the Les Paul

Let's be honest: America isn't as great as it could be. What are the culprits? Corrupt, incompetent politicians? Maybe. Waivering moral values? Possibly. How about a lack of real, meaningful education?

Could the average American citizen survive without modern technology: grocery stores, cell phones, automobiles,central air?No they could not, and chances are you're one of them.

I want to urge you to get a real education: put effort into learning meaningful skills and teaching them to others.And it's the internet-not universities-that makes this possible. I went to college and got a degree, spent lots of moneyand time on that degree and it's basically ameaningless piece of paper. The educational system is designed to make people rich not educatethe students.We all need to learn to live above the system so that when it fails (which it will because, historically, they all do) we will know how to survive.

What I'm getting at is this: Would you know how to build a fire without a lighter? Would you know how to make weapons or clothing, or knowhow topurify water, find food, build shelter, create electricity, or writing materials? Most of us don't. A few of us know how to do one or two of these thingsbut let'sface it: if the economy were to collapse completely, our psuedo-intellectual societydoesn't even posess the basic knowledge required for human survival-and that's a scary thought. Don't let this knowledge be kept in the hands of the elites who use it to drain wealth from your pockets! LEARN something, and pass it on!

This month is going to be great. In fact, it's already started out that way so I see no reason that it won't continue...in fact, the signs are all there that it will.

For starters, on November 1st I went deer hunting in the early morning. Less than 3 hours in I wasdragginga doe tomy vehicle for delivery to the butcher.That doesn't happen too often for this guy! Not only did I get a deer on day one but I had taken the whole week off to go deer hunting and now had buku time to kill.

Next weekend I am going to the Berzerkus tour to see some of my favorite bands play. \m/

After that I took the whole next week off to recover which will give me the chance to catch up on my video games. Callof Duty: Black Ops, Goldeneye Wii, Medal of Honor, here I come!

The week after that is Thanksgiving!

I hope your November will rock as hard as mine.

I work 5 days a week.

I usuallyhave 2 days off a week to "relax".

I never thought I would be at this point when I was a kid, I thought by now I would be recognized as the world's foremost guitar player making millions of dollars and having millions of fans. I seriously believed that.

I still play the guitar-but now I'm not sure why. Sure, the complements like "you're really good at that" are nice but it's quite a meager reward for something I worked so hard at and even went to college for.

There was a purpose to playing guitar-a goal.

Now I work a full-time job and the goal is to feed my family and keep the bills paid. My old goal has to take a backseat to reality: the wife wants this, the children need that, the yard needs mowed, the dog needs walked. WHERE IS THE "me" TIME?

I have to make time and chances are, if you're reading this. so do you. We are the people we never thought we would become, the weekend warriors of our livelihoods. But I'm not giving up, I'm still young and not dead yet. Here's to one more go. CHEERS!

This is BS. There is NO WAY that these 2 villains should be in the finals. For starters, one isn't even a video game character but a movie character. Then there's the problem with the fact that Kerrigan is a relatively new villain who doesn't pack the gear to compete with alot of the other bad guys...like Sephiroth for one.

I think the whole thing is a crock. I think there have been a lot of gamers voting not FOR their favorite villains but AGAINST the ones they don't want to win. What a load of BS.

Sephiroth should have won.

Freedom!

Yes, I've been over here in the sandbox for a long time now. Time has dragged on through the months but it's nearly time to head back to the good ol' U.S. of A. I miss the comforts of home alot, even though Iraq has gotten alot better it could never compete with America. I'll see you soon!

...Iraq. Yes that's right, if you read my Bio you'll see I'm a soldier. These days the uniform comes with the territory, and by territory they mean sandbox. I've been in the Army National Guard for 3 short years and now it's my turn to leave my friends and family to go get a super dark tan in a country that reaches temperatures of a hundered and ZOMG! That tan of course will be confined to my hands and face so my luck with the ladies will remain as stagnant as ever. To all my friends at GS I wish you the best...hopefully they will have massive amounts of the latest games ready for me to play over there but who knows? Anyways, I'll drop in from time to time when I'm able but until then I'll enjoy this last month of peace.

-Nova

If there's one thing I absolutely oppose in this world it's the self-imposed violation of the Bill of Rights known as "political correctness". In the name of "not offending anyone" people have given up the freedom of expression protecte by the U.S. constitution. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating hurting people's feel-feels, I'm just saying that you shouldn't have to live in fear of social or legal retaliation if you do. Are you with me?

I'll admit it, I'm a System Wars junkie. I log-on to this account religiously in hopes that some big news has caused mass commotion and led to some sort of major "pwnage" to one group of fanboys or another. Am I the only one? Gee I wonder: What is the big draw of System Wars anyway? Perhaps I just like to feed on the senseless misery of people who care far too much about things they have no control of.

But I'm neglecting some of my other GS duties. Time I used to spend writing in-depth reviews of games I just solved is now spent scrolling through the endless rants and pointless boasts. Is SW this addictive for anyone else? Am I hooked on World of System Warcrack? Or has the rest of Gamespot just been steadily going downhill?

After the disaster of Gerstmanngate and the shame it brought down on Cnet and GameSpot I was a little disenchanted with the idea of relying on any singular review site to help me decide my purchase. The reality that we exsist on the recieving end of a corrupted market where money is king and integrity is its loyal subject left me with negative feelings toward the industry in general. In truth I've been asking myself questions for a long time, questions like: "This game rocks, why'd it only score a 7.9?" or "This isn't really that fun, why'd it get a 9?" It makes sense now. First off, a review is nothing more than an opinion. Much like mine. So regardless of wether or not bribery is involved in the generating of a great score (or bad score) no review is going to accurately articulate the same exact experience for any two or more people.

I still feel this way.

But some people have returned to the status quoe, are bragging about "AAA" titles or are bashing other people for having the outspoken hope that a reviewer might bestow there most hyped game with a good score. Please don't be one of these people, they make this site less cool.