Finally, it's still hot, but starting to reach a level where it's jsut uncomfortable instead of your eyes melting out of your head. And finally, finally, I got my computer upgrade! It's better than I was expecting, they found a new model after having the 'new' model for jsut a year, but I guess they were breaking a bunch so they had to find a different model. Anyway, we ended up with a Dell Latitude E6510- I guess it's more of a model designed for business purposes, but I dont really care too much. It has an i5 processor for one, dedicated graphics card, though i forget the exact specs, and at least 4 gigs of RAM. It can run the things I couldn't before, Left 4 Dead in particular runs as smooth as silk. The only thing that I'm not liking about it is that the admin restrictions are very strict. I can't install anything without an admin password, which is different from the password on the old computers, so right now I'm at the mercy of the computer center people. I got Steam on and it can run all of my Valve games, but anything else is a hit and miss because it wants to install a "winbot slave" thing. I think if I go up there one more time for a password for a game they might ban me from that place forever...

So, PC gaming has broken wide open for me, for the most part. I would like this computer even better if it was a bit more powerful- thus far, all of the games I have work, but some of the newer ones give me a little trouble in the same old places, namely areas that have fog and smoke, and/or a ton of of particle effects, like glowing shimmering forcefield kind of things, for example. Borderlands works great at full spec, but Mass Effect 2 jitters just a tiny bit in areas that has a lot of smoke or light beams. Fallout 3 has the same problem, usually if you go inside there are light beams coming in through chinks in the walls, and it doesnt like those a lot. So, nothing game-breaking, but it's still an annoying thing you don't have to deal with usually on a console.Right now, I'm really wrestling with whether or not to get Fallout New Vegas for my computer or PS3- they haven't released offical system requirements yet, but if you ask me, it almost doesn't look quite as good as 3. So, I gotta make up my mind in the next week or so, so i can pre-order on Steam.

So yes... school started back up and I've been distracted for quite a while, hence my taking forever to get back... Primary elections are over, crazy storms we usually get at the end of summer are rolling in, and we got into the first accident in our car! Well, my bro was driving, so thankfully he's stuck with the ticket and not me. It was pretty minor, it just broke our headlight cover out and bent a plastic panel on the other person's car- we were only goin like 5 miles an hour when it happened.

I managed to get my mits on Halo: Reach- my friend went to the midnight premier to get her pre-ordered 360slim bundle, and she hadn't even unwrapped the game. She's weird like that, way too much money to spend. But anyway, I defintiely liked Reach a lot better than ODST, especially the fact that you could customize your Spartan- I made a female one since we've never seen a female spartan before. It was still a little shorter than I would have liked, and I didn't like the ending much, but it was what it was. The combat was pretty good, though once again there was no dual-wield, which doesn't make me pleased.

And Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep! I can't believe how amazing it looks, with all the settings turned up, I really can't tell the difference between it and KH2, which is a pretty amazing achievement on PSP, if you ask me. I haven't got too far yet though, cuz I started a file with Terra on "Proud" mode since that was the difficulty I always played KH2 on, but Birth by Sleep is a lot more balanced than KH2 was, so I was getting my butt kicked on that difficulty. So, I started a new file on normal with Aqua, and it seems much more reasonable- it's actually challenging without seeming cheap.

Right now though, I'm playing this gem I got on Steam called World in Conflict- I never recall it coming out even though it was 2007, and it was allegedly the best strategy game of that year. Basically, the Soviets attack the U.S. in 1989, so you're trying to fight them off on your home turf- it's cool how you're using old National Guard equipment and tanks in the early levels when your still reeling from the intial assault, instead of the Army just instantly counter-attacking with hordes of M1A1 Abrams and all the latest gear. I was slightly leary at first since there is no base construction, which usually means you have a set number of units to complete a mission, but instead, you have reinforcement points and call in reinforcements by having them air-dropped by the national guard right on top of your position, ready to go. That means it's basically all combat and no down-time, which I can defintiely appreciate.