• 7Oct 08

  Bad sports weekend, and CAN'T wait for the election to be over!

  So I am sure you have noticed, my Cubs avatar has been replaced by a TITANS one, there are two reasons behind this.

  • The Cubs, in maybe their worst showing in playoff history got SWEPT by the LA Dodgers..... another year down the drain, more curshed dreams and false hopes. I have a 17 years streak of attending opening day in Chicago, I am SERIOUSLY considering breaking the streak and not going next April I am just not sure I can take this any more.

  • I lost a bet to Ms Cortana... her Titans played my hometown Ravens this Sunday here in Baltimore and won. The bet was that the loser had to change their avatar and blog banner for a week to the others team, thats why I now have the Titans avatar and banner

  The Election: Why is it that people just get blind with emotion when it comes to elections? It's one thing to support your party, it's another thing to do it with blinders on so you can't see the real issues and what is at stake. I honestly feel that the voting laws should be changed. I think way to many votes are just TOSSED out there without people paying attention, I feel every election year people should be required to pass test on current events and issues in order to cast a vote. God I can't wait for this to be over!

  • Posted Oct 7, 2008 6:19 am PT
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• 4Oct 08

  Crossing the line, when a gamer becomes a geek.

  Many of you may know from some of my previous blogs that .....

  1) I have a girlfriend named Stacey

  2) She is a gamer

  3) She works in a male dominated industry

  None of that is really ground breaking news, but when you mix all three together, especially the fact that 99.9% of the time she is surrounded by high testosterone individuals that think they are the king of kings at what they do, you get somebody that for almost 20 years has had to compete , and prove herself over and over again, just to stay on top of the food chain in the work place. When all is said and done, this, and a few other character traits has made Stacey into what most would call a "Type A Personality"

  I won't get into what a Type A is, or isn't, but what I will say is that I have learned after living with her for almost 5 years is that when it comes to getting things done, and done properly, she is the best, and I would not want to face her in any real competition. When she starts something, she completes it 100%, and it's ALWAYS freaking perfect.... Kinda drives me nuts sometimes

  So on to the real reason for this blog......

  I "re-introduced" Stacey to gaming about 7 years ago when we first met (that's a fun story for another time) and when she first started playing games on her own again, she warned me that she could get a little obsessive, and could spend HOURS and HOURS and HOURS on any given game. I, over the past 7 years now, have learned that this is VERY true, and sometimes I can lose her for days to a good game. I don't mind this at all, it gives me time to play my games too

  SOOO...... we have this running joke now where I call her a geek, because of the way she goes about playing her games. Looking things up on the net, researching Easter eggs, and doing what ever it takes to get 100% completion when it comes to achievements. For example, Oblivion : she played this game for almost 600 hours, finished EVERY mission, and got all achievements. Mass Effect: again, 100% completion, which required 5 or 6 COMPLETE play-throughs! I think you get the idea.

  Currently, she is playing Viva Piñata: Trouble In Paradise, and this is the main reason for this blog, this is the point where I feel she crossed the line from "Gamer" to "GEEK"!

  For the past week or so since she has been playing, as I sit in the spare room and play my games, I have noticed her getting up and going into our other spare room which is our home office. Now, keep in mind, it seemed that she was going in there and looking at stuff on the net more than she was actually playing the game, She was doing this to find out what it would take to do certain things in the game. So, this is no big deal, and I have seen her do this before...... but, then suddenly, it stopped.

  I now submit this evidence: Warning, these images may be extremely graphic to some viewers.

  

  

  

  You see, while she was at work one day, she found this spreadsheet... it list and is sorted into each species of Piñata, what it takes to get them to enter your garden, and what it takes to breed them so they become more "famous" or what ever it is.....The spread sheet, as you can see, is color coded, sorted, and is 5 pages long on 11 x 17 paper!

  Look how methodically she went through and CHECKED off each thing as she completed it! Now, I ask you fellow Gamespotters, is this not the sign of passing over from Gamer to Geek? And what about the person that took all the time to put that spreadsheet together?

  • Posted Oct 4, 2008 9:03 am PT
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• 2Oct 08

  No expectations, a pleasant surprise!

  About 7 month ago I was itching to play some good baseball, my problem was that the best baseball game out there was on the PS3, and I did not have one of my own. Just for the sake of this story, I will let you know that this does not mean that we did not have a PS3 in the house, we just did not have one where I could use it when ever I wanted. You see, we bought one previously and it sits in the bedroom used mostly for the Blu-Ray DVD player.... the problem was I could not just take it and put it in the spare room (where I do all my gaming) because it would lead to fights between me and my girlfriend So, in order to make things simple, and so I could play the baseball game when ever I wanted, I went out and bought a second PS3 for the spare room!

  So basically over the last 7 months since I have had my "own" PS3, I have really only played 2 games on it, MLB THe Show and MGS4, other than that, it has been collecting dust because we use the other PS3 for movies, and I use my 360 for all other games.

  Any way, about 2 weeks ago I decided to give Gamefly a try. The first game I got was NASCAR 09, I tried it once and returned it, just was not into it. But then, I put Warhawk on my list......

  

  Yesterday Warhawk showed up in the mail. Now never really even knowing anything about this game, I had NO expectations what so ever. So I loaded it, took about 10 minutes to install the game, and do the online update that was required. Once the game launched, I jumped right into the training missions where you learn how to use and fight with ground troops, ground vehicles, stationay weapons and aircraft.

  The training was very easy to follow, and it really did a great job of explaing how things work. Also, I got my very first PS3 trophies for completing each section of training!

  So figuring that I had now had enough training, I decided to dive into the game, which is 100% online multiplayer. WOW, I had NO idea what I was in for.

  Being a huge Battlefield 2 fan, and recently a Battlefield Bad Company fan, I am very familiar with online war games, and how intense they can get. Let's just say that about 5 hrs later, I finished my first round of Warhawk online.... and I think I have the battle wounds to prove it!

  

  This game BLEW my expectations (or lack of them) out of the water. The graphics are awesome, and the online play was fast, action packed with NO lag what so ever. Troops, tanks, jeeps, jets, mounted guns & missiles, gun fire, explosions! It's all there, TONS AND TONS of fun with LOTS of people on huge maps. How the hell did I miss this game before? Why was there no hype around it?

  Needless to say, if you do not see me around much on LIVE, then I am busy fighting the war on the PS3. If you have WarHawk, please feel free to add Gen Warbuff to your friends list, I would love to play with ya!

  

  • Posted Oct 2, 2008 7:37 am PT
  • Category: Games
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