I'm back from my third suspension. What was it for this time? Who knows. But I've had about enough of the people here on GameSpot. Somehow something I wrote, which isn't appearing in my moderation history, was meant to upset people or something. Whatever, GameSpot. Since I'm almost 100% anti-GameSpot now, with their utterly ignorant reviewers, their Nazi moderators, and the dozen mails I get a day about joining a stupid union, I'm sorry to say this, but I'm putting a halt on my giving away Gears of War for Christmas. Basically, I'm still going to be around, but thanks to the Nazis on this stupid website, not as much. I hope all of you understand and you all still visit my blog... DAILY.

Either way, Merry Christmas.

Before I started this, I wanted to ask everyone if anyone has bought Blu-Ray players (PS3s are included) or the HD-DVD players (Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on included as well). Also, I'd like to know how old you guys are. If you bought a PS3, cool, I understand. But you guys going out spending the money on a standard that might not make it is pretty out there. Do you guys know the story of VHS? During the times VHS was released, another 'standard' was around called Beta Max. Some people bought a Beta Max player and Beta Max tapes. Some people bought VHS and VHS tapes. Needless to say, VHS won that war and those people that bought Beta Max wasted their money. The same thing will happen to Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD. One of them will drop and then the guy who bought the player that drops will be ranting and raving. Before you do go into a rant, remember, Dinghy is telling you now to not waste your money on this crap before the standards are set for what will replace DVD, and second, remember that we have history (even history in electronics) that we should be aware of and learn from. If you think this isn't another Beta Max/VHS war in digital times, you're a very foolish person. I'm just saying, hold up for a few years because honestly, you can't tell THAT big of a difference unless you're own a 1080p TV. Even then, it's not worth it just so you can say "Whoa, I watched a movie in HD last night.". Back to Christmas...

·Day Three: Movie·

I know you guys have been flipping out about me putting this up, and trust me, I love this movie more than the next guy. Eddie (the fat drunk cousin) reminds me a little too much of one of my uncles. But, for those of you who are unsure about what this movie is about, here it goes. The Griswold's decide to stay home and have a huge traditional Christmas with their families coming in and staying with them in their home. Clark (Chevy Chase) is saving up to buy a pool for his family for Christmas, but is waiting on his big bonus to come through so he can afford it. The real fun is when Eddie and his trash family comes. A great classic, and if you haven't seen this, go find your grandfather's gun and clean it with your tongue!! Just kidding. Just go watch it. If you have Xbox 360, you can rent it directly off of Marketplace right now. I think I saw it on there...

·Day Three: Game·

Finally, a game even a Wii owner can get. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is a really good game for you guys to ask for this Christmas holiday. I just recently wrote a review for the game (check it out). I think the reason this game is good to ask for is because it truly is a game you and your friends can sit down and play. Everyone knows Marvel. Everyone knows how to hit random buttons. My preferred console to play this on is the 360 for the achievements. They're a lot of fun to collect in this game and give you a little more for your money. That's if you care about achievements.

Sorry I was out yesterday. I've been running through Marvel: Ultimate Alliance again with my cousin, Jman. Between that and trying to run Baylor through the championships in NCAA Football 07, it was a busy day. I would like to point out that I hate Disney DVDs. I got the new Pirates of the Carribean movie, and low and behold, there were around 8 chapters before I got the the menu of stupid previews. Kill Disney. Now, onto the Christmas Special.

·Day Two Movie: Home Alone·

Face it: Macaulay Culkin is a freak. Home Alone is probably the only good movie I've ever seen him in. The Good Son was alright, but Home Alone basically is Macaulay Culkin. Macaulay... what were his parents thinking? Anyway, if you've never seen this movie, it's awesome. It's basically a huge family going away on vacation, and the forget this little brat kid in the attic. He later runs around trying to act like an adult and take care of his parent's huge mansion, while his family tries to find a way home to be with him. Meanwhile, back at the mansion, Mr. Culkin finds his home trying to be overrun by two bird brained crooks called the Wet Bandits. The best part of the movie is the booby traps he lays down. It's an overall good Holiday flick.

·Day Two Game: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion·

If you know someone that has a good PC, Xbox 360, and/or a PS3, but has never played this game, then they're stupid and don't deserve you to be your friend. But, so they can maintain that relationship with you, I'd suggest getting this game for them and also including a few bucks for them so they can get the expansion, Knights of the Nine. If you want my honest opinion on which one is the best version, I'd say go with the PC version. PC versions of any game are going to be better because of the price and because of the fact you can modify the game with custom content without a fee.

I'm back after a 4 day suspension. I tell ya, saying the word "r*m" or "em*lation" around this place is like saying bomb on an airplane. You can't say it. Oh well, if GameSpot decides to ban me, it's their loss, not mine. GameSpot has always been ran by these Nazi moderators that love to abuse their power. Not all, just some. Obviously, they're little monkeys... Is that considered trolling?

It's more than twelve days until Christmas, but I probably won't be on GameSpot around the 22nd until the 29th. I'm just going to go ahead and do all this early so you guys can enjoy an early Christmas from Dinghy. After Christmas, one of you (at random from the classic 'hat drawing') will be winning your very own copy of Gears of War. That's right! A brand new spankin' copy of Gears of War. Let me create a small faq on what I assume will be some questions:

Q) But I already have Gears of War? (or) I don't have an Xbox 360!
A) You can always take it to your local Walmart (not sure what you guys have across the pond) and just exchange it for store credit.
Q) The game's rated Mature. My parent(s) would kill me!!
A) You have two choices: be a nice person and tell me 'I can't accept this' so I can redraw, or be a sneaky little kid. I'd go with the second.
Q) Are you stealing games to give away?
A) No. If I was stealing, I think I would be letting you guys pick which games I would go steal. Probably not though.

Besides just being a decent dawg, I'm also going to be doing a daily Game & Movie recommendation, much better than the Dinghyween I was doing. So, let's just get this rolling, and for the complainers out there, I'm so sorry for making a very long blog today. Remember though, it's my blog and if I want, I will post the Ghettoberg Address up in this joint.

·Day One: Movie·

Question: Who hasn't seen this movie? I hope I don't have to explain to people why this is a classic Christmas movie. Even if you hate the festive holidays, this movie is just classic. To just sum up the movie, it's the story of a little boy who is dying to get a bb gun for Christmas but everyone keeps saying he'll shoot his eye out. It's the trials he goes through to get to the Christmas day that makes the movie. Overall, it's one of my top favorite holiday movies.

·Day One: Game·

Unlike the movies, this is just what you kids (or adults that act like kids) should be asking for under the Christmas tree. It has nothing to do with a holiday theme, just what you should be getting for Christmas. This game is a tricked out version of Gears of War, and for the people saying "Ugh, Tom Clancy game? Must be slow paced crap.", you're wrong. It's just about as intense as Gears of War, minus the huge monsters. I think if you want a game to last you, this will last you some time.

Remember a while back I told you about my Virtual Console Center? Well, I upgraded it. It now actually looks like a bigger Xbox 360 in my living room. It's a white and silver compact computer instead of a dark gray-blue compact. It just matched our living room more. It's pretty cool. Basically, the specs went from this:
Intel Pentium 4 533FSB
256MB DDR SDRAM
Dell motherboard
Integrated graphics and sound
80GB 7200RPM hardrive
DVD -RW
Now to the new and improved:
AMD Athlon 64 3200
512MB DDR2 SDRAM
Dell motherboard
128MB ATI Radeon X1300 PCI Express
160GB SATA2 hardrive
DVD -RW
With this, I can now load up games that look better on my television, such as the new Sam & Max: Culture Shock, and actually play with out the random slowdowns in games. Overall, I rate my new VCC a perfect 10, since the emulators and everything work so well on it. (Dinghy does not promote software piracy. Go buy the originals! W00f!).

Now, on to the matter at hand: Lost Planet. I've played the E3 demo. I've seen the trailers. I'm going to be playing the multiplayer demo tonight. I just have to say I don't see why people are hyping this crap up. I said it first: it's crap. It's a graphically impressive game, I must admit, but people, graphics aren't everything. They do account for part of the game, but I mean, c'mon. Can someone "sell" me the game in other words? I'm not just picking on the game because it's being hyped. I just don't see why if a game has beautiful graphics, people instantly attach onto it, and think it's going to be the game to get this holiday season or whenever it comes out. Maybe it's just my prejudice towards robot games (or how we left the 80s and robots behind us).

~Dinghy Dawg

Yesterday, I was suppose to be at work around 7am and leave at 8pm. I called in. I wanted to have a 'Ferris' day. I didn't get to drive a Ferrari, but I did get to shoot some terrorist, become a crazed Nazi flag carrier, a college football player, and I topped it off with some hotdogs and three bacon cheeseburgers from Wendy's. My wife was out of town so I had some "me time". I thought about stuff. I had a really good day just not working. I got to visit family, play some games, hang out, and not have to worry if I'm hitting our retard quotas. Yeah, I'm still in a daze. Just decided to share.

I stayed up a little late last night but I realized something. Wiid is by side, it's always been there. (The console, not the lamb's bread.)

~ mc dinghy

I went to Best Buy yesterday after dropping my wife off at the DFW airport so she could go to the funeral for her grandpa. I got the new Tom Clancy game, Rainbow Six Vegas. I own every Tom Clancy game known to man, and after playing the demo, Vegas was a must. So far, I have to admit, that this is probably the best reason to get a 360. It's exciting, intense, and the graphics are powered by the new Unreal engine. You might be wondering why I called my blog 'Gears of Vegas'. Well, honestly, I own Gears of War, which is considered the game to get for the Xbox 360 right now. I loved it, but as you'll notice, that's a past tense. Right now, I don't see me picking up Gears of War for a while mainly because the multiplayer gets old, the single player is far too easy and short, and there's just not enough weapons to keep me glued. It really reminds me of a game that is introducing what is to come. Maybe Gears of War 2 will hold my interest longer. Granted, Gears of War is a terrific game, but besides the hype, a really experienced gamer wouldn't be glued to it for weeks upon weeks. There's just not much on the plate for a gamer to munch on. Rainbow Six, on the other hand, offers everything that Gears has (graphics, sounds, cool guns... *no chainsaw machine gun though*) and from what I've played so far, has done it better. The co-op supports 4 players, which just means more bang for your buck. Every game mode has a ton of options. There's more variety to the game as far as what you can do. Heck, they even implimented the hide-behind-a-wall-and-shoot that Gears did so well. This game just puts a more realistic spin on it. Like I said, I just got it, so maybe this is another extremely short game. I'm not really sure. When I write my review, I'll let you all know.

Also, I don't know if you guys knew about this but if you plan on getting Halo 3, this is the deal to get it at. As always, thanks for reading. Coming soon: Christmas themed Dinghy page.

~Dinghy Dog

I don't know why, but I thought that alone was blog worthy. It's on one of my most favorite websites, Uncyclopedia. If you want to read the full article on the 'facts' of the Zelda game, click here. This website is a parody of Wikipedia, and I must warn you, there's a ton of language.

I had too many topics to cover in this blog. They're ranging from death to monkeys running around in balls. I don't even know where to begin so I guess I'll start with the first thing going on.

I'm generally a happy guy. I rarely get sick or depressed, but for a while now, I've been really depressed about a lot of stuff. It really all started with how much I don't like my job, and how much I do like my job. The problems with my job is how they make you feel. If you're not the best at what you do then you're nothing, and in some cases, they tell you that. My friend who worked here was pretty good and then he started slipping in his performance. They pulled him into a room and told him how he was going to amount to nothing and all this crap. It hasn't happened to me, but I'm sure it will be coming. I'm not doing so hot at the moment, and it's because of how sad I am all the time. On top of work, they work us so much here that I don't have any me time. Since I'm married, it's hard to maintain a healthy relationship, especially since I can't get out of this job for anything. It doesn't pay too shabby, which is the main reason I'm still here. But I feel like I'm going to be stuck here. I wanted to go to school this year but had to wait because of work. I don't know how I'm going to squeeze in work and going to school. I'm 22 so I should at least have more than a week of school under my belt. College, not general education. Then there's my family, who lives in Tennesee. I wouldn't want to live in the same house as them since I click heads with my parents, but I really miss them and my brother. It's hard to even get the time to play games with my brother or my dad. I didn't grow up loving my family, because I really had a bad attitude with everyone. I never was too mean to my brother, but just some of the stuff I've done or let my friends get away with really bothers me today. If you have a younger brother or sister, take my word on this; be extremely nice to them because one day, you're going to really miss them. On top of everything, this weekend, my wife's grandfather passed away. It's really sad for both of us because he was sort of my grandpa in California. I'm taking her to the airport this Thursday so she can go to the funeral. Again, I'm stuck at work. The policy here is "If it's not making us money, then you can't take off". Stupid big corporations, I swear... Just to let you guys aware of this: I'm not emo or a suicidal guy. I'm just sad. It's the holidays and everything is going crazy. Maybe I'll win that lotto since life has been so hard so far. I'm a big Relient K fan, and anyone who has heard the song "Softer To Me" should know how I feel. I don't want to feel selfish since there's obviously much more pain going on in everyday life than mine.

Off of that, and onto some more gaming excitement from the House of Dinghy. First off comes the new Wii game I bought Saturday night, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. I was looking at the reviews and I was thinking "Okay, cool. I need a new Wii game since I'm not playing Zelda yet and I already did everything I could in Rayman.". I loaded up the game with my cousin, who has been over nightly playing Wii Sports with me. We loaded up the first mini game, which happened to be Monkey Golf. After one hour, we got through maybe 3 holes. I don't even think it was that many. Why? Because the controls are a piece on that mini game. It almost made me go back and return the game (somehow) or choice B, which is hurling my Wii at the door and going "There! Enjoy that!". It was way too frustrating for me. I actually got online and checked out the fourms to see if anyone else had the same problem. I'm not sure about the Golf, but a lot of people were complaining. I finally read the full review on GameSpot and then checked out the video review. They didn't really tell you some of the problems they had with the games that "didn't work". That's just about all they said is some of them "didn't work". So I tried a few other games, just in case. Home Run Derby worked perfect actually. I think it was more fun than Wii Sports version. There was the basketball game that also worked... sorta. It is just too awkward. I think the problem I have with almost all of the mini games is they really don't work that well, and then there's some that are just really retarded. For instance, in golf, you have to move the Wii-mote around until you find out where you want to hit it. There's not really any bars or anything that tell you how far you're going to hit it, what you're power hit is going to be.. nothing. It's just like they handed you a virtually broken club and said 'swing away'. Aside from the mini games, I loaded up the single player game. Now, that was actually fun. If you plan on getting Monkey Ball for the mini games like I thought, think again. I'd really suggest waiting for WarioWare or something that has better controls. That stupid Monkey Ball game just has so many games that don't work that it makes you second guess that which wii call We. Or visa versa.

Now, I started playing my 360 again. I loaded it up to show my cousin and friends Gears of War. We had a lot of fun, but split screen is just so annoying after you play online! Still, it's a pleasure to have it there. The other thing I tried last night was renting a movie from Live. I figured 240 points for a movie isn't that bad since I ultimatelly have to drive somewhere and waste gas across town to get the movie, then drive back home and watch it, then take it all the way back. It's just annoying. Well, after getting the movie last night, I have to say, Microsoft needs to fix their crap. I was in the middle of downloading it and it was taking it's dear sweet time. We didn't get to watch it last night. I was showing my wife the trailer to the new TMNT, and I saw the movie in there. I was like "Cool, I wonder if it would let me play it.". Well, it started up and I just closed it before the Warner Bros. logo popped up. My wife was commenting on it beforehand saying "14 days we have to watch it. That's neat". Right after I stopped it, it said '23 hours and 59 minutes left'. Ok, I knew that if I watched it, it would be 24 hours before it deleted. I don't really care about that since I doubt I'd have time to watch it a second time. But c'mon. The movie was like 10% done and I was just seeing if it would even let me watch it to see the quality. Now IF I make it home tonight before 9, I'll have 1 1/2 hours to watch the movie which is 2 hours long. So will I be watching it and it just closes out? If so, I'm going to go crazy. Overall, I think Microsoft needs to review their 24 hour delete time because I might want to watch it a 2nd time. Netflicks, baby. Screw this Live rental junk. It is just a waste of time.

Since the Ponty Mython has taught me so well, I must look on the brighter side of life. I did get my computer I won last week. It's really cool looking, but I don't need it. I did, however, keep the free 19" flat panel monitor I got. A nice upgrade from my cheap 17" CRT that I got because my 21" Cinema Display from Mac went out during a long game of World of Warcraft. Blast it!

~Dinghy "Didn't Spell/Grammar Check" Dog

I've worked in a lot of different fields. I've been working since age 14, with jobs like construction, engineering, billing, and accounting. I actually gave up anything to do with engineering to work the glorious world of retail. I started work at a CompUSA in October. I was getting used to the job, I was like "Ok, this isn't that bad. At least the time doesn't drag.". Then, the day after Thanksgiving happened. I had actually never in my life heard of Black Friday before working there. So I showed up the day after, 10 minutes early. I ended up being a little late looking for a parking spot. I just waited for one of those morons to leave the store so I could park and get to my register. When I walked in, there were people lined up to the back of the store (which was a good 80-100 people in line) on all 6 registers. What were we advertising? Well, honestly, it was like CDs were cheap. We had a sale on a few notebooks. Stuff like that. I didn't know what was going on so I didn't know what to look for. The next year, I waited for it. I wanted to see what was so great. I'm here to give you an insider look on the wild world of Black Friday.

Retail stores (besides Best Buy and Walmart; they unusually have good junk actually on sale) release an ad that has a 50-pack CDs for $9.99. The week before Black Friday, they release a horrible ad. Something with a bunch of deals that aren't actually deals. Then, the Black Friday ad they release is the same 50-pack of CDs for $9.99. Now, when you look at the ad from the week before, then check out the ad for Black Friday, you're going "Ohhhhhhhh man! Corporate America told me last week I was getting the 50-pack of CDs for $19.99, now they're 50% off?! Holy moly! That's a deal!". Guys and gals, do you see what's going on? You expect a deal for Black Friday because you're told it's such a great day to shop, so you just trust that a company making a profit off of you is going to give you the best deals possible, when in fact, they just planted the seed to blind you from the truth: Black Friday sales are a gimmick! Anyone waiting in line all night for a $20 DVD player at Walmart should really think: why would a corporation want to help the little guy? Could it be that the DVD player is a piece? Yup, it is. If it's too good to be true, it's not. Anyway, that's my rant. Enjoy your shopping all of your suckers out there. ;)