I'm still playing Eternal Sonata. It's pretty good so far. I don't have a final judement on the game yet, but I would recommend it to RPG fans from what I've seen. Knocked Up and a documentary called Murderball are the two movies I discuss. Both are great. There's also a coincidence involving my choosing of these two particular films in one evening. I laughed when I discovered what that coincidence was (apparently, I'm psychic).

If you have any suggestions as to what I should see, let me know. Enjoy.

From time to time, most of us have written a school paper or been forced to engage in work that is research related. Sometimes that research is, well, kinda fun. My new job has such an aspect. I talk a little about some movies I'm watching for work and a game I'm playing.

BTW, I talk about Eternal Sonata. I was correct when I said that I remember that the game got a good score from GS (8.5) and that KVO reviewed it. I was uncertain in the video.

I should be posting some more blogs in the next few weeks about movies I'm watching or games I'm playing. I'll let you all know then.

It's good to get these things for free.

P.S. Yeah, the legality in question of watching a movie early was a silly comment, but you know what I mean.

That's pretty much what was told to me when I picked up the phone.

I'd been lying in bed, still not up for the day. I heard the phone ringing, and you know how that goes. I didn't want to roll over to answer it, but I did.

I got one of the most initially startling calls I've ever had. On the other end spoke the general manager of the store to which I'd recently applied for the manager-in-training position.

I'd waited about a week to hear something. Worried, I'd sent another email to the district manager just the day before expressing my continued interest in the position. At that point, I'd become a little sceptical as to whether I'd been chosen for the job...in fact, I thought another was luckier (or more qualified) than I.

The general manager seemed a little hesitant at first. She said, "Nathan, the district manager wanted me to call you and ask what is this on your police record about a murder 1 investigation."

After a few brief seconds of experiencing a mixture of waking up and being totally confused by what I'd just heard, I responded, "A what?"

She waited a second and then said, "Just kidding. The district manager told me to mess with you. You start on Monday."

I got the job.

Here it is: Number 2. Got the potential job offer, better frames per second, and...brown stuff.

...tofurkey? If you do not know what tofurkey is, then you do not have to worry about answering that. I prefer ham. Some love turkey. I am not a huge fan of it. Ham is more along my lines.

How about your traditions? If you celebrate with a Christmas dinner, what do you eat? Mmm...ham. Maybe you are one of those crazy hip families that eats turducken!!!

Chalk up another ridiculous example as to why my dad is a nut.

My stepmom called me and told me that Dad got angry at his neighbors for telling him to get off of their property. He and they have been feuding for a few years now over nonsense mostly.

He was trying to clean up trash the neighbors had left in their yard. His being in their yard made them angry, so they told Dad to leave. Dad in his completely insane mind thought that the best retaliation would be to get his chainsaw and come back to cut all of the trees down around their house.

Dad was totally within his legal right to do this, because he owns all of the property around their house. However, what a maniacal action he chose! He cut down 25 trees...25! What a psycho! He's always been this way though. This is just the latest.

Well, anyway, now his neighbors have a nice view of the highway.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SKOREA_TOILET_HOUSE?SITE=KYLOU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

SUWON, South Korea (AP) -- Sim Jae-duck has made his political career as South Korea's Mr. Toilet by beautifying public restrooms. Now he's got a home befitting his title: a toilet-shaped domicile complete with the latest in lavatory luxury.

Um, to each his own, I guess.

Hey, GameSpot users, this is my first video blog with my new camera. It tells a bit about me, and I answer some user questions. It's a bit long, but I hope you have the time to watch it and leave a comment or question for my next. Have a great day...and I'm really nervous in the video in case your sense of perception is horrible.

Here it is...and yes, that is my dog walking around in the background. Her name is Sheik. She's named after a character from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and the Super Smash Bros. series.

I appologize for the bad framerate. My next vid will be much better. I used the Logitech forums to find out what my problem was, and realized how stupid I am. I redid some setting and remedied the problem with the FPS I was having.

Enough jabber now (there's plenty in the vid).

I saw this on System Wars in the Super Mario Galaxy thread.

Too funny. ...oh, and I'm completely excited. GOTY? I would be just elated if someone justifiably has the chance to make a "GOTY GET" picture...if you know what I mean. Mario IS the king of platformers.

When I got off work today, I raced to my car and was happy to be on my way home. I decided to call my friend, Nick, from Cincinnati to whom I hadn't spoken in a month or so. His number was disconnected, so I figured he'd not paid his bill once again and laughed to myself.

He was my roommate for a few years and also my dear friend, so I decided to call our old neighbor, Tim, so that he could get me in touch with him. As usual, Tim didn't immediately answer his phone but let the machine pick up.

Knowledgable of Tim's habits, I pretty much said, "Hey, Tim, pick up." Tim answered the phone.

I greeted him and asked how he was doing.... Yada, yada. I then asked if he could give me Nick's new phone number or at least have Nick give me a call.

Tim said, "Nick who?"

I didn't know exactly how to respond to that, because Tim should have known exactly whom I meant. I said, "Nick (with his last name)."

Tim paused and then said, "He blew his head off a month or so ago...with a .357."

The room seemed to go white at that moment.

I won't go into the further details of the call...or what happened after the call was finished, but instead I'll say this: I've never felt so guilty about anything.

I knew Nick had problems, and I've helped to prevent his attempts at suicide two times before. I don't think at any time I've felt so horrible. I know that my presence wasn't realistically possible to help him, but I wish I could have.

I'm sorry if I have brought anyone down, but I needed a place to post this.... I needed someone to talk to.

Do you remember the line from Forrest Gump where Forrest says that Bubba was his "best good friend"? I now know what he meant. Losing someone for whom you care is harder than I'd ever thought.

Regardless of how often this phrase is used...in this instance, it is relevant: He had so much potential.

He threw it all away over a girl. Stupid! STUPID!! ...and so selfish! His nephew for whom I care deeply is now left with not only a father who isn't there, but an uncle who decided that the only way out was suicide. I know that Nick's life was difficult, but as much as he loved his nephew (as his own son), I didn't think that he would take this route.

...tomorrow is another day, and I hope that the grief and anger pass as well as this blasted guilt (the most I've ever felt).

I plan to travel to Cincinnati this week to go see his nephew. I hope that I can be a "big brother" to Nicky, Nick's nephew. That's the least I can do.

His nephew needs me now, and with what has happened...I need him.

As some of you know, recently I celebrated (and I use that term loosely) my birthday. One of the gifts I received was a Target giftcard.

Well, I went to the store and picked up Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. As I was walking out of the store, a thought struck me about how I'd really wanted a decent webcam to post video blogs on GameSpot.

...so, I went to the service desk and returned Z: PH, took my credit back to the electronics department and got a nice webcam...oh, and some socks just because there was a little bit of money left over.

I hope I made the smart decision. I may have my first video blog up on GS in the next few days. It might suck as badly as I think it will, but I have to start somewhere.

I hope you all enjoy it. If you have any questions or ideas about what I should do, just leave a comment or PM me (although, I'd prefer comments considering how the message and other systems on GS have bugged up majorly lately).

Thanks a lot.

My sister's wedding was today followed by the reception. Everything was nice, beautiful, and expensive, but I hated almost all of it. I'm not much for crowds and such, and I don't take compliments well, so everyone who told me I looked nice in my tux made me feel uncomfortable...as usual.

Anyway, now it's over, and I'm back at home (as you can see), and I feel a bit guilty.

I left early, because I needed to get away from the crowd ASAP. My sister wanted a dance with me, but I left before that could happen. I hope she isn't too mad at me and that she understands considering she knows how I am. Oh, well, I guess tomorrow I'll get the chance to appologize to not only her, but her now husband who is a really good guy (and I suppose my brother-in-law).

I feel like such an ass. How selfish of me.

...jaw dropping.

I haven't reacted that way to a game since a certain scene from a game from 1997. I won't say which one, because I think that might even give too much away. I'll just say that I can't wait until Episode 3. It can't come quickly enough.

One reason Episode Two was so spectacular is that it set itself apart from the previous two as far as the settings go. Just look at the picture. Nearly nothing like those before from HL2 or Episode One.

Thanks, The Orange Box...thanks.

Let me start with this: IMHO, she is a smart woman (on whom I have a bit of a crush ) who was a teacher and seems to know her stuff.

I have enjoyed the Harry Potter movies a good deal, but I am one of those apparent few who haven't yet read any of the books.

She thinks that the lines between the young and the mature are blurred by how brilliantly the books are written regarding foreshadowing and other such literary exercises....

I will say this: J.K. Rowling who wrote the novels was next to poverty, and now she is a billionaire, so she did something right. I'll finish the book I'm reading at the moment first, but after that I'm gonna join the bandwagon and see what all the hoopla is about.

I loved the Prisoner of Azkaban (the movie), but I hear that that is one of the weaker book-to-movie-translations. If that is the case, then I must certainly get to reading...and soon.

BTW, call me shallow, but I'm somewhat doing this to get on the good side of this certain lady I work with. ...but genuinely, I'm intrigued about the Harry Potter series.

Are the Harry Potter novels really as good as I've heard?

Overall, the demo of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was visually impressive. With my new PC setup, I was able to view that beauty in all its widescreen glory.

The acting was decent enough, and the intensity of the demo reminded me of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault's Normandy battle on the beach.

I used the GameSpot downloader to get the demo and at times was getting about 1.2mb/s, so I didn't have to wait too long for the 1.4+ gigs.

In the past few years I've been slightly disheartened with the lackluster, realistic shooters. Anybody thinking of Hour of Victory? True, some pretty good World War II shooters exist out there of late as well as some other modern combat FPS's, but I don't think those quite live up to the potential this game has.

Only time will reveal if the full game justifiably exceeds the CoD4: MW demo, but I'm hopeful at this point that we may have a winner on our hands.

You can get the demo for yourself here. ...oh, and happy modern hunting!

Yep, that's right. It was on today's front page. I couldn't believe my eyes. I'm so happy to see this that I had to post about it.

Street Fighter is taking over. BTW, if you guys and gals haven't yet seen the Street Fighter IV vid on GameSpot, you're missing out. Take a minute+ and see it here.

Thank the video game gods while you're at it.

Edit: Based on some responses, I don't think people are looking at the picture closely enough. The #1 game is Street Fighter (ARC) from 1987. That's what is so surprising about it.

My mom called me to wish me a happy birthday. I'm 28 today.

The older I get, the more forgetful I become about things like this. I used to wake up on my birthday completely excited. Now, it's just another day it seems. Have any of you ever forgotten your own birthday?

Oh, well. I think I'll have a few brews to celebrate. Celebrate what, I don't know really? I don't particularly feel any different. I suppose it's just out of tradition or something.

Well, anyway: Bottoms Up!

BTW, that cake is teh awesome.

What an amazing little game. Even though it's relatively short, the game is incredible. I love when originality pokes in its beautiful head.

Now, I have to play the advanced levels for my second time through Portal. I tried the first advanced level, and I was able to beat it, but it was a bit of a challenge. I can't imagine how challenging the rest of them will be.

If you haven't tried it yet, you certainly should at least rent it. I don't wanna give too much away, so I'll just say this: The last few minutes of the game are HILARIOUS! ...oh, and really good!

Check it out soon!

The HotSpot this week featured a story about how some churches use Halo games to "lure" kids into playing in order to preach some sort of message about Christianity.

I love GameSpot and its editors' and newspeoples' opinions most of the time, but their apparent knowledge of the church and religion is largely misguided. Violence was an integral part of the Bible and wasn't necessarily immoral or anti-religion. The purpose of that violence was the key.

Playing a game like Halo (I chuckled in that it has a religiously based name), is not something that all churches would consider within the realm of sin. It's a video game, not real life, and the distinction is important in very many cases.... I think including this one.

I would guess probably accurately that people of faith aren't as uptight as the editors seemingly portrayed in their opinions, thus the surprise on the show that church goers would use Halo as a tool for witnessing.

Unfortunately for them, they've somewhat been duped into believing that churches and its members are as shame-driven and unthinking as the media has portrayed them. True, those types of individuals exist, however.

What people will likely find is that religious people are those that are the most happy and content with their lives (remember the mormon episode of South Park?), much more so than those typically of a secular persuasion.

Whether the happiness and contentment are based upon truth or myth...or even a mixture of both, I am not sure, but truly religious people tend to live happier lives. Oh yeah, many of them also like FPS's if that wasn't readily conveyed. I mean quite a few certainly love World War II history, and what genre better regards that event?