Dear Friends and Readers
I make an honest attempt to leave comments on the blogs of all of those who comment my writing. If I don't get to you right away, please have patience. I still love you with the sweetness and will get to you eventually!



Can you name them all?

• 30May 08

  A Couple of Thoughts

  I have officially decided to put some money up and start saving for an XBox 360, and here's why.

  Looks amazing, yes? I went to a party last weekend and a friend of mine showed me the first preview for the game. Prior to that night I was completely oblivious, yet still perched precariously on the edge of breaking down and abandoning my plans to purchase a PS3 after the price drop next month. Too Human and Fable 2 are the two major titles that influenced this decision, and it's one that I proudly stand by.

  In other news, I am steadily approaching Level 10 here at Gamespot. For those of you who don't already know, this is sort of a cool occasion because it means I'll finally be able to post videos on my blog. I'm kinda tired of spamming my blogs with pictures at this point, so yey!

  I know there are more than a few of you veteran video bloggers out there, so I have a few general questions for those who would care to lend a hand to a brotha in need.

  1) What program would I need to acquire in order to record videos of myself playing certain computer games? I'd like to make a video of some of my creations in Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 and possibly some epic battles from Age of Empires III.

  2) Which media program should I look into for general video editing stuff? I'm talking about adding images, transitions, and music to a video that I have recorded with my camera. I have Windows Movie Maker, but if there's better software out there that can achieve my purposes more easily then lemme know.

  3) Is there a certain program that you guys use to compress your videos, or does the Gamespot uploader do that for you?

  I will award all satisfactory responses with pretzels and beer. 8)

  ---

  Oh, and check out this lady. Crazy!

  • Posted May 30, 2008 5:27 pm GMT
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• 27May 08

  Snake Battle!

  So today I was playing Mercenaries for the PS2 with my girlfriend's brother and I stepped outside of my door for a quick smoke. While I was standing in the doorway enjoying my cigarette and watching him tag and bag some of North Korea's worst, I caught a light fluttering out of my peripheral. I looked down and no less than two feet away from me a small baby bird and fallen from the stairs above my doorway. It was a pathetic little thing with a bum leg, so I went and got my girlfriend and we tried to feed it some bread.

  As we were attempting to get the poor little feathery beast to eat, yet another baby fell from out of nowhere and began to roam around in our hallway. At this point my girlfriend and I were like "WTF?". Finally, the mother noticed that her younglings were missing and began flying in and out of our hallway trying to bring the babies food.

  This is where it gets interesting.

  My girlfriend and I didn't really want to scare the mother away from her childrens, so we went inside and let the babies be. We sat around and played Mercenaries for about another 45 minutes before my father called and I decided to take another step outside. I opened my door, set one foot outside of it, looked down, and realized that my bare ankle is lying totally exposed before the horrid, gaping maw of a SNAKE.

  Needless to say, I was like ZOOMG! and quickly hopped back inside and slammed the door and told my father I'd call him back. At this point my girlfriend's brother proceeded to climb onto a chair near the door and crack it open to get a look at the vicious serpent of doom lurking just outside. After a bit of contemplation we knew exactly what to do.

  

  Above, you will see me wielding the rudimentary spear that my girlfriend's brother fashioned from a broomstick and a kitchen knife. I didn't actually use the spear, but I thought it would make a good picture. Also, that chair is actual steel and served nicely as an improvised shield.

  

  Here's my girlfriend's brother (Tarl) with his gear of choice. That brown thing there is actually a pillow from our couch. It probably wouldn't have served as a very adequate shield, but his primary responsibility was to POLEARM.

  

  Here's an actual image from the epic battle that ensued. We have a recliner that sits right outside of our door that I sometimes use for a smoking chair, and this is where I originally spotted the slimy slithering beast. Upon exiting the apartment donned in our battle gear, I promptly began to tank the recliner. I kicked it over and began to beat the metal frame with my hammer in an attempt to jar the devilish beast out of its hole.

  Unsatisfied with the results and eager to put his newfound polearm to use, Tarl proceeded to randomly stab the recliner to further agitate the wily animal. Still no snake.

  If you look closely in the last picture you can see two doors at the end of our hallway, one on either side. These are doors that lead to storage areas for our apartment complex. There is about two inches of clearance from the bottom of those doors to the floor, so I'm assuming that the scaly menace either slithered away underneath one of them or fled the hallway altogether to find some other resident to terrorize.

  All in all, neither the snake nor either of the two baby birds were accounted for at the end of epic battle. We are keeping our battle gear prepped and our ears to the ground in case this fanged monstrosity from the lagoon should ever decide to strike again.

  • Posted May 27, 2008 7:54 pm GMT
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• 24May 08

  Welcome to your Doom (Photo Dump)

  Here are some pictures of important remnants of my childhood, for your viewing pleasure.

  

  This is my collection of Goosebumps books by R.L. Stine. There are over 40 books here, along with a 3-D Welcome to Fear Street volume that I don't ever remember buying or receiving as a gift. It's still awesome!

  

  This is the glorious machine that really solidified my identity as a gamer when I was young. I recently liberated it at the end of an epic quest into my grandmother's attic, and now it resides in its rightful place among other truly awesome items from when I was a kid.

  Here's another angle for emphasis.

  

  One of the first games I remember playing for it was Altered Beast. We also had all of the Road Rash games, a really lame baseball game, and, of course, all things Sonic. I also had Tomcat Alley, Eternal Champions, and various other awesome titles for the SEGA CD.

  Oh! And that's one of the first wireless controllers for any console. Ever.

  Finally, we come to the more common stuff...

  

  I'm not going to bother listing all of the titles here, but that red cartridge there is indeed the original DOOM. I also have The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy III at my great-grandfather's house.

  

  Oh, btw, you people with SNES emulators are all posers. 8)

  In closing, I leave you with a picture of my roommate's kitty attacking my girlfriend.

  

  Rawr.

  • Posted May 24, 2008 3:37 pm GMT
  • Category: Other
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