular
Well, my blog now links to my Twitter account, but the link provided in Twitter goes to some weird “preview” security site, where I have to wait for it to verify my site, and then I had to push a button to proceed to the site. I don’t like this.
Geez, integrating my blog and Twitter has become a pain in the butt. This is a test to see if it now works.
As of today I am about 1/3 complete with my special project that I have been working on since last month. Things are going good with it, and I look forward to reaping the end results.
I am a huge fan of hack-and-slash, dungeon crawler RPGs, so when Deathspank came out and I saw that it fit the genre nicely, I just had to check it out. Deathspank is a solid game for the PSN…that being said, it would not have held up well if it was a PS3 disc-based game. While the game succeeds in many ways, there are a few factors holding it back from being an extremely epic RPG experience.
You take on control of Deathspank, a hero for hire (who wears a magical purple thong) who sets out to claim a magical artifact, which he believes will make him the strongest hero in the world. Deathspank will explore a somewhat small world that does have a few unique environments, but at the same time is limited in the amount of space given to play in. Like any good hack-and-slash dungeon crawler, Deathspank will dispatch countless hordes of enemies with a wide variety of weapons, armors and magical potions. Up to four weapons can be equipped at a time and are hotkeyed to the controller, and potions and other items can be hotkeyed to the directional pad. As enemies are slain and quests are completed, you will gain xp. When Deathspank levels, he is given a choice of three stats and can raise one of them up a level. For example, at level 2 he may choose to raise his melee damage, ranged damage, or speed at which he moves by 5% (this is just an example, I don’t recall what the exact three choices were at level 2.) Other stats to be raised include amount of money dropped by enemies and the ability to equip weapons and armors that are up to two levels higher than your character.
To the horror of 360 “fanboys” and the cheers of PS3 users, it was officially announced yesterday at Gamescom that Mass Effect 2 would be released on the PS3 next January. To add on to my anti-fanboy argument, when I looked at the post on Joystiq (see above embedded link) for this news, I saw several comments where people were either saying “nooooooo” or “this sucks now all we have is halo and fable”. That is just stupid talk, and I hate it. I would be pleased as punch if God of War went to the 360, and I think it should!While this is a major victory for gamers who only own a PS3, it also has some problems.
The Pros
First and foremost, the biggest pro is that more people will be able to enjoy the wonder world of Mass Effect. If I didn’t have a 360 I would be just as happy, and being a 360 owner I’m not crying over this…I hate console-exclusive games. The fact that before I had a 360 I never got to touch the likes of Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect, and Castle Crashers, and that I know that there are people out there in the world who have never played Uncharted, God of War, or Resistance, just makes me so angry. There is absolutely no way any gamers win from console-exclusive games…unless they count “bragging rights” as a pro. Personally, I don’t, and I think the only people who benefit from exclusive games are the system owners (Sony of Microsoft), since a person like me has to own both systems to enjoy all the greatest games. Not even the game developers win, because they would sell a hell of a lot more units of a game if it appeared on both systems.
So that all being said, gamers will win because more people will be able to enjoy the story of Mass Effect, and Bioware will win because more copies of the game will sell. It can also be assumed that, with this happening, that Mass Effect 3, due out next year, will also be a cross-platform game, which is great. Read More
Content © BigBadBobs Wild World of Stuff. Proudly powered by WordPress. To bookmark this site, press Control+D.
"Black Hat" theme by Nicki Faulk. For best results, please view with Firefox. [ Register / Log in ]
