18 is my new unlucky number. Most people probably pick more traditional unlucky numbers like 6 or 13, but for me, it's 18. The reason is because two days ago on the 18th, everything that could possibly have gone wrong did and just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.

At the very start of the day, I booted up my computer as I usually do, but it didn't start up normally. Instead, it initiated some kind of diagnostic process, eventually "blue-screened", and promptly rebooted. This process repeated itself over and over again without end leaving no doubt in my mind that my computer was royally f**ked.

The rebooting issue was eventually resolved when the added memory was removed, but the hard drive was completely corrupted and had to be reformatted. I lost everything; all the games I'd installed, the music I'd downloaded (fortunately, I had most of my music backed up to a CD), and the pics. I mustn't forget the pics, a lot of them helped me get through those long, lonely, gfless nights. :cry:

As if some omnipresent authority figure felt I didn't have to deal with enough crap for one day, I was struck with the worst chest pains imaginable, so painful in fact that I had to struggle just to breathe. I was rushed out to the emergency room where I remained until about 2 or 3 in the morning before the doctors x-rayed me and determined that my problem was what I fondly referred to as a muscle cramp from hell.

Needless to say, I wasn't in any mood to do much of anything the next day after having to deal with this sh*t, which explains my recent inactivity.

BTW, today sucked, too. Not as bad as two days ago, but it still sucked. I had to reformat my hard drive again because a sh*tload of malware was uploaded and installed to my computer while I was checking out a wallpaper site. A little tip to everyone: avoid boyis.com like the f**king plague!

Due to some recent mishaps, I've decided to take some time off from GameSpot for a while. I don't know exactly how long it'll be. It could be week or as long as a month, but as soon as I clear my head, I'll be looking forward to mingling with everyone in the Crysis Union and (if there's still anyone there) the Stalker Union as well.

Thanks to all of my friends! It's been quite a trip and hopefully I won't be away for long.

It was a long and hard road and a few times I thought I'd never reach the end of it. Sometimes, I even thought of just ending it and giving up, but now it's finally over...

I've beaten S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with the best ending (IOW, the hardest one to achieve), on the hardest difficulty level, without mods (except for a sound mod and weapon names mod, both of which have no effect on gameplay) or trainers. And since I'm so masochistic, I did it all without crosshairs.

Now is the time to rest, relax, and reflect on all the people I manipulated, screwed over, and ultimately killed to get this far. At least, until GSC releases that patch and adds in Freeplay, at which point my suffering will start again. Oh, joy! I can't wait!

After all of this hard work (yeah, right), I've finally reached what is undoubtedly the worst level in all of GameSpot on account that it moves slower than snail sh!t. Or so I've heard, anyway.

Hopefully, I'll still be alive to post another entry once I get through it. That is if I don't have a nervous breakdown and take a flying leap off the nearest tall building first.

I turned 23 today.  I know birthdays are supposed to be special occasion, but today just doesn't feel special in any way.  I'm so depressed... :(

I was so depressed today, I actually caught myself listening to BarlowGirl on YouTube.  I never listen to that stuff, it's too cheery for me.

I just made level 16 this morning and unless this is another wierd GS glitch, I just advanced over 75% in one day.  How the hell did that happen?  I mean, it's good, but it's wierd.

First off, I'd like to thank all the people whose asses I kissed and toes I stepped on to reach this level.

And the second thing I'd like to say is, "What the hell is up with these ranks?".  I mean, seriously, it looks like the GS staff was smoking weed when they came up with these names.

  Has anyone here ever seen the movie Blade: Trinity?  I know it wasn't exactly a blockbuster hit (in fact, the popular consensus was that it stunk), but recent events brought to mind a scene from that movie.  In the subway station, a small group of "disinfranchised youths" (who were actually vampires) loitered around harassing people as they walked by.  Despite this bizarre behavior, everyone went about their business completely oblivious to the aggressive youths, even as one of them yelled, "Come on, I want to eat someone".  I'm paraphrasing, but you get the point.

  I mention that scene because that is what I thought of when the students and faculty of Virginia Tech described the behavior of Seung-Hui Cho, the shooter who murdered 32 people at that institution before taking his own life.  Between the rude and antisocial behavior he exhibited toward his classmates and complaints of stalking by two female students, I don't know how many more red flags this lunatic could have thrown up to warn the people around him of the impending peril.

  Now that the incident has occurred, a brutal "blame-game" has ensued pointing the finger at everything from supposedly unrestrictive gun laws to violent entertainment.  Everything, of course, except for the man who violently gunned down 32 people less than a week ago.  We could debate all day about these issues, but in the end, it all comes back the myriad initial warning signs that everyone seemed to ignore.  As much as I hate tossing my chips into this "blame-game", I feel this needs to be said.

  I admit that I cannot know everything about what happened at Virginia Tech as I wasn't there, but I have been scrutinized for "red flag" behavior before and I think if the faculty of this institution had taken similiar measures to deal with this punk, this incident could've been prevented.

Words could not describe the joy I felt when I clicked on the updates button today. Among my updates was a press release from Electronics Arts regarding the upcoming Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.

When the first Mercenaries was released, it changed the way I looked at the free-roaming action-shooter genre. No longer did Rockstar have a monopoly on the genre with it's Grand Theft Auto series and it's overall mediocre graphics and gameplay.

Mercenaries provided us with three playable characters, two huge and highly destructable free-roaming environments, an arsenal of weapons and heavily armed vehicles, and an open-ended, albeit not terribly fantastic, story.

There were many things I could've asked for, though nothing really huge save for but one thing. The game was only available on the Xbox and the Playstation 2.

Fortunately I cannot say this about it's sequel. Mercenaries 2 is scheduled to ship during the fourth quarter this year on four platforms. One of them is the very platform I several times lay awake at night asking what possessed Pandemic Studios not to release such a wonderful game that had brought me so many hours of fun on this one. The PC.

Here's a link to the press release for anyone wanting more information. I hope the news brings you as much joy as it brought me.

And before anyone tells me to get a life, most of this is just me being facetious as usual. I don't really lie awake at night thinking about these things. Only about certain hot female video game characters.

  Some time ago, my brother directed me to a website which had a download of the leaked S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Build 2215.  As an officer of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Union, I figured I might as well grab it and try it out.  After a few minor complications, I had it downloaded to my desktop and unpacked, but that was followed by another more than minor complication.

  After several failed attempts, I finally managed to get it up and running.  Now if I could just find a server to play it on.  My brother was planning to set up a server so he and Davidhye could play it, so maybe I could use that.  At any rate, it doesn't look like I'll be doing any fragging for a while.

  Earlier attempts to start the program resulted in the loading screen locking up, forcing me to do a hard reset, but I think I figured out what the problem was.  A short while ago, I had uninstalled Norton Internet Security because of various problems of which it was the cause.  I haven't had any trouble starting S.T.A.L.K.E.R. since then.

  From my experience, I think it's safe to say that Norton is more trouble than it's worth.  Last time I checked, anti-virus software was supposed to prevent malfunctions not cause them.  Well, since I removed it from my system, I guess it's not my problem anymore.  From now on, I'll just take my chances with the myriad viruses floating around on the internet.