We'll miss you, Jeff.

Some of my friends and people I'm tracking have been talking about how Jeff got fired, yeah it's just a rumor at this point but there are plenty of websites reporting it. Even Penny Arcade made a comic about it. Let me just say this, that if it's true, I'm going to be pissed. I seriously doubt it's over the heavily rumored Kane and Lynch review score, and if he did get fired because of that I'll be even more pissed. GameSpot will suck without Jeff, and I seriously have no idea what I'd do without him on all the live shows. Sure his reviews are controversial, but he's not trying to please the fanboys here, if he did then he wouldn't be giving an honest review. Giving honest reviews is what GameSpot is all about, and the fact that a lot of people don't understand that annoys the hell out of me. No matter what the review score is, somebody will get mad out of it. The immaturity of people on this site never ceases to amaze.

I guess in the coming days we'll learn if Jeff really did get fired or not, and if he did then I'll be pissed beyond belief.

News sources reporting on rumor:

Kotaku

Primotech

Shacknews

In the next few months I'll be buying cheap games, used games. My list of games to buy include NBA Live 07 Max Payne 1 & 2, Quake 4, Crackdown, and Tomb Raider: Legend. The most expensive game on that list is Tomb Raider: Legend at $20. The least expensive are Max Payne 1&2, I think they are $3 and $2 respectively. So altogether if I bought them all I'd be spending about $73, so I may go with that instead of one of the games. I would rather have all of those games then just one. But I gurantee you guys that I'll be getting Call of Duty 4, I can't survive much longer without it...well I could but you get the point.

If I get a job before next month, especially if it's at GameStop, then I won't have to worry. I may also not get a few of those games on that list, I'll probably eliminate Quake 4 first before the others. I really want Crackdown and Tomb Raider: Legend, especially since they're so cheap now.

Anyone have any other cheap suggestions? Remember: I only have a Xbox 360, so it needs to be for the 360 or be backwards compatible.

As all of you well know, there are a ton of games coming out right now. Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 4, Mass Effect, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, The Orange Box, Guitar Hero III, and Sim City Societies are all on the list of games that I want. Last night I put in an application to GameStop, traded in a few games towards getting Call of Duty 4. I only got $30 for trading in 3 games, half of what I need for COD4. But once I get the game it'll be worth it. Once I get my 360 back from repairs, hopefully I'll have my copy of Call of Duty 4 waiting for it. I'll probably have to get that "Reunited and it feels so good" song on my iPod to play it whenever I get it all hooked up and ready to play...well maybe not that's a little creepy.

My brother got his copy of Assassin's Creed yesterday, and so I watched him play through about 2 hours of the game before I got to play it for a few minutes. I was climbing up buildings and jumping around like an idiot, then I heard people shouting "Thief!" so I ran over there and managed to kill 7 enemies. My brother thought that I was going to die and he was like "Now I'm going to have to start all over!" Then my sister in law says "Actually, Zach's kicking butt." Just a funny story I thought I'd share. :D

For my birthday, I'm asking for Guitar Hero III and The Orange Box as far as games go. Then for Christmas I'll just let my parents get whatever for me, because aside from games I have no idea what I want.

By the beginning of next year, as many of you should know by now, I'll be leaving GameSpot for good. I made this decision a long time ago that I'd do this, and I've got to honor my decision. Now it's becoming more and more apparent as to why I did it, and I'm remembering why I told myself I'd do it in the first place. I've got to stay focused on my future, I need a job, my liscense, and a GED. More than all of that though, since I'm Christian, I need to pursue a closer relationship with God. To be honest with you all - I hate myself. I don't enjoy who I am, and I'm betting it's going to be a while until I do start to like who I am. Some of my friends are a little bit edgy right now that I'm going to be changing a lot very soon, and some of them aren't very convinced that I can since I've let them down before when I've said I'm going to change. If there's one thing I keep hearing time and time again, it's that 2008 is going to be the year of change. I've been hearing it for years, and to those of you that are unreligious I can't really explain it all to well, but some of you may understand even if you aren't religious.

2007 has been one of the worst years of my life, mainly because I've been so confused. 2008 will be different.

Here is to optimism.

My Xbox 360

I finally was able to call Microsoft yesterday about my 360, and after I went through all the recommended stuff of disconnecting the cables and reconnecting and taking off the harddrive, they finally said it needed to be repaired. I already knew it needed to be repaired, but at least I'm finally going to be able to ship it out. So the box I have to ship it in is going to come in this week, and then I'll have my 360 sent out and hopefully back in time for my birthday on December 12th.

Games

I'll be picking up Call of Duty 4 this month, and for my birthday or Christmas I'll be asking for Guitar Hero III and Tony Hawk's Proving Ground. For my birthday though I'll be asking for stuff I've been needing, like a good chair for my room to sit in while I play games. With money I get from my grandparents for my birthday and Christmas, I'll probably pick up Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect. My brother said he's going to buy Assassin's Creed, so I'll have it to play before I actually get my own copy. I'm impressed by the reviews for it, so I've decided to purchase it rather than just rent it.

GameSpot & A Job

So I've decided to hold off on leaving until I get a job, but until then I'll stick around. I'll probably be applying at a new GameStop that's opening up soon, and at another GameStop that a friend works at whose putting in a word for me. I don't have enough money coming to me to be able to do everything that I want, like going to concerts and going places with friends. So once I'm working I'll have a paycheck that should give me several hundred dollars to do whatever I want with. I can't wait for that.

GameSpot Friends

As you know I cleared a lot of people off my friend list (or track list, whatever you want to call it) to clear up people that have left GameSpot are don't come on often. I'm going to start tracking regular users that seem like cool people to try and make some friends that will comment my blogs and stuff. I've been reading more users' blogs lately, and some have returned the favor. I had over 120 friends before, and only about 5 people commented, and 2-3 of those people commented on every one of my blogs. My record for most comments was 11 on my Leaving GameSpot blog, and I think 1 or 2 of those comments were from me.

Reviews

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't posted any reviews in a while, since I usually post at least once a month. This is mainly because my Xbox 360 hasn't been working and I haven't really been playing any new games lately. I will be reviewing again once I get some new games to review, but until then I won't have any up. I'm not going to put up my Halo 3 review since there are way too many player reviews for Halo 3 up already, but once I get my website up and running I'll have it posted on there. It's a pretty long review, so I don't want it to go to waste.

If you would like for me to make an avatar or banner for you, just let me know. You can give me a picture that you want me to use as well.

Also, check out my previous blog if you would like to see what I've done.

I will be purchasing Call of Duty 4 this month. Next month once I get some money and maybe a job I'll purchase the other games that I"ve been wanting.

Thanks for the help in making my decision guys. :)

(Just for those of you that have ever been curious about my past, doubt many of you have, if any of you.)

I don't rememer much about ages three and four, save for a few memories such as driving a Power Wheels Jeep and tripping over Nintendo controllers and ruining my two older brother's game. For the first few years of my life, I guess you can say they were mostly happy and joyful. My older brother (not the oldest) liked me for those first few years, and my mom likes to tell the story of how he was like a second mother. My only problems as a kid were that I got allergies a lot and some severe ear infections, which ultimately would put me in the hospital when I was 3 years old. I had random things to comfort me whenever I was a kid, I used to like to hold onto something whenever I was nervous, I had a small toy bear (Jim Bear, I don't know if that was the name on the box or if that's what I named him) that I would bring with me everywhere. I've always kind of had that problem, that whenever I was nervous I would have to keep my mind focused on something else other than what was making me nervous or uncomfortable, but I guess everyone is like that.

Whenever I entered Elementary School, I guess you can say I was having an okay time. I had a best friend quickly on into the school year (who I recently found this year on MySpace) and we spent most of our days playing with toy cars or dinosaurs. I've got a lot of great memories from Kindergarten, most of them humorous. My funniest memory from Kindergarten was whenever I got in trouble for saying "Shut up". First Grade was another great year for me, my classmates were pretty nice to me. My first grade year was whenever I dislocated my right elbow (my elbow was on the oppisite side of where it's supposed to be on my arm) trying to climb up on a carousel horse at my grandparent's house. That was the worst injury I've had in my life, and whenever something hits my arm it starts to go numb and sometimes I can even get dizzy, black out, and get pale. Second grade wasn't the most pleasent year of my life, though it wasn't the worst. I liked my teacher, but I had problems with a girl in my class who was convinced that I was the meanest person she'd ever met in her life, in reality she sat next to me and I accidentally hit her arm when getting out of my seat and made her cry. I didn't know what was going on, but the teacher yelled at me and she screamed "HE HIT ME!" and I got in trouble, but I explained what happened but she kept crying. After that day, anything that I would do would make her cry, such as the time that my pencil rolled onto her desk and hit her arm. I think the only intended thing I ever did to her was whenever I told her that her bow on her dress was stupid, but that was at the point I decided that I hated her. In third grade, that was the worst year of my life. My teacher was a total @$$, and frequently told me things along the lines of "You'll never amount to anything in your life because you don't do the work properly." The teacher frequently did things to upset me, and she sent me to counselor frequently, and I eventually had to have lunch in there with 2 other kids in my class every day. In her eyes, I was a problem child. For a kid that was in the third grade, my level of depression, according to my mom, was at the level of a teenager during a breakup. My mom has apoligized for not taking me out of that class, but really it's all fine now.

Fourth Grade wasn't as bad as the third grade, but there were two guys in my class who picked on me heavily. This got to the point where I would hide in the backyard of my house so I wouldn't have to go to school. My mom gave me the speech of "That bully is just going to be there tomorrow and the next day and the next day. Why does it make any difference if you miss today?", I was all too familiar with that speech by then, and I couldn't stand it. Fourth Grade though ended on a positive note, and my teacher proclaimed me "Class Clown" at the end of the year. Fifth Grade was the greatest year of school for me, I met my best friend Daniel that year (Who I'm still good friends with) and my other old friend Matt (who I'm no longer speaking to for complicated reasons). We went on many odd adventures, which involved making comics, tossing grocery bags into the air and watching the wind carry them away, running around like idiots when the teacher left the room, and seeing some kid rubbing his nipples and saying he wanted mashed potatoes and chicken nuggets (Yes, you read that right.) The teacher I had that year is the best teacher you could ever want to have, it helped that she had a good sense of humor, considering she had some of the weirdest kids in her class.

Middle School is all sort of mashed up together, I'm not sure what happened in which year in 6th and 7th grade, but I remember that I didn't like 7th grade at all. For the most part, I pretty much forced most of the memories out of my brain from those years. The only things I remember from 6th grade is a guy being afraid of flowers, the first time I saw a white guy trying to be black, and a guy that was 16 and still in the 8th grade. 7th grade all I remember is my math teacher yelling at me a lot, and my English teacher telling me that I can have a sense of humor even in the saddest things that I write. The Eighth Grade is a completely different story, I remember a lot about what happened that year, mainly because it was extremely crazy. My old friend Matt and I got into a lot of trouble together that year, and it was the first year that I ever got ISS (In School Suspension). We got in trouble for several things that year, and we were in the Vice Principal's Office at least 4 times that year (I was only in there once by myself, which was a misunderstanding.) Every time that Matt and I were in the Vice Principal's Office, it was usually for something that was Matt's idea, and me following along because I thought it was hilarious. I took the blame for something that he did, which is what landed us in ISS. I made some odd friends that year, but that year was highly memorable, and it's not one that I want to forget.

High School was short and bittersweet. 9th grade was a really good year for me for the most part, I had a guy making fun of me for the first few months, but I eventually told him to "STFU" (Yes, I told him to shut the f*** up) and he left me alone for the rest of the year. The good that came out of that year was meeting some really cool people, I made good friends with some upperclass guys and girls, and I usually sat with them at lunch on A days. I made friends with them because I told them the story of how I was Jesus for Halloween when I was three years old (Yes, it's true.) The worst part of the 9th grade is the ups and down of my friendship with 3 of my best friends, but that goes on into my Sophomore year. 9th grade I was at a different school, a magnet school that was about 20 minutes away from my house that was mainly for learning about Computer Programs like Photoshop and some 3D rendering programs. At the end of the year once I went on into the summer, I got a letter that I wasn't invited back to the school. My life completely collapsed before me, and I broke down. I still say that was bullsh**. Sophomore year I went to the school that is close to my house, it was fine for me since my best friends were there. I enjoyed being able to hang out with my friends before school, at lunch, and after school, which was really the only reason I kept going. I joined a Japanese Arts and Cultures Club, which really was just a club that watched Anime every day after school. Matt and some of my new friends were in it, so I joined. We watched Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children the first meeting I went to, and so I pretty much loved it from then on. It took until about November of that year until I realized that I wasn't happy whatsoever, and I started to become depressed. I hated everyone at the school aside from my friends, and I couldn't stand it. In late January, I finally stopped going to school at all. I had started skipping class and not going to school at all because I refused, so it was a wise decision to just leave altogether. My parents knew what it was doing to be emotionally, and I still thank them to this day for getting me out of that.

Up since I dropped out, not too much has happened to me personally. I've seen my brothers get married, and my oldest brother now has a baby and my other brother's wife is due in March or April. I'm hoping to get a job soon, and once I do I can safely say that I'll be back on track.

(This blog was not proof read, so please excuse any typos or grammar errors.)