Sometimes it's fun to use the same word over and over again, until it loses all it's meaning. This one goes out to my new pet peeve. It's something that I've held my tongue on for a long time, but now, thanks to a video that I stumbled upon on YouTube, I just gotta speak out. See, it has come to my attention that there is a considerable portion of both the general gaming population and those sacred figures of authority we call reviewers that seem to have one common bone to pick with seemingly every single sports title that is released; inevitably someone will always raise the point that the experience that comes across in the game is not quite like doing it in real life. To this I say: "DUH!!!!" I don't want to know what it's like to hit a Randy Johnson fastball on real life, I just want to hit home runs by the bucketful. I don't care if the O-line doesn't block down like they should, just give me some sort of feasible pocket protection and I'm good. If you want realism, put down the controller and, gasp, go outside! Now, I'm not, by any means, insinuating that gamers are lazy, but I mean, I don't pop in Madden '09 to watch the offensive line block, know what I mean? Apparently though, some people do just that. I'm not in the business of calling people out here, so I'll give the name dropping the ol' heave-ho, (that, and I can't remember the cat's name anyway), but there is a video, a whole series actually, on YouTube on why Madden sucks. Now I'll admit that it's not without it's short comings, but come on, who blocks who when and how, is not a real concern to me. A football purist, perhaps, but to me, as long as I can off set the shatty blocking at times, with a nice little scamper, I'm cool. Again, if you want a real true-to-life experience,hit up your local park and rec department and get on a team. The same goes for baseball. I don't care if MLB 2K9 is too easy to pick up and play. To me, that's a good thing. I mean, if I wanted to strike out every time, I'd go to the bars. I think that we as a gaming nation, reviewers and players alike, just need to cut the sports titles some slack. No one needles Halo or Gears of War for not being realistic, (Ah, I can hear it now: "That's not how a locust would really attack!"), and yes, I know that they're fiction from the word go. Or I suppose, if we all still want to cry about a center missing his block or a .456 batting average, then it's STILL always fun to stay at the YMCA.

A man by the name of Bob Dylan, (perhaps you've heard of him, oh neat-o reader?), once penned a lovely song that went by the title, "The Times They Are A-Changin'". (Uncle Bobby was such a rebel, that he thumbed his nose at grammatical correctness, forsaking the "-ing" ending in favor of the more hip "-in'".) Surprisingly enough it was about the times and how they are a-changin' right before our very eyes. When I first heard the song I dismissed it as mere '60s hippy crap, after all I was a much younger cat back then, (and for the sake of my pride we'll leave it at that), and I was certain that either A). my times would never be a-changin' or 2). even if they did decide to a-change, I'd be too busy being too cool for this planet, that I wouldn't even care or notice, for that matter. Then I had kids and I realized, brazen reader, that not only do the times a-change, but they do it with a quickness. My oldest son turned two yesterday and I really wasn't ready for it. Anyone with kids can feel me on that one. I mean, on one hand, of course, you want them to grow up and get their dream on. You want to play the role of the supportive parent, rising and falling with them at every turn. But on that ever present other hand, you want them to stay little forever. You want them to always need you, (because you will always need them), and the thought of that first time they look at you with that "you're embarassing me" look on their face, you know that a peice of you will be a-changed forever. But what can you do? They have to grow up, and you have to let them. It's all a part of life, like it or lump it. It just kind of blindsided me, I guess. But then again, not really. I mean, after all, my wife and I spent he last coupke of weeks reminding him, (and perhaps, preparing ourselves), that he was going to be two pretty soon. And then all of a sudden he was. I guess Bob Dylan was right when he also said that you learn how to swim or you sink like a stone. One thing is for true, I better get my happy rear-end into some swimming lessons,

I'm stting here today, oh savvy reader, munching away happily on pizza rolls and ranch dressing, (the former dipped in the latter, not seperately. That would be weird.), and thinking to myself that I find it kinda odd that on a site solely dedicated to all things video game I've yet to offer in my lavish two cents. Well, companion reader, today I break my silence and deliver my not-even-close-to-anticipated-or-even-asked-for-for-that-matter stance on video games: I think they're great. Wow, all that pomp and so little circumstance, right? How dissappointing. Perhaps, I should elaborate a bit, eh? For example, I'm firmly convinced that the developers at EA Sports, in a stroke of sheer marketing genius, have come up with a super addicting drug, (heroin, eat your heart out), processed into a fine, nearly invisible powder that can be absorbed through the skin, and coated every single copy of Madden NFL '09 for the 360, and unleashed them upon an unsuspecting public. Or at the very least, me. There's no other way to explain how a game that can be so frustrating at times, can also have me by the short and curlies so completely that feel bad when I'm not devoting every free second of the day to yelling at the top of my luings, "HE'S WIDE @$@$%^@ OPEN!!!!!!! HOW THE *&^%$#$ DOES HE NOT CATCH THAT?!?!?!?!?!?!? %$%@#&^ THIS GAME>!!!!!!!!" , and then slamming new controller number five into about seven hundred and fifteen peices, only to return ten minutes later with new controller umber six. Don't we play games to relax? Ah but alas, casual reader, I can see by Mickey's hands that my lunch is nearly over, so i'll have to stop here. Until next time..........

Alas, constant reader, even your humble narrator is not, it seems, above a typo here or there. I'm usually quite dilligent when it comes to the writing of things and the proofreading of stuff, and yet there it is, in big yellow letters: 'let's hear ot for british spelling'. Sigh, 'ot'? What the hell is 'ot'? Obiviously, oh well dressed reader, 'ot' was supposed to be 'it'. That, I guess, is what I get when I fly in the face of the corporate gods and spend my work time blogging instead of working. Or maybe I just need to swallow my pride and learn to use spell check.

Today, I decided to write my entire entry using British spelling. Or at least, as much British spelling as I know. It's not my favourite, (Ha! See?!), form of spelling, to be sure, but in truth, faithful reader, I've really got nothing else to write about. I've tried, like. several times to write something, but each time I get about halfway and realise that I have a page half filled with crap. This one is probably not going to be any different. but hey, can't blame a bloke for trying, eh? Normally I'd spend time talking about my kids and family, but at this point, I just want to post SOMETHING. So I decided that I'd colour my blog, limey brit style. Now the hardest part is trying to find instances where can actually use the aforementioned Britsh style spelling. It's kinda hard, though. Mostly I just find myself rambling on about nothing, (which is really no different than any other time I'd be writing). I suppose I could list a buncha British style words, (theatre, word that have an 's' where a yank would put a 'z' or some words that have that unneccesary 'u' in them), but that's just not fun. Oh well, I suppose I'm allowed to have an off entry here or there.

Today's entry is written with somewhat of a heavy heart. dear reader. My kids are growing up. At first I thought this was a wonderful thing, (and, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, of course it is), growing up meant baseball games and camping trips and various other sorts of father-sons things. Growing up meant the first day of school and learning to ride a bike and then eventually (read:when they are thirty or the uncrashable car has been invented, whichever happens first), learning to drive. Growing up meant girls, "the talk", and then, far, far, far, far, FAR down the road, dating. But now, with a simple act of technology, that has all changed. Yesterday my wife sent me a picture message of my too-soon-to-be-two-year-old son sitting on the potty. Apparently, he's ready to start potty training. At first I was excited, after all potty training can only be a good thing since it means less time time spent wrist deep in, ahem, business, asking a smiling, laughing little boy what the heck he just ate and making sure that I'm clear of the line of fire, if you catch my drift. But then I realized, as I was staring at that picture that potty training also meant that he really was growing up. Couple that in with the fact that my eight-month-old son is practically walking and I figured out tat it won't be long before I have to pretend that I remember what an acute angle is and where Greece is on a map, while simultaneously trying to find a place to hide the car keys. I have already had plenty of moments where I've realized that I have become my dad, (which is in NO way a bad thing), I'm just not prepared to have to be THEIR dad. Until very recently, I looked at being a parentof two little babies as being more like a caretaker. All I had to do was keep them fed and clean. Not too hard, really. But now, everything has changed. I'm really a parent now, (not that i wasn't before). I have to make decision that affect them everyday and they let me know it. My oldest is on this current kick where he will only drink out of a certain cup at a certain time, and my youngest, well, he's just a handful by himself. He tries so hard to be like his older brother in every way, which keeps both me and my wife on our toes. The point, constant reader, in spite of my belly aching about my kids growing older is, that while it might be the happiest sad thing that has ever happened to me, it's also something that i wouldn't miss for the world.

I was going to cheat on this and use that trick that we all learned in high school and change the font size in order to make it look like this was way longer than it really was, but then I remembered that this is me and not do I like to use the hell out of some parenthesis, but I also possess the uncanny ability to ramble on and on and on. Seemingly forever. That's why blogs are great, because I can sit here and talk on and on and feel self important enough to think that somewhere out there in cyber-space there is someone bored enough to actually give a rip about what the hell I think about.....stuff. The truth is, I myself find it curious why ANYBODY would care about what ANYONE would think about whatever it is they're writing about. Perhaps it's an argumentative thing. For this example we'll use ChubbyWubby66, (a completely made up name, though i firmly believe that somewhere out there there really is a ChubbyWubby66....in fact if there's not, then I'm going to totally take it.). Anyway, so ChubbyWubby66 is just sitting there surfing the 'net, you know, bidding on stuff, checking e-mail, updating their personal space pages;all the normal things that you do when you're at work. So in the midst of waiting to see if they won that cool combination dvd player/waffle iron, ChbbyWubby66 happens upon a blog written by Eggsersizer21, (another sweet, possibly untaken 'Net handle.). Now, it seems as though there was a big news story about ol' man McDougal's Crispy Buns Bakery burning down to the ground, (in what kind of time or town this would actually be news in is up to you to decide.), and everyone is really bummed. Everyone that is, accept for Eggsersizer21. They think that ol' man McDougal was actually in debt up to his quaint country overalls to the local mafia and thus burned his bakery down to collect the insurance money and they tell the world so on their blog page. ChubbyWuuby66 reads it and is immediately angered. So ChubbyWubby66 writes a scathing reply post and really sticks it to the Eggsersizer. Feeling that ol' man McDougal has been vindicated, ChubbyWubby66 can now return to work happily-and fulfilled. What ever the reason, blogs are as big a part of of culture now as bad reality tv and certain coffee shops spreading like plague. (There are literally town in my city right down the block from each other.) And now, the worst part is, I've entered the stream.