Hey everyone. Gamespot just announced their first Halo 3 tournament. Sign-up starts today and runs through Oct. 1 and is only available to Total Access subscribers. The matches will be Team Slayer, 5v5. The winners will each receive a $300 Best Buy gift certificate.

Please let me know if you are interested in joining the team that I am forming. The preliminary rounds will take place on Valhalla, a map that I am intimately familiar with, so I'm excited about that match. If I don't hear back from anyone, I'll be joining a random team number at approximately 8 EST / 5 PST today.

Lastly, my test is tomorrow so I'm only 24 hours away from freedom. I'll be doing some serious gaming starting Sunday. Also, Bozanimal just wrote a great article about the Soapbox feature, so check that out (and read some of his other stuff while you're there).

See you online.

Guitar Hero II. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Game of the Year Edition. Bioshock. Halo 3.

All of these games have come into my possession in the last 5 days and I am yet to play even one of them. ToyRus, OSU, and Microsoft did a terrible job coordinating an amazing game sale, my second division anatomy/histology exam, and the release of Halo 3. I really wish they would all work together to avoid annoyances such as this. Is that really too much to ask?

The fight begins on Sunday.

The fight ends shortly thereafter.

See you online.

For all of you who don't want to see or hear anything about Halo 3 until you've beaten it, be forewarned; Gamespot has posted their Halo 3 review already! On a Sunday! There is both a written review and a video review. If you're like me, you are unbelievably tempted to look at them, but strong enough to hold out.

See you online.

I took full advantage of the toysrus deal that was going on and picked up Bioshock, Guitar Hero II (360), and Oblivion: Game of the Year. I already have GH I and II for PS2, but I've been considering upgrading to the 360 version and selling my old PS2 GH games and guitars. Unfortunately, the toyrus I went to didn't have any copies of The Darkness, soI'll have to wait on that one. Can't complain about these great games though, and now I can put my (fake) guitar skills to work in earning me some achievements. I really hope the achievements are retroactive so I don't have to play through on easy, medium, and hard difficulties.

Test on Friday, Halo 3 shipping next week, and my girlfriend coming next weekend so I won't actually be playing any of these games any time soon, but it will be great when I am. As for the cost, well, I've been living like a pauper for two months and the Army owes me over $3000, so I'm not too worried about it. I'm almost sure I'm going to buy an HD-DVD add on for my 360 in the next week to take advantage of the 5 free HD-DVD deal Toshiba has going on. There is also a great little used media shop down the street that has a respectable HD-DVD collection for under $15 each, so I can use that to boost my collection. The price is so low that I'm going to enjoy HD-DVD now and move to Blu-Ray if it wins the format war. Chances are I'll keep buying HD-DVDs even if I get a PS3 (it will be worth it at some point... right? hello?) since Blu-Ray are still overpriced. Anyways, enjoy Halo week everyone!

See you online.

A few things. First, I'm sitting here rocking out to my How the West was Won CD and it is amazing. Like live music? How about a 25+ minute version of "Dazed and Confused" or a 23 minute long "Whole Lotta Love?" Oh to live in the days when rock music ruled the world and going to a concert was the event of the year. Ooooh, it makes me wonder; would you rather have your favorite video game or your favorite CD? Name them and give me your answer if you so desire.

I received the two sticks of 512MB PC133 SDRAM that I ordered and, subsequently, dropped them into my 5 year old desktop. So far the thing is running great and it actually lets me compress efficiently while I capture video. I can only compress with mpeg-4 or h.263+ at this point, as I'm having trouble with h.264 working (any advice?). The 640x480 video looks great, so hopefully my next vblog or that elusive Metal Gear review I promised so long ago will take advantage of that.

Lastly, because I love y'all so much, I've got a couple of sweet deals on games to tell you about.

First, check out Liongames.com if you are interested in preordering Kane & Lynch, Smackdown vs Raw 08, and Devil May Cry 4 ($44.99) or Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Trauma Center: New Blood ($37.99). The site is small, but reputable and has really good prices on used games (and you'll actually know if you are getting the case and instructions with it). All customer service questions go directly to the owner, Tony, and he is always helpful. The site also gives you better prices on your trade-ins than GameStop. If you trade in towards certain games, you can get the money for your trade-in and a discount on the game (because you traded another game in), so it's easy to get a cheap new game.

Second, check out Toysrus for a ridiculously sweet deal. They have buy two, get one free on a ton of brand new games through saturday. A lot of the games just came out recently like The Darkness, Forza 2, Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition, Odin Sphere, Mario Party 8, Bioshock, and a whole lot more. You can't beat getting a $60 game for free. I think I'm gonna pick up, Oblivion, Bioshock, and The Darkness. That's it for now.

See you online.

I got my Led Zeppelin II CD in the mail today and it's pretty much perfect. Great to listen to all the way through in one play (as was intended by the band). Continuing my random jumping around in their catalog, I ordered How the West Was Won, the three CD live compilation put out in 2003. I don't know which CD I'll get next, but it really doesn't matter, because they're all good (except for maybe Presence, depending on who you ask).

Today's fun (and possibly true) fact: The band dropped the "a" from the word "Lead" in when choosing their name because they figured that all the stupid americans would pronounce it wrong (as in "you can lead a horse to water").

See you online.

No offense to anyone who has been featured on the Soapbox, but I have to say that the majority of the editorials aren't the slightest bit thought provoking. It's as if the featured authors are trying so hard to get onto the soapbox that they just write a Cliffs Notes account of a popular gaming argument. Unfortunately, to the disappointment of the authors (and those who choose the articles), summing up other peoples' ideas on pop culture is not an editorial. Thankfully, I don't have to view the soapbox and I have plenty of interesting things to read (and watch) when I look at the blogs of all of my gifted friends. Keep on writing and ranting, and be careful when you talk about general trends and ideas in gaming, because it may be featured in the Soapbox.

See you online.

So I've decided I'd like to do a bit more original writing in my blog. I'm quite proud of how my last entry turned out and, while it didn't get a lot of comments, I think the people who read it enjoyed it. There's also a certain sense of accomplishment in creating something unique that cannot be denied. As such, look for some more humorous/interesting blogs in the future.

On another note, I recently ordered two 512MB PC133 SDRAM sticks for my aging desktop in an attempt to reinvigorate it. The formatting definitely improved performance, but one stick of 256MB PC133 memory just isn't enough to do real editing. I also recently bought Led Zeppelin II (CD) on ebay. I've always listened to and loved their music, but I've never bought the CDs. Now seems like the perfect time to start.

Only another week until Halo 3 (which I preordered for $45 shipped from Liongames.com - best game buying site ever) and I can't wait for that. Unfortunately I have my next exams (anatomy, embryology, histology, and physician development) on Sept. 28th, so I won't be able to play until after that. And even then, my girlfriend is coming into town, so I won't really be playing for more than a couple hours that weekend. The following week I'll definitely be flying through the single player and then ready to bash skulls online, so make sure you add me up on Xbox Live (RenegadeSaint). I've been pretty good online, reaching level 27 in Halo 2 and level 42 in the Halo 3 beta for team slayer, so you can feel comfortable having me on your team.

Lastly, I have 1GB of DDR memory (1.0GB 184pin DDR DIMM 128Mx64 non ECC gold leads unbuffered 2.5 volts PC2700 spec 333Mhz with SPD CAS 2.5 latency) that I don't need. It's brand new and never been used. I'm planning on selling it on ebay, but if anyone is interested in buying just let me know and I'll give you a pretty good deal. That's it for me.

See you online.

Dear GameSpot,

I have to start by admitting that you've provided me with countless hours of entertainment. I've never had to worry about being left out in the cold when E3 rolls around or whether my 1st grade Japanese language skills can guide me through TGS. In fact, you've done so many great things for me that I've never even considered soliciting those young, sexy websites, flash-playing their goods all over the internet. But there is a problem inherent in your greatness; it makes your minor annoyances seem like egregious faults. As such, I've made a list of things you need to work on so that our relationship can continue for many years to come. Please remember, this is for your own good.

1. You need to relocate or start work earlier. Now I understand that you can't put up the day's new content until you've finished creating it, and that seems to roughly coincide with the end of your work day. While that's fine and dandy over there on the west coast, it just isn't working for me. I like to start dinner around 7pm and spend the rest of the night studying, so I really need my new content to be on Eastern Standard Time. I know you want to be in the center of the gaming world (San Francisco?), but I can't deal with this time zone difference, so I suggest moving your entire office over to this side of the country. Alternatively, you could start your work day at about 4am Pacific and crank out my new content earlier in the day. As an added bonus, you get out of work earlier, so everybody wins!

2. Perks for paying subscribers. I've been a GameSpot All Access subscriber for about a year now and I have no idea what that means. I know I got an emblem for playing in a subscriber-only Gears of War tournament and I'm pretty sure the admins have been sending me love letters, but that's about it. I really think you should reward subscribers by sending them free gifts. Ideally, the gifts should come once a week, but on different days so as to spice things up. Also, the prizes should be worth more than the actual price of subscribing. I believe that this perk would help you reach your goal of attracting new subscribers and help me reach my goal of getting free stuff. Again, both of us come out on top.

3. Rethink your spelling of "OK." I know that you probably have editorial guidelines for original GameSpot content, but why do you have to spell "okay" as "OK?" Whenever I read a review, this word seems to get thrown around a lot. That wouldn't be a problem in and of itself, but whenever I see it spelled this way, my brain thinks that you're yelling. This causes me to lose focus and fall out of my "Review Zone" (RZ). Being in my RZ is vital for all game-buying decisions. Last time I read a review with OK in it, I ended up losing 5 hours of my life and owning a copy of the Superman game (thankfully I don't have an N64 in which to play it). So go ahead and start using okay, instead of OK, okay?

4. Stop talking about the war. Why? Because there is no war. The winner of the new-gen console race has already been decided and you know who it is. You're so obviously biased and everyone can see through your charade. You go about your business, putting on a show, posting objective reviews and slyly covering all of the games that come out for all of the systems and I'm sick of it. The Wii60Station3 is my favorite console and you love it too, so just admit it and stop covering those loser systems.

5. Name confusion. Lately I've been having some issues when I try to visit GameSpot.com on a public computer. When I type in the url (Why isn't there a toolbar button on every copy of IE that takes me straight to you?), I often end up at some site called GameStop.com. Now I don't know who these people are, but they are costing me priceless seconds of my life every time I end up at their site. This is not acceptable. One way to resolve the problem would be to change your name to something easier for me to enter. I suggest "www.asdf,xom," because I'm terrible at typing. Alternatively and ideally, we could take down this mom-and-pop organization called GameStop. They probably only have one store, and I have a hammer. Once we conquer them and force them to sign a peace treaty, I believe IP law will grant us the exclusive rights to GameStop.com. You will then set it up to redirect me here whenever I accidentally type it in. I'll save countless seconds and we'll both get to participate in a siege, so we both win yet again.

As you can see GameSpot, I'm not very demanding. You have some major problems and it's easy to see how they are ruining my life. Some people can't seem to put up with your shortcomings, so they complain and whine and deface you with their almost indecipherable grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Not me GameSpot, I'm just trying to help you change for the better. Those others can leave if they don't like you, but I'll be around, helping you help me.

See, I'm not a complete liar. I occasionally put up content when I say I will. Enjoy (or at least tolerate).

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See you online.