Well finished wrapping presents a couple of hours ago and am finally going to get a few hours sleep before all the little people start to arise and forage for gifts.

I might update with Part 2 tonight but probably on the 26th.
~edit~ better make that the 31st ;)

Happy Holidays.

I'm 10 days into my Christmas trip and so far its been a blast.

The trip started off with a bang since it snowed in both of the places my flight stopped. I left home and took the first plane to LAX, that went off without a hitch. Next it was off to Denver. That flight was delayed because of snow where the flight was supposed to be coming from but the delay was only half an hour and I still should have had thirty minuets to make my connection. Thirty minuets turned into an hour and I had little chance of making my connection. To keep from dragging this out my connecting flight to Philadelphia was also delayed by over an hour so I made it with plenty of time to spare. It was a very long day of travel. I left my home at 8:30 AM PST and did not get to my hotel in Philly until 11:30 PM EST so about 12 hours total travel time.

The Marriott hotel in the Philadelphia airport is rad. Its inside the airport and I could walk there from the terminal. ****ing COLD! It was under 20 F when I arrived. I had arranged with my friend for him to meet me there under the pretence of us staying overnight and driving back to the Scranton area where he lives the next morning. What my buddy did not know is I had booked the room for two nights and purchased tickets for us to go to the New Jersey Devils hockey game the next day. He's a huge Devils fan and had been too busy to get to a game this year so it was the perfect Christmas gift for him.

We got up early and hit the breakfast buffet. We left in plenty of time to make the game and luckily enough I remembered the tickets before we got out of the hotel parking lot so we spun around and I ran back up to the room and got them. The night before my bro had mentioned that we would need to get gas for the two hour drive to the arena. Of course we both forgot that right after he said it so we quickly ran out after getting on the road. Ironically after loosing power and hitting the first available off ramp we coasted up right in front of the Wachovia Center. (The Philadelphia hockey teams arena) We called for a tow truck that would charge us fifty bucks for two gallons of gas and impatiently waited for it's arrival. We saw the tow truck turn down the wrong street and as we were talking to the driver on the cell phone telling him where we were we noticed a parade going down the same street the tow truck had. We thought nothing of this as the tow truck arrived and began dispensing our fuel. As the driver finished giving us our two gallons but the tail end of the parade had not yet finished turning left. Before we could leave the front end of the parade began to pass us entering the arena lot via the entrance we were parked at after going all the way around the arena. We were stuck. The cop would not let us cross the parade line to get out so we waited for over a half an hour as the parade slowly blocked our path. Fire truck after fire truck, semi's and floats all went by at an excruciatingly slow pace and we could do nothing but stand there as the clock ticked. By the time the parade had finished it was 11 AM and we were still two hours away from the Devils game that was scheduled to start at 1 PM.

My buddy pushed the speed limit and we made it to the arena with fifteen minuets to spare. Luckily I had purchased a VIP parking pass online and we were able to just cruise in, park, and jam inside. We sat down in our seats with exactly three minuets on the clock to go before the teams took the ice. Our seats were excellent, tenth row directly behind the opposing teams net. (Devils attacked twice on our end) Unfortunately the Devils lost 4 to 1 but other than that it was great.

The trip back to the hotel and home to my buddy's house is a whole other story and I will have that in part 2

To be continued...

Gerstmanngate, what a fitting title for this scandal .

I have a chance to watch yesterdays On the Spot tonight and you know what? I believe them. I just don't see them standing there getting all emotional and banding together to lie and tow the company line. They said outright that the whole thing was handled like crap and everyone was hurt and pissed and everything you would expect one would feel when something so seemingly shocking like this has happened. I also don't buy that Eidos had anything to do with it. I admit I jumped all over it just like everyone else because it was just to big a coincidence. It looked bad, really bad ! It was all just seriously bad timing and the big boys who are supposed to anticipate every contingency !@#&ed up royally. They completely underestimated the community support that Gerstmann would have and they paid no attention to how what they were doing would be received.

I believe Cnet and Eidos had nothing to do with pulling down the video and I'm equally sure that they did in fact have everything to do with the written review being edited. I watched the video and the sound was jacked, it did not have very much game play, the F word could be seen on the screen many times. If it had been pulled at any other time I would not have given it a second thought. It was all just a steaming dung pile that rolled down hill picking up speed and massive amounts of all kinds of garbage before slamming right into the front door of Cnet headquarters. After that, damage control was horrendous and only made things worse. The "new" management has dove right in all right and they did so with a massive belly flop. They probably never thought of the sites K&L advert skin and the fact it would end the day after firing Jeff. They probably never made the connection that EVERYONE else immediately did.

I think as a community all we did was hurt those we all are such big fans of, the writers. We made not one little bit of difference to the jerks that are running the show. If anything we gave them something to rally around. Now they can always say "well look how they all acted when we fired that guy, why should we care what they say now as long as we are still making money?"

I don't think anything would have stopped Jeff Gerstmann from being fired and I don't think the Kane & Lynch review had anything to do with it with the possible exception of being the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. His firing is not going to change anything for the better and I still think it was a mistake but that's my opinion. The new review system is still garbage. Instead of getting rid of what they obviously thought was a problem they got egg on their face and the fans rallied behind the sites "Lead Man". Jeff comes out looking like a martyr and Cnet the villain. I hope the site can recover. Gerstmann is not super hero but he was and is honest. I think the people that spoke on the show are too.

Corporate waited till the big gamming release season ended and I bet that looked good from a business point of view. They paid no attention to the possible repercussions of firing the FACE OF GAMESPOT. The GameSpot staff is not the bad guy but they're the ones having to take it and that sucks.

In the end, management got what they wanted, they got rid of the most significant obstacle standing in the way of turning GameSpot into their vision. I'm sorry to burst your bubble but that vision is not a site for the "hardcore" gammer. Nope not at all. It's a family friendly, Chuck E. Cheese, Grandma kissing, Brady Bunch, preppy, peachy keen, dumbed-down version of it's former self.

I'm pretty well done with this topic and I doubt I will have anything more than this to say on the subject.

I have never been a huge Jeff Gerstmann fan because I always thought he was a bit of an Xbox fanboy . One thing I did know is that I could always count on Jeff to be honest and tell me what he thinks. He was often funny and I think he did his job very well. The only thing I think he is guilty of is becoming a little to comfortable with his place and not moving on soon enough. Jeff, you will be missed.

This blog is of course late. I seem to be a little slow in getting things posted and I suppose I can chalk that up to getting older. I don't feel old but it seems to be showing.

Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel, Jr. died on Friday and I'm very sad.

He was my hero when I was a kid and I'm really having to man up while I'm writing this to keep from crying. When I say he was my hero I don't mean oh I liked that guy or I was a big fan I mean he was my hero and I mean that in the strongest possible terms. When I was a little boy he showed me that I should be proud to be an American. He taught me about courage and what it means to stand up for your convictions no matter what other people think about you.

Back then I had a giant poster with 8 or so pictures of his stunts with a big picture of him in the middle On it was a quote and I don't even have to look it up, I can quote it from memory.

It's better to take a chance in life to win a victory or suffer defeat even though scarred by failure... than it is to live in the shadow of life as some do never knowing victory or defeat because they have not the guts to try either... Theodore Roosevelt quoted by Evel Knievel

Evel was by no means a perfect man but he is a legend. He will always be my hero.

Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel(October 17, 1938 - November 30, 2007)
Rest In Peace

I'm going to go pout now.
Sleepy

GameSpot may very well have cut off it's own legs on Thursday and could bleed to death from it's wounds.

Unless you have been living under a rock here at GameSpot you know that Jeff Gerstmann was fired. If you happen find your rock really cozy and never ventured out far enough to read or watch a video review, Jeff was the editorial director and host of On the Spot here at GameSpot. He has been a staff writer for over ten years.

Jeff's profile: I somehow got started writing about games not too long after I got out of high school. Started here at GameSpot in October of 1996, a couple of short months before the launch of their "new" console-focused site, VideoGameSpot. I started as a freelancer, was hired on as an Assistant Editor and currently hold the title of Editorial Director.

Jeff's video review of Kane and Lynch was pulled and his written review was edited after his dismissal. Rumors of pressure and even a possible payoff in the form of a massive add campaign are running ramped and the forum thread that has been allowed to remain in the Off Topic section has been growing at a rate of over 150 posts an hour (a lot over) This is disturbing to say the least. After viewing the video review and taking into the account the timing and seeing all those giant adds for that crappy game it seems like way to many coincidences.

I may not have always agreed with Jeff but I always new I could count on his honest opinion. Most of the time it was a lot of fun to watch him doing the weekly show On The Spot. IMO GameSpot can no longer be trusted. I don't know what will come of all this but it is indeed a sad day.

Well, thanks to a young man who works at my local EB~Games breaking the rules and giving the heads up the kid's will have a Wii under the tree this year and I could not be more pleased. If you expect to be putting one under your ummmm lets be politically correct here.... tree, menorah or other seasonal item of choice, I suggest you don't procrastinate.

The fact that the Wii has been in limited supply is not exactly a big secret and I'm guessing that in about 3 weeks or so (Thanksgiving) everyone will see a nice spike in availability. Shortly after that to say they will be scarce would be putting it mildly. I know for a fact that for many weeks I have been looking for a Wii and during all that time the credit card I was planning on using for the purchase had a far better chance of being canceled due to inactivity than it ever did of sliding through some credit card machines eager slot. I even considered the sleazy red-light district of purchasing, The Unknown Website but alas, no Wii's for regular price there either.

If you think that the year that has gone by since release has made any difference in availability of the Wii this season your sorely mistaken. While its still not what I would call huge or even bursting with great titles, the game list is much stronger this season and with the titles coming every day demand is as high if not higher then it was last year. Titles like the upcoming Umbrella Chronicles that will utilize the very reasonably priced Wii Zapper should help to sway at least some of the more serious gamers into considering getting one too. I know, I know... The Zapper looks like something very gimmicky and one title doesn't sell a system but I seem to recall hearing that "a gimmicky controller and a bunch of mini games with no graphics to back it up would never sell a system" line not too long ago. Today, 13 million + units later with over 5 million here in the USA a gimmicky controller and a few light gun games to go with it seems far more likely to make a difference, especially to the arcade gamers who are fans of machines like Area 51, Big Buck Hunter, Time Crisis and House of the Dead. I seem to recall hearing talk before about how nobody would shell and extra 50 bucks for a controller that only works with one game and we all know how crappy that silly guitar game is doing so lets move on.

Here is the big problem resulting from the demand so far outweighing the supply here in California. Retailers are using the Wii shortage as an opportunity to force bundles on customers and not even offering the main system separately. The bundles are not unfairly priced but what they are is extremely bloated in product with no discount. So, instead of being able to buy just the system for $250 USD (like I did) you are forced to buy 2 or 3 games and a variety of other accessories as well. All of this extra stuff is bringing the total cost up well over $475 USD. Granted, some of the additional items like a second Wii Mote and charging station you probably want buy anyway but taking away your choice on the first 3 games you purchase for the system seems very unfair. To make things worse, since you get no choice about what games are included in the bundles it stands to reason that at least one of titles you'll receive will be one that isn't selling well. (read as it will be crap). The other thing included with most of these bundles that is overpriced is the Wii 2 GB flash memory card at $40 USD. Any standard size SD flash card will work with the Wii and a 2 GB card from SanDisk (who make the Wii card) can be found for under $20 USD if you know where to look. Maybe I would prefer to buy a Zapper and an extra Nunchuck with my 40 dollars instead of a fancy white SD card.

As much as it pains me to say it the only place in my area that is not forcing those bundles on you is GameStop however like everyone else they are not taking preorders at the stores. Only bundles like the one pictured here are available online. Targets bundle includes Red Steel, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, FarCry, Need for Speed Carbon an extra controller with no nunchuck for $419. Best Buy's packages include 2 games and a second controler with no nunchuck and are $385. Target, Toys R Us and Best buy currently do not have the Wii bundles in stock online and its unlikely that they will before christmas. The bundles vary but the story is the same at each of the major stores, bundles only.

If you haven't guessed it already let me tell you what this bundle or nothing strategy does. It puts the Wii right smack in the price range of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Now before you give me that look think about it and tell me you cant see this happening at your local mall. "Oh no honey, the Wii's are all gone.... what are we going to do? Well dear, the shiny black one isn't that much more and hey look.... we can get the other white one for less than we were going to pay for a Wii...." Pricing is supposed to be a major advantage for the Wii when considering what system to purchase and dealers seem intent on making that irrelevant. One could argue that some recipients of those alternative gifts might be happier but that's not the point.

If you plan on having a Wii for a Christmas gift and don't already have it in your closet like I do then you should pay close attention to this last part. This is based on my experience in Southern California and information I have squeezed out of store employees over the past month. I think it would apply to everywhere in the USA but your mileage may vary.

Most dealers have been getting anywhere from 3 to 15 units approximately every 3 weeks depending on store sales in other areas of relevant product. Maybe a little more or less often but that's average and believe me I have been checking regularly, making friends and discussing the subject at length. Wii's do not linger on the shelf. Not one place I have talked to has had units for more then 48 hours with the exception of Wal-Mart where an employee told me they got 15 on a Friday last month and had 3 left on Monday. This includes Best Buy, Toys R Us and Target.

Wii got ours, did you?

I woke up this morning, actually this afternoon when my sweetie called me on the phone. I looked out the window and it was dark so I fell back to sleep but only for a few minuets because I realized that she had called before she went to work and it must have been past noon....... it was.

The fires and the Santa Anna winds had come during the night and now in the middle of a sunny day the sky was dark ......... filled with smoke.

I went outside to discover everything covered in ash and the gate blown down... not blown open BLOWN DOWN. The smoke so thick that it took only a very short time for my eyes to begin to burn and still the wind blows..... The fires are not that close so its nothing to worry about but this really sucks. Cant breath outside and still the wind howls. Gusts and then calm... its very strange, it will be blowing 50 60 mph one second and silence the next. it's very eerie, fitting for Halloween I suppose. Its like it just jumps up and smacks you in the back, knocks you 4 or 5 feet in one direction and then its gone.

I kinda brings new meaning to the term "this blows"

Hopefully things will settle down tomorrow and I can start picking up some of the roof shingles, assorted lawn ornaments and Halloween decorations.

All and all its been a crappy day. I can only imagine how it is for the people near and in the fires.

Play Area 51 recently? umm me neither LOL
For whatever reason I just didn't feel like it. I played a lot of casual games last weekend but not that one like I had intended. No mater. A day of games like OutRun and Tiger Woods is just as relaxing.

I bought a new Logitech G5 laser Gaming mouse and its pretty cool. The only problem I'm having with it is because I left hand mouse. The button that would be used for your thumb on right hand is in the way and gets pressed by accident sometimes. It sucks because it works as the backspace key and the only way to override this is to use the Logitech software and I don't want to do that. I'm just going to have to wait and see if I get used to it.. The mouse is very cool and if your right handed I highly recommend it. If your left handed, for $65 USD you might want to think twice. The only current choice for a left handed mouse is the Logitech MX 610 and frankly I don't like that one for two reasons. First out it's cordless and that sucks for gaming because it goes to "sleep" very quickly and might just cost you that split second you need. The second reason is it's too light. On the G5 you have a weight cartridge that allows you to adjust the feel of the mouse how you like it. The cartridge has 8 slots that can hold either 4.5 or 17.5 gram each. While it seems gimmicky adding the full 140 grams of extra weight makes a very noticeable difference in the feel. The on the fly dpi buttons are very handy. You can switch from 800 to 1200 and then to 2000 dpi at the touch of a button below the scroll wheel. It works well and is very useful especially when working on graphics or photos. Its odd not seeing the red light under the mouse but since its laser and not optical it dosint have that. The laser is very precise and it works on anything including glass and shiny things that optical mice have problems with. The feet are made out of a high tech material called Polytetrafluoroethylene which is just a fancy word for Teflon. They like everything else on this mouse, work very well and provides a very smooth glide over all of the surfaces I have tried. Finally the cord is plenty long and sleeved in a very durable nylon mesh. It's certainly high quality and I'm reasonably pleased. Provided I get used to it I'm sure it will last me a long time but I have not tossed out my 10 dollar M58 just yet.

I had originally set out to purchase a Wii not a mouse yesterday but alas it was not to be. Best Buy, Toys R Us and GameStop all yielded a whole lot of nothing but "sorry we don't know when they will be in" and "no you cant pre order or reserve one you have to call or take your chances coming back" from the dumfounded Zit Farmers who acted like they had never heard of this strange Wii device I speak of. I will have to set out in search of one on Saturday and try my luck again. I really want it from Best Buy so I can get their extended warranty but if Toys R Us has it first I'm not going to wait.

That's all for now.
Cheers

This blog is going to be all over the place, just random thoughts.
No links in this one either because I don't feel like taking the time to do it. Maybe I'll come back later and add them, maybe not. :P

I caught the trailer for the Hitman Movie on TV during South Park (2 different ones during the show actually) and man it looks very good. From the tiny clips strung together it looks like they are on the right track and may have captured the $ty!e and feel of the game. I'm looking forward to it with cautious optimism.

I am playing Area 51 and still have R6 Vegas and COD United Offensive on the back burner. I really don't want R6V to end lol. I was thinking about writing a review of one of the games I recently finished and as I'm writing this, it got me thinking about something that has been on my mind for awhile.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this happening to them from time to time but I find myself spending more time reading about, researching, writing, chatting, posting in forums and shopping for games then I actually do playing them. A LOT! more time. After taking two weeks off from the internet using it just for e-mail and maybe to look up a few things much to my surprise I started finishing games left and right. Imagine that huh. I think some adjustment is in order when I look at the stack of games I have sitting here that I have not even started. I have Far Cry, COD 2, F.E.A.R. Prey, Republic Commando, Jedi Knight Academy, Need for Speed MW, Flatout 2, Half Life EP1 Hitman Blood Money. and several others sitting here collecting dust while I'm hacking away at the keyboard writing this. Something is wrong with that picture.

I started learning to shuffle poker chips and can do 12 pretty consistently (thanks Joe for sending me the video) Its not as easy as it looks. If you don't know what I'm talking about just look up shuffling poker chips on youtube . A somewhat useless talent I will place in my arsenal next juggling, riding a unicycle and stacking bowling balls.

Not much more to say right now. I think I will skip the review writing for a while and go back to playing Area 51. It seems to be one of those you either love it or you hate it games and I am enjoying it at the moment.

Well it would not be fair to say I finished it but I did finish the story mode in Tony Hawks Underground 1 for PS2 before I left Colorado on the 11th. There is so much extra stuff to do in those Tony Hawk games that the story mode is barely half of the game if that. The cl@$$ic mode has enough tasks to keep you busy for a long time. I finished American Wasteland (PC) a long time ago and while the cl@$$ic mode is not 100% complete I'm pretty well done with that one now too.

I'm going back to Call of Duty and maybe Rainbow Six Vegas this weekend. I kinda put those on the shelf about 6 weeks ago when I left for Colorado. I feel like I want to finish COD because I have the expansion pack and COD2 sitting on the shelf waiting. In complete contrast I want R6 Vegas to last forever. The cover system in R6 Vegas has really tainted all other games for me because it works so well. I really feel handicapped in other games without it.

I have added 3 new FPS games for PC to my collection this week all purchased from Amazon. (that reminds me, I need to add them to my list here) The first one is Area 51. Now I know this game didn't get great reviews but ever since I first heard about it I liked the concept so I think it will be fun. I'm a big X-Files fan so it's right up my alley. Hearing David Duchovny deliver what has been described as his excruciatingly bad voice acting performance should be added fun. What prevented me from buying it in the first place is it has StarForce copy protection. Midway and Ubisoft love their StarForce and I'm not willing to risk having it on my system. I was poking around somewhere and found out that an official patch for Area 51 was available that lets the game work without StarForce but you had to request it from Midway. Anyway, I did that so I'm going to take a chance and give it a shot with the patch, if it all works like it's supposed to it should be safe. I just realized how funny it is that I'm worried if it's safe to open the Area 51 files on my computer.

**update** Not knowing was driving me nuts so I installed Area 51 along with patch # 1.2 and after starting it up all is well. No StarForce installed and No CD required to be in the drive to run the game. It also supports 1440 x 900 resolution for my laptop so I'm very pleased.

The other games are Far Cry and The Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay. Far Cry was a steal at $9.99 and free shipping for the Jewel Case. Far Cry is a highly praised game that looks like it might have a little something different.

The Chronicles of Riddick was a different story,I had to import it from the UK so it cost a few bucks. I'm sure it will be fine, it's brand new and looks to be good quality on 1 DVD instead of a bunch of CDs. (side note.. how come people in England and Germany get their games in nicestandard DVD boxes and we get the giant never gonna fit on a rack mutant versions here in the USA? Oh well I guess the Europeans pay a lot more for their games so I should not **** about it) Back on topic, another highly praised game but it looks like a much more standard Sci-Fi shooter. Im hoping to buy the 3 movie box set and it just seemed like a no brainer to get the game to round out the set. Its one of the few movie based games that got good ratings from everywhere so I'm sure I will not be disappointed.

Looks like I have enough games to keep me going for a little while at least :)