I'll play ball. I played ball today. Alas, Martin was not there because he went home.

So I'm thinking of buying the CatEye Game Bike. While doing some research on it I also came across the Kilowatt Isometric Exercise Game Controller. It looks gadgety and it's Expensive but I think it looks cool and I'd like to try it out. There is an interesting and fairly comprehensive review at GamesFirst! and then there's the nice As Seen on TV like homepage.

Echo . . . echo . . . echo . . .

Seriously, where is everyone??? I've been really busy everyday working out and playing as much as I can in order to stand a chance to make Chain. It seems like everyone else has been busy too. Fine then, I'm taking my ball and going home.

M

So I'm sitting here in Athens again, thinking about what I am going to be doing with that $153 sitting in video game credit. I have waffled a bunch of times with getting a nextgen handheld, however after getting Jerermy Mario vs. Donkey Kong for the GBA, I'm reminded that they are still putting out great (and I mean fucking great) games for the GBA. With a potential release of Mr Driller 2 in the future, maybe the thing to do is to hold out a bit more . . . or is it. As I read more and more I hear that GBA games are petering out. Hmmm . . . this will require more research. Perhaps buying Klonoa 2 for the GBA will help solve that.

One tuesdays we have done lots of things, in particular play boardgames. Recently we have been playing Power Grid and Ticket to Ride. I tried to find good webpages for these games, but the Rio Grande web page leaves something to be desired. Instead I have found another web page of interest. The web page is www.boardgamegeeks.com and it has reviews of games. It seems like this site thrives off of user reviews of games (perhaps we should post our own . . . looking at you Brad), but I'm thinking that it might be used to determine new games to get??? Regardless, I think I'm starting to like Power Grid a bit more. Everytime I have played the game I feel like we have gotten to a point of no return. For example the last game ended at a point where I asked if anyone could stop Brad from winning at the end of the turn, and when no one said they could the game was over.

This beings up a critical point in games. We all know how Axis can get mired to a point where we are all just sitting there waiting for Berlin to fall, but the outcome of the game is deteremined. There isn't anything wrong with that, but it is slightly less exciting than a game like Tigris, where the end of the game is sudden and the outcome can't be determined by looking at the board.

Critical points . . . that has been the topic of this book that I am re-reading, "Tipping Point." It is a book that my mom bought me a long time ago and I didn't get as much out of it as I could. So I going through it again, and it is great. The book talks about general trends in things reaching epidemic proportions. Anything from diseases, fashion trends, to speading the work about the revolutionary war. It is really interesting and defines a new vernacular for the types of people (Connectors, Mavens, etc.) that must be involved. Anyway, the book is really cool, and Chowning is now giving me eyes telling me that I've been typing for too long and need to go pay attention to her. Out.

M

And in a 7 (8?) hour blitz we have finished The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. Myself, Mark, Jeremy and Brad constitute the "we" in the previous sentence. Brad a Jeremy played tag team since Jeremy was at a Ludacris concert for most of the evening, while brad had to leave to go sleep. We eventually finished the evening at 2 am after defeating Gannon in a battle that Jeremy described as "Stupid as fuck." I don't know if I agree with him, but I will say that the boss battles leave something to be desired.

Meanwhile the puzzle aspect of the game was fantastic. There was room for more implementation of the GBA, but I was very impressed. Unfortunately I don't know what more will be done utilizing the GBA on the Cube, especially now that the DS has arrived. Regardless it was a great feature once you had all of the GBAs.

So that is another game that is finished and on the list to take back. I need to update the "finished games" database, but after my harddrive crashing I no longer have Microsoft Access so this will have to wait. Next on the docket is to finish Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. But that will have to wait until summer probably, because until then we have GT4 still dominating all of the play time. Both Jeremy and I are stuck on a board in the IA liscensing section. We can move on, but what is the point if you are trying to do everything anyway.

As school and life continue to move on I'm sure I will have more stuff to write about, but until then it is just games, games, and more games.

M

what the fuck is up with our hosting?

nique.net, why are you fucking our shit up - you know it equates to gettin yr mouth blew out by ghetto ass djs.

So, I'm watching Spanglish, which is an o.k. movie. It isn't captivating my interest so much that I can't do anything else, but it isn't that bad.

News on the Chowning front is that she seems to be getting better. Sorry I can't be there tonight.

I've been reading a lot of articles about the expansion of video game graphics and how that is "killing" certain types of games. Basically they are all saying that as we develop better graphics we require more hours to code for them, and more space to put them in so games are getting smaller and budgets are getting larger. All in all it is spelling doom for the industry . . . or so they are saying.

I don't really know if that is the case. There are a few gems in the rough, quality games that don't have too large a budget, and aren't pressing on great graphics to push them through. Nintendo seems to be making a trade of those types of games. The underlying question is can those games sell enough to compete with the large budget thrilllers? Is it really a problem of larger budgets and shorter games if that is what people are buying??

I don't really know where this conversation ends. In my own world I like to think that the small market games (can I really call Nintendo a small market) will survive because of quality. But for the most part I am just regurgitating that which I have read on different sites.

While reading (still) the book Jeremy got me I wonder if Japan has the same issues. Maybe I should talk to mikez0r about what games are big in Japan. For some reason I get the feeling that they are more interested in quality game rather than just big productions (that isn't to say that quality can't be big budget). I think released of Gitaroo man and that game where you roll around in a ball are evidence of that.

Then perhaps it is something uniquely American about the overdevelopment of the big budget/big graphics games? I'll have to spend more time thinking about this during the summer.

Meanwhile, in my quest to end all games, I'm trying to use some of this time I have with a sick girlfriend to finish a Zelda game that I have on the GBA. Wish me luck . . . if we could ever read this . . . because komodo is broken . . . *ahem* looking at you Matt . . . possibly while . . MY BRAIN!!

M

Jeremy!!!!!!!!!!

Help me remember this for when we are close to 700 days.

- The Black Race Cars: *cue scary music*

Between days 694 and 700 there are 4 black Race Cars that can be found used.

Used Car Showroom II:

Toyota GT-One Race Car '99 = 2,924,999

Nissan R390 GT1 Race Car '98 = 2,924,999


Used Car Showroom I:

Mazda 787B Race Car = 1,224,999

Nissan R92CP Race Car = 1,224,999


These cars can be found at the bottom of their respective showrooms. Since
they are used, they will naturally have less horsepower than their new
versions. But . . . . . . they're BLACK!!!!!
Remember the oil changes.

I've notivced that I've been starting many of my post with the word "well." This is the end of that. There will be no more mention of that word . . . ever. Regardless of usage.

Right now I am posting from Athens, tending to my sick girlfriend. She has some sort of sinus infection or something and was so bad of she called me and hinted at me coming up and taking care of her. I would have done that regardless of if she had asked, but I wont deny that I am a bit put off by her asking. I don't know, I try never to bother people and ask for help when I am sick. So although I think the right thing to do is for me to be here helping her, I wish she had just waited for me to come to that conclusion rather than ask. Her health should be getting better now that she is on antibiotics. We will see how things go from there.

As a result of being here, I'll miss tomorrow's gaming. Sorry, but this is the place that I am needed now. Instead I suggest that Mark and Brad get their asses to my place thursday night so that we can finish Four Swords. I am on somewhat of a bend to try to finish lost of games and show up at Gamespot with tons of games and try to buy either the DS or PSP. I've spent a bit of time looking at the games that are available for each system, and am not all that amazed. Honestly I don't know why I bother, I'll (being me and Jeremy) be playing GT4 well into the summer. I'll bounce over the Starfox ever now and again, and maybe I'll find the time to open up Splinter Cell again . . . but wait something else is on the radar . . . could it be . . . another Tekken game???

Yes, the stories are true, there is another Tekken game and apparently they have gotten back to the old form. Really I don't think they have ever devaited too much (aside from Tekken Tag, which was just a variant of Tekken 3). But now there are even more characters. I'll have to get it soon and put up a review. Out.

M

Well, my spring break is here, so let the games begin. Literally.

Mostly I have been trudging through the liscenses in GT4. Damn that is a good game, but after many hours of playing today I decided I needed to move on a bit.

A few days ago I got tempted to play Splinter Cell: Chaos Theorey. I decided that I wanted to start at the beginning . . . or at least the beginning that I had. Since I had Pandora Tomorrow burned on the Xbox I decided to give that game a whirl. It is very similar to a 3rd person Rainbow Six, with all the sneaking about and shit. However, I didn't really like the controls all that much. So I quickly put it down and tried another game that was supposed to be good: Chronicles of Riddick. Yeah, that game wasn't all that great either. It is a FPnotS and the interface acting with objects is wierd. It incorporated a RPG style conversation system where you talk to a person and have a set list of things to say, but you get to pick and determine the outcome. I guess the game won some brownie points for saying 'fuck.' Regardless I then moved on to the game bought at the same time as GT4, Starfox: Assault. It wasn't a bad game. There was a lot of diaglog that took too long for me to get through to get to the game. Apparently Nintendo didn't learn from Paper Mario 2. The game wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either.

At this point I thought about traing a bunch of my games in, attempting to get enough to buy a PSP or a DS. Then I could get some new puzzle games or something. This made me wonder . . . am I losing my lust for videogames for the sake of videogames. I thought about that for a while . . . it isn't that I'm not into videogames anymore, but I seem to be really finnickey (sp?) in what I pick up (yet I am playing Starfox). There are still new games that get me excited, but I have a hard time playing the mediocre games. Or maybe not. Maybe this is just me being bored because I've been doing jack shit all day (save a track workout).

In other news, this week should be productive, but we'll see how that goes. In other news, I love ATHF.

M

Well, Brad, Ryan, Mark and I just went to Sin City. It was a great movie. It held true to the comics, as all the characters were very iconinc. The men were men and the ladies were vixens. Oh, and there was lots of overdone comicbook-esque stuff. As for the acutal plot it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't the most amaxing thing either. There were times where the dialog seemed really campy, but it is a Frank Miller comic, so what do you expect?

On a side note, Frank Miller was in the movie, and died.

Tomorrow night is the festivities at Daron's place for the B-Day stuff, but tonight there is lots of DDR to be had as Brad and I have made our way home but with no one to play games with. It's going pretty well, but I'm still not very good.

In other news of life, through a rough time this spring, Wood and I have decided that we don't have the people that it takes to get a team to nationals. It still may be possible, but it doesn't seem likely. As a result we've disbanded the team (Everyone) and will then be taking back anyone who wants, with the understanding the mentality that the new team will have. This includes me, however I will also be trying out for Chain.

Honestly I don't know what I am going to do, on any level. Chowning has gotten her job in Nashville, so I need to look into moving there. Nashville still doesn't excite me as a city, but if she is there then that is where I want to be. The question is when. Her father is "helping" me look for jobs in Nashville (both school and engineering). While I appreciate the help, I still really don't like it. It feels like it felt when I was looking at Paideia a long time ago, like I'm not getting the job on my own, but rather on the shoulders of someone's good word. I have no problems with a person recommendation helping me get in the door for an interview, but I don't want that recommendation to affect the interviewer, that's my job.

Anyway, in addition to that I'm having a great time with the new equipment we're having at Harrison, which makes it hard to leave there. I've applied to a position back in Colorado Springs, and there exists the opportunity to go back to school to het a PhD. Also I can look into Paideia, which I am much more comfortable with now because I feel like I can get that job on merit alone. So there are lots of plans floating around the air.

Regardless, it is spring break and that means lots of not doing work. I'm back to DDR, so I'll get out of here.

M