So now that E3 is over, everyone is talking about how awesome some of the new systems are, and also ranting about things such as pricetags, release dates, and different names.  E3 is always an exciting time, it's like everything a gamer anticipates is released on this one day, and sometimes it's almost too much to take!  I was trying to stream the nintendo conference off of gamespot the other day when i realized that it was 1:00am and i couldn't really see the screen anymore.  So i just listened to it for the last half with my eyes all blurred shut, it was awesome!

I guess you can imagine my frantic excitment when my friend Mike handed me some E3 recorded off of his wonderful cable assisted tv.  They weren't the little ghetto 90's tapes either, they were dvd's.  Seven dvd's chalk full of all the wonders of E3 and a little bit more than any sane man can handle at once.  Oh man, i'll admit it, i looked a little more like a dog overloaded with chocolate than i did myself at that moment.

I went home and settled down on my bed for some good times and popped it in the dvd player, and then i waited.  And waited....and then waited some more.  All the while the "cute" little "i'm reading the disc" words ran across the screen.  And then, it stopped.  Yep that's right, it just stopped right there and didn't do anything, just like it's job was done.  Well i slapped the little jerk, and then i tryed again.  Much to my dismay it had the same effect, and my resulting slap to the top didn't really have any effect that was positive at all.

Well that was torture, but ya know, i'm still trying to make that thing work.  Thats how desprite i am, and i think the majority of gaming America follows my passion to find out about something new.  It's cool, so yall enjoy E3, and if you ever get a chance and some free postage and stuff, send some of those 90's tapes my way.  Because apparently they work better than my new age dvds.

Ok so...this story starts out with a girl, as so many stories often do, and as for the ending, i don't really know that that can be found yet.  A girl who i feel was worthy of alot of risk, effort, and missing her when she's not there.  This is the beginning, and i hope the end is far from where i'm sitting tonight.

I was at a friend's house for a jazz band party and had decided that i couldn't wait any longer to talk to this girl, so i had planned to leave the party at 9 so as to catch her before she got off at 9:30.  So at 9:07 when i looked at my cell phone and realized that i was going to be late for a very important date in my life, i was freakin.  So i ran out the door and whipped my van out of that driveway like pro and was on my way.

It was about 9:15 when i was cruising down the highway, a "little" over the speed limit to be honest, when a state trooper passes me coming the other way.  My instant thought is that i was speeding, and was relieved to see i was only going a few over when i went over that hill, but relief sank to my feet when he pulled a U-turn and turned on his lights.  Not the friendly, "i'm getting the bad guy and keeping you safe" lights.  These were the, "i just caught you at the worst moment ever and i'm gonna git you good" kind of lights.

So i pull over and the officer comes over to my window, tells me my left headlight's out, and asks for my licence, insurance, and registration.  Now, i know what my licence looks like, but registration???  What in the world he meant i have no idea, so i handed him the mass of paper that was in the glove box and fortunately it was in there somewhere.  So went back to his car like he asked and sat down in the passenger side seat.  And thats when the questioning began.

He wanted to know where i was going, so i told him.  I told him alot more than i meant to actually.  I told him all about where i was going, the girl, and the timing.  Surprisingly enough he was very helpful and told me he'd make this all fast and try to get me there in time to catch the girl.  So i signed the paper he asked me to, and that was it.  He told me i could go, and good luck with the girl and all.

So i went, getting there at 9:31 i found her at the middle register completely oblivious to the fact that i was there.  I must have hid behind the gum for a good 5 minutes waiting for her line to be empty, all the while trying to mouth to my other friend(also working that night) that i was trying to stay hidden.  Turns out she was working until 10 and i had to wait, but that's ok, because the good ones are worth waiting for right?

We went to Village Inn and talked for a good 2 1/2 hours before realizing that the time had completely slipped away from us.  I drove her back to her car kicking myself on the inside, because of course i hadn't gotten up the nerve to tell her anything significant yet.  Then just as she was saying goodnight and getting out of the car, i snapped and asked her if she could wait so i could talk to her about something.

Right then and there, after fumbling quite a bit with words as i often do, i told her she was completely amazing and admitted i was crazy about her.  Shockingly enough to me, she thought i was pretty cool too, and despite the fact that i'm going to be gone over the summer and she'll be gone next year, she was willing to give this a try.  And here i am, with an amazing girlfriend who loves video games, music, and i guess she thinks i'm pretty cool too.  I don't know what the future brings, but i'm honestly, seriously, glad for every moment that i get to spend with her.  I'll miss her when she's gone, but the kind of missing that comes from great anticipation of seeing her again.  I only hope that i can live up to the huge risk that she's taken in me, and make it worthwhile, because she deserves the best.  I know that i'm not the best, but this is one girl worth my every effort to be all i can.

I very recently bought an Xbox from my friend with a wirless controller and a whole box full of good stuff for $60.  He's for the most part my pretty close bud right now.  I suppose i caught him at the moment for this crazy deal.  He had just bought an Xbox 360 and was desperately in need of a game, and i'm pretty sure he would have sold me the carpet from his room if i'd have let him too.

So here I am with this sweet cheap Xbox and absolutely no games for it.  I happened to be in Lincoln for the weekend on a retreat with my youth group and saw a Gamerz across the road as we went out to eat.  I decided that they may have a copy of Halo to start out with and I was willing to sacrifice my eating time for video games.  Don't judge, you know you've done it at one time or another.

I walk in the store and there's this one guy standing behind the counter and i suppose he thought it was really cool to stare at customers when they came in the door.  I personally found it a little awkward, but that's ok, I can get over it.  I found Halo without a problem, seeing as how there was at least eight copies on the wall, not counting the new copies.  Just as I'm about to get to the counter to check out, this guy walks in and cuts me. 

For about ten minutes this guy and the clerk talk about their lives on World of Warcraft and how they can't wait to get D&D Online.  When they finally finish the guy comes to the counter and is like, "sooo, can I help you or somethin".  At this point I kinda wanted to walk out at this point, because I was growing impacient and to be honest, the place smelled a little wierd, but that's beside the point!

First the guy wants to see my ID.  So I think, no big deal, he just wants to make sure I'm of age and all.  But then it gets wierd.  He procedes to ask me for my phone number, address, age, email, sn, and i don't remember what all else.  I guess they make a habit of knowing the life's story of everyone who buys a used copy of Halo for $4.99, and I was that day's lucky winner.  Who knows.

Five hours later I get to my house and run downstairs to my room to play me some Halo.  But NO, I get the infamous and dreaded disc error!  I was up until around 3am trying to get that thing to work, using all kinds of unconventional methods that I found on the internet.  Just so ya know, a combination of car wax, Pledge, and soap and water treatments will usually do the job for minor scratches(and don't use toothpaste, it'll scratch it).

I ended up getting a new copy of Halo and it works just fine thank goodness, but I must say that i'll stick with EB pretty much from now on.  They are a fantastic store full of people who won't treat you like crap, will talk games with you if you wish, and are always reliable.  They come highly recommended from me anyway.  And as to the guy from Gamerz, man maybe you were just having a bad day, but try to resist the urge to steal my identity from all the info you got off me.

So today, my dear mother took me to Sears and i got my senior pictures taken.  Oh wow, that was not fun let me tell you.  First off, these two ladies that were taking my pictures were determined to make me into some kind of poser.  Imagine, me posing!  Even if it is for a picture, i still don't like the idea of posing.  The loss of authenticity and the fakeness in that studio, just about killed me. 

Anyway...here's the deal.  I went in and the first thing they had me do was sit down and start POSING oh wait, we already went over this, probably more than adequately...soooo they started taking pictures.  The first was of me and my guitar, oh man, so one lady just goes off on how she plays guitar and her exfiance(exfiance??what the heck is up with even bringing that up??)was crazy about her abilities, and then she kills her whole story...when she asks,"so what hand do you play with?"  As far as i know, you CAN buy a left handed guitar, if you get it online or from Fender magazine, but the majority of America plays right handed on a right handed guitar. 

Then she starts showing me her extensive vocab in guitarese.  The woman called the bridge the "stringholder"!  Anyway, they were pretty weird, and made me feel awkward, and i'm pretty sure the older one was like, attempting a flirting kind of thing or something....which might not have been so weird if she wasn't like 40 with an "exfiance".  Anyway enough about that, maybe i'll post one somehow, yall have a nice night!

So, you may have guessed by this point that i am a Nintendo fan.  Now i'm not a fan boy mind you, fan boys say stuff like,"every other company just sucks because they're not this one".  I appreciate the different strengths of the different systems, namely Sony and Microsoft's contributions, the Xbox and PS2.  I can also see obvious weaknesses in them as well.  Perhaps the most obvious one is the lack of quality in the games that they so quickly and sometimes seemingly effortlessly put out by the truckload. 

One thing that sets Nintendo apart from its competitors, is its dedication to quality, innovation, and original ideas!  You can look elsewhere and never find the equivalent of a Zelda, Metroid, Mario, or Donkey Kong game for any given Nintendo system. 

I've heard some people say that Nintendo is going to sell to Sony or Microsoft, and i'm here to say that this is complete thoughtlessness and makes us sound like the American self centered bigots that some would say we are.  First off, we are privileged stateside here in the US to ever have access to a Nintendo system and its long legacy of gaming quality and sheer enjoyment.  Have we forgotten that Nintendo is based in Japan and is more or less, kindly "sharing the wealth" with us.

So i'm done going off on my rantings and i hope i haven't offended anyone, but we need to honestly thank Nintendo and the one-of-a-kind people that they continue to employ to bring us such awesome titles as Super Mario 64, Metroid Prime, and Windwaker!  So enjoy your Xbox or whatever suits your fancy, really i'm not against that at all, but remember that Nintendo delivers quality where is is so rarely found elsewhere.

Well, i'm off to spend some quality time with Mario 64 on my DS!  So have a good night/day, or whatever time is happens to be where you are!

Do you ever get the feeling, when you sit down to a console game, that you wish you could be outside like on your porch or something? Sometimes my friend james and i take a little tv and the snes outside on our porch and play out there. Maybe i'm just the wierd one who likes to go outside to play some good ol pokemon blue sometimes, but there's something about enjoying the usually indoor hobby of videogames in the great outdoors, i like it anyway. Sometimes you just need to simplify and get out for a little, especially when inside in your basement writing your journal online. So i've got to get going to now, but maybe i can expand on all this later.

So,i don't have much to say tonight, but i thought i'd fill you in on some random events in my life. So my dad, of all people, the other night just comes up to me and tells me he wants to buy a nintendo. I'm pretty sure that by nintendo he means a console, so i'm trying to find a good set of PS2 stuff to hook him up with. Which is cool with me, cuz he might be hooked on the idea of golf games, but ya know, PS2 wasn't made for just golf games. I say bring on the Tom Clancy Splinter Cell! So i figure it's going to cost around $180 for the refurbished system, and extra controller, an 8mb memory card, and "Tiger Woods PGA Golf Tour 2004". Thats pretty good. Trust me, i'm still a diehard nintendo fan, but heck, i'm not responsible for buying this Sony piece and that doesn't mean i can't enjoy some good, cheap, PS2 games! So anyway, i'm tired and must be off to bed, but i promise i'll have more tomorrow. And yeah, if my girlfriend is reading this, i love you!

Ok so, to start this off let me say, that i'm totally a halo fan and i love going to parties, but i don't have an xbox or...the game. That being said, nobody freak out on me or say that i don't have the right to say anything about halo since i don't own it...my journal, my entry,lol. Anyway, a while back microsoft decided to make a system and call it the xbox. At first, some people hadn't ever heard of it and there were too many die hard nintendo fans and too many games for the ps2 for this to even catch on at all, besides that, xbox had a total of like two games, and not alot of takers. But slowly, people started discovering the fun in a little game called halo, but not in the single player game where most games make their main profit...this craze was built in the multiplayer aspect of the the game and its ability to go online. As people continued to buy this system just for this game...little pockets of people started popping up that were xbox players, alot of them were just pc kids looking for a system that was like a computer. And then the console crowd found out about xbox, and then found out about halo, and when the crowd started buying this little box and this scifi action thriller, ps2 and gamecube became obsolete for the most part. And when people switch loyalties, so do the game companies. More games started moving from gamecube and ps2 to xbox. And if you arent a die hard nintendo or sony fan(like myself...nintendo boy), you go where the games go. So anyway, i'm glad for microsoft, way to go with halo and xbox, but in the interest of giving credit where it is due, ninetendo and sony (and don't forget sega) were the ones that started it all. We wouldn't have gotten to halo if it weren't for goldeneye, mario, DK, sonic, samus, and all those other timeless heros. I'm tipping my wavebird controller, to the guy with the NES on his t.v.

So here's the scoop, i come upstairs the other day and i'm getting ready for school right? So i say hi to my dad(all pleasant and all i might add) and i sit down to put on my shoes. so here i am, all innocent, when my dad yells, "what is that?". so i'm all freakin out being like, whats what??where??, but turns out, he's pointing to my legs and i'm all "omg there's a spider on my leg or something". But noooo, God forbid there be anything worth yelling about wrong with me, he's pointing at my pant leg that's a little ripped on the bottom. so he starts going off on the fact that i'm sooo rebelious with my ripped pant leg and i need to go change right now. but i didn't have time, cuz i needed to go to school, so i tryed to explain my plight, and he gave me the whole, "i'll take you to buy new pants myself". So yeah, i know i come home with alot of tattoos, and i know i dye my hair all the time, and these piercings are just getting crazy, but geeze...let me be who i am...lol. I love you dad:) just don't stress yourself out so much over me...i'm not that bad...right???

So recently i've been doing alot of thinking, about the future and stuff, and ya know, i don't think its quite what my dad has in mind for me. First thing you need to know about my dad is that we don't get along that great, and our personalities kind of clash, ok...really clash, but anyway. He graduated from high school top of his class with a 4.0 gpa with a full-ride to college, where he also got a 4.0gpa and went on to law school where...you guessed it...4.0 again. I on the other hand, am not the greatest studier, i don't get the best grades(though i do decently most of the time), i like to sit around and play music or video games, and tho i don't mind working, i struggle to do academic work. So talk about living in a shadow, for a while, i was worried that i was never going to be happy in life since i couldnt do as well as my dad, but then i meet this girl right? And she's like my best friend and the one person that i can depend on and is just really one of the best friends i've ever had(equal only to one of my best guy friends who's been through alot with me). And this is all happening about the time college is beginning to rear its freakin scary head, so thats when i get it. I don't have to be rich, or have a ton of free time, or...for that matter...go to college to be happy. I can be perfectly happy working hard everyday, coming home to a smaller house, and bringing a smaller paycheck home, as long as i have this lifelong companion to be by my side while this all goes down. And yeah, if my parents read this, they'd be all,"you're too young to say something like that", but i don't think so. I don't think that, at the ripe ol age of 17, i'm too young to know where to look for a bright future. And i'm more than willing to accept the fact that it might not be filled with money and ease, heck, i never wanted that anyway:P. I look forward to the simpler things, the things that matter, i think that that's closer to the heart of a happy life. The only closer thing would be a life centered around Jesus Christ:D