After four years of service, my beloved 40 gigabyte Zen Touch portable music player is not giving me anything close to the 26 hours of battery life per charge that it used to.

When you are used to going three weeks or so between charges, it is irritating to suddenly have to re-charge every day or three. Especially when you are someone who obsesses over battery life.

In 2005, the Zen Touch offered, by far, the longest battery life for a high capacity portable music player. It was my only option. Today, multiple portable media players last 30 hours or longer (for music) before needing to be re-charged. The battery life-obsessed can now look at features besides battery life when choosing a portable media player.

So what do I replace my Zen Touch with.

A PSP go, the new, download-only version of the PlayStation Portable, which lasts about 10 hours per charge for playing music. With the screen off.

(I chose the black model.)

This was an impulse buy. For some time I was considering replacing my Zen Touch with a Zune HD (which Microsoft claims lasts 33 hours per battery charge) when a 64 gigabyte version of the Zune HD was released or my Zen's battery died completely, whichever came first.

But when I learned that I could buy a PSP go at a discount, that was more temptation than I could handle.

The concept of having all my portable games and all my music available to me at all times in a device that easily fits in a pants pocket is one that greatly appeals to me. I can live with changing discs or cartridges or cards or whatever on a device that stays in one place because the system and its media tend to be near one another. If I want that kind of choice with a portable device, I need to carry everything with me, and I can only hold so much in my pockets at one time.

Say I'm on a bus playing Burnout Legends. Say I'm getting bored of Burnout Legends but I still want to play a game. A few button presses and I'm playing LocoRoco 2. When I'm finished with LocoRoco 2, I can press a few buttons and play Tetris. And when I tire of playing games, I can press a few buttons to listen to The Chair in the Doorway album by Living Colour and then place my PSP go in my pants pocket. All without changing physical media; it's all in the PSP go's internal storage.

This sort of scenario is what makes the PSP go an amazing device, and it is not currently possible with any other hardware.

Not legally or with good games anyway.

Still, it would have been nice if the PSP go had a touchscreen. A few months ago, I went as far as saying that I would not buy a PSP go because it had no touchscreen. A touchscreen and stylus are what make the Nintendo DS versatile, allowing it to run games and non-games that do all sorts of things that are impossible or difficult by pressing buttons. (Ever try playing Meteos by pressing buttons? Don't.) But even without a touchscreen, there are plenty excellent games to be played on a PSP go, and they are all available at all times.

Not that there is no buyer's remorse with my PSP go impulse buy. The PSP go is weak as a music player. It can play music well, but it is missing basic features that devices that are primarily music players have. There is no play queue, so unless you want to listen in artist/album/track order (or by mood with the optional, free SenseMe channels software), you must first create a playlist on a computer and then transfer it to your PSP go or select a new track as soon as the track that was playing ends. Windows Media Audio files cannot be played until after WMA playback is enabled, which requires an Internet connection. Copy-protected audio files will not play. And as already mentioned, battery life is weak compared to devices designed primarily for music.

So if anyone wants to buy me a Walkman X, please do.

There is an unwritten law that says that all blogs must have an entry about life lessons and/or life advice. Here's this blog's entry on the subject.

• A classy, expensive watch is the best way to get others to take you seriously. It works better than a suit.
• A unique pair of eyeglasses is the best way to make others aware that you will not accept what everyone else is willing to accept.
• Web browsing on a phone is no fun, even with a "good" mobile Web browser.

It's been a while, I know. I'll post a real blog entry sooner or later.

"I didn't know what she looked like, had no idea of her age range or even know if she was a woman, but she had a female avatar, so I asked her to send me topless pictures of herself, to which she immediately agreed. I liked what I saw, so I asked her to meet me in person so that we could have sex."

"As we were snuggling, I discovered that she had not only a great body, but also a charming personality. One thing led to another, and here we are: married with kids."

I witness this on PlayStation Home all the time. (Except for the part about getting married and having children.)

Maybe I am getting too old for this, or perhaps it is my lack of experience with Internet social networking, but it surprises and shocks me that there are so many sleazy, tactless men out there who have no issue with going up to female avatars (that may or may not be controlled by women) and asking for revealing photographs, or more.

And it surprises and shocks me more that so many women are apparently willing to comply with such requests from men with whom they know nothing about.

But then, I am inexperienced with social networking over the Internet. I don't use MySpace. I don't have a Facebook account. And I don't "get" Second Life, much less why Reuters had a bureau on it.

I thought, at best, that these services and their competitors were for socializing without socializing, and, at worst, that they could be excuses for employers to fire you because of damaging personal information made public on them.

I had no idea that this seedy element existed.

Naive, I know. Anything on the Internet that can be used for sex is used for sex.

I started using PlayStation Home because it's free, was already there and required no setup on my part. I assumed that I would use it once and never touch it again. Socializing without socializing is of no interest to me.

But morbid amusement is.

Men trying to pick up women who may or may not really be women is the most common and the most amusing, but it is not the only thing that makes PlayStation Home amusing. That alone could get dull after a while. There is also racism, sexism, sexual harasment, homophobia, xenophobia and all sorts of other forms of stupidity.

I don't know where it's all coming from. I thought that most people had evolved beyond such bigotry decades ago, or at least knew to keep their prejudices to themselves. I certainly don't see anywhere as much of it in the real world as I see on PlayStation Home.

In the real world, these things are disturbing, but on PlayStation Home, they're harmless and therefore amusing. No one can truly do anything to you unless you give out your personal information.

Seeing this stupidity is what makes PlayStation Home fun, and why I keep on coming back.

Remember the orange pair of glasses with the black highlights that I showed in the last entry?

It was really, really expensive.

As in, it cost more than the other three pairs of glasses combined.

I had wanted an orange pair of glasses for several months. When I was given a new eyeglasses prescription, I had my excuse to buy one.

Alas, orange glasses are uncommon, I discovered. Many stores had no orange, and the ones that did have something had nothing that fit my style. I figured that SEE Eyewear would have something, but not even there.

But there were places that I had avoided, and had hoped that I would never step inside, but I saw no other option to get my orange glasses.

If you have a bold sense of style and more money than sense (or more debt than cents), a luxury eyewear store is the place to go to get your next pair of glasses. Such stores carry glasses in colors, shapes, materials and sizes more interesting than what is available at, for example, Pearle Vision.

Indeed, I found my perfect pair of glasses at a luxury eyewear store. It's a semi-rimless frame with thin, curvy half-rims; a double bridge and thick temples. The fronts of the rims and top bridge of this mostly orange frame are black, and a layer of black covers much of each orange temple.

This is why I can't buy anything fun for several months.

Almost perfect anyway. I would have preferred a brighter shade of orange, but this is as close to a perfect pair of glasses as I will ever see.

But perfect is ultra-expensive. I have more sense than money. I would like to retire at some point, so I have to cut back on other things to "pay" for my perfect pair of glasses.

That starts with video games. The five Wii games that I ordered last month? They're all still in plastic--I ordered the DS version of Final Fantasy IV with them and decided to play it first--so they are going back for a refund. As much as I would like to play these games, the potential consequence of working until I die is one that I fear too much to consider.

And no additional game purchases for at least several months. Or anything else that isn't necessary.

Well, maybe a few movies.

Click for larger image.

I can quit whenever I want.

But first I want a thick plastic pair of glasses in bright blue, and I need to replace my black pair with one that doesn't look dated.

By making the bright blue DSi available to anyone in North America who wants one, you are denying me the ability to be the cool guy with the cool item that no one else has.

Instead, the bright blue DSi will be the sort of item that people will buy thinking that it will show others that they are unique, bold and "edgy," just like the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other people who also buy bright blue DSis to show others that they are unique, bold and "edgy."

Kind of like how all those artsy people prove that they are all unique individuals by all wearing Movado Classic Museum watches.

Oh, wait.

Soon, you can be one of the hundreds of thousands of unique individuals to own a bright blue Nintendo DSi.

Let the safe and neutral shades be available to everyone. Any striking shades should be available only to me.

It was bad enough when Nooka and HTC became known brands, but at least with those I had a little while to be "the only one" with their products. With the DSi in bright blue available everywhere from the beginning, that will never be possible.

Oh well, there's always ColorWare.

It finally happened.

My Wii, which for eight months was little more than a Nintendo Channel video player, is being used for games again.

Over the last few days, I have downloaded World of Goo, Toki Tori, Lost Winds and Tetris Party and ordered copies of de Blob, Boom Blox, Mercury Meltdown Revolution, No More Heroes and Link's Crossbow Training (with that piece of plastic).

All that not playing Wii games must have created a pent-up desire to play Wii games.

It was getting to the point that I was considering selling my Wii. Now I might just send it to ColorWare to have it painted orange when the warranty expires.

Lust

Apparently my taste in video games is bipolar. I just went eight months playing almost nothing but traditional, "deep" games that made little attempt to innovate and were based on evolutions of concepts made popular by games like Super Mario Bros. (1985), Prince of Persia (1989), Wolfenstein 3D (1992), King's Quest (1983) and Ultima III (1983).

I wanted to play the often simple, quirky, innovative games for the Nintendo DS and Wii to show that I was a unique individual just like the millions of people who play such games to show that they are unique individuals, but the desire was not there.

No, the video games that I most desired were Mirror's Edge (inspired by Prince of Persia) and Little Big Planet (inspired by Super Mario Bros.), and the other games that I wanted did not do anything truly new either.

The only exception to this was Picross DS, but that story is worthy of its own blog entry.

Now the poles have switched.

My Wii is getting plenty of use, and to a lesser extent, so is my Nintendo DS Lite. I am buying and playing all sorts of simple, quirky games, and I have little interest in the upcoming "deep" games that I would have lusted after just a few weeks ago.

You get excited about Brutal Legend, Heavy Rain, Infamous, Rage, L.A. Noire and I Am Alive. I will join you when my poles switch again. I cannot get myself to care about them today.

Really, I Am Alive should be my most anticipated video game ever. This game is about me.

Or at least some guy named Adam who lives in Chicago.

For now, I will get excited about Flower, Noby Noby Boy and... whatever the promising upcoming Wii and Nintendo DS games are. It has been a while since I paid attention to the Wii and DS software lineups.

I am almost positive that my poles will switch again. This is not the first time that this has happened. Almost two years ago, not long after purchasing a PlayStation 3, I had no desire to use it for much other than Go! Sudoku and Guilty Gear X2's Survival Mode. Most of the games that I was playing were simple, touchscreen-focused Nintendo DS games.

Months later, I was anxious for Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, Rock Band, Unreal Tournament III and Phantom Hourglass, and did not care much about anything offering instant gratification anymore.

But do not call my current gaming mood "casual." The four Wii games that I recently downloaded were supposed to be complemented by a fifth (Helix), but the Wii Shop Channel informed me that I did not have enough space for Helix on my Wii when I tried to purchase it. Needing additional Wii storage places me among the "geeks and otaku," according to Nintendo Europe senior marketing Director Laurent Fischer.

Because I have been declared a "geek" or an "otaku" (or perhaps both), I cannot be casual.

Fischer later apologized for the comment and Nintendo has since announced that a future Wii firmware update will allow WiiWare and Virtual Console purchases to be downloaded directly to SD cards, though there are conflicting reports over whether it will be possible to run Wii downloads directly from SD cards.

I could delete something on my Wii to make room for Helix, but I refuse. It's the principle. I should not have to do this, so I am not doing this.

And until this is fixed, Nintendo will have to live with the grief that I have given it $18 in unearned revenue.

I thought that I was finished mocking Express' seemingly untargeted advertisements and promotions. The joke was getting old. Maybe lack of sleep is getting to me, but its latest e-mail promotion has me laughing.

More than the one from last month offering a free panty with no purchase necessary.

This new e-mail promotion, entitled "Be the first to shop the New Express Sexy Stretch + new reductions $9.99 and up," tells me that the online exclusive New Express Sexy Stretch is "our most flattering fabric yet in eight exclusive styIes... we're bringing back sexy" (ellipses in the original e-mail) and suggests that I shop now.

Thanks for acknowledging that I am among the elite by offering me the opportunity to be the first to wear your Sexy Stretch, Express, but I have to decline. This is not my styIe.

I have no desire to wear any of these eight exclusive styIes.

My styIe is men's clothing.

And when did sexy go away? Since I started receiving promotional e-mails from Express in September, I have been made aware that I can "steal the spotlight" with The Little Black Dress because "if sexy has a color, it must be black;" that sexy racerbacks and halters for her are among "this season's must-have vests;" that "the season's sexiest jeans are worn;" that leggings are "one sexy styIe with countless sexy options;" that lace, shine and shimmer make The Little Black Dress (apparently a different The Little Black Dress) "a whole new sexy;" that "the season's sexiest neckline" can be found on the cowl-neck sleeveless blouse, cowl-neck sexy basics tee and cowl-neck sweater dress and that sexy, silk essentials for her are available "in every color under the sun."

Now you're telling me, Express, that you are bringing sexy back. I didn't know that sexy was gone, and you, Express, are responsible for giving me that impression.

Take that, Windows Vista-interfering copy protection software!

My biggest disappointment when I bought a new computer two years ago was learning that the adventure game Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon would not run on Windows Vista.

Rather, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon's copy protection software refused to let me run the game on Windows Vista, even after updating to the Windows Vista-compatible version of that copy protection software. I never learned if Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon itself could run on Windows Vista.

Finally I had a computer capable of running this game at my monitor's native resolution, but this computer could not run the game.

I contacted the developer and North American publisher, hoping that one would offer a solution.

Neither had one.

I searched the Internet for cracks to get Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon running without its copy protection software. It felt wrong to be doing this, but I also felt that I should have the ability to use software for which I had paid money.

My moral dilemma turned out to be moot. I could not get any crack to work.

I was disappointed, but not too disappointed. The sequel to Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, Secrets of the Ark, known in Europe as Broken Sword: The Angel of Death, would soon be in my hands. The nature of video games is that the new ones take concepts from what made the previous ones good and improve upon them, so I figured that after playing Secrets of the Ark, I would have no desire to go back to The Sleeping Dragon.

Was I ever wrong.

Secrets of the Ark ignored the innovations made by Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, and pretty much everything in the adventure genre that came after Maniac Mansion (1987). It was awfully derivative of the old Sierra and LucasArts adventure games, and not particularly good on its own merits either. Unlike previous Broken Sword games, Secrets of the Ark was bland, and a few things about its design sometimes made it frustrating to play.

Now I was too disappointed. An editorial that I intended to be about the state of the adventure genre turned into a rant about what was wrong with Secrets of the Ark as a result.

I thought that this was the end of the story, but after a two year hiatus, our sad ending has turned happy.

By chance, I discovered yesterday that GOG.com, an Internet download store for older computer games, had just added Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon to its catalog. It sells there for $5.99, and like all software sold at GOG.com, it is "100% DRM [digital rights management] free" and "compatible with Windows Vista & Windows XP."

With this, I can finally play Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon in 2,304,000 pixels.

I do not like the principle of paying again for something that I already own, but it doesn't seem worth complaining over $6.

But if the GOG.com version of Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon does not run on the upcoming Windows 7 operating system, and I have to buy this game a third time, I will complain.

If we ever meet, you will notice two things about me:

I do not want my things to look like everyone else's things.
I obsess over colors and color trends.

So, in 2007, when I discovered ColorWare, a professional painting service for video game hardware and other consumer electronics devices, I was in heaven. (See also: NIKEiD.)

An expensive heaven, but still heaven.

Yes, the yellow and green PlayStation 3 controllers that you see on this page are real.

Now, not only would I not have to wait for Sony to get around to releasing PlayStation 3 controllers in colors other than translucent smoke gray before I bought a second one--I like to be able to easily tell my game controllers apart--but mine would look different and better than everyone else's.

I came close to ordering a PlayStation 3 Sixaxis controller in Caution (yellow), and later one in Smoke (white) before Reason took over from Lust and I remembered that it would be best to wait for Sony to release vibration-capable PlayStation 3 controllers before buying my second PlayStation 3 controller, especially because mine would cost significantly more than the suggested retail price.

Never mind that I had been disabling vibration in my wireless PlayStation 2 game controllers since 2003 and learned that I now hated vibrating game controllers. (I disabled vibration in the BioShock for Windows demo almost immediately after the first rumble.)

Besides, I did not know how good ColorWare's paint jobs were. I would feel like a fool if I paid for a custom-painted game controller only to see the paint come off after a few months or weeks, leaving me with a normal-looking game controller (probably with a voided manufacturer's warranty) that cost significantly more than everyone else's normal-looking game controllers.

With the ulterior motive of testing the quality of ColorWare without bearing the consequences, I ordered my sister's then fiance (now her husband) a Prowler (deep purple) wireless Xbox 360 controller as a gift. He did not understand the appeal of being one of the elite few with a game controller in a color that almost no one else had, but at least he appreciated having enough Xbox 360 controllers to play three player games.

And I appreciated that his purple Xbox 360 controller remained purple. ColorWare's paint jobs are automobile-quality. The paint will not come off unless you go out of your way to remove it.

Several months passed. Sony started selling vibration-capable PlayStation 3 Dualshock 3 controllers in North America, and with that ColorWare started offering Dualshock 3's in all sorts of colors and shades more interesting than the smoke gray that was available in stores.

I placed a Caution-painted Dualshock 3 in my virtual shopping cart and was ready to buy it until I noticed that the minimum price of shipping was awfully high for a single, lightweight item.

ColorWare had removed the ground shipping option since I had ordered a Prowler Xbox 360 controller.

After confirming with ColorWare that ground shipping was not an option, I started having second thoughts. A custom-painted game controller was already bordering on too expensive. With air shipping, it was definitely too expensive.

But then I noticed that adding a second game controller to my order barely affected the shipping cost.

Lust disguised itself as Reason and convinced me that the solution was to order two custom-painted PlayStation 3 controllers. Split between two items, the previously too high shipping cost was now reasonable.

(Of course, if the true Reason had been there, it would have reminded me that, while the cost of shipping was now reasonable, I was now buying two expensive items instead of one expensive item.)

I played with ColorWare's color picker to decide upon which color worked best with Caution. Billiard (green) was that color. I placed a Billiard Dualshock 3 in my virtual shopping cart next to the already placed Caution Dualshock 3, and a Fusion (fuchsia) Wii Remote and Nunchuck (because I was having trouble coming up with a present to get for my sister's birthday).

After I ordered, I realized that I had done a terrible, terrible thing.

I had ordered custom-painted PlayStation 3 controllers in Green Bay Packers colors.

I live in Chicago. I have lived in or near this city most of my life. My favorite NFL team is required to be the Chicago Bears. By extension I have been taught since birth that the Packers, the Bears' rival, are pure evil.

ColorWare's items are made-to-order, so I could not return my colors-of-evil game controllers. They cost too much money to throw out, and I could not justify paying for custom-painted PlayStation 3 controllers in Chicago Bears colors, Abyss (navy blue) and Crush (orange), to counteract the evil with good. There was the option of selling my Packers Dualshock 3's, but that would be passing on the evil, not removing it, and that would make me feel bad.

I was stuck living with evil.

It has been several months since buying my yellow and green PlayStation 3 controllers. That financial hit is long over. With my recent purchase of MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, my first PlayStation 3 game to support four players locally, I have an excuse to buy the navy and orange PlayStation 3 controllers that I should have bought instead of the yellow and green ones, and I am tempted to do so.

Or at least the Crush one. I really, really want an orange PlayStation 3 controller.

I would not spend so much money if I didn't have an obsession with colors.

What I do not understand is why I did not buy a Crush PlayStation 3 controller the first time. Yellow was an especially trendy color then, but orange is always my favorite color, regardless of trends, though the shade that I like most changes with the trends.

Would someone at GameSpot please fix the issues with those two words and inadvertent smilies already? They are making you look incompetent at this point. I am leaving this entry as-is to point out these problems and hopefully shame someone into finally fixing them. (Couldn't the former issue be resolved simply by disabling scripting and CSS in blogs?)

This happens every year. I think that I am finished buying video games for the year, but then some title comes out of nowhere, or a game that I sort of want drops in price or I give in to the hype or buzz surrounding something that I though that I didn't care about.

It's MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix, Prince of Persia ****c, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode Two and Personal Trainer: Cooking this time.

I had wanted a new, over the top racing game for a while. Burnout Revenge was getting old. The original MotorStorm was a good game, but only half of it came on the disc, and much of the other half required paying additional money, so I boycotted it out of principle. Burnout Paradise's "open world," requiring "driving" from event to event, removed the instant gratification that I loved so much about previous Burnout games, so it was out. And Pure was all about performing stunts; I prefer breaking things.

MotorStorm: Pacific Rift offered what I wanted: a destruction-focused over the top racing game that let me race my races without having to deal with finding them. Oh, and unlike the first MotorStorm, Pacific Rift included a full game on-disc, justifying a purchase at full price.

Except that around the time that MotorStorm: Pacific Rift was released, Mirror's Edge, Little Big Planet, Dead Space, BioShock and Prince of Persia (200 were also released. I wanted those five games more than I wanted MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, and I was not willing to pay full price for six video games in such a short period.

Fortunately, I didn't have to. MotorStorm: Pacifice Rift went on sale at Best Buy last week for one third off the regular price (which was still more than I was willing to pay for a video game after just buying so many), and I had a coupon to get an additional $5 off, making it cost just over half price. Sold.

Street Fighter II is one of the greatest video games ever. But Super Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II Turbo? There will always be controversy surrounding the changes and additions made to those versions of the game. I never liked those changes and additions, and with no demo at the PlayStation Store, I was not going to pay money to see for myself if the new changes made to Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix could get me to give up my decade-old copy of Street Fighter Collection 2 for the original PlayStation, with its for all intents and purposes perfect conversions of the first three Street Fighter II games.

But reading so many people praise HD Remix got to me. I paid $15 to learn if I should have paid $15.

Answer: no. Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix is an improved Super Street Fighter II Turbo, but it is still Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Online play, re-drawn for high definition graphics, re-arranged music and a re-balanced roster are well and good, but the offense-driven fighting; awful, out of place voice acting (except for Guile, who got his pre-Super Street Fighter II voice back) and five characters that few people liked are not. Even one of the reverts, the bigger muscles added to many of the characters in Street Fighter II': Champion Edition and lost in Super Street Fighter II, makes it worse; now the muscles are creepy big. (At least Chun Li got her spinning bird kick off her head stomp back.) HD Remix is a good game, but I prefer the Street Fighter II games included in Street Fighter Collection 2.

The original Prince of Persia (1989) is probably the first puzzle-based platformer and one of the earliest video games to show the potential for cinematic gaming. But like many firsts, it has not aged well. The games inspired by Prince of Persia have improved upon concepts first seen in Prince of Persia to the point that you would not want to play Prince of Persia today.

The original Prince of Persia is frustratingly difficult. The controls are terrible. And the one hour time lmit feels pointless and adds to the frustration. You can update the visuals to a dated game, but for the 1989 Prince of Persia, that is not enough to make it good by today's standards.

And, like Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix, Prince of Persia ****c has no PlayStation Store demo, so I ignored it.

Then I read a review.

It turns out that Prince of Persia ****c improves upon the original Prince of Persia beyond the visuals. What was a dated, frustrating game is now a nostalgia trip. The controls are much improved. There are checkpoints within the levels, so that you do not have to start at the beginning of a level every time that the not-yet-a-prince dies. And the time limit is effectively meaningless. Prince of Persia ****c is worth the $10 that Ubisoft and Sony Computer Entertainment want for it.

I don't like Penny Arcade. It isn't my sense of humor. Frankly, other than its charity work, I don't have much respect for Penny Arcade. So why do I have Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness Episode Two on my PlayStation 3?

Blame GameSpot editor Justin Calvert.

Last week, Justin Calvert posted a blog entry in which he listed three codes that could be used to download one unknown in advance to their readers game each from the PlayStation Store or Xbox Live Marketplace--two for the PlayStation Store, one for Xbox Live Marketplace--first come, first served. I managed to be first to enter the second PlayStation Store code, which turned out to be for the second Penny Arcade game. (The other PlayStation Store code was for Prince of Persia ****c, which someone else apparently redeemed before I could.)

I don't mean to come off as ungrateful. I do appreciate it when people give me gifts--I appreciate gifts more when people put thought into what they give me than when they give me gift cards or checks, but that's a separate issue--but I am not going to get much fun out of a Penny Arcade game. I wish that it could have gone to someone who would have enjoyed it.

Finally, there's Personal Trainer: Cooking. It is not a game, but it is for the Nintendo DS, and GameSpot did cover it, so I feel that I am justified in including it here. I did not buy this one for myself--I live off Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice. It was intended to be a present for my brother-in-law.

Last year, the battery in my sister's watch died. She didn't have time to get the battery replaced right away, so she borrowed one of the $5 watches that our mother buys at art fairs. (It looks pretty good for a $5 watch.)

My sister never got around to replacing the battery in her own watch, so she continued wearing our mom's $5 watch, even at her (my sister's) own wedding. (Was it pretentious of me to wear a watch that cost literally 120 times more than hers at her wedding?) And she continued wearing that watch months after.

Mom didn't care because it was only $5, but it bothered me that my sister was still wearing a watch that was not hers. I decided that a watch would be a perfect gift for my sister.

Me being me, I wanted to find a watch that looked good but did not look like everyone else's watch. It turns out that this is difficult when your budget is "gift-giving range," especially when it's for someone who claims to be unable to read a watch or clock unless there are markers for the hours.

But I found one: The Vega from Nixon in emerald green. It is not appropriate to wear at a wedding, but at least my sister has a watch with a working battery to call her own, and hopefully this will get her to finally return the $5 art fair watch to our mother.

Don't wear this at a wedding.

What does this talk of watches have to do with Personal Trainer: Cooking?

The Vega, even with the discount that I got, cost more than twice as much as the present that I was getting for her husband: Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. (Hell's Highway was on sale at Target on Black Friday for $20.) I felt bad about this, and decided that the solution was to buy a second gift for him to even things out price-wise, and it had to be something video game-related, because when I buy someone more than one gift, I want there to be a connection between them.

My sister and her husband have a policy: when one cooks, the other cleans. This allows them to be more adventurous in their food preparations, because if something ends in disaster, it's the other's problem. After weeks of Personal Trainer: Cooking promotional videos on the Wii Nintendo Channel, I got to thinking, "this would be perfect gift for my brother-in-law." (And while I am sure that both of them will end up using it, it's for him, not her, because he is the one who owns a Nintendo DS.) It's not a video game, but it's close enough.

Alas, this plan did not work out. The copy of Personal Trainer: Cooking that I ordered--it was not in stock at any store around here--has not arrived yet, so Hell's Highway was all that my brother-in-law got from me.

His birthday is in March.

My longest running video game-related pet peeve is that so few people pronounce Ryu from the Street Fighter series' name correctly.

This character has been around for 21 years and starred in one of the most successful video games in history, Street Fighter II, and countless other, less successful games and tie-in products.

People should know how to properly pronounce this character's name by now.

Yet they don't.

On today's edition of On the Spot, there was a demonstration of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, a Japan-only fighting game that pits Japanese cartoon characters against characters from Capcom video games, including Ryu.

Multiple GameSpot employees pronounced Ryu as "rye-yoo."

This got on my nerves. Out of irritation I sent a question to On the Spot asking why, after 21 years, no one knew how to correctly say Ryu's name.

To my surprise, my question was read on the air.

Sort of. A question similar to the one that I sent was read, and it was credited to me, but the meaning was changed with the way that it was re-worded.

"Why, after 21 years, have we not settled on what that dude's name is," was what you heard.

"Because nobody said what it was," was the answer that GameSpot agreed upon.

Ryu, probably short for Ryuunosuke, is a common Japanese name. Depending on the accent, ways to properly say it include "reeoo," "deeoo" and "eeoo."

But not "rye-yoo."

Who knew that those Urusei Yatsura liner notes could be useful.

Express sent me an e-mail promotion today.

Nothing interesting about Express sending me an e-mail promotion. I receive these all the time.

What makes this one different is that it is well targeted.

Extremely well targeted.

This promotion informs me that, for four days only, I can "take an additional 20% off everything!*" Additionally, if I shop at the Express on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, I can get an "extra 5% off" the "additional 20% off."

The Express on Michigan Avenue is located a few blocks from where I live. I shop at it more than any other Express.

Hey, that's the Express that I shop at most!

Someone at Express must read this blog.

I have written multiple entries over the last two months about Express' poorly targeted e-mail promotions and advertisements on GameSpot (which are placed by Yahoo!).

Receiving an Express promotion that is not only not aimed at women, but is especially useful for me is quite a shock.

Especially since it comes just two weeks after one informing me that I can get a free panty with no purchase necessary.

But this could be a coincidence. Maybe everyone on Express' mailing list received the Michigan Avenue store "extra 5% off" the "additional 20% off" e-mail promotion.

In somewhat related news, Express has followed my advice and had Yahoo! place a new ad on GameSpot. It looks like the e-mail promotion that Express sent me, only smaller and without the part about saving more at the Michigan Avenue store.

Express advertisements are not gone from GameSpot; they were merely on hiatus for several days.

I saw two on this site today.

Two Express ads that I had seen on this site over and over again for more than a month.

These ads remain amusing because they look out of place on a video game Web site, but after more than a month, they are starting to feel old hat.

Express, would you please send GameSpot or whatever syndicate is placing your ads here some new advertisements?

I am a good customer, Express. When putting together my fall/winter wardrobe, I purchased 14 dress shirts and two sweaters from your stores.

But you cannot take me for granted. You are not the only clothing retailer that I shop at, much less the only clothing retailer that exists. There is no reason why the money that I spend at Express could not go to, say, Macy's or Banana Republic instead.

Repeatedly running the same advertisements is an effective way to remind your existing customers that you exist and to put it in their heads that the next time they go shopping for whatever it is that you sell, they should consider buying it from you, but when you run the same ads for too long, people start ignoring them.

It's like not advertising, except that you are paying for advertising.

Which is why it is important to replace existing ads with new ads from time to time, Express. Otherwise your customers might forget that Express exists, even with constant ads.

And you wouldn't want me to forget that Express exists when I put together my spring wardrobe.

It has been several days since I last saw advertisements for Express on GameSpot.

This is kind of saddening. I found the ads amusing because they looked out of place on a video game Web site.

Indeed, I found the ads so amusing that I saved seven of them to my computer and cropped the horizontal one to use as my GameSpot blog header. (There might have been more Express ads, but those were the ones that I saw after I started collecting them.)

All good things must come to an end, I suppose.

And because few others apparently saw Express advertisements on GameSpot, I thought that I should share.

The only reason why I reserve video games at GameStop stores or pre-order them from its Web site is for exclusive bonuses.

GameStop's prices are never the lowest. At best they are the same as everyone else's. And when you are not dealing with employees with no social skills, with awful hygiene, incapable of dressing themselves appropriately and with no understanding of customer service who think that working at a video game retailer means that they are in the video game industry and therefore are experts on all things video games, you are still dealing with nerds who speak in obscure pop culture references.

GameStop is not a pleasant shopping experience.

But when the choice is between "free bonus" and "nothing," I choose "free bonus," so I reluctantly continue shopping at GameStop's stores and on its Web site.

Like the Mirror's Edge runner bag. Identical to the runner bags in the Mirror's Edge game and surprisingly not nerdy-looking, the only way to get one was to pre-order or reserve a copy of Mirror's Edge the game at GameStop. (A more elaborate bag is included with a $130 limited edition release, but that bag does look nerdy, and it costs $130.)

More interesting than the remix EP CD for those who reserved their copies of Mirror's Edge at Best Buy.

So I pre-ordered a copy of Mirror's Edge from GameStop's Web site on August 7 to get my runner bag. My initial plan was to reserve a copy at a physical location, but that did not work out, and when I recovered, GameStop was offering free shipping on online orders. (If anyone is wondering, I did not have to replace my cell phone, music player or shoes.)

On November 11, the day that Mirror's Edge was released, wondering why I had not received an e-mail from GameStop telling me that my copy of the game and free runner bag had shipped, I visited GameStop's Web site hoping to learn what was up.

My copy of Mirror's Edge: "Backordered." My runner bag: "Cancelled."

But only if you reserved your copy of Mirror's Edge, released on November 11, before August 7, apparently.

Again, exclusive bonuses are the only reason why I shop at GameStop stores and on its Web site. Without the runner bag, my copy of Mirror's Edge might as well have been shipped from anyone.

I understand that reservation bonuses are made in limited quantities and that there will not always be enough for everyone, but I do not understand how a big business like GameStop does not think to contact its customers in advance to inform them that they are not going to get everything that they expect to get. Even when there is no legal obligation to do so, basic knowledge of public relations should be enough for it to happen anyway. That way, your customers will not be confused and will be less disappointed when they do not receive everything that they were initially promised, and therefore are less likely to become ex-customers.

But then, GameStop kept promotions for the free runner bag with the reservation of a copy of Mirror's Edge on its Web site through the day that the game was released, and after my runner bag shipment was canceled. That's unethical.

And how did GameStop choose which customers received the runner bag anyway. Pre-ordering more than three months in advance usually ensures that you get the free bonus, but not this time. Were there so few runner bags available that one had to pre-order before August 7 to get one? Were the majority of runner bags sent to GameStop stores for in-store pick-up customers to pick up? Was choosing the free shipping option (and thus being held back in the shipping queue behind everyone who paid for shipping) my downfall?

Whatever the reason, it makes me angry that I will never have the runner bag that I thought that I would get by pre-ordering from a retailer that I do not particularly like.

I am tempted to return my since-arrived-but-not-yet-opened copy of Mirror's Edge to GameStop for a refund and purchase a new copy from a competitor.

My Sackboy has his Kratos costume.

Everyone who reserved a copy of LittleBigPlanet from a GameStop store (in the United States, at least) was given a card with a promotion code for a free downloadable Kratos (from God of War) in-game costume.

When I removed the sticker over the part of my card that covered the promotion code, some of the paper came off with the sticker, leaving me with an incomplete code and no way to download the costume.

I wanted the Kratos costume. It was the reason why I reserved LittleBigPlanet at GameStop--a four mile walk--rather than buying the game at some closer store on its release date or pre-ordering from the least expensive Internet retailer.

So I contacted Sony's PlayStation Consumer Services explaining what happened and asking how to obtain a complete promotion code.

The response from Sony: a form letter.

Hello,

Thank you for writing us.

We apologize for any inconvenience, but we do not have any information regarding your inquiry at this time. We recommend checking back with us in the future for additional updates and details.

You may also want to check out our PLAYSTATION(R) 3 computer entertainment system page on our website for the latest information.

http://www.us.playstation.com/PS3

If you have further questions regarding this message and are replying back via email, please refer to your email case number: [deleted].

Regards,
Vincent
Multimedia Representative
Sony Computer Entertainment America
Consumer Services Department

This was unacceptable. I was entitled to a downloadable Kratos costume, and through no fault of my own I was unable to download one.

I replied to PlayStation Consumer Services' reply, telling whomever on the other end reads these messages that the response was unacceptable, again asking how to obtain a complete promotion code for an in-game Kratos costume download and casually mentioning that I was a member of the GameSpot User Soapbox, and as such I could write an editorial critical of Sony's customer service and have it linked from GameSpot's home page: the world's most visited video game Web site, according to Alexa.

Bryan, a Multimedia Specialist in Sony Computer Entertainment America's Consumer Services Department, replied to my reply to Vincent's form letter reply to my original message "apologiz[ing] for any inconvenience" and saying that I "would have to contact GameStop for another code."

Awww, inn'e cute.

From here I had a few options. I could continue pestering PlayStation Consumer Services until it gave in and sent me a complete promotion code for an in-game Kratos costume. I could walk four miles to the GameStop where I reserved my copy of LittleBigPlanet and ask for a new card. I could go ahead and write that editorial critical of Sony's customer service. Or I could tell my story to one (or more) of the sensationalist, anti-establishment video game blogs that consider anything remotely video game-related to be newsworthy.

I did not like any of these options. Continuing to send messages to PlayStation Consumer Services until it gave in could take a while. The GameStop where I reserved LittleBigPlanet was a long walk through a semi-bad neighborhood away, and I didn't know if it would be willing to give me a second card with Kratos costume code, much less if it had any left. A User Soapbox editorial was more effort than it was worth with no guarantee that it would embarrass Sony into giving me a complete promotion code. And I did not want associate myself with the video game blogs; they are the video game press equivalents of the National Enquirer or The Sun.

In the end, I decided to pre-order a second copy of LittleBigPlanet from GameStop's Web site to get a second promotion code for a downloadable in-game Kratos costume e-mailed to me (so that I wouldn't have to worry about part of the code ripping off again); pick up my first copy of the game from the GameStop physical store where I reserved it and, after I had two copies of the game and knew for sure that the one copy that I had taken out of the shrinkwrap worked, return the unopened copy to the GameStop physical store for a refund.

Too much effort for a reservation bonus, but I wanted that Kratos costume for my Sackboy.

And keeping up this blog's Express theme, why do so many fashion experts wear tacky bow ties?

I wake up this morning to find an e-mail from Express in my inbox entitled "Leggings That Work Wth Any Look...plus - Buy One Get One 50% off all bottoms."

With a title like this, I assume that this e-mail promotion is aimed at women, but out of morbid curiosity I decide to view it anyway.

No surprise. I am right. This promotion is for women.

The promotion tells me that "to pull off this season's hottest looks, just pull on a pair of leggings" and later goes on to say, "Dressed up with a party top or dressed down with a long tee, it's one sexy style with countless sexy options."

To the left of this text is a photograph of two bordering on too-thin twenty-something women wearing long, tight, black, shiny leather leggings.

This is all well and good, but as a male, I do not wear leggings, and no promotion will convince me that I should buy them, from Express or anywhere else. When I see or hear the term "leggings," I think, "what people wore before pants were invented." (That's "pants" in American English; the word means something different in British English.)

I am not wearing this.

The constant Express advertisments that I am seeing on GameSpot are odd sights, especially because many of them feature only women's clothing, but I can reason that I am seeing so many women's clothing ads here by assuming that there is nothing in place to differentiate between "potential male Express customer" and "potential female Express customer."

But there is no excuse for Express sending me an e-mail promoting women's clothing. Unlike some vaguely-targeted Web ads probably placed by a syndicate based on my Web activity, Express itself has a good idea of whom I am. It knows that dress shirts--again, the American English kind--are the only articles of clothing that I have purchased at its stores, so it can assume that I am male and not likely to respond to a promotion for leggings, no matter how many "sexy options" there are for this "one sexy styIe."

Worse for Express, below the main promotion for leggings is a smaller promotion for "all men's and women's bottoms: buy 1 get 1 [of equal or lesser value] 50% off." Few males will look beyond the leggings promotion to see the one that could get them into Express stores to spend money.

And what man calls them "bottoms"?

I have seen a lot of ads for Express on this site over the last few days.

Express is a clothing store chain in the United States that aims its apparel primarily at fashion-conscious twenty-somethings who want to be seen as "edgy."

This does not seem to be a good match for GameSpot, especially since many of the ads feature only women's clothing.

No offense to anyone, but from what I have seen and read, typical video game players rarely seem to have senses of style. Other than T-shirts with snarky phrases or pictures of things from whatever fandoms they are obsessed with, they tend to wear whatever it is that they own for as long as they can, replacing it only when it falls apart or are forced by their significant others or employers.

The minimal level of response to most of my fashion-related blog entries on GameSpot further cements this belief in my mind. The only exception is my colored game hardware proposal entry, which was linked from GameSpot's home page, and a good number of those responses are less than positive.

Seeing so many ads for Express on GameSpot surprises and confuses me. The psychographics of typical GameSpot visitors and typical Express customers do not match, as far as I can tell.

Not that I am the typical Express customer either. I do not consider myself "edgy"--my brother-in-law will disagree--but I do "need" to own dress shirts in every color and shade known to man. Express comes close to offering this, so I have been shopping there a lot lately. (I have purchased 14 dress shirts at Express in last two months.)

I have been visiting Express' Web site quite a bit recently too. I never buy anything from Express over the Web; the shades on screen never match the shades in store, but this is a convenient way to learn if something new is available. That and I fear that more frequent appearances at Express will make people think that I work there. Too many people think that I work at Banana Republic.

This has me wondering. Perhaps Express is not advertising directly with GameSpot. Maybe the massive amount of Express ads that I am seeing on this site is the result of Google's DoubleClick or one of its competitors monitoring my Web activity and placing syndicated ads here based on that.

But the variety of Express ads, constant appearances of these ads and lack of ads from competitors makes me doubt this, even though I cannot understand why Express would advertise on GameSpot.

Anyone else seeing these ads on GameSpot, or is this the result of DoubleClick following me around the Web and placing syndicated ads based on that?

I finished with my video game reservations and pre-orders for the rest of the year: LittleBigPlanet, BioShock, Dead Space, Prince of Persia and Mirror's Edge.

What do these titles have in common?

They are all PlayStation 3 games.

My PlayStation 3 is not my only video game system. I own a Wii and a DS Lite too, but it has been a while since I have seen games for those systems that interest me.

A long while.

I have not purchased a Wii game since purchasing my Wii in April. It has been longer since I last bought a DS game. So long that I cannot remember when it was, probably at least a year.

My Wii activity for the last several months has been to turn the console on every Monday, watch the new videos and view the list of downloadable DS demos on the Nintendo Channel to see if anything interests me (there isn't), switch to the Wii Shop Channel to see if there are any new downloadable WiiWare or Virtual Console games that I feel are worth paying for (there aren't), check for and (if available) download a firmware update and turn the console off.

Nothing about playing video games in there.

And if it weren't for my Picross DS addiction, my DS Lite would be under layers of dust.

What attracted me to the Wii and DS were their abilities, thanks to their unique control schemes, to allow for games (and non-games) unlike anything available for previous home game hardware. After years of buying and playing too many video games that were too similar to video games that I had already played, I was becoming jaded and wanted games that were different.

Most of my DS and Wii games, except for the Virtual Console downloads, were breaths of fresh air. What made them different made them fun.

You could make a game that looks like WarioWare: Smooth Moves on any game console released in the last decade, but it would be dull without the Wii's motion controls. Kirby: Canvas Curse looks no better than an early Super NES game, but attempting to play it with a directional pad and buttons instead of a stylus on a touch screen would be a frustrating experience. And while it is an option, no one plays Meteos with button controls because it is not a viable option. (I am morbidly curious about how the upcoming Meteos Wars for the Xbox 360, with its required button controls, will turn out.) Even games like Picross DS and Planet Puzzle League, which are follow-ups to games with traditional, button-based control schemes, "feel" different and better with touch screen controls. A stylus allows these games to be sped up significantly without making them frustrating.

But as much as I try, I have not been able to get excited about a new Wii or DS game for some time.

If they had been released a year ago, I would have been all over titles like BlastWorks, Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, N+, de Blob and Soul Bubbles. These are unique video games, and, according to many reviews, are pretty good.

Now I can't care about them.

I do not understand this. I was beginning to think that this is because I get stimulated visually--no, not like that--more than any other way, and that the DS and Wii's weak hardware made for visually unimpressive video games, but that cannot be the reason. Many of the DS and Wii games that I have no interest in that I should have interest in are artistically brilliant.

The PlayStation 3 is a fine game console, but the problem with it is that it is an evolution, not a revolution. We get better looking, better sounding games with more realistic physics, intelligent artificial intelligence and superior online experiences. These allow for improvements upon existing video games, not truly original video games. Not even the PlayStation 3's motion-sensitive controls do much to differentiate it from the competition and past home game hardware. Unlike the Wii's motion-sensitive controls, the PlayStation 3's are not versatile enough to be used exclusively or primarily in video games; they work best when used to complement traditional gameplay concepts, such as flicking your wrists upward to take the ids of enemies in Folklore.

Mirror's Edge and Prince of Persia (2008 ) are the latest evolutions of puzzle-based platformers, going back to the original Prince of Persia (1989). BioShock and Dead Space are both System Shock 3 spiritually. And for all the hype that LittleBigPlanet gets for making user-created mods easy to, well, create, it has been done before; LittleBigPlanet is merely the first time that this concept has gotten a good amount of publicity.

Which are apparently what I want from my video games now, as much as I try to convince myself otherwise.