I just recieved an e-mail from Microsoft saying they are jacking the price of their premium service from $49 to $59 a year. Well, here's a nice way to "stick it to the man".

I have been buying XBOX Live for $35 for a whole year! You heard me! $35 for a year! Why waste almost double the money for the same service? Want to know how?

Click this to check out the price. Currently it's $38 for a year! Still, not bad at all.

I found that Newegg sells a year for $40. The other sources don't seem as legit as Newegg, nor would I trust another site. For another $2.00, buying from Newegg is worth it.

Link to Newegg

No, not the Fifth Element, but instead, my fifth metatarsal. I was doing plyometric jumping because I am a fitness trainer andI jumped and then pulled my feet up about five feet in the air. When I came down I landed on the right side of my right foot. I probably produced a force of 1,000lbs. When I landed, I felt my foot crack.

I am in a splint and right now. Tomorrow I need to see a specialist and maybe might even need surgery. I will have to keep my cast on for 8 weeks! That's two months of no walking, very little activity, etc. I am a very active person. I have a job where I train other people. I am not sure what I'm going to do.

My foot is in some serious pain. When I woke up today and the pain medicine wore off, I could actually feel where my foot broke. It's not a nice feeling. I don't even have an XBOX to keep me from thinking about my foot.

Finally... If anyone has read my profile they will see that I am a certified ISSA fitness trainer. After three months of studying and a two day long test, I finished with a B+. About a week later I applied what I learned and started to seek work. The first place I went to was the gym I've been going to for the last two years, Planet Fitness.

I was turned down because it was not the season and they had too many trainers. The next place I went to was Work Out World. After I applied (phone call), I got a call back in an hour. They hired me on the spot pretty much. For the last month I have been "shadowing". This is where I follow the trainers around to learn how the flow of things go. I also watch for "key" words they use, what to look for, etc. I am a trainer in training. Even though I have been working out for over two years, and I have my ISSA certification, they still want everyone to shadow.

So finally after a month, next week or so I will finally get my first client. He's an older gentlemen who has roughly 25% bodyfat and can do most anything.

What does this mean to me? If anyone else read my blogs, they would know that my XBOX 360 had to be smashed to prevent people from stealing it. I am on unemployment and don't make enough to save, buy groceries, gas, etc and still get another XBOX. So having real clients now and a second income will greatly increase the speed at which I will be gaming again.

If you take a look at a few blogs down, you will see the computer I am working on building. It will cost more then $1,700 USD, add that and the price of an XBOX 360 and we're looking at $2,000 worth of hardware.

So I can finally say, FINALLY! It's about time! :P

The book; "Ghosts of Ascalon" is pretty engaging, to say the least. If you are a fan of ANET's Guild Wars you will gladly pick this book up which expands into the world of Guild Wars 2. As you follow the adventures of a group of unlucky people, the story will twist, turn and unfold itself into a beautiful (and familiar) setting.

This book cost me $7.99 at Borders. If you are cheap and want to save a few dollars, you can find them use on Amazon for about half the price, but with shipping, you're better off buying a new book.

I don't want to bore anyone reading this (Not like anyone does), so I will end it with a simple thing.

Buy the book if you enjoy reading the likes of 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Eragon'.

*EDIT*
As of this morning (August 8th, 2010) I just finished the last of the book. 370 pages total and cannot wait until the second book, "Edge of Destiny".

No, I'm not talking about The Head, but the head on your shoulders. Have you ever gone out pretty much against your will? You say NO about 100 times but still go out? I do that more often then I should.But I will say lastnight was a good time!

It started at 10:30pm with a "tap tap tap" on my door. I wake up to hear it again, "tap tap tap". So I sit up in the darkend room and grab my dagger (about 12" long, very nice dagger I will say) and I head towards the door. "WHO IS IT!?" I proclaim. "Mike and Ashley." Oh... so I open the door and to my surprise with a nice looking girl with sensual eyes. I looked at her and lowered my weapon and Mike just laughed at me. "Get dress!" he says. "Um, I'm sleeping..." I reply. "No anymore..."

So as we go back and forth I finally said screw it, lets go! I quickly get dressed and make myself not look like a half-dead zombie (for the girl). Fast forward an hour and now things start to get interesting. The alcohol comes out! Lovely. I am an ISSA certified fitness trainer and here I am drinking! That's just wasted calories and something I DO NOT do. One, two, three, four drinks later I start feeling good. Now comes out the blender, ice cream and a bunch of other interesting things. Now we're drinking "ice cream shooters" or something like that, very interesting drink, but with booze.

So long story short, nothing happened, people had to go home, I went back and fell a sleep at 5:00am. Today I was going to go to the gym, but it's a ruined day. Why? MY HEAD is going to explode. That's why.

So the moral of the story is this. Enjoy yourself, but stay true to what your morals are. You don't need to drink to enjoy yourself, I just got caught up with the girls and the moment. And now I'm paying for it!

GO ME! :roll:

It's pretty much the best of the best. It's the Nvidia GTX 480, etc. The CPU is one below the highest grade Intel i7. It's only a 2.8Ghz but I save roughly $700 USD by not buying the top-end. I can also overclock the 2.8Ghz faster than the top-end CPU!

Take a look at my build and tell me what you think.

There's a game coming out that I really want, it's called Guild Wars 2. I played Guild Wars for a few years, logged in over 3,200 hours in a single year (I know, sad). I sold that account for several $100 USD and then created two more. I was and still am in love with Guild Wars.

There's a book coming out called Ghost of Ascalon. It's set a few hundred years from Guild Wars. It won't give you an edge in the game but it sounds like it's a well wrote. I'm going to pick it up because I love the whole series and it's the dedication of the fans that make ArenaNet take their time to perfect Guild Wars 2. Also my current laptop isn't cutting it. It's an ASUS EEE 1201HAB. I overclocked the Intel Atom to 1.7Ghz, so it's pretty quick, but since it has an 8Mb Intel Graphics 500, it sucks.

Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam. It's the offical first expansion for this award winning modern military shooter. As we might of remembered a few years back, DICE created a game called "Battlefield Vietnam". It was amazingly ahead of its time for any FPS, and still is an amazingly fun game today after 6 years.

So when I heard that DICE was creating this, I flipped my lid! If anyone knows me, they know I'm a true fan of DICE and loyal to the end. I have every Battlefield game from 1942, 2142, Battlefield 2: Modern Combat (sucked ass!) I have a veteran status of 10. I can't get enough of what DICE produces, which brings me to another DICE game.

Medal of Honor

Medal of Honor looks like Call of Duty: Modern Warfar 2. If you see how it was being played and if you watched the videos, someone from Gamespot asked the head guy and he wanted to know if the game would be tactical (More or less like Bad Company 2 since DICE is making it), and the guy said that you're pretty much going to run and gun, more action and when you die you'll just come right back... Add that, and the look of things and with the multiplayer skills of DICE, you're going to come out with this demon child.

I believe DICE is trying to steal the show with this one. They are mixing the best of both (I suppose) and hoping for the best. For me personally, I love the openness and the stratergy in Bad Company 1 and 2. It wasn't so closed in you felt like a rat in a maze with fully automatic rifles. I guess I just don't like that arcade "feel".

But to get back to Bad Company 2: Vietnam, if it's a $15 DLC, I personally would believe it will be worth it. DICE said it's not going to just be a new skin, some new guns, etc. They have said it's going to be a whole expansion. So even if it was $50, I'd still buy it. I guess I'm that loyal. And the bonus about being that loyal are all the perks they give you that carry from game to game. Also the stuff from "The Gun Club" by EA.

So the story is, I am getting this and it's going to rock! 8)

Think about it for a few seconds... okay, still nothing eh? Let me expand your mind, shall we?

We all know what the XBOX 360 is (I'd hope), and with the recent events of this year's E3, you probably heard of the "Kinect" coming out, we remembered it as the Natal. So what is this Kinect you might ask?

It's a full body motion camera with built in microphone and the ability to track up to 20 movements per person. Here are some specs.

KINECT TECH SPECS (UNCONFIRMED)

Sensor
Color and depth-sensing lenses
Voice microphone array
Tilt motor for sensor adjustment
Fully compatible with existing Xbox 360 consoles

Field of View
Horizontal field of view: 57 degrees
Vertical field of view: 43 degrees
Physical tilt range: ± 27 degrees
Depth sensor range: 1.2m - 3.5m

Data Streams
320x240 16-bit depth @ 30 frames/sec
640x480 32-bit colour @ 30 frames/sec
16-bit audio @ 16 kHz

Skeletal Tracking System
Tracks up to 6 people, including 2 active players
Tracks 20 joints per active player
Ability to map active players to Live Avatars

Audio System
Live party chat and in-game voice chat (requires Xbox Live Gold Membership)
Echo cancellation system enhances voice input
Speech recognition in multiple

So you might ask yourself, what does this mean to you? It's only a camera that sees what you're doing while ... you... are... yes! It's a camera that relays what you're doing to your XBOX, which is connected to Live, which is streaming the information where? Do we really know there's not someone on the other side watching you? Could it be the governments way to secretive monitor you? Do you really read the EULA when they [Microsoft] makes reversions? Seriously, who reads those.

It's just something to think about. I know, maybeI should take my tinfoil hat off.

Yeah, you heard it. I have no XBOX. I had one for just about two years (Falcon core, the one before the current one which is the Jasper core) and never had a single issue. About a month ago, I got into a scuffle and had to resort to smashing my XBOX so people couldn't steal it.

I would much rather see my XBOX in pieces then have some punk people have it. So fast forward to today... I AM GOING CRAAAZY! Sadly I really enjoy playing video games. I have been an advid gamer since 1983! Started with an Atari 2600 then worked up to the Atari 7800. That machine was before its time and loved it! It was the only gaming machine of the time that was backwards compatible. Not only did you get awesome 8-Bit gaming, you got to play all your Atari 2600 games. What a deal! ($140 USD, lol)

Oh how things have changed.

Now we have machines that not only wax and wash your car, they play Blu-Rays, DVDs, countless types of media, they can steam movies, play video games (of course) and seem to almost replace your pet too! (Yes Milo, I'm talking about you! AKA, SkyNet) The crazy thing is, Skynet's already here. But back to games. Why else would you be here if your love wasn't for games? And who's to call one person a geek or dork over the other? We all plays either the XBOX, PS3 or Wii. Some even have all three. So why call them dorks? Aren't we all dorks then?

Here's the crazy thing; The average gamer is ye35 ars old. So enough already with the people saying that "You're too old to play games." I've been playing games longer than half the people playing today's more modern games. I love being 30 and rocking people. It's funny to see the younger people explode in rage when you're better then they are. It all comes with experience. And that's the thing about the games I play. I play to win. I don't mind losing and I won't send hate messages like some people do. It comes with the game, you win, you lose... but who likes to lose more than winning? No one.

So play fun, play fair and accept that the loses come with the wins.