So it's been 4+ months since the last burrito incident, and today I came home with my first "bomb" (that would be aptly noted as "the bomb" bomb burrito, an arm sized portion of americanized mexi-cal cuisine I picked up from the gas station). I was a bit tipsy, so any concerns that this epic sized burrito would explode in my face was tempered by feel good feelings of girls and booze.

I put in the microwave an unprecedented 2 minutes, and then a further unprecedented 1 minute flipped over, and I am happy to say it did not completely lay waste to my microwave in an Openheimer sized disaster of an explosion.

I now have a burrito the size of a small child in my stomach, and I feel gooooooood.

So I got home after bar close, and it was a particularly lame night, so on the way home I got myself a burrito, a tiny innocent little thing, completely unsuspecting that it would be the cherry on top of my crap sunday of an evening, the coupe de grace of a symphony of disappointment.

I look at the instructions and it says "KEEP WRAPPED, put in microwave for 35-45 seconds." Now, my microwave is pretty weak, and I have a 1 minute button so I figured no big deal, right? Well, while I am pouring myself a drink, I hear an odd whistling sound, I turn around to see that it's coming from the burrito. Not even so much a whistle but a "eeeeeeeep." I shrug though, the minute is almost up, it's not as if anything INSANE will be happening in the next 10-15 seconds. I get closer to the microwave, as there is only 5 seconds left. 5-4- *gets closer* 3-2- *gets even closer*-1 *DING* AND BOOM! I swear to you this happened in the very final second of the minute, as if this thing was programmed to explode for any lazy fool who sticks it in for a singular minute instead of the allotted 35-45 seconds. I had tiny burrito guts EVERYWHERE, this thing exploded in half and spilled itself all over like a drunken prom date without any inhibition.

I think if there is a supreme being out there running things, that he is very much trying to screw with me.

Those are really my thoughts today as I find myself patiently waiting for my Starcraft II Collectors Edition to arrive. I even went to the midnight launch with a friend to pick his up, being remiss that I had to wait for mine.

Now let me just preface by saying I was FINE waiting a few days, and I emphasize a few, as I got upgraded shipping. Now, I can excuse that it was delayed a day or two due to "adverse weather conditions" as the tracker said. But today I was told "out for delivery" dated at around 7AM. I made no plans, I waited some before work, waited around in the evening after work hoping they would just come a bit later on. So around 9PM I get an update on the tracker saying something along the lines of "Package missed at UPS facility, will deliver tomorrow."

Feeling rather perrturbed and a little annoyed at this turn of events, I call up, and get a very stoic lady named Ashley. While she wasn't rude, I am not sure she really understands the idea of customer service. I am rarely a difficult person, but I was annoyed that I technically paid UPS extra money to ship something in a timely manner and then not only does it get delayed due to weather (which is of course excusable), but then is simply "forgotten" at the facility. They literally forgot to put it on the truck, and all this Ashley has to say is literally nothing. There was a 10 second pause and a "yep, well, it will be delivered tomorrow hopefully." I point out that's a bit disconcerting that after on delay, a package (that is at least important to me) is delayed again due to one of the dumbest human errors I have witnessed...."sorry, we just forgot". She made a rather limp wristed apology, but mostly just remained silent, as I was hoping some further concession was made.

Now, perhaps I was expecting too much, however this is not the first time UPS did not provide me the service I paid them for, and I kind of feel like they have a real "tough nuts" approach to it when they fail. Why even bother having customer service if they are going to be rude about it when you point out that they screwed up? I guess they presume it's because you have no choice, or maybe they just don't care, but when someone is pissed that you simply forgot to delivery their already delayed package, you should do a little more than dead silence followed by an "um, well, sorry I guess."

Now, I have to cross my fingers that the package doesn't have damage dents and holes in it (which a package with extra transit and sitting time is more likely to have due to being dumped in any given corner while it waits extra time).

In closing, I am giving a stern message of disapproval to UPS. If I ever have the choice, I will use any other service I can since you don't seem to care about having my business. Brown clearly cannot cut it.

/end rant

So I got a letter from my friendly omnipresently local Amazon e-tailer informing me that the Nintendo Wii was now available at a new low low price of 199.99 . Gamespot has also commented this as well, since it was apparently announced at the Tokyo Game Show.

Now, this is excellent news and all, however I am a little curious about what this means, and how this is even happening.

Point #1:

Analysts all over it seems, including many that Gamespot have posted, have cited that the Wii will not be dropping in price any time soon. Signs point to Nintendo's continually high profit margins in the hardware sales sector and increasing profits from even lower than before hardware costs. Signs did not point to any huge slackening of Nintendo's sales, so the question again remains, with a veritable mountain of evidence towards why they didn't need nor want to drop the price, why do it now?

Point #2:

What does the decreasing of the Wii say about Nintendo and their current market confidence? I have felt for some time now that the Wii fever had been subsiding and Nintendo was indeed going to have trouble using that stout install-base of systems to sell as much software as the other two competitors could. Could this apparent unexpected price drop spell certain issues within Nintendo's longer term sales goals? With the current generation of consoles now well on their way to a more mature stage, Nintendo needs it's sales to continue strong more than ever (although I feel Software more than Hardware should now be the focus), so it does make sense that this price drop is indicative a long expected (but not yet seen) reduction in the Wii sales blitz that has gone on for so long.

In conclusion, while I disdain at this point people trying to declare any kind of winner or loser to the console war, and find that the Wii's sales success not exactly a marker for a winning product, it is interesting to see these unexpected developments, and will be keeping a closer eye on Nintendo to see where else this may go.

I forgot to post about this earlier but for those that were not aware, Imax theatres playing I Am Legend also had packaged with it a special 10 minute sneak peak of the next Batman movie, specially formatted, apparently, for an Imax screen (a couple shots showed that this was possibly true).

All i got to say was it was sweet, not since the uncensored Batman Beyond Joker Returns movie has anyone shown so wellthe Joker as the maniacal and intelligent (but of course quite mad) villain that he truly is. Probably is tool late to go check it out now on the big Imax screen but the actual movie will be here before you know it.

It isn't really hard to guess as this point what the latest several editorial blog posts (and pretty much everyone else's) are about, or for that matter everywhere else people can post something as well.

In what I have decided to dub the great Kane & Lynch fiasco of 2007, we have a bit of a controversy on our hands. Now, one thing I'm reading in almost all of the many posts about it is the key word, "rumor." Now at this point the evidence is pretty damning, what with the video review being pulled, and Jeff apparently, at least for whatever reason, has signed his walking papers.

What I want to say then is not necessarily something I personally believe, but is more of an attempt at devil's advocate (since almost no one else is saying it and instead stoking the flames). Could this all possibly be a very poorly timed set of decisions, leading to a misunderstanding? Could Jeff have maybe chosen to just leave, or gotten let go for some other reason?

I only pose the question because we have all too often gotten upset over something only to get the full story later. Unfortunately we may never hear the full story, but at this point, I'veseen many people, even volunteer support members, posting blogs riddled with denouements and even swears directed at Gamespot. As much as this may actually be an appropriate response if this has all happened as the initial reports ordained, I'm wondering how much we may be jumping the gun on our judgments of all parties involved.

Jeff is no stranger to review controversy either, if anything you'd think some of the other games he's shunned in the past would land him in more hot water than an Eidos game.

In short, for those who so far have completely misread the purpose of this post, the theme is "withholding judgement", at least until a suitable time when such judgement can be fairly passed. If at that point in time the judgement is a rage-gasm in the form of anangry mob with pitchforks and torches though, then so be it.

With all this jumble of hesitant thinking I leave you with a departing thought: maybe Kane and Lynch, even with its score not being the most terrible ever, but rather due to its enduring negative stigmata, willbe the new "Big Rigs" game that all new GS members must play....an ironic twist appropriate of such a trial by fire don't you think?

I didnt even realize I had won untilI checkedthe broadcast.It's also a bit fortuitous consideringthe Emmy's are covered inthe backyard of where i went to school, aswell as the fact the subject of thequestion i won on was also one of the shows they quizzed me on for their "what's the scoop" feature, I forgot who ran that programbut I would have been pleasantly pleased ifthey were there to havehad said "wow, that its thatguy and Frasier again.." or somesuch :P

Anyhow bask in my domination, and re-watch the broadcast if you want to see what i won ;)

Just a small Uno update, i'm now ranked 170th place in the world on the trueskill rankings. The W-L rank is what shows when you join ranked games, but i don't know if i want to play the roughly 8000 games to climb that ladder (i actually ran into No.1 yesterday in a game lobby.....and then quickly ran away :D ), and i think the Trueskill rank is another pretty good representation instead of just a massive amount of games played.

Anyway here's a picture for your enjoyment, with someone else also on there to show the comparative difference (he's the only person on my friends list that has played Uno).

Ok well, the guy had roughly 2000 wins and 6000 losses, so he's probably lost quite a bit and is more to do with the sheer amount he has played, but I really schooled him/her, so it was something of a rush to clean sweep him in a ranked match! Huzah!

The person I beat has the XBL The Great 55 for those that want to check the leaderboard.

Well it finally happened, itwas kind of unexpected. I was sitting on the computer,I probably had asked a whole slew of questions leading up to it and then suddenly i hear my name over the air preceded by "boy, they must be getting tired to ask this" :D

For those watching my question, near the tail end of the marathonwas "If you were a madden game, what year would you be?" haha

Jeff opted to sidestep my question and proclaim that he would be Joe Montana sports talk football, real slick Jeff :P