Free Realms’ Snow Days Arrive

I haven’t mentioned it allot – or at all, really – but I’m still playing Free Realms from time to time. It’s just a fun, quirky diversion that I get a kick out of. Anyway, any Free Realms players will know about the oft talked about Snow Days update due in December. For those of you out of the loop, you can read about it HERE on the official Free Realms blog. In any case, the big deal here is player housing. That’s not to dismiss the new combat features, fishing job, pets, and more, but… well, just read part of their release on the Free Realms forum announcing it’s arrival today:

… This is the update with Housing, Fishing, Housing, New Pets, Snow Days holiday content, Housing, Royal Vault upgrades, Housing, UI and Combat improvements, Housing, upgraded automated chat and more!…

Sounds like housing’s the big thing, huh? I know I’m interested, since Members like me get a free apartment and a free house. I should be able to hop on sometime early tomorrow morning, pick out my house and see my dog Lady waiting for me. They supposedly started around 6-7 PM PST (9-10 EST) with an estimated down time of 5-7 hours, putting the official launch around 11 PM to 2 AM PST (2 to 5 AM EST). I’ll be there, personally. Will you?

The Mighty Dragon

Dragon Age: Origin may be the best game I’ve played in a long, long time. Forza Motorsport 3 was awesome, but Dragon Age is a whole different ball game. I’m some 10 hours in to it, and I’m still just scratching the surface. My main avatar is a human noble warrior, and I’ve also played as a dwarven commoner warrior (who I wish I had made a rogue). The two origin stories put me in my character’s shoes in a way I’ve never experienced. Expect a review before the end of the year.

Wii! New Super Mario Bros. Box Rocks!

After playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii (a stupidly long name for a simple, fun game), one thing struck me about the experience: I love the box.
This is the coolest box art I’ve seen in years, and I’m not even talking about Mario, Luigi and the Toads bounding through the center. What I love is the color. So many game boxes are black- or white-based, or otherwise blandly designed, but this box screams loud and clear, “I’m here!” The red throws me back to my NES days, which obviously is what they were going for. More designers need to take notice: a good box can get people to stop and look, and it doesn’t have to include violence or sex. Some people think that the color black is as bold as it gets on a display, but when half of the games around your title feature the same color base, you will blend in, no two ways about it. Aside from being a web editor and head of e-AAGH.net, I’m an artist at heart. I’ve always been critical of the art in games, and the visuals used to promote them.

Now, I don’t want to see a whole herd of red Wii boxes (see note above re: overuse of a color), but for this title, it couldn’t fit better. Good job, Nintendo.

Sims 3 – 1, Alpha – 0

I’ve been fighting The Sims 3 recently when it comes to installing downloadable content and patches. What’s come to my attention today is that my computer is convinced that Sims 3 is not installed. Why? I have no idea. I can play it, it runs fine, and I’m registered, but for some reason both Vista and EA’s Download Manager are stubbornly determined that it’s not there. I’ve also delved into the registry to confirm this, and yup – no installation.

In light of that, I’m being forced to do a re-install. Consider me miffed, especially now that I’m facing a nearly five hour download from EA’s servers. I also had to back up all of my and Beta’s saved data to hopefully prevent losing our avatars, lots, pics and videos.

I want to pick up the new Sims 3 expansion pack World Adventures, but it would be useless unless I’ve got a working copy of the base game.

In other news, the review overhaul is going fine, but slow. It may be a day or more before it’s finished.

e-AAGH.net Maintenance Underway

e-AAGH.net isn’t going to see a new review for a short while as I update our review format. I’m including a star-based score at the top of each game for quick-and-easy reference, and I’m updating each review’s scoring to a new, bolder look. Witness:

Do you like it? Hate it? Let me know! Your opinion could guide the look of the site! As always, you can contact me at alphasim@e-aagh.net.

Scribbling’s not for Naught

There I am, enjoying Torchlight, when another fun game crosses my path. Scribblenauts is a fun and freeform puzzler for the Nintendo DS where creative minds and a vivid vocabulary can equate to solutions that are both funny and innovative. In one early puzzle, I was asked to clear a park of trash and a fly. My answer? A flamethrower. There was no park left when I was done, but I did what was asked of me, so I passed. I hope to have a review up soon.

Lighting the Torch

I’ve put some time into Borderlands on the Xbox 360, both solo and with Omega, and it’s unique and entertaining. However, I’m more absorbed right now with Torchlight, of all things. This Diablo clone is done really well and unlike Titan’s Quest, Dungeon Siege and countless other wanna-bes, it’s allot of fun (that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy some of the other titles, but they were often more grind then game). Torchlight has a simpler style and isn’t trying too hard to be a serious, hardcore game. As a result, it’s a good way to kill and hour or… ten. Heh.

Now, if only it had multiplayer.

Halloween Time at e-AAGH.net

Hey all, happy Halloween! It’s spook-day here in Ohio, and Omegasim and I are getting together tonight to dish out the treats and maybe some tricks to the kids of our neighborhood. More importantly, though, is that it’s game night! Whenever we get together it’s game night, but this is special – we’ve been doing this every year on Halloween for almost ten years now, so it’s kind of a tradition. One year we were playing Quake III: Arena on the Dreamcast when a kid came to the door and saw my game systems lying all over the place. I had my PlayStation, PS2, Dreamcast and N64 all in front of the TV, and this kid nearly had a heart attack. Another year we spent most of the evening on the porch with Omegasim in a wolfman mask while we dished out the goods. One little girl wouldn’t go near Omega, so she carefully walked up my side of the porch. When she was leaving Omega pulled the mask off (so he could breathe), and the little girl looked back and said, “Oh, it’s just a guy in a mask.” We still laugh about that.

Tonight we’re playing some games we’ve not played together before. Best Buy was running a Buy Two and Get One Free sale on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii games, so I went up and scored Left 4 Dead and Borderlands for the 360 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 for the Wii. Omega likely won’t touch the golf, but we’re both huge shooter buffs (for years, our game of choice on Halloween was Red Faction 2 for the Xbox, which Omega bought one year and left with me so he could play it). Last week we played Unreal Tournament 3 on the 360 for the first time. Here’s a quick transcript of what happened.

GAME ONE

(TDM, Deck, Co-op)

Omega took some time to get acclimated to the controls, which seemed a little odd. He’s usually spot on and we weren’t sure – well I wasn’t sure – what the problem was. We won handily, so next match we were turning the difficulty up a notch.

GAME TWO

(TDM, Sanctuary, Co-op)

We don’t often play versus, in case you didn’t notice, because we love to steamroll our opposition with our teamwork. It was here, though, that we figured out what Omega’s problem with the control was – he needed to invert the Y-axis on his right stick to be comfortable. No problem there, a quick trip to the menu and he was ready. He and I blew the AI to bits again, and he kicked ass like I knew he was capable of. Yes! Next stop, Warfare.

GAME THREE

(WAR, Torlan Classic Map, Co-op)

This was fun until an untimely end. I flew a Raptor at the start, but it took me a while to get used to the flying controls with the 360 controller (I’m usually deadeye with a mouse and keyboard). Omega started on foot, but toyed with the Scorpion and the Manta at different times. We had the opposing team’s core down to almost 30% when Omega went to check something in the menu and asked me what button to hit to get back out. I wasn’t sure, so I guessed, and I guessed wrong. I accidentally told him to press the ‘quit game’ button, and in a panic we told the game ‘yes’ to quitting. We both just hung our heads after that. Ok, no more Warfare – it’s time for our specialty, Capture the Flag, but with a wicked twist.

GAME FOUR

(CTF, Facing Worlds, Versus)

I started us up but didn’t join Omega’s team this time, so we were going head-to-head. I was on red, I believe, and he was blue. The match quickly broke down from CTF to killing each other. I started on the top of our tower sniping him, but I missed him once and he got in our base. I came down to kill him, but he turned the tables and killed me. Three times. I got wise after that, and since I wasn’t able to procure my favorite weapon on that map (the flak cannon), I picked up the rocket launcher, and devised a plan. I waited around corners for him and loaded up the maximum three rockets to unload on him each time he came around the corner to me. Boom-boom-boom – Omega-gibs everywhere. This went on for quite a while until my team scored a capture while we were dueling each other. I finally decided to join his team so we could win, but right as I did, my team scored another capture. We were playing to five caps, so we weren’t in imminent danger of losing, but Omega commented that maybe I had goofed and he should have joined my team. It didn’t matter, as it turned out, as we started a highly efficient flag capturing relay system. He’d nab the flag and I’d meet him half way to protect him while he scored, then we’d turn around and I’d go grab their flag and he’d protect me around the halfway point, and so on. Five quick scores and we won, 5-2. Don’t mess with us, AI.

It was allot of fun, and I hope to have more stories from tonight for everyone of our experiences in Borderlands and Left 4 Dead. Later, all.

Madden NFL 10 Under Review

I’m reviewing Madden NFL 10 right now, and it will likely get finished before my Champions Online review due to the difficulty in reviewing an MMO. Here are my early thoughts.

• The game does look better this year, but the framerate sucks. Too often the game will stop for a second during heavy action.
• I wish they hadn’t included the ‘chain gang’ for measuring the ball’s spot for first downs. Is it realistic? I suppose. Does it break up the experience? Hell yes.
• Superstar mode hasn’t changed much (again), and what has changed was changed for the worse. Why simplify the superstar creation feature? Was it too complicated before? I don’t believe so. I dislike the ‘dish out your own skill points’ option, and I have since Madden ‘08 on PC.

That’s all for now. I’ll have the full review by the end of the week (I hope).

My Champions Online review is lagging, but it's coming. Don't worry! lol

Anyway I'm continuing to play the NBA Draft Combine game for Xbox 360, as well, so maybe I'll review that too. It makes ne mad though... I'm not real happy with it.

Lastly, it's quiet here at e-aagh.net due to lack if new games so it'll be slow here for a while. Later, all.

Latest update

I recently bought an iPod touch, which I feel will be handy in keeping this blog updated. That's actually what I'm posting this with. It's a very handy device, honestly. I wish I'd gotten one sooner. Oh well. In any case, I'm working on my Champions Online review. That will be up soon but until then here's a summary; it's fun but has some fundimental flaws that need addressed before the game really takes off.

Anyway, that's all for now. Later all.

Dungeons and Dragons Hooks Alpha

I’ve been tooling around in the Dungeons & Dragons Online: Lamannia Free to Play beta recently, and I must say, it is a whole lot of fun. Budster Richards, my human cleric, roams from dungeon to dungeon, clearing them on the much welcomed ‘solo’ difficulty. I recently completed the Sacrifices quest in the ruins of an old Cannith Aqueduct. I was able to rescue the mayor’s daughter, as well as 10 other villagers and I also defeated a skeletal mage. The mage was a trick to find, and I found him on accident while following my natural curiosity. All in all, this game is quite the contrast to my usual World of Warcraft. It’s more action oriented, surprisingly, yet still has the heart of D&D. I recommend either joining the beta or signing up when the full Free to Play build goes live August 6th. Look for me there!

Nintendo and Demo Play to Pamper Non-Gamers this Fall

Ninendo’s gone and done it. Or rather, they will go and do it (if that makes any sense). They’re introducing – with New Super Mario Bros. Wii this fall – Demo Play, or as a I call it (censored, of course), Sucky Player mode. This will allow players to pause the game, enable Demo Play, and let the computer AI take over for parts that are “too hard.”

Please.

What’s gaming coming to, when players are going to need the game to play itself for them? Hell, why sell controllers? I can see it now, the next generation of consoles will be used thusly:

• Push a button on the system and the game will boot itself up, saving the user from having to figure out how to do it themselves
• The game will then promptly beat itself, removing that unnecessary burden from the gaming experience
• Once beaten, the game will shut the system down for you, so you don’t have to stick around and wait for the game to be done to shut the system down yourself

Unbelievable. Look, if you think your gamers are that freaking stupid, just put a damn “I win” button on the controller, a’ight? Push that, and you win. No need to even play the game.

Nintendo, you’re better then this. See the light, and scratch this concept. The world will be better off for it.

Movies, Moose and More

This has nothing to do with e-AAGH.net, but I want to share it anyway. I’m a huge fan of B Movie review sites, such as JABOOTU The Bad Movie Dimension and badmovies.org. One of the reviews I like re-reading is the review of It’s Alive on Jabootu by Ken Begg. I’d never seen it, though. That is, until last night.

Beta and I were wrapping up watching the Cleveland Indians beat the Kansas City Royals on a last-at-bat fowl ball (I’ll explain in a minute) when I noticed that It’s Alive was on the Independent Film Channel. I flipped to it during Bella’s rant about how Greely had tortured her. Beta and I immensely enjoyed ripping the movie apart, with Beta commenting that Greely was just a stupid old man and that the whistle he blew to wake up a sleeping Bella was more annoying then ‘cruel,’ as Bella called it.

“What’s he going to do next? Throw a water balloon at her? Light a candle and let the wax melt on the floor? Oh no, that’d be terrible! He’s just so evil!”

We laughed until the end, when the monster showed up. Upon seeing the titular beastie, Beta just sat there, stunned. I tried to ask her for her opinion of the monster, but she seemed in a coma. Finally she simply said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. That is so sad!” That about sums up the movie, I feel.

Back to the Indians game. The Indians won when right fielder Shin Shoo Choo hit a ball up the middle in the bottom of the 10th inning that hit one of a gaggle of sea gulls sitting in center field, interfering with Coco Crisp’s attempt to field the ball. This allowed Mark DeRosa to score the winning run for the Tribe. Beta, upon seeing this, said, “Couldn’t they call that a technical foul?". I cracked up as it dawned on her the unintentional pun she had made. Beta’s the best I know at unintentional comedy. One day a year or so ago she was rambling about how bad a day she was having, and wrapped up by saying, “and on top of that, my mousse died,” meaning that her hair mousse had lost it’s ‘puff.’ That didn’t stop everyone within  earshot of saying something to the tune of , “aw, poor moose!” As a matter of fact, after it occurred to her that she’d made a foul/fowl joke, she added, “yeah, and my moose died, I know.”

Beta has a hard life.

Alpha Goes Mac… Kind of

I’ve recently gotten bored of my computer. I sit in front of it for inordinate hours at a time, and I felt I needed a change. Call it a PC user’s mid-life crisis, but I felt like playing with a Mac. Of course, budget constraints here at e-AAGH.net preclude buying a new computer on a whim, so I did the next best thing: I skinned Vista. Using Stardock’s Windowblinds app, I applied a fan-made OS X Aqua skin. I also added Objectdock, a Mac-styled floating icon toolbar also by Stardock to further the illusion. Finally, I installed Safari to complete the gig, switching over from Firefox for now. I was happy with how it looked, but the performance was beyond abysmal. I couldn’t work at all due to slowdowns and crashing. I reluctantly unloaded the skin and toolbar.

About an hour later I began to question why my ‘puter was running so poorly with these changes. I looked it up and came to the conclusion that my antivirus was clashing with Startdock’s software, so I told it to ignore Stardock softs for now and reloaded everything. Bingo! I’ve been using it for about seven hours straight with no crashes or slowdown yet. During this time I downloaded some OS X Aqua themed desktop icons for my folders and such, replacing my Vista ones with more… Mac-like variations. Beta complained some, stating that I was giving the poor computer an identity crisis (“Which am I?! I don’t know what I am anymore!!” lol)

I’m enjoying myself right now, if only for the change of scenery. Would I consider buying a Mac in the future? Maybe a laptop, and then only to work on the site with. I’m too hardcore a gamer to leave my PC and it’s varied functionality behind. I get a buzz from successfully trying to max out my framerates with new hardware, and I don’t see most of my favorite games (well, most games period) available on the Mac. I’d rather put my money down on an Alienware or Falcon Northwest uber-gaming rig then a Mac (not that any of those are an option financially at this time). Still, I really like how the changed appearance makes the old feel new again, and with Windowblinds, I’m set to easily change it up when I get bored again.

BTW, I love my wallpaper. If people want a copy, lemme know and I’ll post a link to it here.

Review Previews

Beta and I have spent part of today playtesting Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility and Excitebots: Trick Racing, both for Wii. Here’s some summaries of our opinions to tide everyone over for proper reviews.

• Here’s my first thought on Excitebots: WOW. I really love the sensation of speed this game gives you. You’re also not just turning the wheel to steer either; you’re constantly shaking it to recover from crashes, moving it around in a circle to spin around a bar, and more. This game is a blast, and we had a good time racing each other. The buzz was phenomenal.
• The new Harvest Moon, on the other hand, has some drawbacks. HM’s gameplay seems to have gotten slower and slower, to me, since Back to Nature on the Playstation, and this game doesn’t reverse this trend. My favorite Harvest Moons are Back to Nature (PSX) and A Wonderful Life (GC), and this one isn’t looking to crack that short list at the moment. It does, however, have one laugh-out-loud funny feature – the storms. Now, Harvest Moon games somewhat revolve around rain in that you want it fairly often to alleviate some of the tedium of watering your plants daily. However, never before has the sound of thunder been played by a toilet being flushed. I swear to God, that’s what storms sounds like, just repeated flushings of a toilet. We laughed so hard when it dawned on us that that’s what it sounded like. I say, rent it just for that and get a laugh.

In other news, we obviously have The Sims 3 and are reviewing it as well. Great fun, and it truly breathes new life into the series. A quick anecdote: Beta was playing Sims 2 the night before we got the game, and she was getting tons of lucky breaks. She was having a great game, which she said could be attributed to the game saying, “Don’t leave me!”. Funny stuff.

Beta Rocks Live

Betasim recently picked up a guitar-only pack of Guitar Hero: World Tour (meaning, game and guitar only; no drums or mic). She recently beat the tour, and has since grown tired of breaking her own high scores. Therefore, she has taken her game online, to see where she stands.

Now, let it be known that Beta does not have an Xbox Live account, let alone a Gold one. I, however, do, so last night there was a chick rocker online with the name Alphasim, besting comers left and right. She played versus for awhile, including four or so times against one guy, who she about doubled the score of while on normal difficulty, with him on easy. She eventually went to hard to try and even things out, but it didn’t help. She also played a few team matches, and one guy she played with was fantastic. He was hitting almost all his notes on expert… I was impressed. Finally she joined an impromptu band. She played three songs with them (another guitarist and a singer) when her turn came to pick the song. I suggested she pick something hard to sing, just to be mean, and lo and behold, she did. Hell, the song she picked wasn’t even in English! She picked Escuela de Calor, and it was to no ones surprise that the singer quit mid way through the song. Beta commented that she felt terrible. I think she did, anyway… she was laughing so hard it was difficult to tell what she was saying.

She joined another band and played a round with them, until they sat at the ‘post gig’ screen for over four minutes. She bailed on them to go try the battle mode. Neither of us knew anything about this so she was going in blind. She lasted all of about two and a half minutes before she was blitzed to death by her opponent. Finally she wrapped up her night playing one more gig with some random schmoe who picked a Tool song, which makes her happy all the live-long day. Swear words were uttered by her through most of the song (all of which were directed at her opponent), after which she called it a night. I think that this was karma getting back at her for Escuela de Calor, personally.

Here’s the part that worries me. Beta played for over an hour, and did pretty well. I, however, am pathetic. I struggle to complete most songs on easy, and can’t even think of going to normal. I’m worried that the people she played against and with are going to want to play again, only they’re going to come to me looking for competition. I want nothing to do with playing this thing online, but now it looks like I do.

*sigh* I’ve got to get Beta her own Live account.

News and Notes: 5/7/09

It’s been awhile since my last post, so here’s what’s up.

• I’m still hyping Unreal Tournament III to anyone who’ll listen now that it’s been upgraded with patch 2.0 (and now 2.1), as well as the Titan Pack. This is what Epic intended the game to be, I believe, and I love it.
• MLB 2K9 for PC got patched a while back, and more then anything it seems to have all but fixed the first baseman bug. That was far and away my biggest complaint, but it wasn’t everything. I still want to see the other fielding gaffes fixed as well as the Quick Play mode expanded to allow changing the other team’s starting lineup and pitcher (although that may be out of the realm of a normal patch).
• Would it make sense for me to review World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, now that everyone who will buy it has had it for months? I’m not sure. I’ll give it some thought.
• I’m toying with in-game browsers like PLAYXPERT, XFire and Steam’s in-game browser, and so far I like XFire’s the best. Steam’s works very well, but obviously only works on game’s that run through Steam. XFire, on the other hand, seems to work with most anything, and the in-game app includes taking video and pictures as well. PLAYXPERT seems to take too much in the way of system resources so it’s not running 98% of the time on my rig. Naturally,I go by Alphasim on XFire (as seen at the bottom of this page). Look me up.
• I bought a new cell phone recently, a Motorola Krave, and I love it. The interface is slick and it works like a charm. My only potential complaint is the flip-up plastic screen that protects the touch screen when not in use is a hindrance when using the touch screen QWERTY keyboard. Other then that, no complaints. I definitely recommend it.
• Betasim graduates from the University of Illinois at Chicago this weekend. Congrats, Beta! Now you can get back to work on the site…  I mean, relax and take it easy! lol You know which one I really mean.
• I recently re-installed and patched back up TESIV: Oblivion. I installed a couple item mods to expand the gear and loot tables, primarily Armamentarium and it’s related mods. It works great and I’m enjoying the game again. My big complaint when I uninstalled it was that I’d seen no new gear in 30+ hours, and now that’s been fixed. I’m looking to install  a couple graphical overhaul mods to improve the slightly aging visuals now that I’ve got two more gigs of RAM since I last played, plus and that GeForce 8800 GT I reviewed back in September of ‘08.
  

I’ll post more later. I’ve got allot of minor updates to post here that don’t warrant a site update, so look forward to that.

Checking In

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted here, but I’ve been hard at work. Gaming. Yeah, hard life. Here’s what’s on my mind right now as far as gaming in general, my favorite titles at the moment, and other miscellanea.

• Spore: Galactic Adventures slipped past it’s once-presumed March ship date, leaving me rather disappointed. I still like Spore to an extent, but it needs this new expansion to suck me back in. My favorite phase is still Creature Phase, and Space Phase is too monotonous for me, so I’m looking for this expansion to change that.
• If you own Unreal Tournament III but haven’t tried it with the new patch and the Titan mini-expansion, I implore you to do so. In my opinion, many of the flaws that made it a good-but-not-great game have been ironed out, with the menus getting overhauled and features/modes/gimmicks added to bolster the experience. I’m back in the game and it’s finally approaching UT2k4 in my heart.
• I finally bit the bullet and picked up Left 4 Dead. I’m not a gore-and-guts guy, to be honest, and the thought of this brutal game turned my stomach. I kept hearing great things about it, though, so I tried it and I am very, very pleased so far. I’m having more fun mowing down the undead than should probably be allowed without a prescription. Another home run for Valve Software. Review forthcoming.
• I’m still trying to convince myself that I can enjoy MLB 2K9. I can’t seem to get a decent game out of it with all of it’s bugs, and I’ve not heard a peep from Take Two about a patch for PC gamers. For shame!
• I bothered to pick up Neverwinter Nights 2 and it’s expansions this month, and it’s about the worst $70 I’ve spent on a game in a long, long while. I can’t find anything redeeming about it so far, and I’m seething that Direct2Drive lopped about $20 or so off of the price of the pack after I bought my copy from them. It’s been a bad month for me, purchase-wise.
• This is a little off subject, but as long as I’m calling out the worst gaming bargain I’ve had, let me share the best: Robot Arena 2: Design and Destroy, for $20, is the best gaming value I’ve ever had. For twenty bucks in 2004 I got hundreds of hours of fun, made a ton of friends, and got to taste minor ‘net fame with my AON Bot Wars video series that’s still a hit on YouTube. Unlike most bot building games, you have just about absolute creative freedom to place parts where ever you want. And, if that’s not enough, you can use external tools to make your own parts, making for an endless experience. I actually got my RA2 break while posting Robot Wars replicas on the old AceUplink forum, getting me invited into a mod team to make a Robot Wars AI pack. My work on RA2 is still some of my finest to date, in any field. You can still buy a copy, I believe, through Trymedia, so I recommend everyone try the demo at least.

That’s all for now. Alphasim out.

e-AAGH.net Xbox 360 is back on line

Well, I got my Xbox 360 back today from Microsoft after it's second bout with the Red Ring of Death, and I'm hopeful that was the last time I'll have to deal with that. While I can't buy a game to celebrate like last time when I bought Grand Theft Auto 4 for the 360, I figured reviewing GTA4 for PC would suffice. You know what I said last post about it being a 'riot?' It's more like, 'insights a riot,' because this game bugged to hell. Oh well, enjoy the review anyway.

Updates, News and Notes

I just wanted to post that updates on e-AAGH.net are going to be a little slower then usual for awhile as I work on that visual overhaul I mentioned in my annual editorial. Beta and I are conspiring on what look will work best, so stick around and see what happens.

In other news, my newest blog covers one of my favorite subjects: sports. Stop on by ASB (the Alpha Sports Blog) and take a gander at what I'm up to there. I'm striving for a newspaper-style appearance. Lemme know if it works for everyone.

Finally, and on a very somber note, my Xbox 360 is dead again. Stupid system. Ah well, Beta came through with GTA4 for the PC for my birthday a week or so ago, so that's a nice consolation prize, I guess. The game is a riot on PC, and I love the video editor. Maybe I'll post a clip or two sometime. Later, all.