Okay, it wasn't an incredibly long hiatus, but I'm finally back and ready to post and stuff. Why was I gone, you ask? I have but three words for my explanation. World of Warcraft. I kind of underestimated the addictive quality of WoW because, in my first character, I was playing as a Paladin. In case you're not "in the know", the Paladin is the slowest, most unfun class in the game. Now, playing Mage, which is one of the fastest types, and I'm kind of addicted. I made it to level 15 in the span of a ten-day trial. If I were playing Paladin, I would be lucky to be level 7 right now. That might be an exaggeration. And then, just as I gained the ability to slip from Warcraft's grasp, I stumbled onto a Half-Life 2 mod that has just blown my mind. Have you seen this mod? It replaces Half-Life 2's sucky music (come on, you and I both know those songs weren't rivaling Tchaikovsky or anything) with full orchestral scores, many of which should sound familiar if you're a fan of Hans Zimmer or the like, and greatly improves the character models. In the link is another link to where you can download environment mod, that improves the look of the environments; I've had this installed for some time, though, and I haven't paid enough attention to notice much improvement. Also included in the mod are new sound effects for the guns, as well as a re-tuning of their power in order to make the gunfights more cinematic. It's a terrific mod, and manages to take an amazing game and make it superb. If you don't have Half-Life 2 yet, you're using your computer the wrong way. Hey, this gives me an idea. I could do a "Random Thing of the Week" segment. I could introduce you guys to cool stuff, like mods, games, sports drinks, or websites. But mainly sports drinks. Uh... anyways. Rock on. Get that mod! -Agent Black out