Volgin20...I don't want to be in the ultimate gamers paradise union. ignore option for you too. I think these people are finding me through my current unions. Now I like Star Wars and everything, but please stop spamming me from those unions. "The more star systems you tighten your grip on, the more fall through your fingers." or the less geaky version, the more unions you try to be in, the lower quality the all end up being because everyone is spread too thin...

and i took L. Tomlinson in the draft, and Buckhalter for you philly fans...but I kept one seattle boy and took Hasslehoff. I got about to my 7th pick, then abby needed the computer for a job interview and I got autopicked the rest. Should be an interesting season...

and no KOTOR for me til probably sunday, since I spent the rest of the night helping to prepare for the interview (teaching 8th graders...) and have a BBQ tonight, and a wedding tomorrow.

fantasy union??? - goodbye andrew21nz, or more likely you aren't on my list and are getting the "ignore" treatment.

Jeykll was writing about some people missing for a couple months now in his area. I thought of that when I saw this in the paper today.

A lady missing for 9 years thought to be the lady in a picture taken at Sturgis this year. That would be crazy if you're wife disappeared and she showed up one day in a bikini with dudes taking her picture at a motorcycle rally. There is no picture on the link, but it looked exactly like her in the picture in the local paper here. crazy.

fantasy football draft tonight, and then hopefully some KOTOR 2. I've got first pick, and I want Shaun Alexander being a seahawks fan, but realistically, should I take P. Manning or LT?

"Someone dropped the dime on me"
(but luckily they are short with an inferiority complex, so it only hit my shoe.)
I assume the complex exists because of the need to report me for ripping on Ty whats-his-face from american idol. The description was two innocent words, which when strung together formed a less then hetro picture of your favorite future surreal life star. Whoever you are, I hope those points push you over the top in the voting for pansy of the year. Glad I could help. If you feel like owning up (which would go against your mantra of "pansy") I would be happy to provide some further moddable insults, this time directed towards you...

double entry today since I didn't check my email from Jeykll to see that he in fact had not ratted me out. Went something like this...Email title: "Modded, Oh the shame."

• Gamespot- One or more of your posted messages from the topic "Stupid ABC!" has been deleted by an admin or moderator for a terms of service violation. You lost points for this moderation.
• Me- So do you like Ty, or was the comment just a little too much?
• Jeykll- Wasn't me. I don't dime on friends, only strangers.
• Me- next journal entry..."Someone dropped the dime on me"

and because ebay is the devil, I just bought Jade Empire and Time Splitters Future Perfect. I'm gonna have to start taking my dvd players and xbox to weddings so I can play in the hotel room after everyone passes out if I ever want to play all these games...

Yesterday: Tax in Cowlitz County (WA) is 7.6%, i think even increased to 7.7% lately to battle "the meth epidemic" around here. Thats like $40 bucks on the $500 I would expect to spend on the 360. And that is suck, as they say.

RANT:
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/08/22/news_6131680.html
FOR EVERY STUDY DONE, SOMEONE ELSE COULD "DO" A STUDY THAT SAYS THE OPPOSITE. Everytime I hear about some study, I give it about as much credit as if this info was reported in the National Enquirer. To kind of quote Lewis Black, comdedian, "How many years ago was it that we were all told to drink milk all day to be healthy, and now they say to drink water and not milk. AND now they are saying maybe we are drinking too much water." Well you can take your "study" and shove it up your biast a**! Those health studies are supported by companies that sell water, who are in turn supported by the companies that ruined the water supply in the first place. I bet if farmers were still in control, we would all be drinking bottled milk all the time and not water. And if Coke or Phillip Morris or GMC made video games, there would be plenty of studies to show how games don't make kids violent...

and I got to play some serious KOTOR 2 the last couple days. I am past the prolouge where you start as an astro-droid tyring to keep the ship in one piece for an emergency landing. Then you switch off between your character and the droid trying to get off Peragus mining station and through your old ship to get back to the Ebon Hawk, persued by Sith. Then off to Telos orbit station, then Telos, and then off to find some hidden Jedi (did you really think you were the last???). So I chose Nar Shadda first, and will hopefully wipe out some sith and bounty hunters tonight as the planet is apparently crawling with them and I am going light side. This game is good so far, with my only complaint still being loading times and the feeling of "too many choices and upgrades." (getting complicated to track everything with out a guide)

I also got Fable in the mail, and am trying to buy Jade Empire since I am absolutley hooked on RPG again. Oh well. I hope my wife doesn't realize how late I am staying up...

Xbox 360 $399.99 (or $299.99 for the cheap) plus one game at about $49.99 hopefully, and another controller I imagine for $49.99 or so. That looks like $500 to me, and I made the mistake of pre-ordering here in Washington. Crap, I only live 45 min from Oregon (or 10 min if you count Rainier). The tax is going to be almost $40 bucks. I am starting to think that $500+ is just too much. And at the same time, my xbox keeps stalling during KOTOR and a few other games. Does anyone know of a definite list of xbox games that will play on the xbox360 yet? If all these games I have will play on the 360, I'll buy it. If not, I will cancel my pre-order and use the $50 I threw down to get Burnout Revenge next month.

edit: Crap, cruizin around the SW Expanded Universe Union made me realize I stopped posting short reviews of the SW books as I read them. I left off with SW: Jedi Quest #2, and I just finished #7 while in my office with the porcelin seat, so here goes. (quick versions...)

• SW: JQ #7 The Moment of Truth. Anakin and Obi Wan still having problems (see below) Everyone knows the eventual outcome of Anakin's fate, so no big surprise that other jedi and padawans are seeing more and more problems with Anakin's attitudes. And while he doubts himself, if anyone else brings it up, he gets defensive and starts down his path of I am too good and no else understands me...Anyways, they stop a plantary civil war, Obi Wan saves Anakin and vice-versa, and they run into the evil scientist again, and end the book by heading off to find her. They also heal a little bit of the wound growing between them, but we all know this will not last.
• SW: JQ #6 The Shadow Trap. Anakin and Obi Wan travel to a war-striken planet to aid Master Yaddle (female version of Yoda, but even wiser, more powerful, and more respected than Yoda) and there is a big spoiler here that I you will need to scroll over to read. Yaddle sacrifices herself to save the planet, and Anakin feels responsible. A big part in the downfall of Anakin...Good book. Plus it again includes Grant Omega, son of Xanatos, who is responsible for Yaddles death as he is trying to gain the attention of the Sith, and is a recurring enemy in the series.
• SW: JQ #5 The School of Fear. Anakin and Ferus infiltrate an elite school to find a senator's son, and Anakin's judgement again goes against the jedi code in order to do what he thinks is right. He is again wrong, but still saves the day, but this time more than the others, the other jedi disapprove of his choices, and the disappointment that Obi Wan shows towards him begins to eat away at Anakin and their relationship. You really start to see in these books why Obi Wan says "I have failed you " in episode 3.
• SW: JQ #4 The Master of Disguise. More backgound on Grant Omega (bad guy) and his continued influence and affect on Ankain, and his part in the division between master and apprentice. They can't seem to get ahold of this guy, or do anything but disrupt his plans for evil and/or corrupt schemes as he tries to attack the jedi.
• SW: JQ #3 The Dangerous Games. Anakin and Obi Wan (and 2 other jedi teams) are sent to keep the peace in the galactic games. The games are of course corrupted like everything at this time in the star wars history. Anakin ends up podracing. The other two padawans are again his friend Tru and his rival Ferus. Good book.

those kind of are short and sucky, but its as good as I got without making this post unreadable. In case it wasnt' before this.

last post comments - unplayed games on old systems??? if we are including those, then increase that number of unfinished games I still own to about 30-50, depending on if you throw the PC games in there too. I've bought more games this summer than I have finished in the last few years combined...

xbox360 - I'm still undecided on the two choices. But seeing how I am going to need the hard drive and the headset, it only makes sense to just shell out the $400 instead of the $300. But now we are talking at least $500 at release if you buy a game and include tax. Damn, I may cancel my pre-order and wait for a year if my current xbox doesn't crap out on me. Its been acting up more and more, almost as if it was programmed to fail just in time for the xbox 360.

KOTOR 2 - This game is getting good, since I got to play about 4 or 5 hours last night. So far there are new cooler force powers, more upgradeable everything, and influence on your party members. But I have one complaint that I feel like I can't answer a question for fear of the plot line going off in a direction I didn't want. I'm thinking maybe I should play with a walkthrough, but I hate doing that. I mean it couldn't help me beat the end of the last KOTOR, so all its going to do is make the game longer as I read through and try to answer the endless conversations the same as the guy who wrote the walkthrough. Hopefully I will get to try a little more tonight, and maybe sunday.

weekends - No wedding this weekend, but a BBQ and hopefully some golf in my near future. It's only rained like 2 half days in the past month, which is crazy for Longview, and means my wife or I spend at least 20 min a day watering all those new plants and the new lawn. Of course we also now enjoy the new stainless grill and the hot-tub a lot more, so I guess the $5k we spent paid off...kinda. I need a big screen and xbox out on the deck.

• (I'm not sure if people read comments on previous entries, so I'm just gonna put them in my next entry.)
• about playing KOTOR 2...I held onto KOTOR for over a year before I finally got into it. This time is different. I popped it in the same day I got it, and hope to beat it and then play fable, which I just bought.
• which brings me to ebay. I have at least 4 games I have not played sitting on my shelf. They sit next to about 10 games that I have played, but plan to still play if not complete. And here I am buying RPGs that take HOURS AND HOURS to beat and are very addictive. And at the same time I am considering buying more games, I am considering selling unfinished games to pay the ebay demon. Maybe I should get a job outside, so that if I have a thought about owning a new game, I can't just go bid and buy it with a few mouse clicks in between preparing spreadsheets and TPS reports...
• which brings me to quote of the day. My wife was talking the other day about how I should have a section on my website that just has her random quotes. Well until I remember all these gems of wisdom, heres a few good ones from applebees last night (after wine tasting)...

Don't take my drink. I'm driving.

I know I'm driving, I just want a couple more drinks.

I finally had no plans last night. No weddings. No meetings. No bar-b-qs. No Lions club. No trips to the bar. No trips to the store. No wine tastings. No birthday parties. No concerts in the park. No work.

So I had plenty of time to dig into my new KOTOR 2 right? I mean, I am only about 30 min into it, and really want to hack away at the beginning part of the game. Ha ha, silly f*$#er, I should know that's not going to happen. But I can't complain, becuase my wife made dinner for me, and we went jogging, and we FINALLY started cleaning the computer room (see blog http://gus008.blogspot.com/). But since the computer room is where the xbox is, that means I got about 20 minutes into it, and finally turned it off after my wife stared at me for 5 minutes waiting for me to start helping her.

Oh well, maybe tonight then...after the wine tasting, and after the birthday party and bar-b-q, and after we work on the computer room some more...Yeah right.

edit: Oh yeah, I also tried out burnout revenge at EB today during lunch. Looks pretty tight, and the guy was really knowledgeable about it and its differences between burnout 3. I think I will go back and preorder it from that guy.

"Hope your wedding season is about done. "

Last weekend was wedding #7. At least three more to go becuase I don't think we are going to the one in california (gotta draw the line at more than $400 to attend a wedding) and another I haven't gotten an invite too yet. Got that dozen down to and even 11. I wish you could cuss on here. But man, most of the parties have been great, so my complaining is really only half-hearted...

When mixed with beer, champagne does a good job of making your head hurt in the morning, not to mention that wonderful feeling of nausea that accompanies it. Let's Hear It For Weddings!!!! YIIPPIIEEEEE!

the only plus side being that I spent most of sunday either playing Tiger Woods, Sleeping, Sitting in the hot tub, and/or Reading. And then watched a movie to top of a day full of nothing. And I made some jello, which was really good at lunch today. :)