It's been a bit of a slog indeed, but at last I am now officially Sheng Long - Level 27 - yeah!

My bracket on the Game Hero match-up seems to be doing rather well too. I wonder who else was a big anough fan of Half Life to put Gordon Freeman up to take the whole thing? I've got a nasty feeling that he is going to have a hard time beating either Mario or Snake in the finals. Bob and Bub are probably the biggest surprise to me personally so far.

Well, enough blogging for the first time in quite a while, and although I know that there aren't many Rugby (union rule) game followers here on GameSpot, I must just mention that I can't wait for Saturday's Tri-Nations clincher between my team and those other All Black guys! May the force be with us!

Yes, it's been exactly one year and nineteen days today that I last had the chance to blog on GameSpot (see last blog entry below)!

Yes, I am still alive and no, I have not been incinerated, incarcerated or otherwise indisposed - I just haven't had any time to indulge in my favorite pastimes.

A week or so after my last blog entry in 2008, my life took somewhat of an unexpected turn when an opportunity to start a new business appeared out of thin air. Since this was the second time round that I would get myself into the "lets start a new business from scratch" thing (I sold the previous one off towards the end of 2005), I took a somewhat different approach than the first time round - let's say more cautious, now having two kids at school and all that to consider in my endeavors.

The good news is that things have panned out quite well up to now and things are looking even better for the medium-term to long-term future in spite of the lingering international economic climate that has had us breaking out in cold sweats at night for some time now.

Gaming in General

Enough with that part of my life, which funny enough seems to be integrating quite well with one of my passions in life - computer gaming (more about that in a later blog, once all the business plans are in place).

Although I didn't have any time to spend on blogging at GameSpot, I did manage salvage the odd hour here and there for private stuff, while keeping my game collection more or less on track and in accordance with my overall collection plans for 2009.

Here goes a list of some of my more noteworthy gaming acquisitions since February 2008 (in alphabetical order)



So, unfortunately not too many new additions to the collection, but then again, I only really focused on those titles that I felt were in line with the games I would like to have in my collection - no ad-hoc acquisitions in the past year.

The sad part is that, with the exception of a few really major titles here and there, I really haven't even had the chance to play most of them. I really did enjoy BioShock, Fable II and Fallout 3 though (still busy with the latter), and haven't done any reviews of them to date either. I hope to do so in the next few weeks.

On GameSpot

There hasn't been too much going on here for obvious reasons, but I have managed to level up to Level 24 - "I Feel Asleep!!", and I seem to be just at the point of going on to bigger and better things - Level 25 no less.

Other Noteworthy Events Up To February 2009

What better Christmas present than beating the Aussies in both the test and one-day cricket series in their own backyard! (I hope none of my Aussie friends take offence). Let's hope we can repeat this feat in our own backyard, albeit that we already conceded defeat in the first test in Johannesburg at the time of this blog.

On the home front, my son (turns 10 in March) was nominated as Junior Backline Player of the Year in rugby (plays scrumhalf), Junior Cricketer of the Year and finished fifth in the provincial 100m athletics trials. That's my boy!

Other than that, the Super 14 Rugby Series has begun, which means that it's braaivleis (barbeque for the rest of you), sunshine and rugby for the next fourteen weekends for us - and hopefully a few hours of solid gaming in between!

At the pace things are going, it's almost going to be the end of February before I get to do my monthly blog for January! It's good to be back after quite a while though.

January in General

The good news is that we all survived the silly season regardless of countless over-indulgences and a general lack of gainful activities.

The bad news is of course, that down here in the Southern hemisphere, most of us take our major vacation for the year over the December period, or so called "Festive Season" if you will, simply because it is mid summer then. No white Christmas for us, with temperatures ranging between 28 and 34 degrees Celsius all the time.

What this really boils down to, is that over and above the bouts of excessive money spending, eating, drinking, lazing on the beach and picking up light forms of radiation poisoning from over exposure to sunlight, the beginning of January tends to become a rather ugly picture. By the time we start working again, towards the middle of January, the bank account is just about to implode on itself, not to mention the fact that a heap of work has piled up since the beginning of December!

To make things worse, my daughter (the youngest of two) has her birthday on 30 December (yes, she couldn't hang on for another day-and-a-half), which means that from 24 December to 1 January, the "festive activities" in our household just don't stop.

Now that we've all managed to regain our composure, the reality of life is starting to kick in as we already approach the middle of the first quarter of 2008!

On GameSpot

While explicitly trying to do as little as possible, I did manage to spend a few hours browsing about GameSpot during December/January, and funny enough, I actually managed to level up twice since I last blogged! I have apparently moved up to the ranks of Master Blaster (giving myself a pat on the back now).

I received one extra emblem for all my voting efforts as well (another pack on the back is coming up - I can feel it).

Gaming in General

So, I finally got out of the box! Yes - for Christmas, this old relic decided that it's time to indulge the younger generation and finally get rid of my PC Aficionado image by moving into the Xbox scene (I'm actually lying - it wasn't only for the kids!).

So far, so good and I must say, I'm actually enjoying my first tentative steps into the console world. It almost brings back memories of my arcade gaming days back in the 1980's! The bad thing (look at my Gamer Tag) is to be a complete noob at this at my age!

So, have new Xbox - will get new games!

For the kids, I got Eternal Sonata, Dancing Stage Universe and Shrek III. The funny thing is that my wife ended up spending most of the time on the dancing carpet with Dancing Stage Universe, instead of the kids!

For the kids (yeah right), I also got Mass Effect and Call of Duty 3 - wow - that Mass Effect is really a good game. Trust BioWare to deliver the goods as always.

Rant of the Month

I would like to get some idea from some of the folks on my friends list what games cost in their respective countries. From what I gather, one of the ladies on my friends list works for a games store in the USA. Perhaps that's a good starting point.

The reason I'm raising this as a rant, is that I get the distinct impression that someone somewhere is making a lot of money out of games down here in South Africa ever since the end of last year.

To put things in perspective:

• Any recent release for the Xbox will cost around R600.00, which at today's exchange rate, equates to approximately $87.00 US! Is that normal or completely insane?
• New releases for the PC are not far behind, with the average new release costing in the region of around R450.00 = $64.00 US!
• At these rates, I should perhaps consider taking my entire collection to the local "cash for goods" store - I will probably end up making a profit considering what I paid for some of them only a year ago!

Is this an international phenomenon or am I just becoming a real "relic"?

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Highlights from the almighty final game between South Africa and England. The game turned out the be a gigantic up-front battle between two of the most "abbrasive" rugby teams in the world and an England team that was definitely not going to make the same mistakes they made during our pool game stage. Video courtesy of www.supersport.co.za.

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Highlights from our semi final game against Argentina. The game turned out to be a bit easier than we expected, but all credit to a very courageous Argentinian team! Video courtesy of www.supersport.co.za.

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Highlights from our quarter final game against Fiji - a game that nearly cost us our World Cup dreams - courtesy of www.supersport.co.za.

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Highlights from our fourth and final pool game in the IRB Rugby World Cup 2007 against the USA (courtesy of www.supersport.co.za).

Still not our best performance yet, but a pretty good result in the end with a score of 64-15.

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Highlights from our third pool game in the IRB Rugby World Cup 2007 against Tonga (courtesy of www.supersport.co.za). A lot tougher than we expected, but the guys pulled through in the end - all credit to the guys from Tonga!