Hey friends, I just found out a few minutes ago and wanted to share with you that I am soon going to be the owner of a house and 8 acres of land! Our real estate agent just called me and let me know that the offer we made was accepted by the bank. We bought a foreclosed house from Fannie Mae. 3 years ago, this house and the land its on was bought for 206,000. We ended up making an offer of 155,000 and getting it. I don't have a lot of pictures right now, but here are a couple.

Yeah, I got a barn too. It is out in the country, after all.

Sweet, I just got an email today that invited me to be a beta tester for the Playstation Home service. I know that you could get in if you subscribed to Qore, but I wasn't interested in doing that. I am guessing that I was selected from downloading the theme that was available a while back.

Is anybody else that's reading this a beta tester? If so, post a reply and we'll hang out. My home or yours, it doesn't matter.

Hey everyone, how's it going. I just wanted to give all of you an update into what's been going on the past month in my life. Many of you know that I got married the first Saturday in July and I've had little time to get on here and write a blog entry or check my unions that I participate in.

So, married life is pretty cool so far. It's not actually any different than being engaged when you live with your fiance. We have decided to move back to Pennsylvania instead of staying in North Carolina anymore. I have received a job offer at the company I worked for after I graduated from college and I'm pretty sure that I'll accept it. It's a midnight position but I should be making at least the same amount that I was before I left last year if not a little more. The best thing is since it's been less than 18 months since I left, my benefits start up right away without the normal 90 day wait period. The reason for this is because I had myself placed on the fill-in list for the company, even though I never worked a fill-in shift the past year.

We are currently packing up the apartment and plan to leave by the weekend. As for the rest of what's going on in my life, I've already had to send my PS3 in for warranty service. They sent me a replacement system, which will be delivered Monday. I can't believe that the system was less than two months old and already needed service. At least I didn't have to pay for any of it.

Well, that's pretty much all that's been going on with me. I hope to be back online and gaming a few days after the move is complete.

At Blockbuster, we got in a single rental copy and grip attachment for Guitar Hero: On Tour, so I decided to rent it. I had considered buying it, and I'm glad that I didn't yet. That's not to say that the game is horrible, its actually quite fun. The biggest problem is that the game is incredibly short. I've only been playing for about 1 1/2 hours and I'm on the next to last set list (there is only 5 total).

The songs are pretty fun to play, and I actually know all but one so far that I've played. Not all songs are the master recordings, but the few covers are actually incredibly GOOD. There are little noticible differences between the original and the cover with the exception of some slight vocalist variations. The sound quality of the tracks is very low, which was to be expected based on the medium of the DS Game Card.

If you've read the Gamespot review of GH: On Tour, I think it was completely unfair. While the game is nowhere near perfect, it does exactly what it set out to do. That is, it has taken the Guitar Hero experience and made it possible to take with you anywhere. Keep in mind that it is no substitute for the full experience, it is enjoyable and worth at least a rental for the GH fan and the fanatic will certainly purchase it.

In other news, my wedding is less than two weeks away. Everything is very nearly complete with preparations. After this weekend, you will probably be seeing very little of me for several weeks. Don't delete me from your tracked list, your Live friends list, or any other means of contact you have with me. I will be around from time to time to check in on things.

Yep, my fiancee and I decided that it was the opportune time to get ourselves a PS3. We decided that Wal-Mart's promotion of a free $100 gift card with the purchase of any Blu-Ray player (including the PS3, of course) was the best time to make the pick up. We went for the 80GB MGS4 bundle pack, since it was the best deal, including the ability for BC gaming. We both love our Karaoke Revolution and Singstar games and Sony's smart decision to include it again was perfect timing. And of course, with the second perfect 10 game this year included in the pack, it was worth it.

Now, we're not 100% sure that we are going to keep the system at this point, we have 90 days to return it unopened. So unfortunately, I won't be playing MGS4 yet which makes me sad. I'll take any comments to help sway my decision. Just looking through the game selection available, there isn't really anything that I really want that I haven't already played on 360 or I just don't care to play.

Well, the Stanley Cup Finals are over, and unfortunately my team was not on the winning side of things this year. It's time to go home for the season and recouperate from one hell of a season for Pittsburgh fans. Next year, I'm looking forward to another great season and hopefully another Cup berth.

Final Score: Detroit 3, Pittsburgh 2

Yeah, you know the title's catchy, admit it. The fifth longest game in Stanley Cup Finals history ended with my Penguins scoring a goal in 3rd overtime to prevent the Detroit Red Wings from winning the Stanley Cup. The action returns home on Wednesday night at Mellon Arena for another critical game for the Penguins.

Oh, and the winning goal was scored by Petr Sykora to end the 4 1/2 hour marathon.

As Porky Pig once said...."That's All Folks!" The Pittsburgh Penguins, the young team with little playoff experience stood in the face of teams with years of experience have overcome the final hurdle to make it to the NHL's ultimate challenge: The Stanley Cup Finals.

And what a way to do it, with a 6-0 win to send the Philadelphia Flyer's packing their bags in humiliation. The series ends with a 3 games to 1 Penguins victory. The big question now is who will they play in the Cup finals? Will it be the residents of Hockeytown (Detroit, for those non-fans out there) who took a quick 3-0 series lead, or the never say die Dallas Stars who have staved off elimination for two games in a row with the chance of being only the fourth team in NHL history to come back from that kind of defecit. This coming week will solve that puzzle.

GO PENS!!!!!

The title says it all. I have had my 360 for a little less than 2 years now and have crushed yet another milestone to boost my gamerscore to over 40,000. I have to admit that I thought I would fall short this year because there was a near complete lack of gaming for about 5 months back at the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008. I made up a lot of ground in the past 2 months and added about 6,000 points to my total to reach the goal that I set for myself.

Well, I actually took the time to shoot my vlog (actually, I reshot it several times because I wasn't sure of the direction I wanted it to go). I tried to transfer the movie to my hard drive but I need to get a Firewire cable. I went out to the bane of all consumerism, AKA Wal-Mart to get one. They didn't have the type that I needed for my camera. Unfortunately, I live in a very small town that has no other stores that sell video/computer equipment so I will pick up a cable the next time that I'm in either of the bigger cities (Raleigh or Durham) when I'm there sometime in the next week.

Secondly, and this is much happier news, the Pittsburgh Penguins my hometown hockey team, proved that the Rangers winning Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals was nothing more than a stroke of luck. They won game 5 back on home turf in Overtime thanks to a goal by trade-deadline acquisition Marian Hossa, which was his second of the game. I might be one of the few Pens fans that hoped that the team didn't sweep two consecutive series in the playoffs. The loss they suffered on Thursday night proved that this team isn't invincible and kept them grounded going into the final stretches of the NHL postseason. Preparing for a cross-state rivalry against the Philadelphia Flyers will be next.