Won my first (and probably only) match on Quake Live a few days ago. Awesome.

SFIV first impressions: This game is HARD. Sure, as a SFII veteran, I can pick it up and play, in the sense that I can hurl fireballs and pull off Ultra Combos with little difficulty, but there is much new stuff to get used to, and I am getting my butt kicked by the computer constantly-even on the easiest setting [update: by scanning forums, I've learned that there's a glitch in PS3 SFIV. If you install the game to the hard drive and install the update patch, the easy difficulty setting will become much more difficult. I've removed the hard drive installation, and the game has become much easier now on the easy difficulty setting. I'm suffering from less butt-kickage as I acclimatize to the feel of the game. Back to the rant.]. Zangief and Abel are constantly kicking my butt! I can't jump! I can't not jump! Gotta get used to jumping in SFIV (the jumping feels more like Mortal Kombat than Street Fighter). Gotta get used to focus attacks-punching someone in the face and then being punched back twice as hard before I'm given the chance to follow up. Gotta get used to throw cancel-the computer is throw-crazy. Gotta get used to losing a lot. Gotta get a stick, I think, or at least a 6-button gamepad. Gotta get good. Played one online match and lost (but only by that much [puts thumb and index finger close together.])

I don't know. Maybe it'll grow on me, but I'm not yet feeling that this is the best fighting game ever. Virtua Fighter still has me won over. Then SoulCalibur. And now SFIV and Tekken are duking it out for third. (I'm shocked to hear myself say that as I have worshipped SFII since I first played it in middle school. It's largely responsible for shaping the kind of person I am today: Street Fighter II encouraged me to take karate. Karate built my confidence and introduced me to Eastern philosophy. Eastern philosophy, including Taoism and Zen, made the world make sense to me and is now the backbone of my worldview.)