Hey there everyone, I figured it's about time for an update. The move my family and I will be making should start on the 15th and continue through the 18th before we get all the furniture situated in our new (old) house, and it may take a day or so to get the internet and gaming consoles hooked up and ready to go. But anyway, I've mentioned this all before. Now time for that general update as indicated...

In terms of gaming, I've been playing quite a bit of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, both in squads with a few friends from my PSN list as well as solo. I used to get quite annoyed when I played BC2 in the past, so much so that I considered selling the game, but I stuck with it like I always try to do with my games, and eventually I gained the experience and weaponry needed to have some fun on the battlefield; as was the case with Modern Warfare 2. It's quite important, I realized, to stay away from the general area of combat in BC2 as much as possible. This is the opposite for me in Battlefield 1943, in which I tend to fling myself wherever the biggest brawl is taking place and proceed to kick as much butt as possible before being killed or forced to retreat. But in BC2, stealth is my friend, and I'm quite adept at knifing now. My dogtag collection is rather large. :D

I've also been playing a lot of the classic Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit on my Slim PS2 that I have set up in my room. Amazing how the game can still present a challenge and be so much fun even though it was released about 12 years ago. The AI is relentless and always seems to be different, never following a pattern, and the cars and tracks and general "feel" of the racing is absolutely incredible. Mix that with some of the best in-game music I've ever heard in any game, and NFS3 certainly still deserves that 10/10 score I gave it long ago. Here's hoping that the new Hot Pursuit being developed by Criterion can live up to its name when it is released November 16. If it's as good as I hope, my gaming schedule will be all tied up for quite a while...until Batman: Arkham City, at least. Lastly, I've been considering picking up Mirror's Edge from Gamespot, just because I've always wanted to give that game a shot. The demo was fun, and I really enjoyed the combat, so next time I'm around my local Gamestop I may grab it.

In other, unrelated-to-gaming news, I'm almost finished with my first course of high school algebra and will be moving on to the second shortly (I'm homeschooled, so I'm not following any standard system). Considering how much I absolutely loved this course of algebra (sarcasm), the next should be even more wonderful (bigger sarcasm). But...I don't want to linger on the subject of school. I'm actually also nearly done with a book that I've been writing for some time now, and then I'll move on to editing it until it's just right. The idea for the book started with a few simple scenes that I thought up one day for no particular reason, and I found myself thinking "Hmm, that would make a good story." I forgot about it of course, until later, when my mind conjured up more scenes with the same characters yet again. It was then that I decided "To heck with it, I'll just write a book about this!"...quite random, eh? Anyway, I shortly found myself improvising an entire story just to fit around several scenes, and now that I'm one final chapter (and epilogue) away from the end of the book, I realized that the story itself isn't half-bad. Still not something I'd want to pay any money to buy (lol), but not bad. If I ever get really desperate, maybe I'll post the entire story in blogs here at Gamespot by breaking it into chunks...but it would still be really large, considering that it took about 130 pages in Microsoft Word to write, without filler or editing yet done to it.

Finally, for any who read this and share my belief in God, I'd like to make a prayer-request for my mother. She's had problems with her back for years, but recently it's gotten worse. To the point where she can't stand still, sit, bend, or walk for anything over about 10 minutes at a time. She thinks that she knows the problems that cause it now after spending a lot of time doing research on it and seeing several doctors, therapists, chiropractors, etc., but she's still having trouble finding a treatment that can solve the problem. So, any prayers would be greatly appreciated. :)

Well, that's about it. I apologize for this blog being rather langthy, but eh, I haven't done a long one in a while...lol. Thanks for reading, please comment, and God bless. I leave you with this final, closing statement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4qgTk8Vfyc