Over the last while, probably a few years, me and my brothers have been working on our basement to make it the ultimate chill out area for us and our friends. it's finally complete, and i'll tell you guys about it. it's a fair sized room, i don't know the dimensions, but it's in the shape of a rectangle with a little alcove on one side. on the far left side of the room, we have a full-size billiards table, and a nice one at that. beside the billiards table is a darts board, and below the darts board is a shelf that drinks and food can be placed on. on the right side of the room, there are two couches and a lazy-boy type chair pointed at a 32" flat screen tv. beside the couches further right is a drum set, two electric guitarrs, a bass guitarr, and a banjo. (this is why i've never played rock band/ guitarr hero) we have surround sound and a great dvd player for the tv. in the alcove, which is a bit right of the tv is my gaming computer, which can be hooked up to the tv fairly easily, so that we can play games on the big screen, and the cord from my keyboard reaches to the couch, so i put the keyboard and mouse on a plank of wood just the right size, place that on my lap, and i have the ultimate gaming controller.

this is where me and my friends come to chill on fridays and some saturdays, have a few drinks, watch a movie, shoot some pool, a great way to unwind after a week at school.

all right, heres a pic, it's blurry, (i was holding my laptop, took it from the webcam) but i don't have time to make another, i'm making food.

http://img388.imageshack.us/my.php?image=125016jr7.jpg

sorry it i spelled subwuffer wrong, i'm to lazy to find the actual spelling. but anyways, i've always thought that gaming with a good pair of headphones was the way to go until i got some great altec lansing speakers a little while back. the speakers are great quality, but the real standout with the deal, $99(cad) is the incredibly powerful subwuffer. it has really brought gaming up to a new level, really brings me into the game. i was playing COD4 yesderday, the charlie don't surf level, and at one point when the jets go overhead, my chair was shaking. the raw power of this massive black box sitting next to my computer is unbeleivable. to see how far i could push it, me and some friends used windows media player to put the base up to full, and then we played spoon man, the most base-tastic song i have ( you wouldn't think it, but there is a lot of really, really low base, which is barely audible on most speakers and headphones). we played the song loud, and the house literally shook. my brothers came screaming down the stairs wondering what on earth was going on. they said they felt a rumbling and shaking coming from the basement.

all I can say from this is, if you have the oppurtunity, get a good subwuffer, it will really revolutionize your gaming experience.

i got Condemned: criminal origins a few days ago, and i must say this game is really brutal compared to anything i've ever played. for those of you who don't know or havent played that game, you basically beat the sh!t out of people with objects you find lying around, such as pipes, 2x4's, sledghammers, fire axes, etc. and it feels absolutely insane when you are doing it. if you hit someone in the face you will see them spurt blood and teeth from their mouths, if you hit them a few times they might fall to the ground, knees wobbling, at which point you a given a number of options of how to finish the guy off. you can smash his head with yours, you can kick his head in, and others i can't remember at the moment.

that being said, i would reccomend this game to those of you hardened against usual video game violence, and looking for somthing a little stronger. it's made my the same guys that made fear, with the same engine, just upgraded. great game, but really, really visious.

5. Mass Effect (pc)

4. GTA 4 (pc)

3. Fallout 3

2. Farcry 2

1. S.T.A.L.K.E.R: clear sky

Mass effect looks kind of neat, so i think i'm going to get it, i've never been a big gta fan, but IV looks pretty sweet. i think i might have to give it a try. Fallout 3 is by the same company that made oblivion and morrowind, two of my favorite games ever made. i never played fallout 1 or 2, but 3 is from a first person view, one that i am more familiar with. FarCry 2 looks really cool, 50 km in size, totally open, and in africa. unfortunately it's being developed A. for the consoles and B. by Ubisoft, so us pc games might get screwed over on this one. Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl is my current favorite fps, and the sequal looks like it's going to solve the few problems the origonal has. i simply cant wait to play this game.

i've had the same song stuck in my head for the past week or so, and i don't know how to get rid of the bloody thing. i've listened to it, listened to other songs, done everything i can think of to get rid of the damn thing. it has kinda neat lyrics, although they don't look like much reading them, it's best to listen to the song. but i'm not going to bother with that, so i'll just supply you guys with the lyrics.

the song is Power Trip, buy soundgarden, a band not many people listen to, but i bet most rock and metal fans would really enjoy if given a chance.

lyrics:

I want to be
A cowboy star upon the screen
Oh hey and I want to drive
My cowboy car across the scene
Oh hey and I want to write
The magazines the housewives read
And I want to be
In control of everything
I want to be king

I want to make the toys
You buy for christmas eve
Yeah and I want to be
The father of the ethnic child
Who stars on t.v.
Oh yeah and i, I want to write
The magazine the housewives read
Oh hey and I want all the leaders
Of the third world
To answer to me
I want to be king
I want to be king
So maybe now the pope
Will bow and kiss my ring
I wanna be king

if you want to listen to the song, you can probably find it by looking it up on youtube or whatever. fyi, it's kind of grunge hard rock type music.

Alright, i'm sure many of you are familiar with zero punctuation, you know the australian guy who reviews games for a living, and his new video isn't a review, it's just him critisizing all the crap he got for his super smash brawl review. and jesus, it was really, really, funny. WARNING: if you enjoyed ssbb or whatever it's called, don't watch this.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/4878-Zero-Punctuation-Mailbag-Showdown

enjoy.

i've been going on a old game playing spree the last couple of weeks, and i hope to continue it in the coming weeks. I recently got half life 1, red faction, cs 1.6, and am getting return to castle wolfstein. i'm enjoying all of them for the most part, especially hl1, i can't beleive i've left it until now to play it. red faction is also really fun, although at times a bit confusing. if you guys have any reccomendations of other golden oldies i could play, just say so, and btw, preferably fps. i'm not so much into Ye Olde rts and rpg type games.

well, this evening i thought it was nice enough to go have a quick nine holes of golf at the local golf club, and i was pleasantly suprised at my performance. i got par on a few holes, and never got more than a bogey or at worst a double bogey on the others. for my first game is 8 months i think that's pretty good. my drives of the t were a bit inconsistent, but usually i was getting at least 150 yards with my 5 wood and 175-215 with my 3. i didn't have to use my driver at all, it was a executive par 3 golf coarse (the longest holes being around 350 yds.) my irons off the fareway were excellent, my 7 iron occasionally excedding 200 yards.

overall, i'm pleased with my performance, and am looking forwards to trying some more challenging courses this year.

christ i'm bored. fresh out of ideas. well, i'm bored enough to do a top five song post, rather similar in nature to my top five albums post. oh well.

5. Black Sabbath - War Pigs

4. Queens of the Stone Age - Little Sister

3. Nine Inch Nails - Only

2. Sound Garden - GUN

1. metallica - One (hey, an appropriate name for my #1 song

War Pigs, Little Sister and Only are all great songs, loved them the first time i've heard them. now, for a song to get on my top five list, it has to stay fresh for a long time. there have been songs that i fest ecstasy (yes i've done it, i know what if feels like) when i listened to, but days later got bored of them. these songs have, for the most part, been on my computer for years, and have been listened to hundreds and hundreds of times.

GUN is the newest song on my list, but i'm pretty sure it belongs there. it is a awsome song in every sense of the word, changing pace twice throughout the song, from slow, to fast, and then to slow again. really well sung, and can be listened to multiple times and still be enjoyed. One has been my favorite song ever since i first heard it a few years ago. just the gradual transition from soft and slow to hard and fast is fantastic, you hardly even notice. Ulrich, despite the fact that he's a prick really made this album great with his drumming. being a drummer, i can really appreciate the complexity of the beats in all of the albums songs, and this one in particular.

On friday, i got an amazing deal on a new mp3 player, and i was going to write a blog about it, but then decided to change it to the best deals i've ever had. there have been 3 that have stood out:

3. sansa 6gig video mp3 player - reg. $270, got it for $99 (new)

2. Norco Rival mountain bike - reg. $900, got it for $500 (new)

1. Volkel racing skiis - reg. $720, got it for $99 (new, but one season old)

the skiis were the best deal, all because they were last seasons models, and were really tall, no one wanted them. luckily, i'm really tall, so the skiis were a perfect fit. the bike i got really cheap because they were going to bring in the new models, and the ones they had left of last seasons were all massive frames and apperently undesirable colours (kind of a creamy white, i'm used to i now).

for those biking enthusiests out there, the bike has hayes 8" disk brakes, big ass shocks with some unprenounceable italian name (marzzochi? mazarrochi?) and 24 gears. the frame in 20", and the tires are really fat. i don't know much about bikes.