I know I am. I'm with the love of my life. I used to write poetry for my wife all the time before we got married. She's been kind enough to keep every single thing I've written for her. Here's one of my more creative poems....and yes, things like this just come to me and are effortless on my part.

• For you
• By Aaron Martin

• Where to start or where to begin?
• You keep me guessing on how to win.
• To buy you flowers, or bake a cake;
• Perhaps all you want is to walk around a lake.
• The smile you have, makes you very pretty.
• I get a wonderful feeling of joy when you smile at me
• You worry too much, one might venturey to say,
• What I try not to do is make you worred sick of me.
• I watch you look upon me with loving care,
• I see you caring about me, like no one else dares.
• You are what I need and what I need is you.
• Ido only hope that you feel the same, too.
• I love the way you hold me tight and close to you
• Because I know that is something you love to do.
• The you toch me, feels like a dream....
• I don't want to awake from it, not ever.
• Your company, I adore so much when you're around.
• I just only wish that wer were together more then we are,
• But having you, is good enough for me.
• And I hope you, too, understand what I say.
• That i Love you dearly,
• Which keeps growing every day.
• I Though I may not show it through actions I do,
• I'd like to apologize for the fat that I
• May not pay enough attention to you at time.
• I mean to do well and try to keep well in touch,
• But I falter in that deparment, fairly well and too much.
• I do hope you know that YOU do mean me the world.
• And I'd do anything to show you that truth.
• I hope that writting you this poem starts to show that fact;
• I love you, like you cannot comprehend...
• I extend to you, my loving hand.
• With the utmost hope, I ask you this now;
• Will you be my Valentine, Kristin?

How this whole poem started was when I was writing a short little note that was to read "Happy Valentines Day Kristin"...after a moment of thinking, I wrote that phrase out vertically in the middle of a piece of paper and everything else just kind of fell into place. As you decipher from the red letters, it spells out "Happy Valentines Day Kristin".

Anyone else out there as big of a sap as I am when it comes to love?

• By Aaron Martin

• I can't bare the thought of distance
• And my soul hates the pain
• It's not shown on the outside
• But this feeling still remains
• To see you, not be here at all
• I slowly crumble away

• Making things you see in me
• Look different everyday
• Though I haven't changed into something else
• It's visible to see I'm not what I could be

• Thoughts, missing times of where you are
• Wondering, you should've been there for me?
• Teetering off the ledge of control
• Trying to maintain a balance of harmony

• Washing away tears of sadness
• Under, water slowly falling on me
• Alive, the beast could start to swell
• Taking all it wants for its meal
• Take me away, away from here
• Scared right now, the way I feel
• Meaning the world and nothing more

• I step on out, off my ledge
• To what seems the end of my search...
• Only realizing that life, I pull the sledge
• Of how it ends or where it begins

• Searching, no more, fore I found it before
• Where would this end, here with only one?
• The one thing that I adore

• Sorry for seeming uncaring, or not thoughtful
• Seeking forgiveness from only you
• Letting myself fall to your feet,
• Forgiveness, begging,
• Seeing release to be worthy of standing
• Facing you again

I've put a couple of pic of my huskies under the "Images" tab. If you want to see my puppies, click here.

I'd do anything for them.....:twisted: anything!

I'm going to start posting my thoughts about demos that I've tried out on this blog. I'll update/edit when I come across any new demos that I play.

The Chosen - Well of Souls

I'm not sure even where to start on this one.... This is a hack and slash, rpg game. The default control set-up is not to my liking; I had to adjust a half dozen or more default key-bindings and mouse configurations before I could comfortably play. Much of the voice acting in the demo was down right awful - it made Dungeon Siege IIsound good, and the voice acting on Dungeon Siege II was poor, at best.

You're not given much in the demo to make you want to keep on going because it was so short. The story could be really good for all I know, but you play so little in the demo that I'm not even going to waste my time wanting to know more. You don't get to play around much because you can only make it to level 2 and you can't possibly collect enough money to buy any equipment worth while. Even if you could purchase new, usefull equipment, you don't get a chance to use it because the demo ends right after.

I do not recommend this game to anyone except the hardcore hack and slash lovers out there.

I rate this demo a 1 out of 5 overall.

F.E.A.R - Perseus Mandate

I've only played the origianl F.E.A.R, so I don't know what the expansion packs offer...therefore my opinions based on this demo will be from my experience with FEAR and this Perseus Mandate demo.

Graphics are still well done and the shoot'em up surroundings in the levels help add a degree of chaos when fire-fights are going. The AI in this demo seems to be a bit dumber then what I remember in the origianl FEAR, which is kind of a disappointment. I didn't come across any enemies really tryied to flank me or out smart me. I still greatly dislike the ability of the AI to detect a grenade that is in mid air, when none of the AI have a field of vision of the grenade. For example: I walked into a room and an enemy was walking away from me - so I lobbed a grenade and as soon as I did he took off running yelling "Look out! Grenade!".

A new weapon seems to be in the mix of things, a new type of rifle that has an infrared scope attached to it, making seeing in the dark very easy. I believe the pistols are over powered because of the armored guy I took down, I did it with just one clip in each of my pistols....I tried taking that armored guy down with my rifles and I had to reload 2-3x times.

In the origianl FEAR, there were parts in the game that made my skin crawl or made me jump - there was nothing new added to this demo. All the same give aways in the original FEAR allowed me to have a good understanding when something "extraordinary/supernatural" was about to happen.

The only upside to this is that the fire-fights seem to be a bit more difficult then the original FEAR. Otherwise, it's nothing to really get excited about.

I recommend this game to anyone that enjoyed FEAR and they wanted more or they are just looking for a decent FPS.

I rate this demo a 3 out of 5.

DiRT

Racing games have never been my cup of tea, but I wanted to see how well DiRT looked and performed....you never know know, perhaps I would take a liking to this game.

Sad to say. this demo doesn't do the game justice - based on the score that GameSpot gave it (8.3). In the demo I cannot adjust any key configurations, so trying to play with the arrow keys is down right annoying because they're placed so close together on my keyboard. Also, I couldn't find any info on what keys do what....I only knew how to go forward, turn and go backwards.

The graphics look nice, which is about the only thing that I could appreciate in this demo. There were issues with the sound, half the time I could hear all the sound effects and the other half of the time I couldn't. The steering was too sensetive and if you are going over 30mph and you bump into something, your car starts to rapidly spin out of control or you magically bounce off the course and your car begins to tumble about.

I can't say that I'd ever even install the full version of this game on my PC if someone gave me the game.

I do not recommend this game. Stay way from the PC version. Pick it up on PS3 or Xbox360....the game just has to be that much better on the consoles.

I rate this demo a 1 out of 5.

TimeShift

This is a rather entertaining game. The ability to stop, slow or reverse time helps add a new, exciting twist to a good looking FPS. Two of the three weapons provided do the same things: the rifle shoots fast and good in mid-range battles, the shotgun packs one hell of a punch in close-range combat. The third weapon has a little twist to it: the crossbow has explosive tipped ammo - you stick a guy or wall/box/something and after about 1-2 seconds the arrow explodes. Very nice to watch bodies blow to bits.

Also, this game favors the time regenerating health - just like Call of Duty 2 has. This way, you don't have to worry about finding a health pack or trying to run for you life. Just duck back for a moment or two and you'll get back to full health.

There seems to be some issues with the AI. The enemies can see through walls half the time and they generally know where you are before you can even grasp your surroundings. From this demo alone, I don't think the AI here could hold a candle to what FEAR or even FarCry enemies could offer. I could be wrong, but from what I gathered in the demo, this is the direction I'm leaning towards.

The atmosphere is chaotic and full of war. There is fighting going on in the background, things constantly blowing up...lots of distractions, which is good because that is how war would be like. Things constantly happening, shooting, explosions, teammates dying, enemies dying...

The demo was a bit short, it could have stood to have another 5-10 minutes worth of timeplay. But it did leave me wanting to see more. The graphics are very nice and the game runs very well. It seems to be nicely optimized and stable.

I highly recommend this game to any FPS fan out there, from the dabbler to the hardcore. You shouldn't be disappointed with all the action and with the ability to control time.

I rate this demo a 4.5 out of 5.

Call of Duty 4

This is one hell of a demo and it out shines TimeShift by quite a bit in my opinion. Just like TimeShift, CoD4 has a lot of action going on around you at all times. Leaving you with an intense and chatoic atmosphere. The AI seems to be pretty good, but I can't base that off of fact. Sometimes an enemy would pop out around a corner out of nowhere, like it was waiting in ambush or they'd come up behind me...but that might just be because of the massive number of enemies that swarm the area at times.

You can pick up and swap out weapons you come across. The compass does a good job of showing which direction you need to be moving in order to press foward and complete objectives. You get several kinds of grenades to chuck around and running out of ammo seems it would never be a problem.

The game is very well optimized and it runs very smooth on maxed settings for me. The graphics are very nice and with the 1280 x 960 screen resolution I can run the game at....it looks just amazing.

I wish I could have adjusted a few of the key-bindings to make everything more to my liking, but I managed just fine with the default setup.

I strongly recommend this game to any FPS fan out there. You'll feel right at home if you like chatoicness and fast action fire-fights.

I rate this demo a 5 out of 5.

Unreal Tournament 3

I just spent the last hour playing UT3 and I have to admit that I don't see anything new in this version that wasn't available back with the origianl Unreal Tourament...aside from the updated graphics and different maps.

I'm just plan, flat out not impressed. I was hoping that we'd be able to venture through some of the single player campaign to see what it had to offer. But we were forced to play against bots or multi-player online.

This will not be a game that I pickup anytime soon and I'm not really sure why anyone else would because they already have the same game if the own UT, UT 2003 or 2004.

The developers failed to see why it would be important to offer something new (like the single player campaing) because they rightfully think that UT will sell itself.

I only recommend this game to any online FPS or UT fan. Other then that, there is nothing new to be expected from this game.

I rate this demo a 2 out of 5.

Hellgate: London

I'm not really sure where to begin here....

I really dislike the FPS aspect of this game. It moves slugish and the fact that I never seem to have to reload my weapon is very annoying. How in the hell do you go about firing off rounds and never have to reload? That doesn't make any sense to me...

The graphics are nothing better then what has been out for the past 2-3 years. So I can't complain in this department of the game.

The voice acting was poor, at best. The quests/missions are rather dull and they don't inspire me at all.

I wasn't expecting a "Diablo 3" type game like many people where, but I was hoping for something entertaining. The FPS aspect of this game needs to be discarded. It doesn't do the game any justice. This is basically a hack and slash game (simiilar to Diablo/Titan Quest) and it should be left as such. Any aspect of this game that doesn't deal directly with the hack and slash part are poorly implimented and should be removed.

I can't even bring myself to play through this whole demo because of the poor game design. Who designs these kind of games without doing the proper research and testing? Eh...I'm done. This type of gameplay is dull and not entertaining. I don't see how anyone would pay for the extra "benefits" that will be offered....gross.

I only recommened this demo to anyone that is a huge hack and slash fan. I would not recommened this game to a FPS fan.

I rate this demo a 1.5 out of 5.

Aweek or twoback I had compiled a list of games that I own that I haven't beat, here in my blogs, and Freelancer was one of the games on that list. However, the game keeps freezing up on the Kyoto Base and I cannot progress any further in the game. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling and that didn't help.

Seems I'm stuck and I cannot get any further....pitty, if you ask me. This is one hell of a game.

I suppose I'm just going to have to chalk this game up as beaten and move on to another game on my list.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how to possibly fix this problem, please feel free to let me know. Thanks.

Alright, here are the facts:

My birthday is this month, on the 25th. I already told my wife what I want for my birthday - what I want is nothing (I don't want her to buy me anything, that is) and I want to do nothing; no surprise party, dinner with friends, dinner and a movie...I want to stay home and relax. Seeing as this will be my last birthday that I will have the benefit of being left alone because if everything goes well, I will be a father around April next year!

Here's the thing....I know a lot of good games are coming out by the end of the year and I don't really want to spend/splurg the money on a game, but I think I deserve to buy myself a small present.

So, with that in mind - what game should I go for?

I like RPGs, FPS, RTS are alright, action type games are fun and I get my fix on thinking games from Sudoku, space sims are fun (I've got Freelancer, Dark Star One and Nexus: The Jupiter Incident), TBS (turn based stratagy games) are fun - I've got Civ IV and Gal. Civ. II: Dread Lords.

If anyone reads this, perhaps take a peak through my collection and see if you can suggest something (old, new or coming out soon). I am not interested in the Orange Box - I have no need to waste money on a marketing ploy for games I don't care about - I'm just waiting for Episode 2 to drop in price.

Right now I'm leaning towards Crysis, GoW (PC), Hellgate (maybe...not a game that's really sparked my interest yet), Kane & Lynch, The Witcher....any other suggestions?

I'm sure by now everyone has been aware of how GS's website was updating levels and I have to say that I'm rather annoyed from the final outcome.

Last week, towards the start (Monday or Tuesday) when the % stopped increasing, I was sitting on level 19 with 84.67%. I threw up a good number of posts, I participated in surveys and I wrote in my blog quite a bit. Granted that I don't post a lot compare to others out there, because I don't see the point in posting if you don't have anything good to add to the topic, but I don't see how I only moved about 14% by the time the problem with the levels was solved the other day.

I guess I just wanted to vent, even though I don't really even care about my level....I feel a bit better now, but I know for a fact that I should be into level 20. Oh well, life moves on. Just like I'm going to do by getting back to work.

I just recently downloaded the demo to The Settlers: Rise of an Empire and I got done playing through it the other night. So, I thought I would come on here and comment on it and let anyone that happens to pass by my profile see what I thought about it.

The game play felt slow and I wish there was a magic button to speed things up.

I felt there was a little too much to micro-manage for a game of this type. I wish a some of it could have been toned down a bit, but I just might feel this way because I only played through a demo of it for about 45-60 minutes. Perhaps I just need more time to get used to it all?

The graphics were pretty good - there were some scrolling issues (couldn't get the screen to scroll sometimes and it moves too slow for my taste). I didn't come across any bugs that I noticed...

The game seemed to run fairly well on my PC.

Overall, I figure I'd score it a 7.5. It's worth playing if you're looking for something to do with your spare time and you don't have any other games you feel like playing...though, I would personally pay a full $50 for it. I might grab a copy when the price drops to $20-25.

Ha! I just recently conqured a blue screen of death and now I'm back to my gaming. Stupid blue screen kept me off my computer for nearly 36 hours...but I was triumphant! Let it be known to my computer that no blue screen of death can keep me down for too long...hahahaha!

Time to rekindle my appreciation for Freelancer!

Now that I'm working on beating the games that I own before I run out to buy more or spend the money that I don't really have...I've turned back to playing Freelancer. Hot damn this game is fun!

I suppose this will be the game that I'll be playing the majority of my time, along with Gothic 3 and some Painkiller mixed in from time to time.

If anyone reads this and has any suggestions for any mods for Freelancer, I'd be interested in see what you have to say.