Well, as your friendly neighborhood RPG fanatic I can't allow today's news about Final Fantasy XIII, formerly a PS3 exclusive, now being slated for simultaneous release on the 360 pass without comment. I admit to feeling a bit of mixed feelings about this news. On the one hand, I am, of course, happy for anything that makes RPG games sell better because they have become, sadly, a dying breed the last three years. I'm not saying that they are completely gone, and that they won't experience a revival at some point, but the scarce and low-quality nature of most RPGs released this console generation has certainly been depressing for me. So therefore, I naturally support anything that will make a top-tier RPG manufacturer like Square Enix make more cash. They may not be everyone's favorite RPG maker, as the split between JRPG fans and WRPG fans remains rather pronounced and growing, but everyone needs to at least respect their place in the RPG universe. Sadly, this doesn't mean that I completely support how Final Fantasy XIII lost its exclusivity.



Currently, Final Fantasy XIII is scheduled for simultaneous release on both consoles in 2008. That very fact contains a hidden nugget of information that can't be overlooked. By having a simultaneous release on both consoles in 2008, it is extremely obvious that either the 360 version of the game has been in production for a very long time and Square Enix never bothered to tell either Sony or its own fans that it was working with Microsoft behind the scenes on this, or one of the two versions is going to be a junky port. Think about it for a moment. RPG development cycles are long and expensive. It is one of the reasons so few top tier RPG games are being made these days. If Square was planning on bringing this title to the 360, and 2008 is the release date for both versions, either it must have been working on the 360 version in secret for a very long time or one version is being developed in a hurry. Of course the other possible explanation is that neither version is going to be released in 2008 after all and Square Enix isn't bothering to let us know that the release of this top title is going to be pushed back. But assuming that it isn't the case, and they really do intend to release both versions in 2008, then one of my first two explanations must be true. This is very disappointing to me. I'm disappointed because Square let fans of their games believe it was a PS3 exclusive for a very long time after they knew it wasn't true. Some of us, me included, had Final Fantasy XIII as one of our prime reasons for buying the PS3 in the first place.



I am also disappointed because what they did can easily be described as mildly unethical. While I don't really have a favorite between the 360 and the PS3, loving them both for different reasons, I don't support deceit. If Square Enix really has been working on FFXIII for the 360 for many months now, then they have been deceiving Sony by letting Sony believe, and plan their business strategy around, FFXIII being one of their top-shelf exclusives. Don't get me wrong. My sympathy for Sony has very definite limits. They were arrogant in the last generation and to a lesser extent in this one, but I think folks may want to keep a close eye on Square as a company going forward and examine their statements rather closely. They definitely showed a very ruthless streak in how they played this one. What's that old saying? All's fair in love and war. And as we learned with Bioware selling out to EA, no company is really any different from any other. All the more reason to love the games and not the companies behind them.

During one of his debates with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama stated that at some point during every election year "silly season" begins. I've decided, for my own personal amusement and because some of these are just too obvious to be left unremarked upon and not pointed out, to compile a brief list of how you can recognize when "silly season" has begun.



You know Silly Season has begun when....... 1. The "Marriage Protection Amendment" is back in the news again. Here's President Bush talking about it on June 5th, 2006.. Ironically, I heard nothing about it in the year and a half following the 2006 elections. It's like the issue doesn't really matter to Republicans unless it's an election season and they can try and use it to try and get evangelicals to come out and vote for them.

Lo and behold, here's the issue being brought back, this last week. I'm sure the timing is a coincidence. I'm also quite positive that moral pillars like Larry Craig and David Vitter being among the bill's chief sponsors is hilarious. 2. Grover Norquist tastefully describes Barack Obama as John Kerry with a tan. Score one for racial sensitivity! The biggest news organization in the country refers to Obama's wife as, quote, his "baby mama". Score two for racial sensitivity. And, a fist pound for good luck between a husband and his wife is referred to as a, quote, "terrorist fist jab". Score three. 3. Politicians actively campaign against a particular bill and then try and take credit for it when it passes anyway. 4. Politicians spend millions of dollars that they don't have (always a good signal of their ability to manage the largest economy in the world) on negative attack ads against the opponent, and then ask their opponent to pay them back when they lose in return for their support. Hard to see how a couple with an estimated net worth in excess of $100 million dollars can ask people to help pay back their loans to themselves. Score one for chutzpah!

5. Hideously immoral and evil issues go unreported because there's another missing white girl who needs breathless 24 hours a day coverage. 6. The most important issue presently facing my country will receive two minutes of coverage per WEEK in the news over the course of the year to date. It's a good thing we don't have 150,000 troops in Iraq right now or else that might be a travesty. (How many missing girls are there to focus on? Sheesh...) 7. Budget crises will take a backseat to governors being caught in oh so tender moments with former Playboy bunnies while they're in the middle of going through a divorce. (Three cheers for the party of moral values!) 8. A man who claims to personally exorcise demons will be mentioned as a top-tier VP candidate. (I'm just wondering how that would look on a job resume. What job that you submit a resume for would you list "exorcist" as being among your qualifications?) If you're a superhero who can battle demons, shouldn't you be wearing funny tights and driving souped up cars around instead of sitting behind a desk all day? 9. Liberals will begin attacking each other. Seriously, it just wouldn't be the Democratic party that I know and love if we weren't busy eating our own young during election season instead of focusing on the Republicans. Ignore what I said yesterday about wagering on Obama to be the next president. We should never underestimate the ability of Democrats to snatch defeat from the gaping jaws of victory. 10. Democrats will cave in to a President with a job approval rating hovering around 25% because they don't want to look...weak. Once again, it wouldn't be the Democratic party if it didn't apply the bizzarro world thinking that the best way to look strong on national security issues is to back down from a weakened president and give the minority party 98% of what it wants. Despite my own political inclinations on the issues, I tried to bash both sides more or less equally but highly doubt that I was successful. Still, considering all of this was in the news in the last two days alone this is what military folks like to call a target rich environment.

Not sure how many of you out there are soccer/European football fans, but this move is one of the funniest and most clever ones I've seen in a while. And after you view that, don't forget to read my new Ninja Gaiden Sigma review. Have a great weekend all. Next up on the review slate docket is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

While I fully intend to continue reading and replying to comments left on my recent State of the Union address on the U.S. presidential race between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, I have a distinct desire to follow through on my promise to my readers to start moving my blog along a little faster. I also want to start justifying my recently awarded "Top 100 Reviewers" emblem on Gamespot. So, without further ado, here is my review for Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the PS3. As always, if you feel the review is well written even if you don't necessarily agree with the conclusions, please do me the courtesy of giving my review a recommendation/thumbs up at this link here. Edit: The fact that I did this review only a short time after one of the best reviewers on Gamespot, PAJ89, did his review of Ninja Gaiden 2 is a coincidence. Seriously.



Ninja Gaiden Sigma Review The Good: Terrific graphics supported by a silky smooth 60 frames per second. An incredible array of fighting moves and a good selection of weapons and styles to choose from. Beautiful environments. Great music. Lots of replay value. The Bad: Story is lackluster. Character development is non-existent. Voice acting is lame. Game difficulty is frustrating to the extreme. Collector's Edition is a rip-off. Ninja Gaiden Sigma was the first top tier exclusive title to come to the PS3 and remains, to this day, one of the most popular games on the platform. It was a huge disappointment to PS3 owners everywhere when Ninja Gaiden 2 was announced to be a 360 exclusive (though this author suspects the proper phrase is likely to end up being "a 360 timed exclusive" at some point). But was this game worth the hype and accolades that it deserved? I had the chance to sit down and play it recently and came away with decidedly mixed feelings. Time to go to the scorecards to see if the steak matches the sizzle. To begin with, I want to focus on the positive, and there is plenty of that to focus on. Ninja Gaiden Sigma is nothing if not an incredibly polished and well-finished title. This polish begins with the gameplay. If you can find them all, you'll be treated to nine different melee weapons and eight different projectile weapons. While there is some overlap between them, where a couple of weapons handle similarly and have very similar moves, there are enough differences that the gameplay has a significant amount of variety should the gamer choose to make use of it. Nearly all the melee weapons in the game can be powered up further by paying an in-game blacksmith to refine them. By "blacksmithing" your weapons, you unlock new moves that can only be utilized once the weapon is further powered up. This seems a bit counterintuitive at times. After all, how does smithing the sword better have any impact at all on Ryu Hyabusa's ability to swing it? It would impact how much damage the weapon does, but there is a definite logical flaw in the reasoning. Still, that is a minor point in the big scheme of things, which is that having a wide variety of weapons and the ability to power them up is never a bad thing. All the weapons and moves in the world wouldn't make for a good game if the frame rates didn't manage to keep up, and players will be happy to know that they manage beautifully. The game runs completely smoothly, without so much as a hiccup anywhere at all during the gameplay. In fact, the silky smooth nature of the moves is perhaps the best part of the game. Nor does this refer exclusively to the fighting moves. The platforming moves that you, as a ninja, can perform are equally flawless. Whether it is running up walls, along walls, or jumping along the heads of your enemies, this game captures the feel of being a ninja perfectly. The way the body motions are replicated on screen is seamless, but sadly, brutally challenging. Be prepared to die, and die often, while playing this game. This isn't a reflection on your skill as a video game player. Rather, this is a reflection on the fact that this is one of the hardest games in recent memory. This is the worst part of the game. It is unbelievably frustrating how hard this game is. Some reviews have made mention that the difficulty is a bit toned down from the first release of this game on the original Xbox, but this is more in the area of the placement of shops and save points than the actual difficulty of the environments or enemies. This game is just brutally difficult to the point it severely impacts how fun the game is to play. What's worse, it doesn't include the ability to stop in the middle of the action and load a recent save if you get off to a bad start. Rather, you need to either completely exit the game and restart or wait for the enemies to finish beating the snot out of you to reload. A sparse instruction manual that does not in any way show how to perform some of the more important moves in the game doesn't help the difficulty. Ironically, this very factor lends the game a lot of replay value. A lot of people will have more fun playing this game the second time through than they did the first. For those who either picked up the collector's edition copy of the game or have access to an Internet function and basic awareness of what a Google search is, you also play several levels as the beautiful, well-endowed fiend hunter Rachel. This makes the collector's edition, which costs $10 more, something of a ripoff since at that point the only "bonus" for the collector's edition is a behind the scenes how the game was made video, and that isn't really worth $10. Rachel's gameplay shows a similar polish to Ryu's, even if her basic modus operandi is somewhat different. Where Ryu handles like a cobra; lean, lethal and astonishingly fast, Rachel is more of a bear. She is slow, but her moves are extremely powerful and heavy hitting. The storyline explanation is that she has "fiend" blood in her that makes her extremely strong, but whatever the reason it is a very nice touch that, for once, the male protagonist in a game is the extremely fast but light hitting one whereas the female is the slow, front-lines bruiser. Sadly, or perhaps fortunately depending on your opinion on the subject, this break from tradition does not extend to Rachel's, ahem, "attributes" or attire. Rachel's body figure is tactfully described as "generous" and generously revealed as well. This is a nice lead into a discussion on the graphics of the game. To say that the graphics are pleasing is a bit of an understatement. While the game never reaches the visual splendor of, say, Heavenly Sword, it still manages to hold its own thanks in large part to the level design. The level design is expansive, so much so that you may have to be careful to jot just a couple of quick notes when you save for the night in case you forget what your ultimate destination and objective was when you pick the game back up the next day since the game doesn't give you a journal to reference. If there is a weakness with the level design it is with the repetitiveness of it. This is a weakness that actually overlaps the storyline. For a ninja, Ryu does remarkably little planning. You'll revisit several of the same environments multiple times because Ryu doesn't seem to have the first clue how to achieve his ultimate goals. He's like a force of nature, destroying all in his path, but with little in the way of direction. He knows what he wants to achieve (vaguely) but doesn't really map out how he's going to go about doing so. The cut scenes don't give a lot of clues either and so sometimes you're going to end up doing a lot of wandering around and pondering what exactly you're supposed to be accomplishing, where, and how to go about accomplishing it. Thinking and planning are not Ryu's strong points. And, as I've hinted previously, the storyline isn't this game's strongpoint either. "Tacked on" would be a kind way to phrase it. While, granted, a good and well fleshed out story isn't always the central focus of a game of this type, it often seems that Sigma's storyline exist just so some developer or programmer somewhere could check a box off on a list of their action items. This weakness extends to character development. To summarize: don't expect a lot. To elaborate: particularly for Ryu. In an ironic twist, Rachel's personality and motivations are explored in much more depth than Ryu's are and, in the process, she comes across as a much more likeable figure. The storyline isn't helped much by the sparse dialog and pathetic voice acting either. Have you ever watched an old martial arts movie where none of the actors speak English and their lips continue to move long after the voice over dubbing is finished reading the lines, thus providing very strong hints that it isn't the actual actors on the screen speaking? Sigma comes across that way. True, the lip-syncing is done better, but the actual voice acting itself is just plain bad. As in second-rate JRPG bad. Fortunately for Sigma, and anyone playing it, the in-game music makes up for what the voice acting lacks to some extent. The music always fits the mood and is generally high quality. So what's the verdict? Ninja Gaiden Sigma is a great game, but it is not a must-own for anyone who has a PS3. People who do not play action games on a regular basis will not like this game because of the difficulty level and will almost certainly not finish the game. The lack of a strong storyline to provide a hook, combined with the difficulty, will provide a big disincentive for casual action game fans to play it through until the end. True Score: 8.2

Update: Valid questions have been raising about the question order of the LA Times/Bloomberg poll that I site below. I'll let a professional explain the problem. Given that I'm the only person at Gamespot, that I know of at least, who blogs about politics on a regular basis, it makes sense that my first blog back after a long hiatus would be one discussing the political earthquakes that have taken place in the United States since I last had a political blog post up. Where to start? I think I'll start with the loser of the 2008 Democratic primary. I've made no secret of the fact that I am not a particularly big fan of Senator Hillary Clinton. I like her position on the policy issues facing the United States a lot more than I do Senator John McCain. Yet, despite this I would have probably had to drink heavily before casting a vote for her in the U.S. general election should she have managed to beat Senator Barack Obama in the Democratic primary.

Author's Note: I have a strong personal dislike of Hillary Clinton. This is about to be expressed. If any of my readers like her...well...sorry. Agree to disagree and all that. Specifically, I have always believed that she cared first and foremost about herself and her own personal power before any of the people she claimed to represent. I've always felt that she would say and do anything to be elected. To a certain extent, this is to be expected of a politician. If a politician doesn't get elected, they don't get paid. This creates a pretty strong incentive to lie if necessary to get elected. Among my blog readers, are there any who are willing to step up and say that if the difference between getting a high paying, glamorous job and being an unemployed loser was to lie they would you do so?

You don't have to say so if you don't like. I have a high opinion of my readers and their general moral center. But let's face it, if we were put in that position constantly and repeatedly 12 hours a day for eighteen months while running for office, we'd probably all tell a lie or two during that span. That having been said, while the Clintons, both Hillary and Bill, for all that I think they are incredibly talented, intelligent and, yes, charismatic people, I never really felt they were good people.

They still managed to surprise me in this campaign season though. If you had asked me two years ago if President Clinton would actively campaign on his wife's behalf by appealing to racist white folks in southern states - in effect mimicking the infamous "Southern Strategy" of appealing to racist white folks that Republicans have applied every election since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - I would have laughed in your face. Bill Clinton was often referred to as "the first black president" while he was in office because he was so close to that segment of the U.S. population. But there they both were. Winning at all costs. Nowhere is this better illustrated than on the night the final primary ballots were cast and Obama secured the nomination. Hillary Clinton did not concede graciously and congratulate Obama on breaking other barriers by becoming the first black man to be a major party's nominee for president. Instead, while her supporters chanted "Denver! Denver! Denver!" (A reference to their belief that Clinton should take her campaign all the way to the Democratic convention in August and argue that Obama should be disqualified) she said she was not making any decisions that night. Hubris. There was no "decision" to be made. She had lost. Period. The right thing to do was not to try and take away from Obama's historic accomplishment but instead to congratulate him and cede him his rightfully earned spotlight. She later conceded, but only after dozens of her own supporters in Congress and the Senate met with her privately and said they'd pull their support if she went forward. So, this time the Clintons who won at all costs ended up losing. This, of course, brings me back to my original point. A woman ran to become President of the United States and won eighteen million votes in a Democratic primary and lost! Think about that for a moment. Eighteen million votes is more than the number cast for any candidate for the presidency in a primary election in the history of the United States and she still lost! Granted, this particular primary was the most lengthy and sharply contested in U.S. history, but eighteen million votes is an astonishing number. Primaries are when only the most politically active bother to pay attention. I've always viewed them as a stain on my country's electoral system because, inevitably, it means that the extremists on both the right and the left of the political spectrum nominate the two candidates who campaign in the general election. This means we inevitably end up with polarizing general elections where both camps accuse the other of being outside of the American mainstream, with some truth in both views. But this year so many Americans are paying attention and coming out to vote during the primary season that the losing candidate won eighteen million votes. That's incredible and historic. None of you know how painful this is for me to say this. Actually, maybe a couple of you do realize it. Senator Clinton ran a historic, impressive and groundbreaking campaign. The first woman president of the U.S., while it won't be Clinton, should write her a personal letter of thanks when she wins the election. Senator Clinton has made it possible for a woman to become president in this country. It will happen in my lifetime. I guarantee it. This brings us to the winner of the Democratic primary. Ladies and Gentlemen, put your hands together. Stand up and shout. For the one. The only. The next president of the United States... Barack Obama. For my international readers, I'd like to try a little exercise. After the 2004 election when the Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry, was defeated by the incumbent George W. Bush (I refuse to call him "president"), how many of you would have believed it possible that four years later that same country would put forth, for the first time in its history, a black man as a major party candidate for the presidency? Anyone who said yes is a liar. None of you believed this possible. ChiliDragon once asked me how it was possible that the same country who gave Bill Clinton two terms in office could turn around and give George W. Bush two terms in office. She, correctly, pointed out that policy wise these two are as similar as Reed Richards and Dr. Doom. Okay, so maybe those weren't her exact words, but it's a lot more interesting metaphor than the one she selected to describe the apparent case of multiple personality disorder that my country suffers from. Well, I explained to her that the history of U.S. politics is very much like the pendulum of one of those grandfather clocks. Since a large portion of the U.S. electorate really just wants to be left alone to do whatever they want without interference, the only time they really start paying attention is when they see something that seriously ticks them off, or their standard of living really starts being impacted. Specifically, U.S. history is riddled with examples of people on one side of our political spectrum or another overreaching and provoking a backlash. The corporate excesses and corruption of the 1920's and early 1930's, which led in large part to the Great Depression, caused the country to elect a Congress and a President (FDR) who passed "Great Society Programs" Medicare and Social Security that persist - despite all Republican efforts - to this day. The "free love and drug abuse" era of the 1960's, not to mention the Civil Rights Act of 1964, led to a backlash that has seen only two Democrats elected to the presidency since. I could go on but a doomed desire for brevity forbids it. The point is that Republicans have overreached the last eight years. George W. Bush in 2000 ran as a moderate for those of you who either don't remember or weren't really paying attention at the time. His campaign can be accurately summed up in two short words. "Compassionate Conservative". Bush was supposed to be a new kind of conservative from what liberals in this country referred to as people who lacked a heart and didn't care less about the concerns of people whose annual income was less than six or seven figures. Once he got into office however, Bush has proceeded to govern from the extreme right wing, listening primary to his very, very conservative evangelical base and big corporations and nobody else. Now the backlash has begun. That is why two different major pollsters show Senator Obama with an incredible double digit lead over Senator McCain. Does this mean that an Obama presidency is assured? Of course not. But if you were laying a wager in Las Vegas right now and were given even money on who would be the next president of the U.S., you would be a fool to wager on McCain. So, is a rather hastily thrown together and haphazardly supported theory on "backlash" the only reason that Obama is winning? No. While it helps, it is hardly the whole story. A larger part of the story boils down to the candidates themselves. Right now, all available evidence points to the fact that one is just, overall, light years better as a campaigner than the other. Witness two different speeches on the night that Obama clinched the Democratic nomination. Senator Obama's to a stadium packed with many thousands of people of all different ages and ethnic backgrounds here. Senator McCain's in front of a weird green backdrop where a 71 year old man appears to be, incredibly, the oldest man in the room out of a couple of hundred people here. This is a speech that even McCain's fellow Republicans thought was awful. But the differences go beyond just one's ability to give a helluva a lot better speech than the other can. It also boils down to how their supporters feel about their candidate. It is also in the enthusiasm gap. Senator McCain has, in my opinion, an undeserved reputation as a "straight talker" who bucks his party when it is the right thing to do. (That's a brutal video. Worth the watching.) He even flirted with the possibility of being Senator John Kerry's Vice President choice in 2004 and, if reports are to be believed, did not vote for Bush in 2004. These things make a large number of conservatives in the U.S. dislike and distrust him. They feel that he isn't sufficiently "conservative" enough for them even though McCain actually voted in nearly lockstep with President Bush during these last eight years. 95% of the time he voted with the other Republicans of his party. Nevertheless, his handful of high profile departures give him his "maverick" reputation that leads to conservatives disliking him.

This dislike is compounded by the fact that, according to polls, a large number of his supporters don't think he is going to win. Ironically, this reputation which causes the media in the U.S. to ignore the various flip-flops shown in the video I linked to above is both his greatest strength and weakness. If he didn't have that reputation, he wouldn't get a lot of the favorable coverage that he gets, but he'd also probably be doing better with conservative voters in the U.S. than he presently is doing. Senator Obama on the other hand, has perhaps the most energized supporters in decades. In the most recent national poll fully half of Obama's supporters said they were "very enthusiastic" about their candidate and over eighty percent are either "enthusiastic" or "very enthusiastic". This advantage shows up in more than just polls. It shows up in the form of people donating money to support the campaign or coming out to volunteer, or convincing their neighbors. Ironically, it also shows up in one other place that would not be expected: the "Cool" factor. Right now, it is considered "cool" to be a Democrat and a supporter of Senator Obama. He's the young, attractive, cool candidate. Senator McCain on the other hand, as you saw in that video above of him giving a speech with the green background, is starting to bear a startling resemblance to Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies. So add it all up! It is too early to say for certain. After all, Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee in 1988, had a double digit lead in June when he was running against George W. Bush's father and ended up losing. So liberals in the U.S. - and the rest of the world - cannot rest easy. But the smart money right now is that Barack Obama is the next President of the United States.

Hey folks, Just a short blog post to let everyone know that yes, ChiliDragon and I are indeed still alive. Moving takes a whole bunch of time and effort. Sometimes it is a little difficult to believe just how much stuff a couple can accumulate together. But the primary reason why you haven't seen me around much? No internet access from home. I expect to have that remedied by early next week at the latest, so expect to see me back to my usual self: posting new blogs of my own and responding to the high quality blogs posted by others. Also... I have been awarded the "Top 100 Reviewer" emblem by Gamespot. Yay! I'm very excited about this and think I will celebrate the honor by writing a couple of reviews of new games soon. So, I guess in summary, expect more of my usual activity level by the middle of next week. Jim

Well, it is now official. ChiliDragon and I have bought our first new house together. And, since pictures are worth quite a few words (or so I'm told) I think I'll take it easy on all of my loyal and wonderful readers and show a few rather than giving tortured descriptions. It should be noted that all the furniture and other stuff in these pictures belongs to the people we just bought the house from so will be taken with them when they leave. (Except for the fridge and window coverings, which were included with the house.) Anyone interested in viewing the full sized pictures (which allow you to see more detail) can click on the images tab in my profile. They're stored in an album titled New House. This is the view from across the street. It has some curb appeal methinks. This is what you see as you walk up to the front door. Notice the nice covered front patio? I'll be drinking beer out there. This is a view of the front entryway. The stairway leads up to the bonus room. (More on this later.) The view when you first walk in the front door. Another angle showing the living room along with the entrance to the hallway leading to the bedrooms. I can't get over just how much I love those tall ceilings. It makes everything feel so open and airy. This shows the location of the dining area and the kitchen, adjacent to that living room you just looked at. The sliding glass door leading out to the covered back patio behind the house is a sweet bonus. It lets so much natural light in. A closeup of the kitchen. I particularly like the granite counter tops. It's not shown in the picture, but to the left of the kitchen leads into the laundry room and the over sized three car garage. This is the first room on the right of that hallway off of the living room that I showed earlier. We'll probably be painting and redecorating this room. Kid/guest bathroom. Nice floors. Next bedroom down. First look at the master bedroom. I can't get over how cool the hardwood floors throughout most of the house are. I'm not a big fan of this picture. It doesn't really do a good job of showing how big this room is. This is the first look at the master bathroom. Jacuzzi tub and one walk-in closet apiece for Chili and I so I can have my manly stuff on one side and she can have her girly junk on the other. A view of the bathroom from inside. You can see the door. The toilet is behind you but I'll skip showing you that. Once again, dual vanities so I can have my manly stuff in one and Chili can keep her girly junk in the other. Heading back into the main entryway and up that staircase you saw earlier, this is the bonus room upstairs. Large. You can see the half-bathroom, the closet and the door leading back downstairs here. I like this picture because it gives a good sense of scale. There are some pictures of the back and side yard in the album under my images tab, but since you all have been so patient with me I'll skip forcing you to look any further here and just conclude this little pictorial tour. Chili and I are absolutely thrilled. We cannot wait to move in and get our stuff all set up. Frankly, I'm a little overwhelmed with all of this and just a touch twitchy at the thought that if the Lakers win through into the NBA finals then I might, just might be able to watch the last couple of games in our new house.

Well... I have a house search update for ChiliDragon and I. It may not be that important to everyone else, but it is hugely important to use. We abandoned the house we were previously considering in the middle of the negotiating process because we found a much better house that we loved far more. Imagine finding a house that looked almost exactly like Nicole Kidman does today. Now imagine finding a house that looks exactly like Jessica Alba does today. Or, if you prefer, how Nicole Kidman looked fifteen years ago. This new house that we're bidding on is Nicole Kidman 15 years ago. The previous house we were bidding on was Nicole Kidman today. She's still sexy, but not the force of nature that she once was where sex appeal is concerned. I'll pause for a minute to allow all my male and lesbian/bisexual female readers to enjoy that imagery... The new house we're looking at is 2327 square feet, less than three years old, and has the following incredible features... Very popular & open floor plan with large upper bonus room. Very high ceilings. Hardwood floors throughout entire main level area. Large kitchen with breakfast bar, granite counters, huge pantry, raised panel alder cabinets & stainless appliances with gas range. Master suite has coffered ceiling, his & hers walk-in closets, dual vanities & jetted tub. Large covered patio with stub for BBQ. Bonus room includes 1/2 bath plus closet. Oversized three and a half car garage. Water softener. Security system. Excellent location close to shopping. Right now, the seller and us are $8500 apart on the price. One of the issues is that the seller listed the house at what they wanted the final price to be. They didn't want to bother with the whole negotiating thing. Instead, they looked around at all the houses in the neighborhood to see what they were listed at, adjusted for interior upgrades, and then set the house list price at what they wanted to sell it at. In other words, they listed it at what they expected their best and final offer to be. As a negotiating strategy this is pure idiocy. Nobody pays full price on a house, particularly in today's housing market. So far, I've managed to get them to drop the house $9500 dollars and throw in a new refrigerator and window coverings for the entire house, along with an offer to paint two of the rooms. In the meantime, I've come up $12,000 from my initial offer. (Which I admit was an absurd lowball offer.) Now comes the tricky part. Somewhere between the $8500 that separates our two offers will be the final end price of this house. We know this, and the seller knows this. One thing that I'm not sure the seller knows is that I, having done my research on other houses in the neighborhood, fully realize that the house was without question worth their listing price point. If I had paid what they asked for without taking a penny off in negotiations I'd have gotten a good deal. So now what? How much more can I squeeze out of these people? Do I offer to split the difference and raise my offer $4250? My guess is that if I do that, they're going to counter with a higher offer. They know that their house is worth more than I am offering, but on the other hand, they're at least a little scared that I am going to walk away from them. Do they really want to lose a potential buyer for $4250? On the other hand, they probably at least suspect that I'm unlikely to walk away for a thousand or two difference in price. My ultimate guess is that I can squeeze roughly another $1500 out of these folks. I'm thinking about raising my offer $7000 and then outright stating that they can either accept my offer or wait and hope that another buyer comes along, then gambling that they're not willing to lose a sale for a measly $1500. (I know in video game terms that's a lot, but in terms of a new house isn't that much.) Thoughts? (Oh...and time is of the essence with these thoughts.)

Good day everyone and welcome to the "J" Spot where I, Jim, have a thrilling new blog ready for today. The topic? Sex! Sex, sex, sex! Author's Note: As usual, it is never my intent to specifically offend anyone with any blog under the category of "humor".

So, I was having a bit of a slow work day today and decided to wander around online and see what I could find. As you may know, randomly searching for entertainment online is approximately 95% likely to turn up something sexually related...and hilarious. And so it is with great pride that I present The Holy Guide to Coital Positions. Here's a short extract to give folks a good...feel...for the guidelines. [Quote="The Holy Catholic Church"]The handbooks listed recommended penance of bread, water, and abstinence for exotic congress. A consensus on the punishments included the following: Dorsal sex (woman on top): three years Lateral, seated, standing: 40 days Coitus retro - rear entry: 40 days Mutual masturbation 30 days Inter-femural sex - ejaculation between the legs: 40 days Coitus in terga - anal sex: three years (with an adult); two years (with a boy); seven years (habitual); 10 years (with a cleric)

Later on tonight I'm going to try and calculate just how many days I need to restrict myself to what I have decided to call "The Prison Diet" of bread, water and no sex if I adhere to my own church's previous guidelines. I'm placing the over-under on approximately 2100 years.

Setting aside the humorous look at this obviously outdated practice of trying to legislate "exotic" sexual positions, one has to consider what other restrictions on "exotic" sexual activities will one day be considered passe. As a secondary thought, one has to wonder when exactly the idea that sexual education should be prohibited in U.S. public schools because "if you talk about sex with kids they'll get ideas and start fornicating like rabbits on crack" replaced codification attempts ("just don't do it period").

A couple last little wisecracks and then I'll wrap this up.

Masturbation was so common that it only incurred a 10-day penalty for men and 30 days for monks, but women who used "erotic devices" did penance for one year.The Aforementioned Article

In my mind this raises three very important questions: 1. How much fun was it to be a priest listening to other peoples' confessions during this time period? It would be like verbal pornography or phone sex. 2. If knowledge of all of this wasn't being gathered via confessions, then how did the church discover how common the practice was? 3. Do you think that there existed a central filing system to statistically calculate the occurrences? And of course there is this gem.. [Quote="The Foreplay Gestapo"] sex preceded by kissing and fondling were almost as bad as the previously mentioned positions.

I'd hate to be one of Pierre de La Padule's lovers.

Hey folks. It has been a while since I submitted a game review. Grand Theft Auto is a hyped enough game that a review after playing it feels almost mandatory for me and, since I had strong opinions on the game after I played it, I decided to throw one together. It may be a bit short and rushed, but I feel that I covered most of the required pieces of the review. As always, if you like the review (even if you don't agree with it fully) please give me a recommendation/thumbs up below. The Good: Great main protagonist. Ability to make RPG style decisions to kill or spare significant characters in the game a step forward for the franchise. Good compromise on graphics between looking too real vs. too cartoonish. Cast of characters in the game very lifelike. Usual GTA series humor still fresh. Plenty of side-activities to do like play on the Internet or watch TV. Promise of additional downloadable content in the future with the 360 version. Few bugs and glitches for a game of this size and scope. The Bad: Numerous things included in previous GTA games stripped out of this one. City can be a little monotonous. Not enough mission variety. In-game radio music pretty bad on average. Not enough checkpoints in long missions. Grand Theft Auto IV has been the most anticipated game since Halo 3, and has already shattered sales records for the industry. But does it fully deserve the hype and critical acclaim that it has gotten so far? Let's go to the score cards and see how the latest entry in one of gaming's most beloved franchises fairs with its first sojourn onto current generation platforms. The first thing that a person is likely to notice with the game is the innovative way that the game starts. Unlike in every other game to come out in recent years, where you're taking to a menu screen and presented with your standard set of options (New Game, Load Game, Options, etc.) GTAIV just starts right into the main campaign after loading. This is a nice touch as it gets you right into the action and sets the tone for full immersion to follow. Immersion is helped by just how developed the city is. Missing are the large amounts of empty countryside featured in San Andreas, but in its place is a city that feels just like a true metropolis: crowded, loud and dirty. The game sets a perfect balance between improving the graphics (a long-term knock on the GTA franchise) without losing the cartoon-like feel that makes the games so funny. This ability to strike just the right note between giving the game a darker, more realistic feel without losing the over the top gratuitous violence, humor and parody of society that so many people love about the series is perhaps the greatest achievement of the game. You play the role of Niko Bellic, an immigrant to the U.S. from Serbia. As Niko, you assume the role of a war-veteran who has been horribly scarred by some of the things that you have seen and done in your life. You're coming to the U.S. looking for a fresh start. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a GTA game if you actually found one, settled in and got a legal job a wife, two kids and a puppy. You quickly find yourself embroiled in your cousin's problems with the local organized crime bosses. The storyline of the game features the usual escalating types of criminal activity that has been in previous games. You start out working for a really small-time crime boss and gradually work your way up the food chain as your rep spreads. Missing from the usual GTA progression, however, is you becoming your own boss. Throughout the game you never really start becoming a crime boss in your own right. You're always working for someone else. Some people will find this a bit disappointing because at times it can feel like you're never really getting anywhere. This feeling is accentuated by your inability to either buy up businesses and invest in them, or to capture enemy turf as you were able to do in previous GTA games like Vice City and San Andreas. This inability feels like a step backwards for the franchise. It is partially explained by Niko's personality.

Niko portrays himself as a mercenary for hire, willing to do any job if the pay is right. Towards this end, he's certainly a much more impressive combatant than previous GTA protagonists. He can take cover behind objects. If you're running in a direction and press the cover button, he'll dive towards the nearest safe spot. He handles smoothly and fluidly and his shooting skills, which include the ability to lock onto a target and fire with extreme accuracy sometimes feel just a bit unfair. So while he is well suited to being a mercenary, it would be nice if he had a bit more ambition of his own.

Certainly, being able to gradually take over the criminal underworld like you have been able to do in previous games would have helped with mission variety. While there are several exotic type of missions, such as when you rob a bank or steal a helicopter to later use in another mission, the vast majority of missions fall into a limited type of categories: chase/follow someone, or hunt and kill someone. Breaking up the monotony is the usual side-quests available in most GTA games. You can do racing missions, vigilante missions and go on dates just like in a couple of the previous games. While these are starting to feel a bit stale to a long time fan of the series like myself who is ready for something new, they are by now means mandatory and their inclusion does add a bit of much needed variety if you do one from time to time. In the case of the dating, there are real and tangible benefits to keeping and maintaining girlfriends or other relationships. One girlfriend is a lawyer who will clear your wanted level if you call her on your cell phone. Another is a nurse who can give you a health boost. One of your other friends is a gun dealer who can get you discounted firearms if you keep him happy. These bonuses make the game easier, but you don't have to do them if you don't want to. Their absence after being included in previous games would have been noticed though. Another of the things that was present in previous titles but was noticeably absent from this one is the ability to import your own music into the game and play it on the radio. This was particularly aggravating for me personally because with a couple of rare exceptions, I didn't like any of the radio music that was included. After the first few hours trying to find a radio station I liked, the first thing I did whenever I got into a car was to make sure that the radio station was turned off. The music was distracting and often glaringly at odds with the feel of the rest of the game. Other features left out that were in San Andreas are the ability to change your physical conditioning by getting either fatter or more muscular, to learn new combat moves at your local dojo or to really customize your look with new haircuts or facial hair. Each of these missing elements, by itself, is very minor. However when you add them all together it sometimes feels like the series took a step backwards. Despite some of the faults however, the game managed to hit plenty of high notes and include some new things that modernize the franchise. Among the tools now at your disposal that were not there before are an expanded use of your cell phone and the Internet. Both of these tools are incorporated seamlessly into the game. Rockstar has done a particularly good job in this area. Just as in modern offline life it is practically impossible to live without these devices, the game makes them a mandatory part of many missions and the storyline in a very believable way. Summary: Grand Theft Auto IV is a good enough game that anyone who buys it looking to enjoy a Grand Theft Auto title will not be disappointed. The series has not yet reached the cash-in stage as this title shows a great deal of polish, attention to detail and vibrancy. The storyline and characters will keep you hooked. The setting is immersive and the action every bit as over the top as you'd hope for. While the game is missing a few things that it really would have benefited from having, it is an impressive enough achievement that it will be a valuable and extensively played addition to nearly every 360 or PS3 library. True Score: 8.3