The wicked witch is dead....well....almost dead. Our area is on the butt end of the storm. We are still getting heavy rain and a lot of areas in my county and all counties in the surrounding areas are seeing major flooding. My street has a lot of debris from trees and such but no flooding at all. For a street that was known for it's flooding a few years ago to be flood free today is quite a feat for the city of Holly Hill. A round of applause for them please. (CLAP,CLAP,CLAP) Also, I have to give it up for FPL (Florida Power and Light) because for two separate days of power outages on my street they came out in the rain and wind to fix our downed power lines. (CLAP, CLAP, CLAP) The first day they had the tree cleared and the power lines back up in 2 hours and the second day it was a lot longer but that was only because it was night and we were in the midst of a tropical storm so you can't blame them for that. As soon as the sun came up the next day they were out and about fixing all of the power outages. Sweet! After this weekend everything should go back to being relatively normal...hopefully. They are forecasting that there is another storm brewing in the tropics and that it is looking like it will follow the same path as Fay as far as heading towards the Cuba/Florida area. Sounds like a good time to me!

Here in the Daytona/Holly Hill area Tropical storm Fay is over top of us but giving us a little bit of relief...for the moment. The ground is saturated and trees are in danger of being uprooted all over the place. My neighbor across the street has an empty lot with multiple trees in it and 4 of them have fallen in the last 36 hours. 1 of them took out the power lines Tuesday night and another took out the power lines last night. Because of the tremendous amount of rain that has come and is expected to hit within the next couple of days my only worry is that one of the three, HUGE trees that are around my house will uproot and fall on my house. We haven't had power since 7pm Wednesday night so my wife is staying at her mother's house until the power is restored. I have been staying at the house to make sure nobody tries to rob us in the middle of the night. It is hot but it is better than getting robbed. I am at work now which is why I am able to write. Tonight the storm is supposed to bring us 60 mph winds and a ton more rain so that should be fun. Luckily for me, my second job is going to be open so I will be out in the storm instead of safe at home (insert sarcasm here). I'll update you tomorrow.

Here in the Daytona/Holly Hill area Tropical storm Fay is over top of us but giving us a little bit of relief...for the moment. The ground is saturated and trees are in danger of being uprooted all over the place. My neighbor across the street has an empty lot with multiple trees in it and 4 of them have fallen in the last 36 hours. 1 of them took out the power lines Tuesday night and another took out the power lines last night. Because of the tremendous amount of rain that has come and is expected to hit within the next couple of days my only worry is that one of the three, HUGE trees that are around my house will uproot and fall on my house. We haven't had power since 7pm Wednesday night so my wife is staying at her mother's house until the power is restored. I have been staying at the house to make sure nobody tries to rob us in the middle of the night. It is hot but it is better than getting robbed. I am at work now which is why I am able to write. Tonight the storm is supposed to bring us 60 mph winds and a ton more rain so that should be fun. Luckily for me, my second job is going to be open so I will be out in the storm instead of safe at home (insert sarcasm here). I'll update you tomorrow.

This weekend, after my morning shift at my second job on Saturday, I did as little as possible. My wife's friend didn't make it over on Saturday and my wife was off to her cousin's baby shower so I just vegged out in front of the TV and even had time to play my two new games Stranglehold and Timeshift. Both games are great so far. I do find that I am having to pry myself off of Stranglehold because I want to keep on playing to see what happens next and blow more stuff up!

Great! Tropical storm Fay or hurricane Fay, whichever it is at this point is coming my way. Hopefully it will just be a big storm and not a tropical storm or hurricane when it gets to us over here in the Daytona Beach/Holly Hill area. I already had to go through the three hurricanes in the row so I've had it with this hurricane thing. Now that I own my own home it stresses me out when a hurricane even thinks about coming this way. Ug. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Like the title says, I didn't get to play any volleyball on Friday because of a wicked storm we had here in Daytona. No biggie. I was feeling a lazy weekend coming on anyway so it didn't mess up my weekend.

I watched some of the Olympics this weekend including the opening ceremony. Man, the Chinese sure out-did themselves with the opening ceremony. I read on Yahoo that not all of the fireworks were real and some of the fireworks were added digitally. Oh well, I'm sure it still would have been awesome either way. The men's #1 seeded beach volleyball team lost their first match against the 23rd ranked team from a country that I have never......EVER....heard of. Good job! I guess everyone has their bad days but I'm thinking that you want to hold off those bad days until after the Olympics or at least against a team from a country that we've heard of. I'm just saying. :D The #1 ranked American team in women's beach volleyball kicked the crap out of their first opponents. They have won 101 games in a row up to the Olympics and are a strong favorite. No kidding. Also, did anyone see the women's fencing? Don't ask me why I watched it but it happened to be on while I was on break from work on Saturday. That is the most annoying sport ever. It is nothing like you would think either and the woman who won would scream out loud immediately after every point whether she got the point or lost the point. And I don't mean a simple yell or a grunt like the women playing tennis. I mean this was a high pitched scream. Anyone have a gun? Not for me....for her opponent.

This weekend I got to game a lot and watch some movies on the side. I beat Medal of Honor: Airborne on Sunday. It is a very short game. I actually didn't know it was that short. The game-play was awesome though and slightly makes up for it. I hope to have a review later this week.

I got a little closer to my A license on Burnout Paradise. I still don't have a car good enough to compete online yet but I am working on it. Also, the one friend who I thought owned the game actually rented it so now I have nobody to play with that I know. I told him about the deal on Gamefly so he might check that out. By the way, if anyone can give me a hint on how to do two barrel rolls off of a jump or a flat spin off of a jump that would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance. My review will be soon.

I racked up another win in Civ:Rev. It was my first economic victory so I officially have one of each kind of win. That was the hardest win for me. I'm still playing on Warlord difficulty and I'm not sure if going to a harder difficulty will be challenging or frustrating. My buddy still isn't online so I haven't been able to check out the multiplayer yet. Review of this game hopefully this week.

I ordered two more games from Gamefly. The games are Timeshift and John Woo's Stranglehold. I love the demo of Timeshift and have wanted it since it came out. I've also wanted Stranglehold because I am a John Woo fan, I loved the demo and I'm a huge fan of the Max Payne games which this game borrows from in a lot of ways. A couple of my online buddies have/had this game and liked it so I'm positive I will like it as well.

Tonight after I work I will be playing some beach volleyball in Daytona. I play with a group of guys that my best friend and I met on accident when bumping around the ball back and forth at a local park. We've been playing with the same group for over 4 months now and we've all become friends. While my best friend and I mostly play to hang out and exercise, the other guys are very competitive. Sometimes they are a little too competitive but that doesn't mean that we all don't have fun. It just means that they get a little angrier when we happen to beat them. J

I hope to get to play some games this weekend. Last weekend proved a little harder to get some play time but I believe this weekend will be a little different. I have three games in my frequent rotation that I am attempting to beat. MOH:Airborne so far is getting better and better. I am currently stuck on a part but I have a feeling that I will be past it soon. Burnout Paradise is awesome! I have been playing that a little every morning when I get ready in a timely fashion and have some time to kill before work. I need only 15 more wins to unlock my A license. I can't wait until I unlock some better cars so I can race online and not get smoked. Mass Effect is the other game that I have been playing. I usually play a while on this game. The story is pretty easy to follow and lets you feel like you are in control of an epic journey. Of course I have to make time for Civ: Rev and COD4 too but I have already beaten those games so now I just play them for fun. I do have a friend that will be getting back online soon who owns Civ: Rev so I hope to check out some of the online portions of the game. If anyone has any tips for Civ: Rev please feel free to let me know. Any help would be great!

Take care all! Have a great weekend and I'll try and stop by this weekend to say hey! There are supposed to be storms here this weekend so it looks like I might have a good chance.

As you can see can see from the title I received my games from Gamefly. As far as the condition of the games go they are in real good condition. If you consider that these games were passed around to hundreds of gamers who could care less about the condition of the game then they are real good. The boxes and instructions look like they have never been touched. I would definitely buy from Gamefly again.

The first game I wanted to try out was Burnout Paradise. Even from the opening title screen and the familiar sounds of "Paradise City" by Guns 'n' Roses I knew this game was going to be fun. After getting used to the setup and prying myself away from just driving the car around to find jumps, shortcuts and billboards I was ready to start the events. Awesome first impression! The game is a lot of fun and I had a blast with all the different kinds of events. I believe the only problems that I have are the Stunt events and the fact that when racing online it didn't put me against racers at the same level as me but against racers with the best cars and I, at the time, had only unlocked 2 cars. I bet you can't guess who won those races.

Next up was Medal of Honor: Airborne. I am a FPS fan and had played the first couple of Medal of Honor games I believe way back on the PS1 but hadn't really heard anything good from the series in a while so I was a reserved about getting a new Medal of Honor game. It wasn't until I found it for cheap that I decided to take a chance on the series and after playing this game for almost a week I am glad that I did. The game is close enough to as good as the standard FPS game but on the other hand it is different enough that it stands out from your typical FPS. Jumping out of an airplane helps.

Been playing my two new games: Burnout Paradise and Medal of Honor: Airbone. I will write first impressions soon. So far though I find that they are both pretty awesome. More hopefully tomorrow.

It figures that even though I ordered some new games from Gamefly early in the week they didn't show up for the weekend so pretty much all of this week I will get to stare at them without really playing them until next weekend. Oh joy! It's not really that bad but it sure does seem like it. If the games come today or tomorrow I will get to play them on Tuesday and Friday for a little bit so that's better than nothing.

My friend from work let me borrow Mass Effect. I had heard some good things about it so I wanted to try it out before throwing down some money to buy it. Wow! What a great game! This is not a gripe but it seems to me like this is like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic but without jedi. It does have what could be considered force powers. There is even a throw power much like a jedi's push power. I don't think I got too far but I played for around 7 or so hours and died a few times. There are a lot of movies and dialog in this game. I see what some people meant by "it's like playing a movie".

I watched Rambo this weekend for the first time. I had always wanted to see it but never got around to it. It pretty much follows the same formula as the older Rambo movies which seems to work. One thing that makes this movie stand out is the fact that the attacks on the villages in the beginning seem a little real and brutal. The visuals are insane. So much so that in the end, when Rambo steps up to hand out a serious case of the butt whippings, you feel no regret for the blood shed because the seriously painful ways the bad guys die are exactly what they deserve, and then some. I'll write a review, hopefully, later on this week.

Finally! Friday has come! It's an easy day, so far, here at work. A fellow employee decided he was going to celebrate another employee getting fired by treating a select few of us to pizza from Hungry Howie's Pizza. Yum-yum-yum! Gotta love it! I know , I know...I can just hear most of you saying "It's not Italian pizza" or "It's not INSERT PIZZA PLACE HERE" but I gotta admit, I love me some Hungry Howie's! It tastes even better when someone else paid for it too!

After work today, if it doesn't rain like it has been every day around 4 PM, my best friend and I are heading over to the beach to play some 2-man beach volleyball. We have played together as a team for over 10 years. We used to play a lot when we were younger but work and life forced us to stop. Recently he wanted to get the band back together for one more time around the beach volleyball scene before we are too old to enjoy it. We are pretty good. I'm short (5'9 ½") and he is only slightly taller so basically I am the setter and he is the hitter. What I lose in power when hitting I more than make up for with control. I can almost put the ball anywhere on the court. My friend is average size and I guess I would be slightly overweight but you couldn't tell from the way I play. Because I have always been the big guy I have always pushed myself harder than anyone else because I didn't ever want to hear anyone say "I don't want him on my team because he is big". That has never happened and I plan on never having it happen. If I can't handle my side of the court then I won't play.

I hope to spend some time playing some games this weekend. I am playing through Half Life 2 for the 3rd time. I played through on the PC twice and then decided to get it on the 360 to play it on there as well. It is definitely one of my favorite first person shooters of all time. It also helps that the game comes with Episode 1 and 2 plus Portal and Team Fortress 2 (which is awesome if I only had some friends who own the game).

I will probably finish Rock Band on Medium this weekend which means that I will be attempting it on Expert. We'll have to wait and see how that works out.

I'll probably end up throwing in Gears and COD4 for a couple rounds too. Most of my friends are playing one or the other these days so I'll definitely play them to get some friends time in.

I purchased Burnout Paradise and Medal of Honor: Airborne from Gamefly for cheap. I've never purchased anything from them or rent from them so I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I think one of my online friends told me that the disks work perfectly but they are scratched to hell because of the way they buff them. I don't care about the scratches as long as the game works. Hopefully I won't get screwed in this deal.

I'll talk to you all next week. Take care!