I'm getting ready to sell-off most of my comic collection and have considered getting some of higher value comics graded with CGC before selling them. Yesterday, I just got the first one back (an Amazing Spider-Man 300). First of all, I was impressed to see that it came back with a higher grade than I anticipated, but I was bemused by how cool it was to see my book in a pristine case.

The thing is, I've pretty much been against "slabbed" comics because I feel comics are made to be read, not enshrined in a plastic case for viewing purposes. What has switched me around is:

(1) the fact that so many comic stories I love are available digitally (i.e., those Spider-Man and X-Men collections in PDF on DVD) or through reprints (like trade paperbacks) &

(2) the pure economics that selling an individual ungraded comic practically guarantees you'll be getting a fraction of the value of the book.

How do any of you feel about graded comics?

The demo is incredible. The game comes out in mid-May but THQ was kind enough to release a two-player demo for the upcoming UFC 2009 : Undisputed title on PlayStation Network (and XBox Live Marketplace if you're one of .. them...).

Did I mention the demo is incredible? I'm not a big professional fight fan, so this comes completely from a gamer aspect -- the thing plays sweetly! Smooth movements and it is NOT a button-masher. Tactical thinking and a creative balance between offense and defense is king in this game. I'm reminded of long ago when games like Street Fighter and Virtua Fighter came out. This seems like a game that will be simple to learn but an eternity to master.

Download NOW!!!

We're cleaning up our house, just to make more space for two people living with an active toddler. In a scavenging/cleaning run, I rediscovered my long-lost HP iPAQ 6165! A clean, portable device, it should be fun to see if I can get this old beast running and just use it as a portable way of keeping track of scheduling, contact info, etc. Hopefully, it will be a fun tinkerfest and not a time-wasting pain in thetuchus.

Right now, my little guy is only two-years-old and has mastered holding the Playstation3 controller upright without shoving it in his mouth. We've tried a couple of games to see what kind of response it gets out of him and so far WWE: Legends of Wrestlemania and Sonic Unleashed have kept him in a button-mashing utopia. I look forward to busting out my Midway/Atari Classics and going head-to-head with him once he's older, but I'm certain by the time he's that age my clunky game system will be far below his interest.

Just started sharing my nerd loot from the convention this Saturday with my son this morning (the toddler-proof items anyway - he will not touch my Darth Maul/Ray Parks autograph). I picked up a free Wonder Woman tiara for one of his female toddler buddies, but I may have a tough time getting it away from him. So far, it's his favorite item and he's running around the house wearing it while chasing the family cat.

After spending most of the evening earning himself a seat on my bad side by fussing for his pacifier through the night, Little Man totally reversed my mood by looking over the top of his crib and saying "Hi Daddy!" when I opened his door for breakfast. Darn kid. He makes it hard to stay mad with him.

After many evenings spent trying to download a demo or save an MP3 to my Playstation3 and being prompted with the message that the flimsy 60GB drive is full, I'm upgrading the hard drive.

I still remember when I bought the system and 60GB sounded so vast. Surely, I'd be able to copy countless saved games/videos/photos to the PS3 and never run out of space. Then I got home and discovered just running the system used up 10 Gigs of that space.Now I've moved on from the early 8MB saved files of "Need for Speed: Carbon" to the whomping 5GB save files of new games like "MLB: The Show 09" and "Fallout 3".

So, now, I run the Playstation's backup utility with the hope that all the games, family photos, and Rock Band songs I've paid for will be backed up safely and I'll be able to replace my hard drive with minimal fuss or muss. The utility itself seems kind of sketchy as it offers no confirmation of exactly what its storing. I'm only greeted with a taskbar telling me it should be done in two hours.

I'm a little nervous about performing the actual hard drive removal. Ironicly, I used to do network administration and computer repair for large international companies and never batted an eye during an upgrade. Now faced with the potential of having to earn all those trophies again in "Uncharted Drake" or (heaven forbid) trying to buy a new PS3, I'm having heart palpatations!

I'm looking forward to the new Watchmen movie opening this week. I think the comic book is an enjoyable read, but feel that a lot of the concepts in the book now feel dated (the series came out almost 25 years ago -- back when "Ferris Bueller" ruled the box office and one of the biggest selling albums was by Whodini). I'm curious to see how the story (and more importantly the images) get carried across to the big screen. Additionally, it's a little extra fun that the film premieres the same weekend as my birthday.

A friend of mine saw an advance screening of the movie two weeks ago and said he had a blast, though he thought it was a movie that would either do incredibly well at the box office or completely bomb. (How's that for giving me a middle of the road review of the flick?)

In addition to being a rarely updating web nerd, I'm also a comic book artist. This weekend, I was going to have a table at a comic show. After gathering all my materials together (pages for sale, original artwork, sketchbooks, signed comics, etc.) I sat down to tweak up my web page. I took the site down with some old graphics, then spent a couple days gathering and updating graphics. When I went back to the computer to try updating the site -- computer crash. Complete computer crash!

So I had to head to the comic show with an old crap web page and unable to update the site.

Ironicly, the EXACT same thing happened to me last year, except I had everything completed and tried to upload the new web site, only to find that Comcast (my internet company) took down the web server upload access for the weekend as they were experiencing network issues.

I do not trust computers this weekend.

This year, I went to PAX with my year-and-a-half old son. After doing some pen-and-paper gaming across the street at the annex, he and I grabbed some pizza in the downstairs food court. As we wrapped up, a photographer/reporter from xbox.com came up and asked to take our picture.

So now, my son is featured on the Microsoft XBox website, wearing his Sony PlayStation t-shirt. Here's the full Microsoft blog post, complete with photo (tech curious readers may be interested that the Microsoft reporter took our photo with an Apple iPhone):

A Family Affair Posted August 30, 2008

I spotted Bruce and his son Christian here enjoying a quiet meal before heading back upstairs to the madness that is PAX. It does a fellow gamer good to see the families out in force, and it cuts to the core of what PAX is all about. The level of respect for ones fellow gamer that runs throughout the show is enormous. You'll find little to no brutish or crude behavior here, and that's a beautiful thing.

It looks like a ton of people are still interested in single player games. I'll throw my voice in for single-player action, too. Though I enjoy the camaraderie of meeting others online and co-op/deathmatch gaming, it's still satisfying to settle down and have quiet solo time in my game of choice. A lot of my online gaming experience has been spent searching for other players or dealing with scheduling and erratic timelines/achievements of others. Frankly, I do enough of that in RL.

Though I enjoy being able to load up an MMO of choice and socialize with other gamers on the planet, I'll probably always prefer soloing at my own pace.

I've been seeing lots of teasers and reading lots of almost new stories on new games thanks to Leapzig, but hoping that the publishers will be sharing a lot more detailed information this weekend at PAX 2008.

I'm planning to spend a lot of time with Wizards of the Coast's RPGA players (hooray for the new Living Greyhawk), but I'm really hoping to get more details on:

• The latest Need for Speed
• Skate 2
• LittlBigPlanet
• the eventual sequel to Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

And maybe even soem shred of hope that Playstation Home will be coming out before Sony starts selling the Playstation 5.... For you other pen & paper folks, I'll also be nagging WotC about when the hell they're going to be giving us all that online play they promised us at Dungeons & Dragons 4E launch.

Now that I think of it.... Can I ask around about why the hell it's so difficult to add Playstation Trophies to game patches?