Hey everyone, I finally decided to do a video for YouTube. It's a quick tour of my tower in MineCraft. Feel free to leave comments and/or constructive criticism! Here's the LINK.

Not much is going on in life. I've decided to resign as an LPC/Supervised Psychologist at my current place of employment, where I've been employed for 4 years. I start my new job on November 15th and can't wait.

If you've been following my blogs the last couple of months, you've know I've had a bad couple of months. Anyways, I've really identified with this song lately and I thought I would share it as I'm sure many of us can relate. It's a Pearl Jam "song" called I'm still here. Here are the lyrics:

She said to me, over the phone
She wanted to see other people
I thought, Well then, look around. They're everywhere
Said that she was confused...
I thought, Darling, join the club
24 years old, Mid-life crisis
Nowadays hits you when you're young
I hung up, She called back, I hung up again
The process had already started
At least it happened quick
I swear, I died inside that night
My friend, he called
I didn't mention a thing
The last thing he said was, Be sound
Sound...
I contemplated an awful thing, I hate to admit
I just thought those would be such appropriate last words
But I'm still here
And small
So small.. How could this struggle seem so big?
So big...
While the palms in the breeze still blow green
And the waves in the sea still absolute blue
But the horror
Every single thing I see is a reminder of her
Never thought I'd curse the day I met her
And since she's gone and wouldn't hear
Who would care? What good would that do?
But I'm still here
So I imagine in a month...or 12
I'll be somewhere having a drink
Laughing at a stupid joke
Or just another stupid thing
And I can see myself stopping short
Drifting out of the present
Sucked by the undertow and pulled out deep
And there I am, standing
Wet grass and white headstones all in rows
And in the distance there's one, off on its own
So I stop, kneel
My new home...
And I picture a sober awakening, a re-entry into this little bar scene
Sip my drink til the ice hits my lip
Order another round
And that's it for now
Sorry
Never been too good at happy endings...

I hope everyone who read the lyrics got something out of it. If you'd care to hear the song, it can be found here. I'll write another blog before too long. In the mean time, I hope everyone is enjoying their summer.

It's been over 2 and a half months since my mom passed, and I'm struggling. The initial shock of losing her has lessened, the anger has decreased, but now I'm just blah. I can't sleep more than a couple of hours at a time (but hey, I finally got to experience late night OT), I'm easily agitated, I feel like screaming and lashing out, and I just feel lost. Other than my wife, my mom was my best friend.

Sometimes I feel like I should be over all of this now....like I annoy other's when I talk about her...my thoughts...my feelings. So I've started to try and keep them inside. Others don't mention her for fear of upsetting me. When I want to talk about her more than ever. I don't want to pretend she never existed.

So here I sit. I fell asleep around 11pm, and I've been up for an hour or so. It's 2 am in the morning. I figure I'll be up for a couple more hours and then catch some sleep. And then start the day again. Same crap different day.

I apologize for the tone of this blog entry to the reader. i guess it's more of a diary entry than anything. I miss you mom.

Before reading this, I'd like to state that this blog is more for my own benefit than anyone else's, i.e., don't ask yourself why I would write this to let a bunch of strangers know about a personal issue. If you'd like to leave comments, that's fine, but in the end, this blog is for myself.

So, April 16th was a Friday. I was looking forward to the weekend as it had been a really long week at work. I was running a few minutes late for an 8am appointment. My phone rings, I figure it was my work calling me. It was my brother. He works on cars and I had been trying to find my wife new tires for her car. My brother said I needed to come home, that the paramedics were trying to revive my mom and that it didn't look good. I went into work and said to clear my schedule for the day. My wife, who I work with, went to pick up our daughter from school. I went home to pack some clothes. I called my brother and asked what he meant by "it didn't look good". He said the paramedics had done everything they could, but were unable to revive her. Honestly I don't remember much after that, except for periodically asking my wife to pull the car over so I could throw up. Her death was unexpected to say the least. She was in perfect health other than getting migraines. She walked several miles perweek and watched what she ate as long as I can remember.

The coroner said that my mom wasn't in pain and passed peacefully. His best guess was either a blood clot or an aneurysm. I then tried to piece my mom's last moments of life together. I had spent the previous weekend with her and my family, had spoken to her Wednesday night, and she had spent Thursday afternoon with my sister in law. Looking at her email account, the last email she sent was at 5:55am...my father returned from work around 7:45am and thought she had fallen asleep at the kitchen counter (they have a breakfast bar) as she often did. He tried to wake her to get ready for work, at which time he found herunresponsive.

We met with the funeral director and I agreed to put together some slideshows, music, and write my mother's obituary. It was the hardest thing I've ever done.

Now, what makes me question life and how unfair it can be is this: My mother worked her ass off her entire life so that she and my dad could enjoy their retirement. After working at her current job for 20 years, she had turned in her retirement papers and her last day was April 30th, 2010 (and I should mention that the emails she was sending at 5:55am were to notify several people she was retiring and how they could contact her). Two weeks after her death. Even more aggravating is that she was in college and had expected to graduate this summer, in fact she had just passed anatomy and physiology. How unfair is that.

My mom was 58 years old at the time of her death and her and my father had expected to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary in June. I'm only 32, which IMO, is way to young to bury your mother. My heart goes out to kids and adolescents who have had to bury a parent. Even though I'm an adult with my own family, my mom and I were really close. I feel bad for my father who had been with my mom since he was 15 years old. Now he has no one and all of his plans for retirement are gone.

My mom was a caring person who I greatly admired and she is greatly missed. Life will go on, but it will never be the same.

So, I got my 360 Pro at launch, meaning it came with a 20gb HDD. Over the last year or so I've had to delete things off of my HDD any time I wanted to rent a movie, download a demo, etc.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been looking at upgrading my HDD. My two options were a 60gb HDD for $100, or a 120gb HDD for $150. Talk about a ripoff, but I was getting tired of deleting DLC.

I figured I would play it safe and just get the 120gb HDD to solve possible problems down the line. An Elite is $150 more than the 120gb HDD. I called GameStop and they were running a bonus deal where I could get $120 for my old 360 Pro. So basically I could get the HDD for $150, or get a new console for only $30 more.

I chose to get the Elite. For the extra $30 I got a new, fully functioning controller to replace my previous one that was on the fritz. I also got two new games with the Elite, Pure and Lego Batman. I haven't played Lego Batman yet, but the reviews aren't good. Pure is pretty good though, not $60 of goodness, but asa free game I'm happy.

Lastly, Thanksgiving was good. Unfortunately this was the year my birthday fell on Thanksgiving, so it was somewhat hectic (I turned 32). I hope everyone's Thanksgiving went well, and if I don't post another blog by Christmas (which I probably won't), I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season.

Hello everyone! I figured I would post a blog for meeting this milestone and throw in a couple thank you's. First off, as most people know each level is associated with a rank taken from a video game or association. Level 40 is Abobo and comes from the Double Dragon game. For those old enough he is the pain in the ass character who could kill you easily and was best brought down with either a spin kick or jump kick. Here's a pic of Abobo (he's the big guy and with having a name like that I can see why he learned to fight):

Anyways, on to the thank you's. First off, thanks to the GS community as a whole. The people on GS for the most part are a great group of people who I enjoy talking to, who are more than willing to help other gamers out, and are a great source of information. This includes the members of the Talk About it Union, GUFU, System Wars (for the most part), the Xbox 360 forum, and the PS3 forum. So thanks everyone.

Next and I would like to thank the administrators and moderators of GS. I'm not going to say I agree with each and every moderation, but overall I think they do their absolute best to make GS an enjoyable site to visit without the excessive amount of trolling and flaming that goes on in other gaming forums. I also think the moderators of GS often sacrifice their enjoyment of the site by taking the brunt of complaints to ensure that other users have a good time. So to them, thank you. You people are the reason I continue to come back and contribute to this site.

Lastly, I've done my first review and chose Resistance 2 as my initial undertaking, so please check it out. If you like it, don't forget to give it a thumbs up.

Again, thanks everyone and I'll see you all around.

Eddie5vs1

So I preordered Killzone 2 today at GameStop and got this:

It's a card with the code on back to download the demo of Killzone 2 before the demo is released on PSN and before the retail game hits shelves. Unfortunately the code isn't active until February 5th, 2009 and ends February 26th, 2009. Here's hoping the game delivers on some of the hype.

Also, kudos to developers and retailers for finally giving actual incentives to preorder games instead of the usual, "to make sure you get a copy when it releases".

Who is getting hyped for this game with the early positive previews?

Sony has been talking a lot about 3D gaming and a lot of people seem impressed by their demos. I for one, am not. I don't care if it's an option on games, and I don't think the gamer population should be punished for a select few, but the thought of everything becoming 3D scares the @#$% out of me.

Why? Because the ability to see games in 3D requires binocular vision. I was born blind in one eye. I forget the scientific name for the disorder, but it goes by "Morning Glory Syndrome". Basically it means the part of my optic nerve that brings in light never attached to my retina. Thus, I can't see 3D games.

My hope is that developers will be willing to spend the extra money and put in options to allow a 3D game to become one dimensional, much the same way they do with subtitles for deaf gamers.

In conclusion, I'll end with a rant. I understand that money is tight in the video game industry between the recession and pirating software, but the gaming industry seems really behind in making their games more accessible to disabled individuals. Take deaf gamers for example. They have subtitles in the cutscenes, but when you're being told what you're expected to do next and there are no subtitles, how the hell is a deaf gamer supposed to know what to do?

So, thanks for reading, I'll post a new blog when I finally hit level 40. I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday season.

Eddie5vs1

Kidding aside, I am somewhat overwhelmed at the moment with my recent purchases. First off, I win the prize for being late to the party. I bought this game off of my sister in law for $20. Don't ask me why I didn't get it sooner, there was always a game out I wanted more. Here's what I got:

I know, I know. :P I've collected about 15 stars and thus far I'm really impressed. Nintendo really pulled it off in reinventing this series and I can see why it was awarded GOTY.

My second purchase (remember this was with gift certificates I received for my birthday) was:

I haven't even had a chance to play this game yet, but I got it for game nights with GUFU. BTW, go ahead, click on the link and join THE best union on GameSpot. Alright, are you back? ;)

Today I polished off my gift certificates (I think I have $3 left). I grabbed this:

Hell's yes. I'm really excited to play this, but it will have to wait for a few days until I have time. And since I only have a few friends on PSN to share levels with, feel free to add me, my PSNID is Eddie5vs1.

Lastly I grabbed this:

This is for XBL movies, themes, SFII HD, Braid, etc.

And Christmas hasn't even come yet. :?

So, I decided to return my Motorola Q 9c. I'm not sure if they are just buggy phones, or if I had a bad one, but I returned it. I missed several calls that went straight to voicemail, I received text message alerts that weren't there, it would freeze, randomly reboot itself, and the battery wouldn't even last a day with little to no usage.

I decided to pick up this instead:

It's the BlackBerry Curve 8330. So far I'm impressed with it's battery, and internet speed is much quicker using the BB network. I'm also impressed with the amount of programs it includes or that are downloadable including MSN and Yahoo! messenger, GPS programs, etc.

My only real complaint is I prefer the keyboard and menus of the Q. If any one reading this would like to be added to my BB chat program, feel free to post your PIN. Also, anyone else have any experience with BlackBerrys that may be albe to offer some helpful info?