Battlefield 3 is here and it's flippin awesome. Played until 4am last night. Got up and 9am and played a couple more hours until my wife dragged me away to her OB appointment. Still some issues with squads but I'm loving every minute of it. Seriously, if there's any of you that would like to squad up, come find me. Especially, those of you that are on my friends list but I have yet to play with. You know who you are ;)

Haven't been this excited for a game in a long time. First time I've done a midnight launch since Halo 2, and that was on accident. Come find me online if anyone wants to squad up.

What the hell is the point of Fuse? It seems like it wants to be a type of Facebook for games but all you do is follow games and other gamespot users... which... is... exactly what you do on Gamespot. I'm confused as to why I need to go to a different site just to do the same thing I can already do on the regular site. And what happened to integrated Raptr achievements? Did that get das boot? I noticed this little "new" badge next to my achievements here then noticed that all my Xbox Live cheevos were no longer showing up. Which is really why I clicked on the Fuse thing to begin with... thinking that I needed to link accounts again. But there's no way to link accounts there either which brings me back to, what's the point of Fuse? Anyway, not playing much. A little bit of Brink since the patches and DLC - which have seriously improved gameplay. Still a bit of a flop though. I've actually been enjoying a lot of Arcade games lately. Can't afford anything new but the trial versions have been fun. Texas is ridiculously hot. We're on a record for most consecutive days with 100+ degree heat. (Over 30 something at this point) I think it's rained once in the past 2 or 3 months. Still looking for work. Been over a year now without a job - not counting a couple short small gigs. The fire department is recruiting so I'm considering going that route. Not really my thing but it's good pay and a good schedule. My brother loves it. Either that or go back to school again, and without some serious grants that's pretty much out of the question.

Steam had a pretty good deal over the weekend that I found myself unable to ignore. Civilization 5 was marked down to $17 and being that I love turn-based strategy games and love the series, I had to finally cave and pick it up. Been a while since I've played a Civ game though and had forgotten about the, "Just one more turn..." syndrome. So easy to lose track of time. Also picked up Portal on the cheap a couple weeks ago. Hard to believe that I've never played it. Spent about an hour on it and played through just about all of it. 2 or 3 levels to go. Enjoyable though. The more I play games like Portal, or Limbo, or Braid, the more I realize I much I like the puzzle genre. Just simple little games that are mentally engaging.

I hate NHL 11. Total piece of @#*&(Q#$ Yet, simply because it's hockey I have this need to play it and can't bring myself to trade it in. I picked this up around last Christmas. Was super excited to have a decent hockey game again. Especially one that got such great reviews. Played a bit here and there over the year, but only now, after having been playing the Be A GM mode consistently (against the computer) and constantly fiddling with the gameplay settings have I discovered that this game absolutely blows. I can pretty much guarantee anyone that feels otherwise spends most of their time playing online against real people. Or are content to play on lower difficulty settings. The passing is just horrendous, A.I. teammates are morons, or how it's nigh impossible for the A.I. opponents to lose control of the puck despite getting knocked to the ground or having the puck poked away. Teammates will bunch up in clusters or randomly change directions instead of moving into position to set up a play and they simply will not pursue the puck - and when they do it's along with the player your controlling and the rest of your team, leaving the opposition completely open. Opponents will intercept at will yet your teammates will just watch the puck glide by. How the hell did this get the go ahead and how the hell did it get such good reviews?! Even after countless hours of micromanaging the game settings its impossible to get a reasonable game out of this. And by reasonable I mean one where the puck isn't passed directly to the opposition I effing hate this game. My wife hates this game because I turn into a raging cursing megaphone. I'm sure my neighbors hate this game as well.

Ok, I'm making it official A couple weeks ago my girl came home from a weekend out of town and presented me with a positive home pregnancy test. Few days ago she got some blood work done and it came back positive. So yeah, if everything gets put together as it should, then in about 7 months I'll be a dad. Still very weird to say that. I guess it could be premature to tell people these things - but whatever. Neither of our parents know yet. We meet with a doc for the first time on Friday. Then on Saturday we fly back to see my parents for the weekend - which just happens to be father's day. Seems like a good day to tell them. Coincidentally, we believe we conceived on Mother's day :P Ok so that's the big stuff. Since I'm here I might as well toss a little update out since it's been a long time since I've written anything. I still drop by here once in a while and check blogs - just rarely post anything obviously. Still out of work but really I'm not trying to look. I'm really at a point where I don't want to continue down that career path that I'm trained for so I'm spending a lot of time thinking about what next steps I want to take and how we're going to be able to support a baby. But I also feel that I can get design work again fairly easily if I need to so I'm not really concerned about it. More anxious about what we're going to do if I don't go back to design - because I really, really don't want to. At least not for a money grubbing agency. Except for Netflix the Xbox collects dust. Picked up Brink on day one and that has a little disappointing. Lots of fun with friends though. But the meager single player and Unreal Tournament style of play keeps me from going back. Hopefully, the updates have fixed the online problems - because it really is a blast when you have people to play with. Finally let my WoW account lapse again and in its stead I've been playing EVE Online and even reinstalled SimCity. But damn is EVE a slow game to play. Still not even sure if I like that one. I find it really intriguing but just not very fun I think.

more to come later...

So it's been a long time since I did a blog entry. My only excuse is just a change in lifestyle. Since I don't sit at a desk all day anymore I simply don't think to come here... nor do I have anything to say. But I'll throw in a couple things that I've been doing with my summer. Played Final Fantasy 13... really enjoyed it. I guess the combat was pretty simple since you pretty much just put the commands on auto for the most part, but I really liked switching Paradigms on the fly. Story was a bit confusing but enjoyable overall. Only thing that I didn't care for were the missions. Really just turned into grinding. 75 hours of story and then I have to grind to complete the other achievements... meh. That game really asks for a lot of time. Just finished up Red Dead Redemption. Decent. Rockstar really hit the gameplay on this one. None of the nagging elements that plagued GTA:SA and 4. Great voice acting all around, beautiful graphics, good mission variety. I didn't care for how every climatic confrontation with someone important involved the bad guy escaping and having to chase them down. Rockstar does it every time with GTA and I find it very predictable and tiresome now. The ending of RDR was phenomenal however. Really loved the way they closed the story. Without spoiling anything, I don't like the way gameplay continues after the story in done. I just find a particular character annoying. ***************************** Ok, personal stuff... Just returned from a two week vacation/honeymoon/wedding in Hawaii with the wife which was freakin fantastic. Had a small ceremony on the beach with a couple friends and family. Turned out beautifully and even got to take advantage of some tables and chairs that had been set up in preparation for an event that was happening the following day... and finished up before they kicked up out ;) Stayed a couple nights at a beach-front condo for our honeymoon. Did a lot of snorkeling. Was lucky enough to swim with wild dolphins a couple times. Did some sunsut horseback riding, toured a Kona coffee plantation, and toured Kona brewery. Plus lots and lots of Mai Tais. Great trip. Posted photos on Facebook and Flickr if anyone is interested. ***************************** And finally, we got a dog yesterday! My very first one. I've always had cats growing up (and prefer them) but my wife's a dog person and allergic to cats. The real challenge was that if I were to get a dog I wanted a man dog. Not some frou frou thing that was all show. I wanted a dog that would go running and play frisbee. She wanted something small and cute that had a calm demeanor. Seems like we found the perfect compromise. This little 2 year old dachshund mix that loves to run and play but is still small and calm enough to be a lap dog. So now we're learning how to be dog owners starting with the house training. This is supposed to be the wife's dog but I have no doubt I'll end up doing most of the dirty work...

Hi everyone. Been away for awhile. Figured I'd post an update for anyone that cares. Texas is freakin hot, all the time. I've done a couple drill weekends with my new unit now and the people have been good so far. The 3 hour commute kind of sucks but I don't really mind long drives and so far it's been a good place to work. With some luck, I should be able to get my qualifications passed within a few months and then by next year I should have my own boat. Finally. Still looking for a job. I've applied for a position with TSA to screen bags at security checkpoints. Super slow process. We're talking several months here. After a bunch of online forms and a test assessment, I final have an assessment interview at the end of September. So I'm still living off of savings in the meantime. The wife will be finishing up her Navy training at the end of the month. I'm heading out to see her in a couple weeks. It'll be the first time we've seen each other since early April. In the past year I think we've only spent 4 or 5 weeks together total. So hopefully she passes her final exam. She's borderline right now. If she doesn't pass she gets sent to the fleet and I'm stuck in Texas by myself for who knows how long. So, there's a lot of praying going on in our family right now. Assuming she does pass, then it's a big week long road trip in a moving van to get from San Francisco to Seattle, back to LA, then across to San Antonio. But like I said, long drives don't bother me. Actually, I guess I'll be taking that road trip regardless, if she doesn't pass I'll just be doing it solo. On the gaming front, Gamefly refuses to send me anything current so I've been going back over some old games picking up some more achievements I didn't get the first time around. My 3rd Xbox also quit on me so I picked up another arcade which came with Banjo Kazooie and Viva Pinata. Both of which are supposed to be kids' games but the controls on Banjo Kazooie are frustrating as all hell and Viva Pinata is so freaking complicated I don't understand how a kid could make any progress - not to mention you have to have a guide of some sort to get anywhere in that game. However, I did play VP when it first came out and this time around I'm enjoying it a lot more. Probably because I'm using an online guide...

Well, I did it. I pulled the trigger. Part of me is excited, part feels tremendously guilty for spending so much money. Especially when I have so many other giant expenses involved with this wedding of mine - which isn't the bride's parents supposed to pay for? However, this should be a pretty cool setup. Best of all, I'll be able to control the whole thing from my phone! :P Crap. I just realized part of my requirements for this thing was a system that my wife could easily learn and use. Except my phone is the only way to control the damn thing...