I just wanted to check whether this would break the Internet:

Donkeljohn's Profile at GameSpot

It did. Unfortunately, the badge won't appear here since it uses a nasty word (C-L-A-S-S). Fortunately, this dude's link page can host the badge.

Did you see that new footage and the screenshots for Burnout Paradise ? I did too. While I expected the new Burnout to look hot (pun intended), I'm more interested in seeing how the freeroam gameplay turns out. They are working in the Need for Speed aspects, but word still hasn't come out on the next NFS.

If Burnout's Q4 2007 release window is accurate--I assume it is, since the trailer closes with "available soon"--I am going to have a hard time deciding what to request for Christmas. HL2:Orange Box for 360? Burnout Paradise? A Wii? My wife to forgive me for all of the other games I've purchased? Since I haven't seen or read much about Burnout Paradise, the decision is definitely a good six months away. Whatever the end present is, it must needs come from one of two locations: the source (no relation to Steam) or Amazon. You can't really complain about no sales tax or shipping charges.

Speaking of gifts, I secured a Mother's Day gift for my wife. She's dropped hints for a while about something she wanted, and I have made the necessary reservations. Hopefully it will be a pleasant surprise.

I just dropped off my 360 at a UPS-compatible shipping location. I was expecting a swift transit to Texas (where the repair location is evidently located), but the lady who accepted my parcel said it wouldn't go out until Monday.

Evidently UPS trucks don't do pick ups on the weekend. Whatever.

This past week without my 360 has been rather strange. Not only has my console been dead, but my wife and child have also been gone on a trip. My home seems especially empty without my wife and daughter. This would have been the best time to play; no wife to feel jealous about me spending copious amounts of time gathering achievements. When I get home from work I want to talk to somebody, but instead I just have more work to do. I'd love to be able to talk with my friends online, or at least play the games I want to play. One night I sat and watched Colbert Report re-runs until I couldn't stay awake any longer.

Lest I sound too whiny, I have benefited from the forced deprivation. I have found a new respect for my multiple friends who have lost not only their spouses, but also their children. I know, and have known, many people who lost their wife and their children at the same time. While I don't pretend to be in the same predicament, my lot helps me understand far better the situations those friends are in.  

At the end of each day, my loss of my console is forgettable and very insignificant to me, compared to how much I miss my wife and daughter. Hopefully my family returns from their trip sooner rather than later.

Its basketball playoffs time. A lot of people around me are thrilled about the Warriors being in the playoffs. I suppose after 13 years of losing, anybody could get excited about having a local team go to the playoffs.

To celebrate, our Negotiation professor has given the class a case study about Juwan Howard's $105 million contract his agents negotiated with the Bullets (now the Wizards) back in the mid-90s. That is a crazy lot of money. It's okay if you don't see a direct tie to the Warriors by studying a salray negotiation for a Bullets player. I don't think I see the connection either. . . outside of the whole basketball finals time.

I just finished reading 'Badger's comic manuscript.

I dug it. Hopefully everybody who is interested will be able to get it in comic form someday. The use of home-made nails was great, but the setting descriptions had genius inside:

". . . the room in which he's seated is a trailer, the kind that gets eaten by tornadoes."

The fictitious television show he created to play in said trailer would surely win Microsoft's content contest. I'd share it with you, but then you'd win the $100,000 and a screening at the New York Television Festival. I'm pretty sure Richard Chamberlain would donate his talent just to appear in the pilot.

It's tough having friends that are brilliant.

At the risk of giving everything away (read: SPOILERZ!), I was rather disappointed by Peter & Sylar's confrontation. The battle was underwhelming and the climax was a pale allusion to previously seen drama. Nice job pulling that shard Claire. She must have a +3 to her Spot checks, considering everyone else touched the same tuft of hair and never noticed.

Regardless of whether people understood the end, I confess I saw it coming. How could you not use the loft as a base of operations? It totally saves on set design and construction expenses.

TIME PARADOX!

While the last six weeks have been a harrowing time with school, work, and life commitments, the wait for another episode of Heroes is a few hours away from being over. Will watching Sylar and Peter throw down make learning IP configuration protocols any easier? Probably not.

With only five episodes left until the grand season finale I can't imagine any cliffhangers more precipitous than Parasite's last few minutes. Sure the city of New York could go BOOM, but we are expecting that from the show. Given the preview material available, this episode is only going to take us deeper into the Heroes world. Who's going to die tonight? Seriously, if anybody other than guest appearing characters die, hardly anybody will be left for Season 2.

It's not every day I go up to San Francisco, but the previous two days sure made a case for that being the norm.

Friday I hopped on the train with snielsen0 and rendesvoused with Caro for a gig in the city. It was a hoot. We even rocked out on the Guitar Hero II mobile studio. Playing Guitar Hero II on a six-foot-wiide monitor outside of the CNET offices was a hoot. We got to chat with Brian Ekberg afterwards before I had to run off to school. I'll probably write more about my time on 2nd Street in a couple weeks. Needless to say, Vinny Caravella is a host among hosts and Aaron Thomas can give office tours like no other.

After a heinous evening of Negotiation lectures, 'badger picked me up and we went back to my apartment where we met up with my wife. We all decided to avoid another four-hour Soviet Missile Mastar scenario and went to our separate beds. On Saturday morning, I made waffles. 'Badger, baby, and my beloved all partook in a grand oatmeal-laden feast. Some slathered their waffles in syrup, others coated the waffles in peanut butter before dunking in milk. There's no wrong way to eat waffles.

While my wife ran a couple errands, 'Badger and I fired up the old Genesis to save the galaxy in Forgotten Worlds. It had been about 13 years since I last played that game. Playing it again in co-op only made it better than I remembered. We were shooting and fighting and saving the universe one stage at a time.

About Noon we hopped the train back into the City and hit APE. It was far more tame than I expected. Sam & Max had a booth there, a dude dressed as Archangel was there, along with scores of black-clad visitors. After finishing a circuit, we ran into my buddy Dan. He was trying to remain incognito, but the Fedora couldn't really hide him. We chatted a bit about how S-E-X-X-Y the iPhone is, how close the release is getting, and how the comic writing scene has been. 'Badger was stoked, I was glad to see a familiar face in the sea of black attire, and Dan left intent on finding something in particular.

'Badger and I caught the tail end of the Françoise Mouly panel discussion and enjoyed her husband's comments about his pulitzer-prize winning comic. Hearing Françoise talk about the New Yorker covers was really interesting and very insightful. Both Art and Françoise spent quite a bit of their time discussing their 9/11-influenced art. Some of it was more interesting than other bits, but it was worth the trip.

On the way out, we stopped by the Oni Press booth where 'badger decided to pass on Wasteland, but I decided to pick up a trade paperback of Polly and the Pirates by Ted Naifeh. I hope in the next few years to read this with my daughter. It seems a decent enough read for 7+.

For now, the comic scene is over. . . until Comic-Con.

Remember when I used to play my xbox360? I do too. When I arrived home from work last night the only thing that greeted me was the infamousred light notification of a critical hardware failure. I went to xbox.com to check to see what their action items were for this situation. Afte

After searching the knowledge base, I called the help line. Fortunately, their automated customer assistance operator (Max) was available to help me. He walked me through verbal queue after verbal queue in a vain attamept at rectifying my beloved console's malady. Finally, Max concluded what I already knew: he couldn't help bring my box back from the broken state.

When I finally got a live operator, the help was efficient, though very impersonal. The operator (Ryan) was kind enough to offer a repair with free shipping on either side of the service. Hopefully the coffin will arrive soon to carry my box into the afterlife. 

During yesterday's ish-dition of the HotSpot, Jeff made a passing remark about Guitar Hero II causing problems with 360s. I laughed whenever Jeff said Guitar Hero was "Way into the Devil." Once I saw the game I was surprised how graphically into the Devil the game was. Now that the soul of my xbox360 has been claimed, I have realized (too late) that the Devil is in the details.

Here's to a swift resurrection. 

Who doesn't love a bargain?

I went to work yesterday thinking about the impending doom of the homework I have to do. *Yuck* I came home astonished by the awesomeness around me.

A friend of mine had gotten a great deal on some games. Fortunately, he was willing to share said deal. When I stopped by his home after leaving the office, I ran across the street, talked for a few minutes, and inquired if he knew how to get any discounts on Guitar Hero II. You see, my wife is all about playing Guitar Hero, so I had to find a way to make that happen. It just so happened he had a gotten a copy, but does not have a 360. I'm not sure how that happened, but he freely offered me his copy. I felt like Gandalf being offered the One Ring. Unfortunately, it was more than I could bear. I caved.

When I arrived home, I freely flaunted the box (especially since there is no way on Earth to conceal something of that magnitude). She nervously continued doing dishes, wondering how to remind me of the $90 price tag I had to have paid. When I revealed it was lent to us free of charge, she all but said, "Hey man, is that freedom Rock?!? Well, turn it up, man!"

Since I had to go into a teleconference, my wife started rockin'. She didn't relent until I pried the guitar from her hands. I'm pretty sure my daughter wanted to play too. She escaped from bedtime and sat with her mom to watch me face the Guitar Hero II for the first time. At first I was frustrated by my natural inclination to press where the frets ought to be, but I quickly broke my good guitar-playing practices and found my stride in the button pressing. I haven't been so excited to hear a KISS song since "I Was Made for Lovin' You" first aired on my Internet radio station.

Guitar Hero III better have some of the Darkness. Just about anything off of Permission to Land would be grand (only the edited lyrics, of course).