My buddy is going to visit his dad in Bangladesh (He's half-German, Half Bengal) and we all had a going-away party for him because he'll be gone for about 2 months. So we decided to go this Passage to India, a restaurant in Uptown Minneapolis right by Lake Calhoun.

What really pisses me off though is the parking, why the bloody hell do I have to pay to park in Uptown? It's hard enough to find a parking spot and I have to pay for it? Why the hell do we have to have meters because it's not our damned fault that Minnesota has a budget, it's the governments and they're making us pay for the simplest things that shouldn't cost a dime. It was either the meter or the parking ramp which could've cost me $5 more.

So I decided to use the parking meter and I had to frantically dig throughout my car to find 50 cents in change because I didn't think that there would be any there. So I put the change in the meter which would last me about 30 minutes and I parked right in front of the restaurant just to make sure some cop wouldn't tow it. Turns out no cop towed it and my car was fine (I was at the restaurant for over 2 hours)

I just don't see the use of parking meters, the government should be a little more considerate of people who aren't prepared to pay for parking.

The first video I ever played that featured the voice of a celebrity was Apocalypse on PS-X back in 1998, which the main character was voiced by Bruce Willis. Now even though the game had mixed reactions, I personally enjoyed not only playing as Bruce Willis but also the Neo-Contra/Arcade gameplay it had.

Apocalypse for the Playstation

The voiceover work help created an atmosphere for the game (even though I later found out that he was supposed to be your sidekick and he only did voicework for that). There was pretty much no voicework in video games for the rest of that console-generation.

When GTA3 made it's debut in 2001, the game had somewhat of a celebrity cast and their voices fit their characters perfectly.

But in 2002, the celebrity voice trend really got ignited with the release of GTA: VC. The game featured the voicework of Ray Liotta, Dennis Hopper, Burt Reynolds, Tom Sizemore, Philip Michael Thomas, Luis Guzman, Lee Majors, Danny Trejo, and Jenna Jameson. These people were hired/volunteered because of all the praise and controversey the game had generated.

The game that started the celebrity voice trend

After GTA: VC was released the trend of celebrity likeness in games seemed to skyrocket, but can it have negative consequences?

One such example is Need for Speed: Underground 2. Now if you are like me, who hates the way the NFS series has taken the "street tuner" direction, you'll know where I'm coming from. When it was annouced last year that Brooke Burke was signing on, I felt like EA was kicking the NFS series in the stomach (they had already slapped it in the face). So when I finally got around to playing it, I was saddened by her work. Not only was her work horrible, but hearing her was like listening to an episode of "Wild on E!". And since when is Brooke Burke considered a part of the tuner culture, you couldn't have picked anyone worse!

The woman who should never do voice acting in video games. . . . EVER!!

Another couple examples include....

Carmen Electra, whom views herself as ghetto by appearing in Def Jam: Fight For NY

Kirsten Dunst in Spider-Man 2, who sounded worse than a scratchy record

But I am not implying that all celebrity voice acting in video games is bad, in fact, I believe that Chronicles of Riddick was a much more enjoyable experience because Vin Diesel was doing the voice-acting. Same could be said about GTA: San Andreas because of the all-star cast and their great job voice-acting.

The better games to have voice-acting

But at the same time, I am not saying that every game needs voice-acting. In fact, alot of games don't even need voice-acting to be good like Half-Life 2, Halo, Resident Evil, and Zelda.

If you are going to use voice acting, at least make the right decisions

Thank You

Apparently the reason my car has been acting up is because of some computer chip in the ignition system got all messed up and since that computer chip regulated how much gas goes into the engine, it would explain why my car kept dying on me.

Since it's gonna cost me $300, I won't be able to buy fireworks until Friday :x

Although I am glad that GS is updating the forums with software and what-not, I have yet to know what these updates are, because so far it's crippled my ability to post in the UCB's and has caused me friends list to become all whack and crazy.

If someone could explain to me what's being changed on the forums, that would be greatly appreciated

A couple of days ago as I was going through my nightstand drawer, I stumbled across my old yearbook from my freshman year (I moved after my freshman year to a different school).

Seeing as how I had nothing else to do, I opened up the yearbook and browsed through it and I saw pictures of my old friends and teammates and I thought "I wonder what they are up to?"

I had this old newsflyer which listen which colleges people at my school were attending, so I find out their e-mails and now I'm getting responses, I'm also going to get together with a couple of old friends on friday.

I'm pretty happy that I'm getting back in touch with them after a long time (3 years), and see how much I've changed

But I can never seem to find the people to do it :cry:

If you would be interested in becoming a charter member let me know

Well, has everyone behaved while I have been gone...........................I didn't think so.

I went to Universal Studios which had some good rides, but some of them were cheesy like that Jaws ride which I thought totally sucked. But I liked the Terminator 2 Show even though it felt a little dated, and lets not forget the mummy ride. My score in the MIB Alien Attack was 253,350 and the Back to the Future ride was ok, but I'm not a big fan of the Back to the Future movies

Onto Islands of Adventure, for starters I went on that Hulk Rollercoaster which totally owned and then I went on the Dueling Dragons rollercoaster which was pretty cool but not as cool as the Hulk Rollercoaster. The Spiderman ride was pretty good and made good use of 3-D effects and the Dudley-Do-Right Log Flume was OK too. One of my personal favorites was the Jurassic Park Area, because I'm a huge fan of Jurassic Park.

Now onto the interesting stuff: during the evening and nighttime, I went to the following places:

• The Groove: A Nightclub that had the best lighting, dancing, and DJ (She was hot) I've ever experienced, If you plan on going to Orlando or live in Orlando, goto The Groove
• Bob Marley's Tribute to Freedom: A great lounge with Jamacian Cuisine and live reggae music & If you are a Marley Fan you'll enjoy it

Yesterday I went to Wet 'n Wild which is a totally awesome Water Park with alot of hot babes. In fact, while I was tanning, these hot french girls were sunbathing and they turned there back towards the crown and removed their tops while they were still sitting up, I had my sunglasses on and I was like "Woah, am I actually seeing that?"

I miss Flordia already

I'm going to be spending the next 4 days at the Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure for my senior graduation gift, which means you won't be seeing my wonderful thoughts and ideas on the forums.

Now the for picture, I had this taken with my girlfriend on Friday Night.....

Tomorrow is my LAST day of school........FOREVER.......until college in the fall that is

I remember all the way back to my first day in Kindergarten, to my last day in 5th grade, to my first and last day of middle school, and my first day of high school which is still pretty fresh in my mind. I'm going to miss my school and some of my friends who will be going off to different parts of the country to goto college.

I changed schools during summer of 2002 after my freshman year was done because my dad got married. My sister who lives with my mom brought me her yearbook from this year and I looked at all my old friends to see how much they changed. Some people didn't change at all like the video-game obsessed kid who believed he was the king of evil.

I took it upon myself to call some of my old friends and get back in touch with them which I'm glad I did. It was also kinda moving to talk to them again and see how much they changed.

It's been a crazy and memorable 12-years, one which I will remember for the rest of my life.

[color=green]Class of '05!!![/color]

Sorry I've been gone since Sunday, but I have an explaination. It all started on Sunday Evening when my internet connection started breaking up, I was then internetless up until this morning when my dad saved me from my internet deprivision (he fixed it).

Again, I'm sorry for my absence