In regards to yesterday's post, I never meant to imply that I ever thought that GameSpot editors were "on the take" from companies, so to speak. Aside from a handful of over-the-top reviews in the five years I've been coming here, if anything, it's always been the other way around: GS reviewers always seem to be overly critical and demoting too much from a game's overall score for tiny things that amount to little more that zealous nitpicking. That's why I dislike the .5 scoring system, because with the .1 system little things wouldn't kill a game's score so much. I mean, can you imagine if the .5 system had been in place here a year ago? Considering the written review, Twilight Princess probably would've gotten rounded to an 8.5 instead of a 9.0...just try to imagine the demented honking from the Nintendrones THEN...

I disagreed with Jeff's opinions a lot, but I still respect the man and wish him the best, not that he needs it from some anonymous weasel like me.

Jeff Gerstmann has been fired. Alright, sucks for him, but of little consequence to me. I don't listen to GS podcats, I don't watch video reviews and I don't trust GS reviews (and haven't for some time). I don't read reviews to get any info, I read them to see how they justify (again) giving the latest hyped game such a lousy score. (And how can Zelda get an 8.9 and Halo 3 get a 9.5 when the great thing about both of them is that "they're just like past games?" Is that bad or not, Jeff?) Now the rumour is that Eidos had CNet fire Jeff because of Kane & Lynch's 6.0 score. It's a bad situation, to be sure, but how naïve can you people be? If you've ever had any respect for half the scores and reviews you see, you're deluding yourselves. I stick around GS for one reason: this page. I like blogging, and on GS I have a much better chance at exposure than almost any other gaming site. And so I ask people: why on Earth is everyone freaking out? Right, because GameSpot has lost its credibility. People, you can't lose what you no longer have in the first place.

I'm not going anywhere, and those of you who keep honking about this, shut up; this latest incident is just par for the course.

It's been a while since I graced these pages, hasn't it? Schoolwork and my personal life have been keeping me busy, and I figured it was about time that I unloaded some of the things that have been clogging the back of my mind.

-Guitar Hero III: I've now spent a month with that game, and aside from the five hours straight several friends and I played Career Co-op on the first day, I'm not feeling it as much as the second one; I guess I need to play it at more parties first. The soundtrack is incredible and top-notch (with a few odd songs, but that's to be expected), but the character redesigns are unnecessary and a bit ugly, the venues range from okay to horrid, and the difficulty is insane. I thought GH2 was hard on Expert, but it seems that GH3 on Hard is the same thing. Neversoft shouldn't be trying to pander to those insane, Youtube video-making people, because they'd buy this stuff regardless. Let me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something here. I shouldn't have to be able to play guitar in real life to be able to handle some of these songs; I can't play guitar, that's why I bought the game in the first place, f***ers!!

-Zero Punctuation: I was tiring of the Angry Video Game Nerd's lengthy short films that were having less and less to do with the bad games themselves, but a friend turned me towards The Escapist's Zero Punctuation, a weekly video review series from Australian game writer Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. He uses simple animation to make his points and talks extremely fast into his recording microphone. He reviews recent/current games unlike the AVGN, but like The Nerd he can be quite profane, so view at your own risk; it's highly recommended.

-Dave Cheung's Jade Raymond comic: Yes, it's sick and offensive, but "teh dave" is not exactly a measuring stick for how women are or aren't welcome in video game development. I'd never heard of her until that comic, but if what I've seen means anything she HAS been the face of Assassin's Creed to an almost embarrassing degree; someone was bound to cross a line. Not to mention that when an "artist" draws numerous doodles of Ashley Graham sucking off Leon Kennedy, Ashley getting penetrated by Osmond Saddler and (no joke) the food characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force having a threesome, having Jade Raymond on her knees sucking off greasy nerds isn't out of the question. I'm not condoning or excusing it, I'm just saying that it didn't surprise me in the least, and flipping out about it is giving it more worth than it deserves or needs.

-Phantom Hourglass: I think I'm finally realizing after too long that every Zelda game IS the same; The Minish Cap was the first one I truly didn't enjoy, and I've owned PH for almost two months and I haven't gotten further than the second dungeon. It's not a great sign when I'd rather play Link's Awakening again. Although with the school semester coming to a close at last, maybe I can give it the time is deserves. Speaking of which...

-My backlog: I've bought way too many games and played way too few this year. I've buy a game, play it for a couple of hours, and then even though I fully intended to I never went back to them (Tomb Raider Legend, Final Fantasy X, Okami, God of War II), and that's not even mentioning the games I bought that I haven't even tested out yet. But like I said, now that some time is approaching, I can get some quality time with them.

-WGA strike: I support the writers on their quest for what they deserve (if you need any convincing check out this video from the writers of The Daily Show), but I am worried about my favourite shows. 24 has already been postponed and may not air at all this season, and with pretty much everything else shutting down the winter and spring don't look very good. I just hope the dopes who provide the soundbites for the two sides aren't actually involved in the negotiating, because if they are I have three letters for them: N - H - L. The entire '04-'05 season of hockey was lost because both sides were too stubborn and moronic to actually compromise on anything. However, it isn't totally grim, because there are supposedly new talks scheduled for next week, after the Thanksgiving holiday. I just hope everything comes together and both sides can walk away relatively happy before networks are forced to start cancelling stuff left and right.

And there you have it. Here are some other things to chew on: Guitar Hero 80s is the best out of the four, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is just as good as Ocarina of Time, the DS Original is still a superior design to the DS Lite, and Nintendo has got to get off their ass and make a new 2-D Metroid. Okay, now I sleep.

The entire Manhunt 2 situation is one we've all watched closely, I believe. I've written on it before, and the latest news that the BBFC is run by a bunch of hypocritical d***s is disappointing but not surprising in this age of headline-grabbing know-nothings. However, there's one thing that I keep forgetting about when I get lost in my sea of loathing: do I actually care about and want to play this game?

Be-headings, garrotings, violent-for-violence sake, do I really give a damn about all this? The answer, I've found, is no. Despite spirited defense of the ESRB rating system and my deep dislike for the exploitative ignoramuses out there, I've found I actually care about the game that put this all in motion about as much as some forumites like Jeff or Kevin's reviews; not a whole lot. I've got to hand it to Rockstar, though. Whether this was intentional or not, the uproar at AO and the subsequent re-cut M-rating almost made me care. Alas, thanks to budgeting and a good dose of personal common sense,come October 31 I'll be dong homework and going bats*** crazy with Guitar Hero III.

Manhunt 2 may very well end up being a good game, but if I did buy it I would immediately think "I should have bought Brain Age 2 and some pizza" or something to that effect. But it leaves me wondering, what other games do I owe nothing but hype or newsworthiness to buying? That's a question for the future.

40 gigabytes of hard drive space, no card readers and no backwards compatability? Are you kidding me, Sony? I know people have ranted at length about this, but Sony is just really bugging me now. Within the ten and a half months since the release of the Playstation 3, it has had four (FOUR!) seperate SKUs. The only thing that still makes Microsoft stupider in this regard is that at least all PS3 models have hard drives; developers don't have to mutilate their games to make them fit onto PS3s.

To think that I was actually laughing at a friend of mine (in my head, anyway) when he bought a PS3 a few months ago. "Lukai" traded in one of his PS2s, numerous PS2 games and must have forked over 300 or 400 dollars for a 60GB PS3 and Resistance. We don't talk games all that much these days, but I do know that he has an Emotion Engine-equipped PS3, so what the hell does he care that there aren't that many great PS3 games, when he can just play Okami or Monster Hunter again?

After he was done with Resistance (which he's since replayed more than once), he and some other people really got into Rainbow Six Vegas, playing it night after night. I listened to them talk about it, and the enthusiasm for the game and complete apathy for or obliviousness to any sort of "console war" was actually something I can admire, because I find myself unable to not compare stuff in my head nowadays, even though I don't own any current home consoles. Another thing is that it's also great to hear words from the mouth of someone who hasn't played the Xbox 360 version of a game and totally written off the PS3 version as "a piece of s***," like I see too many people on the Internet do.

And it's because of my friend "Lukai" that I hate the way the people running Sony have been handling themselves for the past year. There ARE people who enjoy Sony's systems and games and who don't care about all the BS online that we all contribute to ona daily basis. Resistance, Rainbow Six, MGS4, Armored Core, Guitar Hero III, Heavenly Sword and I don't know what else are what he plays that system for. Sony has got to stop announcing good news and then put their collective foot in their collective mouth afterward, and with a big, dopey smile on their collective face to boot, but that doesn't seem to affect my friend. He doesn't think Sony is "shady" for dropping the 60GB model or a bunch of a**holes for not paying Immersion to have rumble in the Sixaxis; he just wants to play the games.

To answer my own question, Sony has become so screwed up that they've actually disproven the oldest axiom in gaming, because he, as a quote-unquote "early adopter" is actually the best off; his PS3 has enough space, card readers and full backwards compatability, while those who jump in now are the ones who are getting hosed, one way or another. Okay, to be fair his red Guitar Hero II controller doesn't work correctly in the PS3, but all things considered, he could be worse off, couldn't he? Get your act together, Sony. There are a lot of people like my friend out there. Do not keep letting them down.

Pixels. They are the thousands, maybe millions, of little points that make up a TV screen. For the longest time, all we cared about was how those pixels projected images from our home consoles to out TV sets and whether or not the images that those pixels made were any fun. But then, somewhere along the line, around the mid-1990s, developers realized they could only go so far with two dimensions, sixteen bits and only so many pixels, and so the era of 3D was born. And in that rough decade, the debate of graphics vs. gameplay has always been amusing and though-provoking, and the merits of each have given us some true masterpieces. However, there are always the snobs and the insane. No franchise in the past seven years has eliected more debate that Halo, but I have to say that out of all the idiocy I have seen from the fans, this one takes the cake.

Halo 3 not HD: runs at 640p, pixel counters claim

Halo 3, one of the most-hyped (and not all undeservedly) games ever, has been determined to run at "only" a "paltry" 640p instead of 720p or "true HD," 1080p. How did the sycophant basement-dwellers who determined this figure this out? They actually COUNTED THE PIXELS. As the Joystiq article says, remember when we just played games and enjoyed them as is? :P

I know that games can look bad, but it's one thing to actually think a game looks bad and quite another to magnify and pick apart a screen image just to make a point that no one cares about. I'm just glad that the people at Bungie see this for what it is: a crock. When this "horror of horrors" broke, Bungie responded. The last paragraph is the most interesting:

"In fact, if you do a comparison shot between the native 1152x640 image and the scaled 1280x720, it's practically impossible to discern the difference. We would ignore it entirely were it not for the internet's propensity for drama where none exists. In fact the reason we haven't mentioned this before in weekly updates, is the simple fact that it would have distracted conversation away from more important aspects of the game, and given tinfoil hats some new gristle to chew on as they catalogued their toenail clippings."

I'm glad the people at Bungie (or at least, the person who wrote that response) has got a sense of humour. I leave you with this quote from the Beyond 3D forums (http://forum.beyond3d.com/):

"I don't understand how this would prove that Halo 3 was less than 720p. Wouldn't the angle of the line (or in this case edge) you are looking at relative to the horizontal axis have to be exactly equal to or an exact fraction of 45 degrees for you to see a direct correlation between the change in vertical position and the number of "steps" you would see in the image?"

If you understand what the hell this person is talking about, you don't deserve to play video games.

The PS2 version of NHL 08 scored a lowly 6.5. AlexN's reason? Pretty much the same reason he gave Madden 08 on Xbox a 7.5: "too much like last year's." That's fair enough, but I haven't owned or really played a hockey video game since NHL 2004, so anything new is great. And so far, I am loving 08. In fact, the same day I bought it I was on a sort-of hockey binge, so I also bought "Miracle" and "Maurice Richard" (The Rocket) on DVD, and was only a few dollars short of also buying the boxset of the CBC series "Hockey: A People's History."

So, to each his own. I love hockey, and despite a few annoyances I'm having fun with this game.

...the owners of NHL 08 on PS2.

Go Habs go.

I hope to be a father someday. And when that day comes, I will do everything I can to be the best parent I can possibly be. It will be up to Me, Myself and I (and my wife/girlfriend/baby's mother) to decide what is right for my kids, not some misguided fool such as Leland Yee, Rod Blagojevich or Arnold Schwarzenegger.

These laws cannot exist in a vacuum. The California law would possibly help keep violent games out of children's hands, but what else? With that as a starting point, the government would effectively ban anything those in power would please. But I'm not here to discuss this in a broad sense. No, rather I have to discuss something that has been eating away at my BS detector for a few days, and that is something Senator Yee proclaimed a few days ago when the Governator said he would appeal the ruling of AB1179 as unconstitutional. (Link to story on GamePolitics)

Commented Yee on hearing of Ah-nold's planned appeal:

-"I am very pleased to see the Governor's commitment to this issue. This is a common-sense law that empowers parents by giving them the ultimate authority over whether or not their children can play in a world of violence and murder."

No, sir, BEING PARENTS gives parents the ultimate authority over whether or not their children can play in what you call worlds of "violence and murder." Now, I certainly won't allow my friend's six-year-old daughter or two-year-old son to watch me play Resident Evil, but if my own son or daughter has enough of a head on his or her shoulders at the age of 15, I won't shy away from letting them try Bioshock or Halo just because they haven't crossed some arbitrary age line. Several friends of mine already have young children of their own, and while maybe shouldn't be playing Resistance in front of them, it's their call.

I can't decide what I hate more about this entire charade of video game laws; that no-name politicians are trying to grab headlines with something they know nothing about, or that those politicians think they know what is better for my (potential/hypothetical) children than I do. Now I admit, some parents are just ignorant and could use the help. My aunt and uncle had no qualms about buying my then-13-year-old cousin GTA: Liberty City Stories, but everything is there for them to be able to make that call for themselves; the rating on the box itself, print & internet reviews and store employees are all "barriers" or "lines of defense" that may or may not allow that game to reach those hands. If that M-rated game falls into those T-rated hands, that's no one's decision or problem but the parents themselves. That is THEIR "empowerment."

I wasn't planning of dissecting Yee's words, but I can't ignore his grandstanding, so let's continue. He also said this:

-"The deliberations in this case took over a year, which shows that the ever-growing body of evidence that violent video games are harmful to children is getting harder and harder to ignore. The medical data clearly indicates that these ultra-violent video games have harmful effects on kids, and thus we have a state interest to protect them."

Bull. The reason it took so long is not because of some "ever-growing" body of evidence, but because people like you, Senator, have just enough know-how to keep trying to bring your baseless arguments back to the forefront of political debate, and you keep spouting it off to the people who are the most dangerous in these cases: the people with some bit of power who don't know any better and take these self-proclaimed demagogues at their word (like the Utah legislature, who actually bought Jack Thompson's "Bully is a Columbine simulator" load, or Bill Hemmer, who didn't question Thompson's rantings at all after the Virginia Tech massacre). It doesn't count as "growing" when it's just the same corrosive rhetoric being spewed over and over again bya fewpeople.

And corrleation and causation are not the same thing. That so-called "medical data" shows what you can only call a "link" between violent images and violent actions. By that same token, I can say that ice cream causes rape. That's right, ice cream causes rape because the sale of ice cream increases at the same time of year as the sexual assault rate. Oh, wait a minute, that's because both happen in summer, the season in which people are outdoors, in heat, 90% of the time; they have nothing to do with each other. Yee seems to believe that 'A' leads right to 'B', but in reality it's more like 'A' is a severe mental problem and the end result 'Z' is a violent crime, with video games hitting somewhere around 'R'.

(And something else that's sending my BS dectector off is the notion that this is a "common-sense law." What on earth is he talking about? A common-sense law, from my understanding, is something like "don't kill people" or "don't steal," not "let us tell you what you should let other people think and do.")

Alright, I'm done.

WARNING: EPIC SPOILERS. I DISCUSS AND RAMBLE ABOUT ALL SIX SEASONS OF '24' IN DETAIL. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Over the past three months, my friend "Zephyr" and myself watched all the way through all six seasons of 24, and even though I pretty much did nothing else except work I do not see it as a wasted summer. Introducing him to my favourite TV show ever and taking the ride again in such a compressed period was nothing short of a total rush.

Unfortunately, he was not a total 24 newbie. He'd been with me when I'd watched numerous episodes, but he had absolutely no idea what was going on or what the significance of certain things was. He was never a fan of the show and until a few months ago I never thought he would ever watch it, so when other friends and I would discuss the show I didn't hide things like the fact that Nina Myers was a traitor, Jack had to fake his own death and that CTU gets compromised way too often. He was actually watching with me when Charles Logan was revealed to be behind the Sentox nerve gas conspiracy and when Jack was kidnapped by the Chinese at the end of season 5. I actually remember that after Jack got chloroformed and dragged into that large room, I kept yelling "Holy s***! Holy s***! What's going on? WHAT'S GOING ON?? F***!!" The henchmen took off their masks and revealed themselves to be Asian. "Oh no, they're Chinese. Oh, no, OH F*** NO," and he actually said "No...they're North Korean," as if he knew what he was talking about. After Jack spat at Cheng and the camera zoomed out and revealed they were on a large cargo freighter destined for Shanghai, Zephyr kept saying, "what's going on? How's Jack gonna get out?" When I didn't answer, he pleaded with me. "What's happening?!" All I did was give him a look, and turn my TV volume up to max as that music played and those last five seconds ticked away; I could actually feel my floor vibrate. He asked me when the next season was starting. I said, "January." He said, "WHAT? How the hell are you gonna deal with that?" All I could say was, "I have to." I've been dealing with agonizing cliffhangers for years, some of which never got resolved (**coughJohnDoecough**), so what else could I say?

A few months ago, I got seasons 1 to 3 on DVD. I had already received 4 and 5 for Christmas each of the past two years, and I was TiVoing and then tape recording season 6. On the Monday that the season 6 finale aired, I had to work, but for reasons I've never actually extracted from him (other than that he was bored) he decided to watch it before me. I got home, he watched it with me again, and as Jack looked forlornly into to horizon and the screen cut to black and we got a silent clock to end the season, I muted the TV and took it all in. Then I thought about my friend. He knew a few things, mainly that Jack's father was a villain and that Audrey was comatose, but that stuff didn't mean anything to him at the time. He did ask me where David Palmer was, and I said, "Zeph, he died, like, last year!" Palmer's death was the huge thing that season 5 will always be known for, and I figured he already knew that. Oops.

Anyway, after only a few minutes of thinking in front of a silent TV set, I went over to my shelf and started taking the plastic wrapping off of my boxsets. He asked me what I was doing, and all I said was, "what does it look like I'm doing?" He gave me a look. "You're gonna watch ALL the seasons?" I gave him a look. I asked him, "are you in?" He paused, then said, "let's do it."

We watched just one episode that first night, but it was enough to get him into it and to somewhat shock me. Kiefer Sutherland has definitely transformed over the past six years; the Jack Bauer I saw at 12:03 AM on Day 1 was certainly not the same Jack Bauer I saw at 5:59 AM on Day 6. He spoke differently, his hair was much lighter than I remembered and he really just hadn't developped into the 21st-century action hero we know today. Not to mention that CTU had become vastly different in the nine years of story that the show spans. However, after a few hours none of that mattered, because Kim had been kidnapped and Jack needed to circumvent all authority to save David Palmer. Watching season 1 again after so long was really something, and there were some general surprises that I'd forgotten about, such as David tricking Sherry into destroying a fake audio tape around 6 PM. And after all was said and done, seeing Teri go limp in Jack's arms still left me feeling sad and hollow six years later.

I won't go into great detail about all seasons, but I will say that watching them on DVD finally did them all justice for me. Aside from a few scheduling bumps, we watched a season over a span of only a week or so. Day 2 was just as good as I remember, with Marie Warner being the most unlikely terrorist ever, Mike betraying President Palmer, George doing his best to heal his relationship with his son before he went down with a plane carrying a nuclear bomb and Jack reluctantly telling Kim to shoot Gary Matthews. The ending did nothing but annoy me at the time, though; Jack and Kim get another chance with each other, only for that bi*** Mandy to show up again. I swear, Mia Kirshner must be a great actress because I really, really hate her.

I didn't hate Day 3 as much as I remembered. I think Days 3 and 6 are the ones you really need to sit down and watch over a span of a few days, because week to week it was really hard to follow when it originally aired. The best part about Day 3 was twofold; it was Mary Lynn Rajskub's first season, the one in which Chloe was the most annoying and blunt, and Jack finally executed Nina like she deserved. I don't dislike Chase anymore, and Day 3's scenario of a viral outbreak is probably the scariest one out of all the plots 24 has had so far (even though Zeph wouldn't shut up time and again about a potential 24-Resident Evil crossover). Day 4 was great because of the way it rebooted the series, only to have many previous main characters come back in major roles. I did my best not to blab anything else to Zephyr, so he was genuinely surprised by Tony saving Jack and Audrey when he though Tony was in prison. (When Jack called "the only person he can trust," Zeph asked me "he's calling Chloe, isn't he?" I didn't answer.) Michelle's return wasn't that big a deal, but Mike's was after Zeph proclaimed that Mike was on his **** listafter Day 2 ended. When Logan brought David Palmer back Zeph loved it, because Palmer was and is his favourite character. I think I developed a crush on Kim Raver as the season wore on, as Audrey was my favourite new character by far (her chemistry with Jack was perfect), which is saying a lot amongst people like Edgar Stiles, James Heller, Erin Driscoll and Curtis Manning. And if nothing else, Day 4 explained why the Chinese kidnap Jack at the end of Day 5, something Zeph wouldn't shut up about for some time. As Day 4 came to a close, I said one thing: "be quiet, this season has possibly the best ending out of all of them." When 24 ends for good, I hope they have a similar ending: Jack slinging his bag over his shoulder, putting on his sunglasses and walking off into the sunrise, all to Sean Callery's amazing score.

Day 5 was huge. It opens with the audience wondering what Jack's been doing the past six months (18 if you didn't see the prequel in the Day 4 DVD special features), and within 16 minutes two major characters are dead and a third is borderline. I deliberately stayed away from internet rumour sites between seasons 4 and 5 after spoiling a good amount of season 4 for myself, so needless to say David Palmer suddently gettinig shot in the throat blew me away when I first saw it. I stood up off my couch and started yelling "WHAT?? WHAT?? OH GOD, OH F***, F***, F***!!!!" In the moments before it happened when I watched it again with Zeph, I asked him if he wanted a pillow to hold to scream into when it happened. He asked, "what are you talking about?" I said, "you're about to witness what may be the most shocking event in this show's history." He then asked distraughtly, "he dies NOW??" Apparently he thought it would work like season 4, that Palmer would last for half a season and then they'd kill him. It was a big deal because between the time I told him that David Palmer dies in season 5 and the time he actually saw it, we'd both grown quite attached to Palmer. That was all the more painful to watch for me because I knew of his ultimate fate, even though a totally kickass story followed it.

As we watched season 5, several things interrupted a steady flow; I had to work later than I thought, other friends wanted to hang out, I had to go away with the family for a few days, and just plain old not feeling like watching it. Finally, on the 22nd, we finished it up, concluding with Jack's kidnapping and the floor-vibrating clock-ticking. I decided to show him the season 6 prequel right away, and then he decided that we should completely wash our hands of 24 and watch season 6, even though it's on videotape and wrought with tracking problems and commercials. Within the next 24 hours we had already watched half of Day 6, which as I already said greatly benefits from being watched in a very compressed amount of time. Wayne Palmer as president, Jack being forced to kill Curtis, the nuclear bomb, the mysterious "Graem" actually being Jack's brother, James Cromwell as Jack's evil father, Rena Sofer being so hot and the return of a disgraced Charles Logan made for much better TV than I thought it was just a few months ago.

We watched it steadily throughout the week. After the scene in which Jack takes out Fayed in totally kickass fashion, I paused and I answered questions he had, just as I had been doing all summer. After I pressed play again and Doyle told Jack that he had a phone call, Zeph guessed that it was Phillip. When he himself heard Audrey say weakly, "Jack, are you there? Can you hear me? Help me, Jack," he too freaked out just as I did, but for a completely different reason. As I said, he knew Audrey was sick at the end of season 6, and all throughout seasons 4 and 5 when Audrey was being kidnapped, interrogated or anything else Zeph would ask me, "is this why's she's like that in season 6?" It got quite annoying. He got so good at forseeing things, and this one went completely over his head.

After the destruction of the oil rig, the capture of Cheng and the rescue of Josh, the writers wrapped up the season in fine form with Jack giving Secretary Heller s*** for saying Jack was cursed earlier on, and saying he would never understand the kind of loyalty Audrey showed by going off the China to look for him. After Jack's mournful goodbye to a sleeping Audrey, he wandered out of the house and onto the patio overlooking the ocean. After the screen went to black and the silent clock ticked away the last seconds of the season with the sound of waves in the background, I muted my TV and pressed the 'Stop' button, and we both sat in silence. We had done it. We had watched all of 24 in only three months. I even played the game to get more story. Now as I hear more details spilling out about Day 7, I'm as anxious as ever for a new season to get here. But I can wait. As I've said since I was 17, I have to.

(Click here for the uncensored version.)