Today's electronic devices are more advance then before. Perhaps too advance(for better or worse). I say this because processing power is becoming important in everyday electronics. Your HDTV, iPod, and even your Blu-Ray player relies on it. With that extra nudge from the CPU, you have intergrated software managing everything. Firmware to be more specific.

If there's a problem the manufacturer can release a firmware update that can fix your situation. But your average buyer doesn't know of these functions. This is why I bring up Blu-Ray. There is no doubt that the image quality is awesome! But for anyone who uses a "1st generation" Blu-Ray player(including the Playstation 3) has a chance of running into one or several new releases that do not work on your set.

Imagine getting your favorite movies and a new Blu-Ray player only to not be able to use it simply because the disks aren't compatible. Yes, Blu-Ray players not playing Blu-Ray movies. Your only hope is a firmware update. Sony hardware has been more reliable but even it has run into a few movies that required a firmware update to play.

I'm currently in this situation. I have a new Blu-Ray player that will not play Narnia 2. I thought it was just my own set. When I went online for information, it seems the issue is widespread. You'll have a Blu-Ray player that can play a movie another unit can't(in vice versa). And almost like a Xbox 360 waiting for BC updates, Blu-Ray is always waiting for a new firmware update to improve its performance.

Other then that, depending on your unit sometimes Blu-Ray can be extremely sour when it comes to loading a movie. If you're a entertainment whore then by all means get yourself a high-end unit. But for everyone else the "1st generation" Blu-Ray players can wait.

How many people actually go on the web to update a simple device such as a Blu-Ray player, and that's if they have the internet.

Christmas Eve started off very slowly. It was way early in the morning on the 24th...I mean, just after midnight. I got on to Xbox Live since I haven't been on in days. I played some Skate, Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix, and Grand Theft Auto IV. I was actually kind of bored, and I couldn't get to sleep. But then Amanda(SymonDezyn) popped on and gave me some company. I think I interrupted her play of Eternal Sonata.

While eating a thing of orange sherbet, I manage to beat Final Fantasy Tactics with my army of Dark Knights! Anyway, by the time I fell asleep and woke up again it was past 12:00pm. I haven't done that in a long, long time. The parents were out shopping so I cleaned two of their bathrooms, and went shopping for my sister's present. The extended family came over, and we had fried fish; a big Southern meal on the day before Christmas. I'm not too fond of fish so I made myself a BLT(don't laugh). I also decided to snack on some Triscuits with some cheddar cheese squares, and salsa. We watched, It's a Wonderful Life together and then everyone departed. OH YEAH. I found out more about my ancestors. There's a link between a plantation(or garden) here in Charleston, SC and a place is Ireland. Not to mention a Irish doctor.

OH YEAH! A friend of mine from out of state sent me the Dissidia OST. I was so surprise since it just came out. So far it's one of the best Final Fantasy OST that I've personally heard. Speaking of Final Fantasy, I finally got VIII to work on my PSP!

How's it going everyone?! Well, I was looking at my PSP the other day and I decided to wipe the dust off of it. I decided to make it a little bit more interesting. I have two Playstation Portables; a fat and a slim. The older PSP has custom firmware and I wanted to do the same with my PSP Slim. I had to modify the battery of the PSP fat and my memory stick in order to downgrade default firmware on my PSP Slim.

After that I was able to install the custom firm and any additional homebrew applications. Now I can use the PSP Slim to output video on my HDTV. But I'm also using my PC to stream content to my PSP because of the custom firmware. I'm very happy! But my next step is going to simply take it a step further. Playing my PSP without even touching it. How? Using my Xbox 360 controller. Now I already found out how to do it wirelessly with the PC receiver(which I don't have). But I am going to try and do it with a wired controller. I've seen videos and it's been quite successful.

If I can pull this off I can literally spend a lot of time playing just about any game available on the PSOne, SNES, Genesis, N64, PSP, etc. I'm a big RPG fan and there are a lot of games to be played!

Oh yeah, Dissidia: Final Fantasy is pretty fun! :D

Update: Actually...I'm going to reserve judgement with Dissidia...

I haven't been serious about anime for a long time or Gundam. The only series I ever enjoyed watching from the whole Gundam universe was the 08th MS Team. This year I was able to enjoy some old animated cartoons that I grew up watching. I received the complete set of Batman: The Animated Series, and I found the complete remix collection of Cowboy Bebop.

With that said, there was enough hype in me to establish some interest in what was being shown today. I remember last year I heard Mobile Suit Gundam 00 was coming out. On November 24th the Sc-fi channel started to air the dubbed version. I've always enjoyed more practical anime, and that's one of the reasons why the 08th MS Team was so appealing to me.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 creates another alternative timeline based on the political agenda's of today; more so then any other in the series. The Gundams this time are seen as a advanced mobile suit far superior then any other available to the countries around Earth with only 4 being available to a private paramilitary force called Celestial Being. Their agenda is to judge and wipe out any armed conflict in the world even if it's indiscriminate. With that said there is a lot of political conflict regarding them.

It's a very intriguing series that's thought provoking, and the animation is sweet! Plus it's the first widescreen HD anime available on TV! Considering that Zion or the Federation hasn't formed, I think Bandai is going to heavily expanded on this revision of the franchise.

I've been slowly typing up my Fallout 3 review and now it's done. It has been awhile since my last review. If you want a good read and another opinion then definitely take a look at it.

Other then that, I've been playing the hell out of Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix. I'm about to pick up GTAIV again, and try to complete it along side of Eternal Sonata. I have question. Have you ever sat a game down that you've spent hours with, but by the time you pick it up again the controls feel foreign? That's the feeling I have with Grand Theft Auto IV, and I'm so deep in the game right now it's getting hard.

Oh yeah! I let my sister's boyfriend borrow my PS2 awhile back. I haven't touched it. I was thinking about getting Persona 4, but when I went to play some God of War 2 the controller wouldn't work!

URGHHHHHHHHHH!

I am so mad right now. The NHL team called the Carolina Hurricanes again let a team come back, the Philly Flyers. The scoreboard was 5 to 1.

5 to 1

What the hell! Then all of a sudden the Flyers(who were playing at home) ended up coming back. Hartnell scored a &^% hat-trick and Gagne made 2 goals! There was no scoring in overtime, and so it became a old fashion shootout. Basically 1 on 1 with the goalie.

Considering that Cam Ward has been sitting out a lot this year as the Carolina goalie, Leighton has been in net. What a trooper but...when it came to the shootout I knew he couldn't hold it. Hartnell scored against Leighton again in the shootout, and with the Flyer's second attempt Simon Gagne decided to buzz in too.

What I don't get is why Ruutu and Brind'Amour for the Carolina Hurricanes were first for the shootout? Eric Staal scored 2 goals that game, and he wasn't first? No Joni Pitkanen, Chad LaRose, Matt Cullen, or Sergei Samsonov? GET OUT OF MY FACE! I know you need to think "strategy" with your lineup. BUT YOU HAVE YOUR BACK UP GOALIE VERSUS THE OTHER TEAMS #1 GOALIE!

Not really. Well, only in the Fallout franchise.

Fallout 3 is depressing. Because of that the feelings in this game sometimes are a bit more genuine. One my favorite quests has to do with a runaway slave hideout in the Wasteland. They want to setup a settlement at the Lincoln Memorial in DC(later on you find out that slavers own that area). Because the situation reflects on American history it just adds so much depth to the characters. You get a sense of their hardships(one use to be a sex slave).

And the crazy thing about these characters is that if you do good(instead of bad) for these people they travel miles and miles in the Wasteland to reach the city of DC(walking). I mean that literally. You can follow their small caravan which takes them through the harsh wasteland. There they fight raiders, mutated creatures, and slavers on their travel. When they get into the city of DC they must travel through fortified areas full of Super Mutants, and mercenaries. Some places can't be reached without going through subway tunnels, and there are plenty of them. Inside those tunnels are feral ghouls which are scary as hell!

About all of them can die during their travel if you stick with them. I was in the Wasteland walking with the runaway slaves and this man runs up with a bomb strapped to himself(raiders playing a practical joke on their victim). I tried to disarm the bomb but it wouldn't work; he blew up near the caravan and killed the eldest slave. The girl who was a sex slave died by getting attacked by ghouls. She ran off deeper into the subway tunnel in fear while we were getting attack. I ran after her in the darkness only to see her in the distance being decapitated by a group of ghouls she ran into. You can travel with them for hours, or sleep for a few days before meeting up with them just outside the Lincoln Memorial(they'll be unarmed). BUT! If you have the time to travel for a couple of hours(or you can save a lot) the experience it entirely different! For myself I grew attached to them, and it sucked having two of the slaves die.

[Popping in Who's Who!]

Well, as some of you may know I qualified for Who's-Who in the popping category with a friend named Lisa from Toronto. All preselections were held in the US(I had to go to Atlanta, Georgia for mine), and there was only one more American in the competition besides myself. Atlanta's preselection were easy(not to be a full of myself). I just wouldn't want to compete in hip-hop newstyle here in the South which is competitive from what I saw.

I've been popping with Lisa since high school. She was into salsa and ballet before I met her, so she has a really unique style. She was the only female in preselections, and pretty much killed the locals with me in Atlanta. The music is what messed up a lot of other pairs. It was a mix of 70s funk, 80s electro-pop, electronic music(Genesis by J.U.S.T.I.C.E.) and some instrumentals(old and new school hip-hop). I gotta say, I looked fly with my Wii track jacket, and I had so much fun!

Well, Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix is finally available on Xbox Live. I totally forgot the specific date, but Microsoft has highlighted it on their Marketplace. Immediately I bought some extra Microsoft points for the purchase. Before I continue there is one thing I must say:

There is always a game that everyone should know how to play. Street Fighter II is one of those games. It has been around for so long that you at least need to know the correct input for a fireball. This game is so classic that regardless of how good you were(or not) at the game, playing it again brings back fond memories.

Super Street Fighter II: HD Remix brings back that classic fast pace 2D fighting frenzy that ate up your quarters at the arcade. There was a previous Street Fighter II game that came to Live's Arcade, but it wasn't polished enough. In fact, the original was much better even though they were same game. But HD Remix brings smooth controls, and make over plus. Everything has been redrawn, awesome super-finishers, and even some assistance from the OCRemix community. Awhile back the community at OCRemix created a remix album of Street Fighter II Remix called Blood on the Asphalt. It was absolutely amazing, and since it was so popular some of the tracks were used on this new version of the game(Fei Long, and Dhalsim's theme just to name of few).

For any gamer period, this is a must have if you love Live Arcade! Plus, the online is so smooth, and competitive it feels like getting your butt kicked all over again at the arcade. I am no overexaggerating...this is a must have!

In true gamer fashion a Turkish man has escaped from a German prison like Solid Snake by making use of a cardboard box.

The man hid in the box at the end of a shift of his prison job of making stationery and was carried out by a courier service along with other boxes. The inmate then cut through a tarp in the truck and jumped out shortly after the vehicle left the prison grounds. The driver eventually noticed the tarp flapping in the wind and reported the cut to the police.

Beate Peters, the warden of the Willich prison presumes that the man had accomplices outside the prison, and a manhunt is underway throughout western Germany.

FUNNY AS HELL!

Obama is now the President of the United States! Now, regardless of who I voted for(which will still remain a secret) there is something that I feel that some others may not. As a young Black African American man, I would have to say this is influential for me. This has put more drive in myself(as if I didn't have enough) and I am excited to live during this time to be able to tell my own future children.

I was one of those independent voters that both McCain and Obama were trying to win over in the last couple of months in the presidential race. As a black voter that is extremely rare. I thought both made good arguments to their policies. For myself one reason why I liked McCain was due to his experience, and his ideas for foreign policies. Especially against more aggressive nations; but at the sametime I wouldn't want to see another Iraq War. But my idea was more of a reference towards the situation in eastern Europe. But Obama's experience just had me worried about that topic, and I think that was my real concern. Plus I feel his tax plans is almost like socialism, even though it would still benefit myself.

But in the end as a Black man, whether I voted for McCain or not. Young black people, especially the men, need someone like him to prove to people that they can be more then just entertainment. They can be more then just basketball and football players; rappers, etc. It goes back to the dream of Martin Luther King. As as for young Americans(not just black), we all feel a unity. There's still separation amongst us, but this type of change we feel "tonight" is more emotional and mental then political.

One reason why Barack Obama's campaign worked versus other Black politicians is that he isn't about Black politics, because being President of a multi-cultural society requires you to be more then that. But his campaign represented a lifestyle that most Black people who try to gain success in America go through. None of us thought Obama would even beat Hilary Clinton, and he pretty much his campaign had little money. And that's it; his campaign went from something extremely small and unnoticed to the President of the United States.

Now as America we still don't know who Barack Obama is but his term is going to show us his true colors, whether they be good or bad.