Well, I arrived at the store about 5 minutes before midnight, amazed to see that I was the first and only person that was there to get my copy of GTA IV Special Edition for the 360. I took a picture of my coworker and manager, George, handing me the box containing my slice of heaven for the next few weeks.

For such a momentous occasion, I plan to attempt filming my first video blog. I will be filming tomorrow and plan to include a reveal of each item contained in the special edition lockbox and about 10 minutes of footage with me playing the game. I don't know too much about vlogging, and have never used Windows Movie Maker, but there has to be a first time for everything. Any helpful hints for editing my video would be greatly appreciated. As much as I would like to play more than just the first mission tonight, it is time for bed since I get up every morning with my fiancee to see her off to work.

Good night and happy gaming fellow GTA lovers...I'll be seeing you online!

Okay, for those of you who know me fairly well, this may come as a bit of a surprise. I have become a really big fan of American Idol, something that started about 2 years ago with season 5. There have been some really good singers in these past few seasons, as the show is attracting a lot more rock-minded competitors than the first four seasons. Daughtry, Bo Bice, and Taylor Hicks in seasons past.

This season sees Michael Johns who was eliminated a few weeks ago, David Cook who is still in the competition, and Carly Smithson who was eliminated from the competition tonight. Anybody who follows American Idol already knows that Mrs. Smithson had a record deal and a failed debut album, but she was an awesome singer who very nearly put in a remarkable performance each and every week from the Hollywood 2nd Round Auditions.

Her performance this week, during Andrew Lloyd Webber week, was easily her best performance. Singing Superstar, from Jesus Christ Superstar (the first musical I really ever heard in its entirety when I was young) was absolutely a perfect fit. High praise from the judges apparently wasn't enough to get her to advance to the next week. My fiancee and I did our parts to vote for her...and we only vote for the people we feel put on the best performances, despite whether we like them or not. Hell, I even voted for Kristy Lee Cook a few times when she put on a good performance (which was a rare occurence) because I really hated her.

Joining Carly in the bottom was Syesha Mercado...another singer who put in one of the best performances of her time on Idol thus far. Randy Jackson nailed tonight's bottom vote-getters with his comment about it being a popularity vote week. Jason Castro and David Archuletta had no F**KING business being safe.

Their performances were crap, and hell, Jason didn't even know S**T for S**T about his song choice, which was one of the most famous Broadway songs ever written and performed! It's F**King MEMORY, dammit, from CATS....the longest running Broadway musical of ALL TIME.

So if you're a fan of Idol this week and you voted for either of the two performers mentioned in the previous two paragraphs, get your heads out of your asses and vote for the best SINGERS, not the ones you think are HOT!

Sorry for my little rant, I'm sure that Carly will get another chance in the music industry after Idol, so it's not all bad...but she should have gone so much farther than 6th place!

Well, well, well....what a difference a year makes! Last year during the playoffs, the matchup was the same, the players were mostly the same, but the difference came in the last several games of the regular season. The Penguins surged to the top of their division and secured a #2 seed while the Senators had a huge slide to the near bottom of the playoff seeds at #7.

Neither team was really much better than the other in terms of talent and playoff experience, yet the young Pens went into the series with a mission, to avoid being embarassed by the same team that outplayed them just one year ago. Well, they stepped up to the challenge and played all their cards to not only win the series, but totally dismantle the Senators offense with solid goaltending from Marc-Andre Fleury and defense from rising stars like Ryan Whitney. Scoring a whopping total of 5 goals across 4 games to the Pens 16, the Sens were completely and utterly destroyed!

Bring on the next victims!

I signed up to join the Gamespot hosted Rock-tacular tournament for Guitar Hero III. The first round took place this weekend and here's a report of my results.

The first round was played at the medium difficulty and is a high-score format tourney. The four songs selected for round one were Mississippi Queen, Same Old Song and Dance, Pride and Joy, and Cliffs of Dover. Personally, I thought the selection was pretty good. Mississippi Queen was easiest, as it rests in the second setlist for the career mode. The other three songs were fairly high up. Here are my scores for each song

Mississippi Queen - 84,174 (Gold Starred)
Same Old Song and Dance - 113,487 (Gold Starred)
Pride and Joy - 168,021
Cliffs of Dover - 149,739

All in all, I don't think I did too badly...I don't know if progress to the next round is determined by highest scores for that particular round or if the finalists are determined by a cumulative score over all three rounds. If it's the former, then I'll probably be eliminated. Even if that's the case, I still had fun with this round. It's the first time I've played GHIII for several days in a row since November.

If you're in the tournament and you beat my score, feel free to leave a comment and brag, I won't be offended.

In other totally unrelated news, I got some great pickups at Target that were marked for clearance.

A complete steal at $15. I have been wanting to play this for a while. I'm not sure if I'll keep it, but it was a deal impossible to pass up. The trade in value at Blockbuster is $25!

Another steal at $5. I'll probably just try to sell this one or trade it in at Blockbuster where I can get more than what I paid for it.

Whooo! The Pens, my favorite team ever in any sport, has just clinched their first division title in over 10 years. Playoff hockey this year will be great! Thankfully, I'll get to watch them here in Carolina since our cable company actually carries Versus in their standard package. That's all I have to say, short blog, but whatever...it's bedtime anyway.

Well, one of my Live friends and Gamespotter, BigC43, posted a list of 5 things most people don't know about him. He then tagged me for my list, so here goes.

1. My first real kiss came at the age of 14. It was on a marching band trip my freshman year to Williamsburg, VA (save the jokes...). The girl's name was Sarah and it was actually quite steamy...but of course that could have been from the sauna. Of course, it occured during a game of Truth or Dare, so there were witnesses. Sarah was pretty cute, but I never had any strong feelings for her.

2. I changed my major in college 3 times before I finally found what I wanted to get my degree in. I was a business major for a whole semester. Accounting sucks, so I changed to Education. The state of Pennsylvania eliminated my particular area of study (Elementary/Middle School Certification Program) and didn't tell me that it was eliminated for 6 months after the program was eliminated. So I got pissed off and changed for the last time to psychology.

3. I am an Eagle Scout, a distinction I earned at the age of 14. There's a funny story that goes along with that. The day I had my Eagle Court of Honor (the ceremony to bestow the honor) I decided to celebrate afterwards by going roller skating with some friends. I had never been on skates before and due to my ineptitude, I took a bad spill and broke my left tibia (large bone in the ankle and lower leg) and spent about 4 hours in the hospital. So yeah, that was definitely a night I'll never forget for more than one reason.

4. I don't eat salad, ever. I absolutely despise lettuce. I love broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, carrots, onions, and a few other vegetables but I cannot stand lettuce. So I will never have a salad again in my life. Give me raw vegetables and I'll eat them but don't offer me that leafy green stuff. Though I suppose the point could be argued that salads can be made with spinach...which isn't overly offensive to my taste buds.

5. Since we're on the topic of food, I love Chinese but didn't always. When my parents would go to a Chinese restaurant when I was really young, I would only eat plain steamed rice and chicken noodle soup when I went with them. It wasn't until about the time I was 12 that I opened up and started liking Sweet N Sour Chicken (no sauce at that time), which became General Tso's chicken, then I started trying other random Chinese dishes and now I'm at the point where I'll eat nearly every type of food available.

So there you have it, 5 things most people don't know about me. I guess I'm supposed to tag other friends, so here goes: LOZFAN6537, mewantcookie, SolidEagle13, fishdalf, and magicmo...it's your turn.

After going to the mall and visiting the EB Games and Gamestop stores there, I found two more games to add to my collection.  One of them is PC, the other 360

  My buddy, BigC43, has had this game for a long time and he loves it.  He's even made a film franchise with the game.  I've never been much of a 'tycoon' game fan, but I'm willing to give this a shot.  There's a sandbox mode where you don't have to worry about the upkeep of your studio and can focus simply on making films.  That'll probably be my best option if I fail miserably in the full game.  The price was nice at $15 so I couldn't pass it up.

 

  I've heard this game isn't that great, and the achievements are absolutely ridiculous and I'll probably never earn half of them, but the campaign is very good from what I've read.  I think that justifies the $15 I spent on it.

 This one is actually very difficult to find anymore.  It contains both Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow for the GBA.  I got it for $15, which is a fantastic deal at not only half off the normal price but also because its sorta rare.

In total, I picked up 9 games for about $145...not too shabby if I do say.  Tomorrow, I'm gonna go back when they put out the PSP movies for $4.99 each and resell them for twice that to get some of my money back.

Gamestop/EB Games is having a huge sale for the next 3 weeks.  They have games for all consoles marked down 25-50% off the original new price.  I'd like to thank my good buddy BigC43 for turning my attention to this sale earlier this week.  I was able to pick up 6 brand new games and a new faceplate for my 360 and it only cost me less than $110.  I got two 360 games, three PS2 games, and a PC classic.

 The first game I played for my 360, I beat it but got frustrated when all the achievements didn't unlock so I took it back.  For $19.99, I couldn't pass up getting it again.

 I haven't played this before, but I couldn't pass up the price.  I know its a great game so I have no guilt with this purchase

 Practically the game that defined the modern RTS, this pack includes the expansion and two strategy guides.  I'm not sure if it'll run on Vista, but I'll give it a shot.

 A critical hit and a commercial failure, Gamespot's review and the $10 price tag was all I needed to pick this game up to try it for myself.

 Yeah, not too sure about this one but a $10 price tag helped.  The Gamespot review had some good things to say about it, though.  Call me strange, but I enjoyed quite a few of the Castlevania games in 3D.

 Yeah, I doubt this game will ever win any type of award, but Family Feud has always been my third favorite game show of all time (Price is Right and Press Your Luck hold the #1 and #2 spots, respectively)

Finally, the faceplate was my last purchase.  It was a steal at $3.50 and it looks pretty cool on my system.  It's the red TSZ faceplate shown here

 

Some of the games advertised online were nowhere to be found at my Gamestop, but I'm going to the mall now where they have both an EB Games and a Gamestop to see if I can get more stuff.

The name has changed, but the mission remains the same.  Dchispirtle here with my weekly achievement recap or the 7 day period of 5-8-07 thru 5-14-07.  This week's games played with unlocked achievements are Bionicle Heroes, Spider-Man 3, Catan, and Meet The Robinsons.

First off, in Spider-Man 3, I unlocked 12 more achievements for a total of 350 points.  That put my total gamerscore in that game at 670 points.  There will be no more achievements unlocked in this game for quite a while cause I traded it in for Bionicle Heroes.  Now for the achievement details:

Mega Web Swinger
Swung a total of 200 miles.

30
Acquired 5/10/2007

Trick Novice
Got at least Bronze on all easy trick races.

20
Acquired 5/9/2007

A Dark Reward
Unlocked Black-Suited Spider-Man.

20
Acquired 5/9/2007

Spider-Man
Completed all missions.

50
Acquired 5/9/2007

Eddie Brock
Defeated Venom.

40
Acquired 5/9/2007

Aleksei Sytsevich
Defeated Rhino.

30
Acquired 5/9/2007

Cold Blooded Super Master
Completed all Connors missions.

30
Acquired 5/9/2007

Shutterbug
Completed all Daily Bugle photo missions.

20
Acquired 5/9/2007

Police Detective
Completed 25 random city missions.

30
Acquired 5/9/2007

Wilson Fisk
Defeated Kingpin.

30
Acquired 5/9/2007

Sergei Kravinoff
Defeated Kraven.

30
Acquired

Flint Marko
Defeated Sandman.

30
Acquired 5/8/2007

Hitch Hiker
Rode a car or truck for 5 miles.

20
Acquired 5/8/2007

Mary Jane Thriller
Completed all Mary Jane thrill rides.

20
Acquired 5/8/2007

The next game for this week was Catan.  This new game is easily my favorite XBLA game and the achievements are going to be well earned because they are such that they are not necessarily difficult to obtain, but they take time to complete.  This week I finished 4 achevements for a total of 50 Gamerscore

Villager of Catan
You collected 25 Victory Points.

10
Acquired 5/11/2007

Merchant of Catan
You acquired 100 resource cards.

20
Acquired 5/10/2007

Settler of Catan
You built a settlement in Catan.

10
Acquired 5/10/2007

Ambassador of Catan
You invited someone to play Catan.

10
Acquired 5/10/2007

The next game up is Bionicle Heroes.  I finished an amazing 37 achievements for 740 gamerscore! 

Cleansing Plant completed
Awarded for successfully completing Cleansing Plant

20
Acquired 5/12/2007

Decrepit Dungeons completed
Awarded for successfully completing Decrepit Dungeons

20
Acquired 5/12/2007

Zaktan's Chamber complete
Awarded for successfully completing Zaktan's Chamber

20
Acquired 5/12/2007

Defeat 250 Vahki
Awarded for successfully defeating 250 Vahki

20
Acquired 5/12/2007

Forgotten Shrine complete
Awarded for successfully completing Forgotten Shrine

20
Acquired 5/12/2007

Ancient Forest complete
Awarded for successfully completing Ancient Forest

20
Acquired 5/12/2007

Defeat 1000 Visorak
Awarded for successfully defeating 1000 Visorak. You are a true visorak hunter.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Logging Post complete
Awarded for successfully completing Logging Post

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Thok's Grotto completed
Awarded for successfully completing Thok's Grotto

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Blizzard Peaks completed
Awarded for successfully completing Blizzard Peaks

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

250 victories with Kongu.
Awarded for successfully defeating 250 enemies with Kongu.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Mountain Path completed
Awarded for successfully completing Mountain Path

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

150 victories with Nuparu.
Awarded for successfully defeating 150 enemies with Nuparu.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Defeat 500 Bohrok
Awarded for successfully defeating 500 Bohrok

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Flooded Lowlands completed
Awarded for successfully completing Flooded Lowlands

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

150 victories with Matoro.
Awarded for successfully defeating 150 enemies with Matoro.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

250 victories with Jaller.
Awarded for successfully defeating 250 enemies with Jaller.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Defeat 500 Visorak
Awarded for successfully defeating 500 Visorak

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Reidak's Bastion complete
Awarded for successfully completing Reidak's Bastion

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

50 victories with Matoro.
Awarded for successfully defeating 50 enemies with Matoro.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

50 victories with Nuparu.
Awarded for successfully defeating 50 enemies with Nuparu.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

100 victories with Kongu.
Awarded for successfully defeating 100 enemies with Kongu.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Defeat 50 Vahki
Awarded for successfully defeating 50 Vahki

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Ancient Citadel complete
Awarded for successfully completing Ancient Citadel

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

100 victories with Jaller.
Awarded for successfully defeating 100 enemies with Jaller.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Bleak Refinery complete
Awarded for successfully completing Bleak Refinery

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

250 victories with Hahli.
Awarded for successfully defeating 250 enemies with Hahli.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

100 victories with Hahli.
Awarded for successfully defeating 100 enemies with Hahli.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Defeat 100 Bohrok
Awarded for successfully defeating 100 Bohrok

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Desert Outpost complete
Awarded for successfully completing Desert Outpost

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Vezok's Deluge completed
Awarded for successfully completing Vezok's Deluge

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

250 victories with Hewkii.
Awarded for successfully defeating 250 enemies with Hewkii.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Shattered Wreck completed
Awarded for successfully completing Shattered Wreck

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

100 victories with Hewkii.
Awarded for successfully defeating 100 enemies with Hewkii.

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Defeat 100 Visorak
Awarded for successfully defeating 100 Visorak

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Smugglers Cove completed
Awarded for successfully completing Smugglers Cove

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Piraka Bluff completed
Awarded for successfully completing Piraka Bluff

20
Acquired 5/11/2007

Finally, I played Meet the Robinsons.  I finished 9 achievements for 130 Gamerscore

Restored Space/Time Continuum
Complete Science Fair Level

20
Acquired 5/14/2007

Find Garden Charge Ball Court
Find Robinson Garden Charge Ball VR Disk

10
Acquired 5/14/2007

Overwhelmed Menacing Automaton
Defeat Robot guarding the time machine.

40
Acquired 5/14/2007

Earn Uncle Art VR Disk
Earn Uncle Art's VR Disk

10
Acquired 5/14/2007

Obtain the Charge Ball Gadget
Obtain the Charge Ball Glove

10
Acquired 5/13/2007

Obtained Scanning Technology
Complete the mission to create the scanner gadget.

10
Acquired 5/13/2007

Acolyte of Protectospheres
Complete First Protectosphere Course

10
Acquired 5/13/2007

Obtain Disassembler Gadget
Obtain the Disassembler Gadget

10
Acquired 5/13/2007

Utilized Time Machine
Escape from Egypt in the time machine.

10
Acquired 5/13

If you weren't adding everything up, I'll do it for you.  I unlocked an impressive 62 achievements for a total gamerscore increase of 1270 points!  I hope you enjoyed this week's Achievement Report.  I tried to post the corresponding picture tiles, but they pushed me over the character limit.  If you want, you can always view them here when signed into your own profile.  Check back next week to see which achievement put me over the 20,000 mark as referenced in my previous blog entry.

 

Today is a day of celebration for me.  I have completed my goal of reaching a Gamerscore of 20,000 in one year of owning my Xbox.  I'd like to thank Captainova and BigC43 for inviting me to a game of Fuzion Frenzy 2.  It was in this game that I got the achievement that put me over the top.  Another thank you goes to Old Spice and Microsoft for teaming up to send me the wonderful game for free!  Anyway, I don't really have too much to say other than this, so this is a rather short blog entry.  GO ME!