So... what the hell has happened here since I left?  I know about the new Xbox 360 Elite, which looks totally pointless in my opinion, and my friend at school was raving about some game called Left 4 Dead, but what else has developed?  I know everyones out there rockin' out to Guitar Hero II when I last checked my Xbox Live account, but I've been playing my real guitar lately... which has pretty much eaten up all of my time.  So... yeah... what has happened?  I'm talking headline stuff I guess.  Anyway, just wanted to pop in to say hey.  Take it easy!

Yeah, I know... I did it again. Haven't really posted or blogged on here in a long time. I can't say I'll be on here a ton once again, but I am going to be checking like this now that I have my spring break to chill out on. But school isn't the reason I've been away from GameSpot for so long. Over the last couple of months, I dug out my old acoustic guitar that I received as a gift several years ago, and worked on my technique, some short songs, all the stuff I learned in the lessons I took. Then, I decided to step it up, because acoustic isn't really my scene... so I went online and ordered a Squier. A black Squier Stratocaster with a rosewood fretboard, three separate pickups, like all Stratocasters have... y'know, the whole shebang. So yeah, I've been playing the hell out of this thing lately, playing at least three hours everyday. I'm visiting Ultimate-Guitar.com to find tabs of songs I listen to, which is a blast, and I've also started getting some new gear. I bought a hardshell case for my Strat to replace the dinky gigbag it came with, and I also bought a nice new strap that won't cut into my shoulder anymore. And, within the next few days, I'll be venturing out of my house once again to get one of these babies... the Vox DA5, with the classic grill, of course. This thing has got everything I need right now for under 200 bucks, which I'm stoked about. Anyway, just wanted to let you all know why I haven't been around much lately, and also why I haven't had any money to spend on games! Speaking of my collection though, my cell phone was recently stolen, so I'll have to remove all of those games from my collection page now, in case anyone noticed my smaller number of games now. So yeah, until next time!

You may or may not know this, depending on how frequently you visit my blog, but lately, I really haven't been playing many games. They just sort of... I don't know, lost their fun for me. Now keep in mind, by "lately", I mean roughly a month, so this isn't any huge chunk of my life or anything. It just seems that I've been too busy to enjoy games, and when I do have the time to play them, I feel like doing something else instead. That all changed today though. Fed up with this phase I was going through, I decided to go out and pick up WarioWare: Smooth Moves for the Wii... and what a great decision that was. Simple, quick, fast paced fun. I played for a couple of hours, and I knew that my love for this hobby was back. I'd easily recommend this game to anyone. Even though I've been "cured", I still really don't know what was wrong with me. I mean, I was here on GameSpot talking about games, and I was sincerely enthusiastic about them, too. I just couldn't bring myself to play them, is all. I have two ideas as to how this was caused. My first theory is that I simply needed a break. We all over-do it sometimes, and it's possible that I over-did video games for a while there. Like they say, everything in moderation. My second idea is that I was tackling too many complicated games at once. I had The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, and several Virtual Console games on my plate when the New Year rolled around, and I may have just been overwhelmed. I know these two ideas sound extremely similar but they are a bit different if you think about it carefully. Anyway, I'm just glad that I'm back. I've decided to try to keep my Now Playing list to one game at a time for now, and that'll give me plenty of time with WarioWare before I move onto Crackdown on the 20th of this month. Anyway, just thought I'd let you know about this rut I've been in as of late and how I got out of it. Thanks for reading!

Hey guys, it's me. Remember? Lately I've purchased some new CDs, so I thought I'd let you guys know which ones are good and which ones aren't with a new blog entry. Here we go! Dream Theater - Octavarium Let's start off on a high note... this album is fantastic. Just looking at the track list, you may not be impressed, weighing in at only eight songs. However, all of the songs are fairly lengthy, especially the finale, entited "Octavarium", which clocks in at 24 minutes flat. Each song on this album sound so distinctly like the work of Dream Theater, but at the same time, they all sound extremely unique. I recommend this album to anyone who likes their music heavy and dramatic. Some great prog rock and metal here. Wolfmother - Wolfmother Another great album. Starts off strong with the hypnotic sound of "Dimension", keeps you happy near the middle with their catchy hits like "Woman", "Joker & the Thief", and "Tales", and finishes off soft with the gentle sound of "Vagabond". My only problem with this album is that some of their songs tend to sound alike, but it's still definitely recommendable to anyone who likes any shape or form of the rock genre. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers

I'll just come right out and say it, this album isn't too hot. When the songs are good, they are good, but looking at this album overall, it was a bit disappointing. There are some great, great songs in there like "Hands", "Store Bought Bones", "Level", and "Steady, As She Goes", but they're weighed down by some of the other mediocre songs.

If you've got the extra cash to throw around, I'd say to go ahead and buy it for some of the great hits on there, but if you have to choose between this and another good album, I'd say go for the other one. You may want to download the some individual songs off of it though. It all depends what you're into. This album personally wasn't loud and energetic enough for me, but if you're into this new trendy alt rock, then sure, give it a try. As you can probably see, I really don't know how I feel about this one, so go sample some songs and see how you feel about it. Coheed & Cambria - Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through The Eyes of Madness Long title, I know. Don't let that turn you off from this album though, because this is easily the best of these four albums I've talked about here. When you start listening to it, you don't know what to make of it, with the orchestral sounds of "Keeping the Blade" and sweet, folky sounds of "Always & Never", but then you're completely waken up by amazing tracks like "Welcome Home", "Ten Speed (Of God's Blood & Burial)", and "Once Upon Your Dead Body". The different thing about Co&Ca is that they're really trying to relay a story to you in their songs. Not just a song about someone being in love, but in fact a detailed lyrics talking about a strange fantasy universe thought up by Claudio Sanchez himself. It's all very cryptic. Apparently he has some comic that he writes and some of their songs talk about those characters ("Coheed" and "Cambria" are two of the protagonists), but I'm not entirely clear on what it is. Go look it up for yourself! Regardless, Good Apollo is an album like no other. It really moves you emotionally, whether you pay attention to it's crazy lyrics or not. In short, buy this album. There you have it. That's what I've been listening to recently, and my thoughts on them. I hope some of my comments were helpful to you when making your next music purchases!

Even writing this blog entry, I'm wasting time. No time for games, no time for TV, no time for music (although there are some CDs I want to pick up soon), and certainly no time for GameSpot. Sorry. Be back soon, I'll be lurking occasionally until then.

Before I start talking about some of my favorite moments from tonight's 24 season premiere, I must warn you... there are some juicy spoilers in here. Just so you know, the first one of the 24 two-hour premieres aired tonight, next one, of course, will be tomorrow night. Let's begin!

The first one is where Jack is strapped down for interrogation. He removes his heart monitor, in order to attract the attention of one of the nearby thugs. The dude bends over near Jack to reconnect him, when he all of the sudden BITES OUT A FAT CHUNK OF HIS JUGULAR VEIN. Yeah, the sound effects were awesome, believe me... to top it all off he spits the chunk out onto the floor. Splat. The second highlight I want to mention involves Jack and a suicide bomber on a moving subway... after a small scuffle to take control of the detonator, the terrorist finally gets a hold of it and hits the switch... a split second before it detonates, Jack kicks the guy out the back of the train... so his dramatic death was ultimately in vein. Anyway, just a few parts I thought I'd share, as those were my favorites. Did any of you guys catch tonight's premiere, and if so, what were some of your favorite scenes? Oh, and don't forget... another two-hour special airs tomorrow night, same time!

In case you haven't noticed by now, my profile has been changed around a little. I've got a new Metal Slug banner up top, and a Smashing Pumpkins blog header... both made by yours truly. I know they're not stellar, but they serve their purpose. Anyway, I've been playing a little bit of Zelda and Castlevania, and my Christmas break ended on Tuesday, so I've been a bit busy lately. On top of that, my sister's boyfriend (who's pretty much a brother to me) is leaving for Houston tomorrow... his four years of service in the Marines are over, and now he's going to study making motion pictures or something like that. So yeah, I'm pretty bummed. He'll probably come back to visit over spring break, but I'm still going to miss him a lot.

While posting at Liquid Lurker earlier today, I discovered a link to a new internet search engine called ChaCha. It's basically Google, except instead of typing your keyword into the box and sorting through results, you talk to a live search guide to help you find what you're looking for. Now, as cool as this idea sounds, it's obviously going to be abused quite a bit... and I did so, quite a lot. In fact, I'm surprised they haven't IP banned me from the service yet. If you want to see how incredibly awkward the conversations can get, look no further than than this thread: http://www.liquidlurker.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7976 Now that you've seen a few examples, go ahead and try it for yourself. It's great fun and will provide you with a few good laughs. Oh, and by the way, Happy New Year to you all!

Lately I've been... well, spamming my own profile with news about my Wii and all, and since I can tell everyone is tired of it, I'm going to go back to my normal blogging. So, since Christmas is over, that means I have a bit more shopping to do, especially with some of the cash I scored, so here's what I plan to buy tomorrow: - Some Wii Points (so that I can get some Virtual Console games) - A new Xbox Live subscription (it's been Silver for the past few days) I also plan on returning a Gears of War faceplate that I received for Christmas yesterday... it's nice and all, but I'm happy with my Halo faceplate for the moment, and I plan on getting the Forza 2 faceplate in February when it comes out, which is really sweet looking, by the way...

Plus, the Gears faceplate I received is third party, and I'm not about to put a third party plate on my precious 360... it could mess it up. In addition to that, I'm gonna be calling around town to Best Buys and GameStops to see if anyone has Wii component cables in stock... I thought I'd try my luck at finding it in town before I go online to order it. I'm also gonna be trying to replace my DS lite. I don't know how long my warranty is, so I'll have to look into it further, but I just cannot play games on my DS lite any longer, the d-pad is horrible. I don't know if mine is defective, or if they're all like this, so I'm gonna see if the store has a DS lite that I can test to compare to mine, to see if it's a problem or if I'm just not used to the d-pad. In any case, I'm using my DS phat to play Castlevania right now, and I'm actually really enjoying it. The old DS is larger, but I've found that it's better for my hands, because they're too large to use the DS lite. Also, the d-pad is way better, it's kind of clicky and gives feedback so that you know you've pressed the button. I feel kind of bad returning my DS lite, because it was a birthday gift from my mother, but the DS lite's d-pad is making it impossible to play games like Mario Kart, Super Mario 64 DS, Animal Crossing, etc. because it makes it hard to move diagonally, and there's a dead zone in between the up, down, left, and right directions and the diagonal directions. Anyway, that's my rant about the DS lite. I really want to like it, I really do, but I just find my DS phat more comfortable and reliable. So yeah, that's what I'm planning on doing with my spare time the next couple of days... what about you guys? EDIT: Alright, a couple of updates. I bought some Wii Points and a new 3-month Xbox Live subscription with my credit card, so the only thing I'll be hunting for in the next couple of days will be Wii component cables, which I'll probably buy online, because I just called GameStop and they won't get any until next year. In addition to that, I've made a decision about my DS lite dilemma... read the comments to find out. Oooh, the suspense!

Yes, I got a Wii yesterday for the last night of Hanukkah, and yeah, it's freaking awesome! Along with it I received Trauma Center: Second Opinion, and it is freaking amazing so far. I personally think it was rated much too low. The operations are intense, and while there isn't any voice acting aside from a few short phrases, the story and characters are definitely more interesting than I had anticipated. Expect a review in the next couple of weeks! I, of course, got Wii Sports with it too, and that's also very fun. I created a Mii that... actually looks like me. It's actually kind of freaky! Haven't gotten around to using the Photo Channel yet, and I'll have my Wii hooked up to our Wi-Fi soon, so I'm going to use this space to post my friend code when I get it. It should be within the next couple of days... I'll put the word "updated" in the blog title when I have it... you guys can go ahead and post your friend codes if you want, I'll add you as soon as possible. Anyway... just thought I should make a proper entry about my Wii, and I'm going to post several photos later today. See you all online!