Back home. Unfortunately, most of my time has been spent troubleshooting my car rather than playing in the computer room. Looks like the final upshot is that I need a new battery. Of course, the same fear that I have of going to the doctor has proven viable for the car shop. See, my belief is that if you never go to the doctor, they can never find anything wrong, so they can never "refer" you to three different specialists and run your medical bills through the roof. So the trip my car forced me into taking into the car shop just to get a new battery tripped two other alerts that I knew were coming...my 36K service, for which I was about 300 miles overdue for, and the need for new tires, which I knew I probably have needed for a while, but was going to wait until the dealer or the repair shop told me they were required. Now I know what Peter Parker feels like on an average day.

So I am now camped out in Merchant's Automotive and Tire, getting all three major events tended to, since my dealer service department is not open on Saturdays, and I fly out on Monday. I am working on the MacBook, with my AT&T Sierra Aircard 875U providing connectivity. Tunes are being provided by my iPod 80GB 5G, since I am in the process of downloading the latest version of iTunes via the AirCard. I just could not afford to leave the car at the airport parking lot and not be sure that it was going to start when I got back. The cost of this particular trip will sting for some time. I've already cancelled the trips I had planned today to Best Buy (for a 320GB hard drive upgrade for my COMPAL IFL-90, which is due to go with me on the trip to Florida this week) and GameStop (for Call of Duty: World at War for the PS3). I guess I should be happy that the guy recommended very good tires for the Mach 1, and cut me a very good deal on pricing on the whole service call...or so I was led to believe.

Well, in between all of that maudlin, I have gotten a few things done. I returned home last night about 4 PM (3 hours spent at a rest stop waiting on a service truck to administer to my initial discovery of the shot battery). After finding out that my bar-scene wingman had the kids for the weekend, I settled in for a night with the PS3. I checked out the Punisher: War Zone trailer...looks pretty cool. Seems like the third time is the charm for this franchise. It is interesting that, with Thomas Jayne receiving a much warmer reception for his portrayal of Frank Castle (but then who wouldn't after the Dolph Lundgren goon-up?), that they chose to go with yet a third actor for the role. I will say that, based only on what I have seen from the trailers, Ray Stevenson is the first guy who appears to be what I would imagine Frank Castle to actually be like. Bravo.

I also checked out the Prom Night trailer. Meh.

While I have yet to get a chance to play any of the demos I have downloaded since upgrading my PS3's HD (who cares when there are 320GB of capacity?), I still insisted on downloading the Dead Space demo. I don't think this will be a game that I pick up, as it is in a ****of game that I rarely finish. I am, in fact, working on a short list of maybe five games that I am going to (somehow) isolate some time to in order to finish them. So far, PainKiller! is on that list. I think I am just short of halfway through after this week on the road with the Gateway.

The one other game on the list so far is Prince of Persia...that's right, the 3D remake...that plays in 2D...still. But the game is still great. It is available for download now from the Playstation Store, and definitely is a title that contributes to the ROI on my PS3; one of my recent goals. The other title I downloaded was Street Fighter II HD Remix. This is a questionable purchase, as I have never been a Street Fighter fan. But having recently downloaded Eternal Champions on the Wii Virtual Console, it seems to be all about the 2D fighters these days. After I dump all of the cheddar for this car service, that may be all I can afford until next year.

I got about 5 minutes of Far Cry 2 multiplayer before I had to take a call. While I waited for the tow truck to arrive to jump my car this morning, I got about an hour of Fight Night Round 3 in. This title just never gets old. If I retire my PS3 eventually and all I have to show for it is a few careers of fighters in FNR3, maybe that will be ok. Still, that means I need to get moving. My current fighter is new after the HD change out since I chose to not backup my old game files.

I lit off the Gateway briefly this morning, since the MacBook was already packed for the trip to the service shop. My main purpose was to grab the photos I took of my buddy and his family from Thanksgiving. 53 photos taken in total, with 18 being from my "seventh lens", the Sony DSC-S750. Some of those photos actually looked better than the ones from the Sony Alpha a350; which justifies my exact reason for carrying it around with the "master camera". Sometimes a point-and-shoot will snap a better photo than the human being with the reasonably complex camera who is monkeying around with all of the settings (read, me). I plan on taking the cameras on the trip to Florida. Lens selection appears to be the 50mm FFL and the 75-300mm Medium Range Telephoto...not a bad mix.

That means taking the LowePro CompuDayPack. One more trip after this one and I'll have met my minimum requirement to start eyeing one of the booq bags that also double as camera and notebook bags. I have the rest of the loadout fragged, but it is on the Tilt, which is back at home, so I'll have to post that later.

I reckon I'll be back on the PS3 tonight. The Blu-Ray remote is turning out to be one of the best purchases I have made in recent history. It looks like all of the USB ports on myPS3 are shot. But I am not about to either buy a new one and give up my hardware-based backwards compatibility or send it in for repair. OK, maybe the latter...I may consider shipping it out while I at home for the holidays. It will be a toss up between it and the Gateway (to get its "W" key fixed so that I can get back to using standard WASD configurations for gaming and write and type like a normal human being). In the interim, my MacBook seems to be working out as an excellent PS3 controller recharger.

OK; that's it. I'm out. Until next time, take care. And keep the questions coming.
- Vr/Zeux..>>