So yesterday, I got a VERY welcome call from the techie office here on campus. They told me I have an interview on thursday for a job as an RTA. If you don't know, an RTA is basically tech support for dorm rooms. Normally they are hired at the beginning of each year but over the winter break, the RTA at one of the dorms left school so they had an opening. I applied the second i heard of the job. If I get it, I get to move out of my dorm into a single room which i get for free along with free food and internet for the semester. In my opinion, it's the best job i could get on campus. Now, I haven't got the job yet but i have an interview which means they are at least interested. I'm hoping that the short notice for applicants and the middle of the year change will work in my favor.

Other than that, I watched a little more Bones and played more of the Witcher and now i plan on doing the same. Just so you know too, I've had a couple CD's by Disturbed for quite a while but have just recently gotten really into them, so it's quite possible that for the next few days i'll list disturbed songs. Just warning you in advance lol. Peace friends!

Currently Listening To: Perfect Insanity - Disturbed - 2008

So, I ended up, yesterday, watching a LOT of the show Bones. If you've never seen it, it's probably the best crime show on TV IMO. It's basically CSI with more interesting characters and more emphasis on the body rather than the crime scene as a whole. Very interesting stuff, great cases and a very welcome lack of sexual weirdness in the crimes. Anyway, it's a great show and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes a good mystery. Also, you don't have to start from the beginning of the series to understand what's going on, but there may be a few things you'll have to pick up along the way. It's not too complicated though.

So today is either gonna be filled with more Bones or The Witcher, which i've been finally playing through (good thing i waited cuz of the Enhanced Edition patch). Still pretty emotionally drained so i'm not going to classes today and i'm just gonna chill here for today. Im okay though, just recovering i guess. Peace friends!

Currently Listening To: Don't Fear The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult - 1976

Well... I had a whole blog planned out but it's all gone now. Just a few minutes ago, my girlfriend and I broke up. To be honest, it's not something all that surprising to me, we'd been kinda riding on nothing for the last month or so but it's still tough you know? we'd dated for over a year so it's gonna take quite a bit of adjusting. As of right now, we're still gonna stay friends and i honestly hope that keeps up. She's transferring schools next year anyway so I think it won't be too tough to keep up through facebook and stuff. Sorry, I just really am not in the mood to write a long blog right now so i'll just end it here. Peace friends.

Currently Listening To: The Night - Disturbed - 2008

Hey once again!

Wow! i was amazed at the amount of music suggestions I got from my last blog. Thanks eveyone. I'll make sure i give everything a listen. In fact, I want to list everything you said to make sure I don't miss anything:

Bands:

• Slade
• The Residents
• Focus
• Animal Collective
• Queen
• Led Zeppelin
• Hendrix
• Guns and Roses
• A Perfect Circle

Songs:

• Gives You Hell - All American Rejects
• Take it Easy - The Eagles
• Hotel California - The Eagles
• Chain - School of Seven Bells

I liked seeing the classics as much as new stuff :). And there was one band I didn't list, Three Days Grace. I figured i didn't need to list it in new music to check out since they're one of my favorite bands! Actually, fantasyfighter, if you wanna go hunting through my videos for my video blogs, the later ones have an intro video where i used Animal I have Become for the theme song lol.

And just so you know, just cuz i listed the song or band doesn't mean i've never heard them, i just don't own any songs by them or the song you suggested. Thanks again for all the suggestions everyone :)

As for games, it's actually a game I've had for a month but haven't played yet. I said yesterday i'd play it today and I kept to my promise. My first impressions of Shadow of the Collosus for PS2.

I admit, I only had about an hour to play it since I found a last minute application i had to fill out today, but i killed the first two collosi already. My first thought was that this game is really easy. Even though i hadn't hardly mastered the controls at all, my health never even went below 3/4ths full and then it regenerated in less than 5 seconds. That said, i had fun jumping on the collosi and stabbing at their brains lol. The controls and camera are a little finicky but the main gameplay feels solid. I hope to have more of a review up later after i've finished it.

Well, that's all for today friends! i'll try and listen to a bunch of the songs tonight. Peace!

Currently Listening To: Never Too Late - Three Days Grace - 2006

Hey everyone!

So first things first, it's important to note that my gf really likes movies and pretty much likes to see all of them, good or bad. So today, we were out driving and we decided to see a movie. She picked Paul Blart: Mall Cop. I assumed it was going to be terrible but, since some of the other choices were Bride Wars or Hotel for Dogs, I accepted the choice happily. Well, with my low expectations, I was happily surprised when it actually turned out to be decent.

The first thing to note about this movie is that it says it's a comedy but in reality, this is only one, relatively small part of the movie. Think Hot Fuzz with about a fourth of the comedy. It would have been as bad as I expected except that the action scenes were actually quite good and while the comedy tended to be hit and miss, the hits were REALLY funny. Also, despite the sometimes subpar acting and writing, the characters were usually pretty likable. Blart ends up being smacked down enough in the beginning to get you to really root for him by the end and boy does he follow through. Some of the scenes, I'm not afraid to say, were actually really awesome (if you've seen it, the hockey stick KO was my favorite!). All in all, as long as you don't expect anything oscar-worthy from Mall Cop, you might find that it was worth your 8-9 bucks. If you tend to be very critical of movies, however, Mall Cop probably won't satisfy you.

Overall Rating: 7/10

Also, something new I'm gonna do in my blogs: An 'I'm Currently Listening To' section to end it. Over the year, I've finally developed a decent music taste lol. I used to pick up Linkin Park and that was about it. Now I'm listening to an extremely wide variety of stuff all the way 1969 - 2008, all forms of rock ranging from metal to soft rock. I'm also wading into some rap and country. Not much yet but some. So yeah, chances are, If you're not liking one song, keep checking back and you'll find something you like in here. And just so you all know, I do pay for all my music. After not being able to go to a Disturbed concert because tickets were too expensive, I decided I would try and help the music industry as much as I could. As a last note, please give me suggestions too! I love finding new bands and music. I'm trying everything so don't be afraid to share your stuff with me. All music has it's merits and I'd like to find the good artists from every genre. So thanks for readin everyone! See ya tomorrow friends!

Im Currently Listening To: Don't You Know Who I Think I Am - Fall Out Boy - 2007

I feel bad about subjecting you all to my post yesterday that was basically ranting and raving about my real life. I appreciate that you read it and as a reward, i'll try to not bombard you with that again. Especially after not seeing me for a year lol.

So, despite how my last blog sounded, I have been doing a lot of gaming over the past year and have gotten PLENTY of new games. Here's most of them. I know there are new 360 games but my brother has them so i can't remember them all.

Xbox 360: Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Tales of Vesperia, Rock Band 2, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance

DS: Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Meteos, Nintendogs (my gf plays it but i'm man enough to say that i do have a dog on their too lol), Lost Magic, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, Elite Beat Agents, Chrono Trigger DS, Trauma Center: Under the Knife, N+, Puzzle Quest, Professor Layton: Curious Village

PSP: Star Ocean: First Departure, Lumines 2, Riviera: The Promised Land, Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Mans Chest (came with a pack), Tomb Raider: Legends, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth

PC: Syberia 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2 (had it but hadn't played it), and not a game but I got Adobe CS3 Production Premium pack (School sells it for about 90% off :D

PS2: Persona 3: FES, Star Ocean: Til The End of Time, Shadow of the Collossus, Devil May Cry Anniversary Pack (1 - 3), Sonic Mega Collection Plus, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, Sonic Heroes, Okami, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

PS: Chrono Cross

Yeah, it's been quite a bit. I got a lot of portables, and PS2 games since I don't have my other systems with me right now. I'm getting my 360 back over spring break so that'll be cool. Right before I came back to UM this semester, I stocked up on PS2 games and i was amazed how many great games i could get for really cheap! Yeah, some of them aren't that spectacular but there are things i looked at a while back that i never got around to buying. Then there's PoP:Sands of Time ($5.00), Devil May Cry pack ($30.00), Okami ($15.00) just some great deals! It made me really happy lol. And then some of these games were xmas presents too so that helped.

Also! helpful update to those RPG fans out there, Idk about other countries but in the US, Chrono Cross was recently re-printed by Square Enix so I managed to buy my copy off amazon for 20 bucks. You should definitely check it out since normally these things go for hundreds. K well, back to the homework for me. Peace everyone!

Just so you know in advance, if you don't want to read my obviously unreliable blog anymore, i won't be offended :) You guys all meant the world to me and helped me through a really tough time in my life whether you know it or not. I'm not totally sure what has drawn me back to this blog but I guess I just need some kind of outlet for my life and this has always been what's helped me out the most. So be forewarned, if you do continue to read on, it will probably just be a rant about life and stuff. There will probably be something about video games (since they are still a big factor in my life lol) but it won't be the main focus. Just warning you all now.

So, I'm just starting my second semester at the University of Montana in Missoula. It's been really fun and very eye opening. I spent the first 18 years of my life cooped up in a relatively rich area of Washington state. There were definitely pros to living in that town. It was a fun childhood, a lot of nice people and opporotunities were always available if you worked for them. While it was a rich area, I wasn't just handed everything on a silver platter. I had to work for my education, for college, for money. My parents didn't just hand everything to me unless it would help me achieve my goals. Anyway, my point was that the town has it's cons too. I never saw much of the world around me and living in this wealthy area really blinded me to what the world is like. Coming to the UM, I've met people from all different walks of life. I see people who did have everything handed to them. People who never had to work a day in their lives because their parents would simply do everything for them. I also see people who struggle on a daily basis to achieve their dreams. My very first day I met a girl who had never touched a computer in her life because her family hadn't been able to afford it. Some of you are probably saying that this isn't an uncommon thing but i'd never been exposed to that before. It's mindblowing for me.

Since I've been here, I learned what it's like to be in college classes. while I've had pretty hard classes (at least my first semester had a few), the schedule has offered plenty of freedom. My first semester, I was out of class by noon every day and this semester, I'm out by noon other than one class from 1-2. The most i've ever had is 3 hours of classes in a day. The freedom is only supplemented by the fact that I suddenly am 9 hours away from my parents, the teachers no longer care if i'm there or not, and I really have no one to tell me what i have to do. It's a good freedom that has changed me a lot as a person. I now work a lot harder in school than i did before since I can actually study what i want to study and i can study when i want to study. I went from a 2.8 average GPA in high school to a 3.53 last semester. This semester, I'm striving for a 4.0.

Living in a dorm is also very different. Suddenly I have no privacy since I have a roommate who randomly wanders in and out all hours of the day. I'm used to spending a lot of time on video games and on the internet. Not all of my time, but a lot of it. I can't do that as much anymore since I no longer have a room belonging to me. It's worked out in the end, but i'm definitely trying to get a single room next year. Also, I now live a floor under my girlfriend. This is both awesome and weird all at the same time. I'm not totally sure how to describe it but it's almost like when we don't see each other, it's weird since we are right next to each other. I guess that needs a little context. When we started dating, we were together almost constantly. The problem lies in the fact that I've always been a very solitary person. I have friends, definitely, I was actually pretty popular at my high school, but i've always needed time for myself. That's where the video games came into play in my life, since it was something i could do for hours by myself. However, when my gf came into my life, I didn't know how to explain that to her so I simply said that I needed time to play video games. Really bad plan since then she thought i was trying to not be with her so i could play video games lol. Throw in the fact that she was pretty needy at the time and it just didn't work out too well lol. We've figured things out since then but there's still a part of me that feels weird now that i have time in my life where she's not even 3 minutes away but i'm not seeing her.

While I've been at school i've also helped start two different groups that are both very important to me. the first was a facebook group called Help Change the World. It's a group that talks about ways we can use the internet to help various charities with absolutely no expense on our part. It's still active and if you would like to join, send me a message and i'll give you the information. The second is a writing group that I formed with a girl from my Creative Writing workshop. We call ourselves Deus Ex Machina and the seven of us edit each other's works to help further our writing skills. It's a fun group that we decided to form so that we could help each other get accepted into the very selective Creative Writing school here. I admit, i pretty much suck as a leader but these groups have definitely helped me grow and learn how to lead a group of people effectively. Definitely still a lot of kinks to work out but i'm learning a lot from that.

So that brings me up to now. I just finished my second day of classes and all my problems with the beginning of the semester are finally getting solved. And yet, I feel strange. Empty in a way. Like something's missing. something very much vital to my being. I definitely miss my home and my friends but I don't think that's it. I've been away from home and friends several times in the past and it's never bothered me quite like this. I tried getting some games but that didn't help. I tried playing Team Fortress 2 to stay better connected with my gamer friends back home but that's not really the same either. I'm not expecting an answer from you guys so don't worry about trying to solve all my problems if you've actually read all of this lol. I guess i'm just trying to find some way to let loose everything that i've been keeping bottled up inside. Maybe by letting go of some things through my writing this blog, I can operate better in reality.

I'll try and keep daily blogs here almost as a form of therapy for me. Maybe it'll help with something, maybe not. But I know one thing for sure, it does feel good to be back here again, despite all the changes that have been made in my absence.

So if you actually read this whole thing, I'm sorry lol. I warned you though in advance lol. I'll try and make sure that gaming updates are put in here too so that there's at least something interesting for those of you who decided to stick with me over the year. Peace my friends.

Hey everyone! Sorry about the absence, there has actually been a reason for it. My next project, i plan on making a video of myself playing rock band to upload to GS for all of ur viewing pleasure lol. Unfortunately everything that could possibly go wrong is, so yeah. I want to show a video of me doing vocals and guitar but since I don't have a mic stand, i had to settle for taping the mic to the guitar, it looks funny but it works :). Other than that, i'm trying to figure out a good song to do and a cool way to video tape it. K so just so you know. The video will be up before i'm off to U of M on the 15th. Peace friends!

Hello everyone! Just a quick blog telling you all what I thought of Journey to the Center of the Earth, the new family-friendly movie that came out based on the book by Jules Verne. The movie, featuring Brendan Fraiser as the main character, has a professor, his nephew and a mountain guide venture into the center of the earth, to find a wonderful prehistoric world. Now, remember first of all that this is a family-friendly movie so cheesiness is a definite. However, the actors all do a great job of minimizing these scenes. The action itself can be entertaining but sometimes simply stupid. A lot of the time you will be thinking to yourself, there's no way someone could survive that or do that. But if you refuse to think realistically, the plot will entertain you for about an hour and a half.

For me, I can relate it to the movie National Treasure, don't think about it and it's kinda fun. Start thinking logistically about it, and it's absolutely ridiculous. Overall, JthCotE (woah for long acronyms) is a fun movie to see once but probably not something I would see again.

There you go. Random movie review for the week :P. Hope everyone's doing well, peace!

Don'tcha just love it when your internet just decides it doesn't want to work anymore?? SO DO I!!! YAY!!!! So sorry about the noticable absence over the past week, that's the cause of that.

Anyway, on to more pleasant topics such as E3!!! YAY!! So I haven't looked at everything there is to see yet but I did look at two games in particular. Being away from Gamespot for so long had its consequences. I honestly had no idea some of this stuff was coming out. A new Banjo-Kazooie game? Rock Band 2's coming out in the fall?? FOR REALZ??!! Guitar Hero: Metallica??? (actually got that one from Game Informer but whatev's ;P) I checked the stuff on Banjo Kazooie 3 and Rock Band 2 just now and I like what I see.

Banjo Kazooie 3 is taking a completely new spin on platformers (a favorite genre of mine) by making it almost like a racing platformer. You must make vehicles by adding together pieces you win by completing missions in the game. The missions are things like push the snowman's head up the mountain. To do that you must find the parts for a tractor and use that tractor to push the head up. It sounds really fun. We'll see though how it ends up.

The thing I'm even more excited about is all the new information on ROCK BAND 2!!!! OMG!!! Amazing! So i'll compile all the info i've found out here. First of all, new game modes. They're getting rid of the linear solo quest thing from the first game and allowing players to do the World Tour solo. Freaking awesome in my book since World Tour is the best thing you can do in the game. Also, brand new solo bass tour, that's pretty cool for all you bass players. Also, the character development area has been completely revamped so that you have far more latitude for stuff to do and the characters you make will be able to play any instrument whereas in the first one, you had to make a seperate character for a different instrument. This is really nice since my friends and I switch a lot between vocals, guitar and drums (we've got a great bass player who stays static). The World Tour system has been revamped as well so that instead of winning employees, you can now actively hire them with the money you've saved up (thank god since the moeny hardly did anything in the first game). There is also a new challenge mode which sets you up with a tough setlist that will get harder as you go on. These can be particular decades, artists or just fun songs but this is really awesome since it remakes the challenges whenever you get new downloadable songs!

As far as individual instruments go, the equipment is all getting revamped completely. A new look for the guitar as well as the necessary changes (no more crappy strum bar, quieter fret buttons). For the drums, they are softer and quieter and, an optional addition, you can add bonus cymbals to the drum set to make it more realistic (these are alternates for already present buttons. So you can have a blue drum and a blue cymbal). There's even going to be limited edition drum sets that, if you plug them into speakers, will work as a real electronic drum set. Freaking sweet! But if none of this appeals to you, you can stick with your Rock Band 1 stuff too.

Which brings me to the songs. The full list is right here on GS but what they don't tell you is that all the songs you had on Rock Band 1 will be transfered over to Rock Band 2 automatically! This means any songs you loved from Rock Band 1 (Dont Fear the Reaper, More than a Feeling, etc., etc.) will be transferred over so you don't have to downgrade back to the original to play those awesome songs again. Incredibly cool. If you don't feel like checking the list of songs, there are 84 songs that come with the game and 20 that will be free to download the day the game comes out. Harmonix has also announced that in a year, there will be over 500 songs. That's spectacular. Better than Guitar Hero: World Tour if you ask me :P. Unfortunately, I won't be able to play this amazing game until at least christmas since I'll be at college. One last tidbit of information is that for a while, the game will be 360 exclusive. Harmonix said the other systems will be released before christmas.