Well, after doing some seriously deep google searching (as well as Ask, Altavista, Yahoo, Windows Live, AOL, and Netscape), I found only one other credible date for Home Open Beta (besides for the July 20th rumor, which obviously isn't true cause it's August now). August 16th.

August 16th... THATS THIS WEEK! Well I have known it was probably august 16th for some time now, but we get to the week-of, and still: No signup sheet, no update emails, no updated Home beta trial registration page.

Later today, a thought hit me... I randomly wondered "I wonder what movie trailers will be in this thursday's PlayStation store update" (they update the PS store every thursday, for those who haven't caught on). It hit me... and I ran to the calendars...

AUGUST 16TH IS THIS THURSDAY.

Which leads me to thinking... could Home open beta possibly be just first-come first serve on Playstation store on thursday. At any rate, unless some signup thing comes online this wednesday, It looks like an all nigher on wednesday night, because come thursday morning, starting at Midnight Pacific Time (which is 3 AM where I live), the store will be getting a visit from Leimeisei every half hour or so, all the way until i see some stuff added.

Is it all worth it... taking a valuable day out of my remaining 2.5 weeks of summer vacation? My answer: Yes. Why? I have nothing else better to do. And, it seems like whenever a game that I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY want during the school year gets released, I have some sort of Midterm, or Final, or State test, or just plain Big test coming up. Like this year, I'm pretty sure I need to take some sort of Pre-ACT test, which i will prepare for if it counts for anything... The date of these tests? The first and second week of october. When is Home's Scheduled release date? Last I checked, it was the first or second week of october.

So anyway, am I making a guarantee that Home Open beta will be out this Thursday? No. Is there a good chance it will. I think yes.

[EDIT] I realized that my post is really long so I want to thank any poor soul who endured the entire length of it down to the following period.

After seeing some vids on youtube, I thought it would be pretty cool to add some of my own heavy metal to Guitar Hero II. So, I found scorehero.com, the far-too-necessary resource for editing GHII with. I gotta say, there are some sweet tools on that site to get into guitar hero and inject whatever songs you want. They even have hundreds of MIDI files (which are used to tell GHII the guitar notes, bass notes, lighting information, model actions, croud actions, etc). Even though you need to go find the MP3s to ur favorite songs somewhere else (I had the CDs to all the songs I downloaded..), its a sweet thing.

But that was only half of the excitement. Editing the songs is one thing, but looking thru trees of settings is another. Now, I would never think of using the stuff I found for anything else (It's illegal because Activision has the copyrights), looking at it was fun. Particularly the part where I FOUND THE FILE WHERE ALL THE CHEATS WERE LOCATED. I don't exactly know if it's like a class, or sort of like a DLL or something, but I found the tool (thanks again to ScoreHero.com) to open this file and look at the codes.

That made me think... is there a way to look at the cheats for all these PS2 games. I'm gonna find a browser for PS2 game files; I would love to find out all the different cheats they have in there for my Tony Hawk and NFS games, that they haven't put online yet.

One more thing: I don't know if what I'm doing is illegal or not, but if it is then someone tell me cuz i dont really want to get in trouble with the feds or something like that... i got too much else going on.

I was sitting reading a few news articles today on GameSpot, and I began reading the comments sections when this awesome idea popped into my head: Maybe, on a comment page, people should say things that actually RELATE to the article. I am tired of reading an article (some have some great news in them) and having comments on the bottom say stuff like "Teh Plastaytion 3 has lotz of more stuff than teh 360 cuz Sony pwns all N00bs 2 earth and back" or stuff like "THE XBOX 360 HAS ALWAYS DONE BETTER THAN THE PS3 AND THAT IS HOW IT WILL STAY BECAUSE MICROSOFT IS AMERICAN AND THEY KNOW HOW TO DO STUFF RIGHT UNLIKE THE JAPS AT SONY". HERE'S AN IDEA, HOW ABOUT WE STOP TALKING IN ALL CAPITAL and using teh l33t5p3AK and start talking about the article at hand.

Can't we talk about something that's good for either system without getting a bunch of people saying "That's nice, but console X (insert your system there) still sucks".

Am I wrong? I think not...

Advertisement: If you would like more on how Leimeisei is awesome and is right 113.4% of the time, please visit http://home.comcast.net/~webhead.

So, I've only had my new logo and main page design for about under a month now, and already I caught some loser who used my user icon and my web page design (with their name cleverly placed over mine).

I figure that this is the appropriate time to state that I am a person to take advantage of Copyright Law. I will warn everyone right now that unless they get my permission, they CANNOT use my designs! IF ANYONE DOES USE MY DESIGNS, and I haven't given permission yet, I will give ONE warning before I begin to talk legal. I am hoping that by me posting this, people will take the time to use their own imaginations and create something new and original rather than copying off me. In case no one knew this, copyright infringement has some big penalties.

So do me a favor: do your OWN WORK! It will be better for both you and me

Oh, and I apologize for the rude tone of this blog post, but I do tend to get nasty when I found out other people used something that took me quite a long time to do.

I designed a new banner and new user icon (I DID IT FROM SCRATCH!! NO TEMPLATES, OR PREMADE-BACKGROUNDS!). On top of this, I redesigned my personal website, which you can see at http://home.comcast.net/~webhead/

IMPORTANT NOTICE: I AM NOT ACTUALLY LEAVING GAMESPOT!!!!!!

I was just kidding... and verrrry stressed out by my final exams at school. Boy am I a moody person. You should have seen me yell at my family last week.... But anyway, I'm not leaving, Im back and here to stay. I'll update my personal website eventually to show the changes.

Whenever I tell people I hate Microsoft, they call me a sony fanboy. Realistically, me saying that I hate Microsoft does not mean necessarily that I hate the 360. I hate microsoft because of something that started long ago... Windows.

Since it was first invented, Windows has been the fattest operating system of any existing OS. Windows has always been known to only work at a descent speed for the first month or two that you have it on your computer, then to really slow down, until in about a year and a half or so, it takes 5 to 6 minutes after boot up to actually have enough free resources to do something.

I have recently upgraded my Messenger from the old MSN messenger that came with XP SP2 to the newest Windows Live Messenger. It was at about that time where I could never do anything on my computer. I wanted to know what it was that was suddenly hogging the 1 GB of memory I have on my computer. So, I downloaded this program from Download.com, Sysinternals Process Explorer, and found out that an instance of svchost.exe was runnning constantly in the 90 to 95% of CPU Usage range. However, because that instance of svchost.exe hosted many core Windows elements, such as Windows Audio, Windows Time (the clock on ur start bar), and the Graphic User Interface (GUI), it was not as easy as just killing it. I had to figure out exactly what was using that to take it up. So, I started by shutting off my wireless adapter. Didn't work. Then, I shut off all my antispyware and antivirus. Didn't work. Then, I shut off explorer.exe. Didnt Work. Finally, I closed Windows Live messenger. Instantly, my CPU usage plummeted from 95% to about 5%, and stayed about that low.

Boy will my friends be pissed when they find out I uninstalled Live Messenger.

Right now, the Halo 3 beta is going on, getting mostly positive feedback, with the exception of feedback about graphics. But, I'm not here to rate the beta of that game. The point is, If you want the beta, you can get it by simply buying a copy of Crackdown (until a certain date where they stop giving you codes). Microsoft does Betas right. Look at Office 2007 or Windows vista for example. Any person could get into those betas, until they reached a certain number.

Thats not the case with Sony. I have applied for multiple game betas that were labelled "open betas", most recently the Warhawk beta. I applied like moments after the form came online. I checked my email every day, and never got instructions for it like they said I would get. Then I looked closer at the page. It said "fill out the form for a chance to be accepted to the open beta". Please sony, tell me what the hell an open beta is, IF YOU APPLY FOR IT AND THE APPLICANTS ARE HAND PICKED TO ACTUALLY USE THE BETA! This is exaclty the kind of crap that sony is pulling to make people pissed off. This is what they are planning to do for the upcoming Home beta. Plus, when I contacted sony asking them what criteria they use, they said they couldn't give the info to me.

If you ask me, its a crap method that they should ditch. Plus, you would think they would let everyone into the beta, on account of the fact that everyone who has a PS3 is bored to death playing the only 2 good games that currently exist.

Welcome to GameSpot: the world's source for videogames!

There are a few things you should know about us before you get started.

First off, We're famous! We even have our own encyclopedia article at (http://www.uncyclopedia.org/wiki/GameSpot). Make sure you open it at a new window so you can keep on reading this! Plus, we are a part of Cnet Networks entertainment, which is run by cnet, which is run by Cnet Networks inc, which runs zdnet, news.com, com.com, and any other pointless web addresses that are completely obvious.

Second off, We EMBRACE rights here at GameSpot. Thats why we are the #2 source for One-sided news coverage of the video game industry (GameInformer is #1). We love the Xbox 360 here, which is why every single member of the GameSpot staff has a sticky note on their computer monitors, reading, "[This message has been deleted at the request of a moderator or an administrator]", so if anyone should decide to break the laws of adoring the 360, they can easily replace the post with that convenient, easy-to-read-and-comprehend text, making it very unconfusing for the author of the original text to see where he broke the rules.

Third off, There are certain criteria an author must meet to be an accepted, not-yelled-at-constantly member of this community. These are what we call,

THE FIVE PILLARS OF GAMESPOT

The First Pillar: Thou shalt use no other website

What does this mean? Do not disrespect GameSpot staff, GameSpot community, and your mom by using a different website for game reviews. You only need us!

The Second Pillar: Thou shalt not accuseth GameSpot of fanboyism

What does this mean? Don't say GameSpot is Xbox 360 fanboys, or you shall be punished. Actually, go ahead and say it, but if you do you will have a billion people yell at you in about .10 seconds about how you are a **** and a *******ing ********* (yeah, i dont know what those words are either. Too many asterisks).

The Third Pillar: Thou shalt not use the name of the Xbox 360 (and/or Microsoft (and/or Bungie (and/or people who made Gears of War))) In Vain/Vein/Vane (stupid homonyms).

What does this mean? It means that you shall treat the name of Xbox 360, Microsoft, Bungie, and the people who made Gears of War with respect, and with kindness, as you would wish your mom would be treated. And it also means that homonyms can be confusing, and screw over what would otherwise be a very well-written pillar.

The Fourth Pillar: Thou shalt not give a videogame a bad review.

What does this mean? Don't give any videogames a bad review, unless they were so bad that everyone knows it was bad. How do you know that everyone knew it was bad? You don't. That means, just play-it-safe, and rate the game good. Call of Duty 3? 5 of 5. Resistance: 5 of 5. Game Tycoon? 5 of 5. Teen Titans? 5 of 5.

The Fifth Pillar: Thou shalt not commit adultry.

What does this mean? IMPORTANT: THIS IS NOT THE COMMON MEANING. Adultry in the normal sense is cheating. That means, you must have a 360 and PLAY IT, and have a GAMERSCORE OVER AT LEAST 10,000. IF you go and buy a PS3 or WII, you have cheated on the lovely Xbox 360, even if you never liked it or had one in the first place. Therefore it is a... GAMESPOT SIN.

There. It was rather easy to write that: just write all the things that I do that people complain to me about. I am always getting these private messages "Change this review" or "change that review". yeesh. I don't know if people know, but a review is supposed to be your own decision, not your decision after the world completely takes over your mind.

Here. I'll throw some situations at everyone. THESE ARE ACTUAL EVENTS, and some that may happen in the near future.

Scenario 1:

Early 2006: Sony Announces that the PlayStation 3 will have an HDMI output.

Microsoft Fanboys: OMG! You don't need an HDMI CABLE in a gaming system!
Nintendo Fanboys: Well, the Wiimote is motion sensitive!

Early 2007: Microsoft announces that the new Xbox 360 Elite will have HDMI port.

Microsoft Fanboys: AWESOME! Now we can enjoy our games in FULL 1080p!
Nintendo Fanboys: The wiimote is still motion sensitive!

Scenario 2:

Early 2006: Sony announces that there will be 2 PS3 models: one with a 20GB HDD and another with a 60GB HDD

Microsoft Fanboys: What retards! Who needs that much space for their gaming consoles???
Nintendo Fanboys: The wiimote is still motion sensitive

Early 2007: Microsoft Announces that the new Xbox 360 Elite will have a 120 GB HDD

Microsoft Fanboys: Yaay! Now we can store even more XBLA games and XBLM movies on our consoles!
Nintendo Fanboys: Did I mention the wiimote is still motion sensitive

Scenario 3:

Early 2006: Sony announces that the prices for the two consoles will be $499 and $599

Microsoft fanboys: Holy Crap! What saps will spend even $499 [$500] on a gaming console???!!?!?!
Nintendo Fanboys: The Wii outputs HD too! At an amazing 480p!

Early 2007: Microsoft announces that they are releasing the 360 Elite for around $470.

Almost EVERY Microsoft Fanboy: OMG I WANT ONE SOOOOO BAD I AM GONNA START SAVING UP LOL!!!!
Nintendo Fanboys: The Wii has hit games for it, like Super paper mario, Super Mario Bros., Mario this, Mario that, Mario something, Wii Sports, Wii Play!

Very likely Future Scenario:

Early 2007: Sony announces online game community "Home" so that all users can be connected like never before on any console.

Microsoft Fanboys: Im sick of Sony releasing Half-baked, untested software! It will fail miserably!
Nintendo Fanboys:Who wants to run around with a life-like Mii (or however the hell you spell it) and chat with people and play REAL TIME GAMES WITH THEM on their game system?

2008, 2009, or 2010: Microsoft announces an online community very similar to "Home"

Microsoft Fanboys:BEST EVERRRRR! SONY WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN SMART ENOUGH TO THINK OF THIS!
Nintendo Fanboys: Ah, you Sony and Microsoft geeks. We get to swing our controllers around to control Link's sword, thats enough for us!

Another Very likely scenario:

2007-2010: Microsoft and Sony have both announced 3D online community features, and Nintendo finally announces that online gameplay will finally be supported on the Wii:

Nintendo Fanboys: Holy 1UP mushrooms, Super Mario! That is exactly why nintendo kicks microsoft and sony in their inflated behinds! Link should come and cut up all the xbox 360s and ps3s in the earth! Mario shall always prosper above all else! Long live Nintendo! Long live Miyamoto!