Rain Rain stay for a while

I hate rain, but I've had little opportunity to get in some GTA:IV time. Every evening something is going on. We had a b-day dinner for my aunt last night. The night before, I got a little bit of time to play, but I was sick and not feeling it at all. I spent about an hour tossing molotov cocktails into the biggest groups of people I could find. The game is theraputic that way.

Tonight is shaping up to be a GTA night. There are a couple decent pitching matchups on the baseball front that I'd like to watch too. I might end up doing a little of both.

GTA:IV is about the most fun game I've played since GTA: Vice City. Sure, many other games are fun like Oblivion and Bioshock, but GTA is more my type of game. I love just driving around the city looking for cool places to wreck my ride. It's also a fun as hell to just mow people down in the streets for no good reason.

GTA:IV and Cleveland

I'm finally home from Cleveland. The trip itself wasn't that bad. Fortunately I was in a suburb of Cleveland called Solon which is a pretty nice town by the way. The Cavs were playing the Wiz and the Indians were playing the Yanks one day and Mariners the next two days. I wanted to go to a game, but the evening temps were in the upper 30's to lower 40's and I didn't even pack a coat for the trip. I watched the games on TV instead.

Tuesday was GTA:IV launch day. I had pre-ordered it from my local Gamestop, not knowing at the time I would be out of town. I had my mother pick it up for me since she was going to be out that way anyway. I was glad she went and not me too. I hate the mall. Add in a bunch of console gamer/nerd/brats to the mix and you have a recipe for me to lose my cool. Mom got the game without a hitch. So I just had to wait.

During my trip to Cleveland, the weather was so shitty and the Rock N' Roll HOF closes at 5:30 p.m. (what the fuck is up with that?), so I stayed couped up in my motel room with cable TV and wireless internet for 3 solid days. By the time I got home, I really wanted to play GTA:IV but I also didn't want to spend my entire evening inside again. Especially since I was back in sweet home WV where the weather was nice.

I drove over to my Mom's house to eat dinner and pick up the game. She wasn't home from work yet, so I fired up the lawn mower and mowed her grass for her. I'm such a good son. She almost feinted when she come home to a freshly mowed lawn. We had some tortellini and I grabbed my game.

I had to drive by the bowling alley to pick up my league earnings for the year. I got a fat gangsta roll with $117 in it (mostly singles too so it looked like a lot). I also picked up my buddy Jim's money since I'll see him tonight. Then I figured since I was on the other end of town, why not stop by Spook's house and watch the band get ready for tomorrow's show? So that's what I did. I got there before they started practicing, so I hung with Mr. and Mrs. Spook (and Snoop Doggie Spook otherwise known as 'Layla'). I stayed there for a couple hours listening to the band practice their set lists.

My ears finally had enough. I couldn't hear shit anymore. Even when I talked, it had a hard time hearing myself. So I went home. It was already 10:00 p.m. and really was my bedtime, but I had yet to check my fantasy scores. I hopped online and checked my scores, set my lineup for the next day, and made a couple trade proposals. I had already written off GTA:IV at this point. However, the box kept looking at me...begging me to play. So I did.

I only played about 1.5 hours and most of that was just dicking around getting used to the controls and exploring. I had never played GTA on the XBox 360 before, so it took a little getting used to. The game is FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC! The opening scene had me mesmerized. The only complaint I have with the game is the camera angles while driving are a little difficult.

Rockstar really has a brilliant marketing strategy too. Step 1, make the game. Step 2, set a release date. Step 3, let every media outlet in the country give you free publicity while they debate violence/sex in video games. All I heard the entire week on the radio was GTA this, GTA that. You would have thought that the presidential election didn't exist anymore. Fuckin' brilliant! If I didn't know what GTA:IV was, I'd have to pick it up just to see what the fuss is all about. That's marketing folks!

I plan on getting plenty of time with it tonight after work. I'm going over to some friends' house to hang out a little later, but I'll have plenty of time before that to go on some rampages and such.

Tidbits

...Like those poor sots who are going to vote for Obama thinking he'll actually shake up DC.

Pauly wrote that quote and it couldn't be more on the money. Think about it.

- I've noticed the conservative talk shows spewing some garabage lately about the economy not being as bad as the press lets on. I can feel the effects of the economy more than the average citizen. I don't rely soley on a monkey's wage to live. I have other irons in the fire that make income. When the economy is bad, I feel it. I've felt it for the past 6 months. Where does all my money go? Food and gas. Food, I can deal with... Gas is another issue.

Diesel fuel is over $4/gallon now. Diesel fuel is cheaper to make than regular gasonline. Also demands for oil are lower now than before. So, what gives? I understand the basics of supply and demand. So if demand is on the decline and supply is on the rise, how come prices are also on the rise? Bottom line is that $3+/gallon is too much for product that affects so many peoples' lives. I don't blame the oil companies either. They show record profits, but the profit margins are very low when compared to other products being sold around the world. I blame the tree-huggers who won't allow us to build any more refineries.

- I stay away from the internet as much as possible on 4/1. Everything you read is crap anyway. Then when 4/1 comes, the non-crap even turns to crap. I had read American Idol was having Dolly Parton night. I was very surprised when this turned out to be true. Brilliant move AI execs. Needless to say, Dolly Parton night was crap.

- I did play poker last night. At least I tried. I got a couple hundred hands in before I gave up. My PC just didn't want to behave. I've had the same install of XP on it for about 2 years now. I guess it's time to clean that up a bit. I need to back up a ton of files and downloads before clearing out that beast. At least I won at poker. Not much, but a win's a win.

- I used my special "Small Town" guy powers to circumvent my fears of getting a bad agent to do my house appraisal. I used my underground network of relatives and friends and secured the same guy that did my last appraisal. He knows my house, he knows what it looked like before and will be impressed when he comes in for a 2nd visit.

- If you are running a fantasy baseball league, avoid USA Today's Sandbox site like the plague. So far, we've had a draft page not work (manually drafting in a keeper league sucks!), our live scoring page has yet to work properly, slow updating of the stats, and now the whole damn webpage will not show and allow us to set our lineups. Oh yeah, and they just raised prices $2/month starting this month. Awesome job guys!

- Oblivion is still ruling my thoughts, but I'm getting aggravated because I don't have time to play. I had time last night and was able to play for about 30 minutes before my computer problems blew me away. I haven't even picked up Bioshock since starting Oblivion. It's such an awesome game and everything about it is impressive. I never really gave RPGs much of a chance in the past, but they are right up my alley when I think about it now. I guess you can think WoW for that one.

- I'll be out of town for the GTA:IV launch. Boo!

Must... play.... more......Oblivion!

I'm really loving that Oblivion game. It has consumed my soul. The game is honestly like crack. I'll finish this quest and the I'll stop. Well, maybe after the next quest. I knew I had a problem when I got up at 7:30 a.m. yesterday morning and decided to fire it up before even taking my morning piss. Fortunately, I haven't abandoned all of civilization yet and have really only put 4-5 hours into it. But I can see myself playing some more tonight!

I have been playing a bit of limit poker recently. The only reason for really playing LHE is because it's quicker to clear the bonus on Eurolinx when you play $1/2 limit than it is to play $.10/.20NL. Fortunately, I've ran around expectation playing the games and have padded the Eurolinx bankroll a little bit. I'm still only about 4% of the way to clearing this bonus, but it's getting quick now. It's also looking like when I get done clearing this bonus, I'll have enough LPs to buy a $100 bonus (no clearing required). Then I can take advantage of the $500 reload bonus. That's $850 in free money for me! For those of you with a bankroll, you can get the $1000 1st deposit + the $500 reload + the bottomless bonuses with the LPs. If you want in on this action, see the right hand column for details.

I'll be excited to have these bonuses cleared out soon though. I plan on moving up to $50NL and might even dabble in the $100NL games soon. It'll be nice for the bankroll to be healthy enough to do that!

I have the remainder of my fantasy starting rotation going today. Verlander already had a good start, but blew his wad in the 5th or 6th inning. Sheets is doing OK right now early in his game, but he's up against Zambrano who is also doing well and not on my team. Then I have Oswalt going against Peavy tonight (yuck) and Bedard going against Millwood. Hudson scored me some decent points last night, but just like my team always does, he got me a quality start, but no win (10 lost points). I can see myself staying up late tonight watching the Padres/Astros game. 2 Stallions pitching in that game! 1 of them being my horse.

Holy Crap!

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is so awesome. It sucks me in and I lose track of time. I keep telling myself that I'll finish this one quest and then quit, yet there's never an end because the quest turns into a whole chain of adventures. It's really great. Also, the world is HUGE!

Congrats to WVU for making the sweet 16 and then choking hardcore at the foul line... both in the last seconds of regulation and all throughout overtime. I hate basketball and I hate that I wasted my evening watching that garbage. The good news is that the real baseball season starts Sunday night with my beloved Braves.

I finally got back to playing some Bioshock last night. That game is amazing. I am maybe only 20% through it. I can't really tell. It's a very fun game and very creepy! I also got to see the final GTA:IV trailer last night.... Whoa!

In other news: Coast Guard Siezes over $100M in cocaine. If you watch the video on the right, that's my cousin with the M-16. I wonder if I can score some of that 100% pure Peruvian marching powder from him and put it out on the mean streets of WV and become the redneck Pablo Escobar?

I did play some poker last night as well. I just donked around at the Uber micros tryign to run up my Pokerstars balance a little bit. I didn't. It stayed the same. I've lost all confidence in my game and really don't feel like playing much anymore. I need to take a break and stick with it.

I think some personal coaching would help me more than anything. I'm looking around for someone to help me out with some personal training. I'm not opposed to investing 25% of my bankroll for a couple hours of solid training. I think it will pay me back infinitely. I'm a Stoxpoker member and I can watch those videos and pick up stuff...but I think my game really needs attention at a more personal level. If I would just hit more flops, turns, and rivers, then everything would be alright.

Gameography

I've really missed playing video games over the past year. That's not to say that I haven't played any in a year, because I have. But the only games I've played are maybe at a friend's house on the Wii. I used to love video games. Nothing obsessive, but just a love.

Over the years there are maybe a handful of games that I've devoted more than 20 hours of my time to. The NCAA Football games probably got the most play from me as I would just play season after season with WVU. 2nd on the list has to be GTA: Vice City. I tried to get 100% on that game. I think I gave up around 95-96% because I came to my senses. I devoted some time to World of Warcraft, but it just wasn't my style. I'm a single player kind of guy unless I play with people I know. WoW is just gay in most of my friends' eyes.

I used to buy every console that came out. It all started with the Intellivision. We had one and my aunt had one. My father was laid off from the coal mines one year and he and my aunt had an epic Burger Time battle that lasted for months. I'm not sure who had the high score between the two. I didn't care for that game much, I was a Night Stalker kind of guy.

After the intellivision, my next stop was the NES. This was the first console that I bought with my own money. I saved and saved. I remember the first time I beat The Legend of Zelda. I had to call all my friends and tell them. However, I think my favorite game was Kings of the Beach. It was a 2 on 2 beach volleyball game that I loved for some damn reason.

Next up was the Sega Genesis. My neighbor got one and I just had to have one. Sonic was amazing at the time. Then came the 6 button controller and Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. Whoa! The Genesis came out the same time as the SNES (same gen anyway). I could only afford one and the Genesis won. However, my cousin had a SNES and one summer we swapped. I spent that entire summer beating Zelda.

When the PS1 hit the market, I was too old for games. I skipped out on the PS1. Then the N64 hit the market and I had to have one. It was awesome and so was Mario 64 and Excitebike 64. This renewed my love for games and I bought a PS1, modded it, and had every game you could think of for the Playstation. Then I outgrew the PS1 and N64 and sold them.

The Dreamcast was my favorite system. I could play Crazy Taxi until my fingers bled. The NFL 2K games were breath-taking at the time. I remember getting into the Super Bowl with the Redskins one time against the Colts. The Colts were handing my ass to me until the 4th quarter. I staged an Elway-like comeback and tied the game. I had to hold the Colts one more time to force OT. James busted the first play for like 40 yards and I was in trouble. Then they tried to pass to get in to field goal position to put me away and Deion Sanders out of nowhere picked off the pass and ran it back for a TD. Best NFL 2K game ever against the CPU (it might have been 2K1, I can't remember).

The PS2 hit the market and was causing a scene. Everyone wanted one, but supplies were low. I scored 1 by luck after work one day. I tried to buy all the store had, but they wouldn't allow it. I didn't put the PS2 on ebay, but I did advertise it for sale. I got a lot of bites to buy the thing for double price, but nobody actually pulled the trigger. Finally I gave in and just plugged the thing up and fell in love with it. There were so many good games on the PS2....my favorite though was Vice City. 80's Rock n' Roll playing while I run over hookers with my Sanchez motorcycle.....sheeeeeeit.

I then got an Xbox for Christmas one year. It reminded me of the Dreamcast. There were several great games for it. I spent most of my time playing Tiger Woods though. I never really got a chance to give the Xbox the love it deserved.

When the next gen consoles hit, they prices got out of hand and so did the people wanting them. I was older then and could wait. I finally decided on an Xbox 360 year before last. I bought a few sports games for it, but never gave it the love it deserved. I was spending most of my time playing poker instead of video games.

I still don't have a Wii or PS3, but would like both. The only reason I want a PS3 is for the Blue Ray player and the MLB: The Show game. The Wii would be great for company, but isn't the best console for single player action. That's the reason I don't have one right now (although I've tried!).

This all brings me to yesterday when I decided to take a little vacation from poker. I coudln't ask for a better game than Bioshock. It's intense! It has refueled my video game urge too. Now, I have this long list of stuff I want to play! The good news is that they are all on the 360. The bad news is that I don't have the time nor the money to be getting all these games. I hope to finish up Bioshock this week (I'm going marathon on it's ass tonight!) and then that should do me until GTA:IV comes out. If not, I never finished GTA: San Andreas. I'll whip out that bad boy and start going on rampages.

My gaming Wish List:
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
o Nintendo Wii
o PS3 w/ MLB The Show
o Mass Effect
o Oblivion
o Orange Box
o GTA:IV
o 50-60" LCD to play it all on!

No Problems

So I opted for Bioshock over Oblivion and Mass Effect. I think it will have about the right amount of gameplay for me. Not too long, but definitely not short. I'll have to say that I'm happy with the purchase too. What a friggin' game! I'll have no problems staying away from poker this week.

I had to quit when I about had a heart attack during the game. I was in some dark corner searching a cabinet or corpse or something and when I turned around, this dude was standing right on top of me just staring. It was pretty fucking spooky and I didn't realize he was a bad guy at first until he busted me in the forehead. The music and sound in this game is brilliant. The sounds creates the atmosphere and makes the game twice as awesome.

When I was at Gamestop, I went ahead and pre-ordered GTA:IV. So I know what I'll be doing towards the end of April too.

Vacation / Pisgah House / My Neglected 360

I'm going to take a hiatus from poker for a couple days. I've decided this is the best thing overall for my bankroll. This isn't a permanent vacation or anything... just until the weekend or at the latest next Monday. Poker has wore thin on my patience the past few days and I need to take a break from the tables to get my head clear. That's not to say I won't be studying the game or even blogging about it, because I more than likely will!

So what to do with all the extra time? Well, I've had my 4th bedroom that needed repainted. That's getting done this coming weekend. Once that is complete, then I'll need to touch up a few things and I'm ready to re-finance the house, which in turn should take a lot of financial burden off me this coming summer. I only expect the room to take a few hours to paint as there is nothing really tricky paint around. The closet was the hardest thing to paint in that room and it has already been done. Once the house is re-financed, I will be able to roll over my HELOC into my mortgage and then pay off the rest of my credit card that got run up a bit during the renovations. I should also be able to pay off my appliances and any other outstanding debts I have. This will ease my financial pain a bit.

Other than working on the house, the weather just hasn't broke like I had hoped, so I still need to do something to occupy my time during the cold hours. My poor Xbox 360 has sit collecting dust for a long time now. I think it's time to break it out. I'm going to find a good game this evening to pick up. I'm probably either going to get Oblivion or Mass Effect. It all depends on which I can find the better deal on. I'll also be placing my pre-order for GTA: IV which comes out towards the end of next month....awesome.

I have missed out on a lot of gaming the past couple years. Some due to poker, but most due to buying a house. There are a bunch of titles for the poor neglected 360 which I'd like to pick up: Oblivion, Mass Effect, Assassins Creed, Orange Box (I've never played any of the Half Life games, except for a little Counter Strike back in the day), COD4, and Bioshock. The good news is that I have friends that have most of these games and can just borrow one instead of having to buy them.

Also, I'd still love to have a Wii, especially since we have SSB: Brawl and Mario Kart coming soon.

Sonofagodamnguitarherobitch!

One of my Christmas presents this year was Guitar Hero III for the Xbox 360. When I got it, I noticed it was the wired version. I don't have a good setup for a wired version of that game, so I decided to trade it in for the wireless version (only $10 more). Unfortunately, there weren't any to be found in my area, so my aunt who lives in Charleston said she'd exchange it for me. Nice!

She was able to score 2 wireless GH3's from a Wal-Mart in Charleston. One for me, one for my cousin. I just met up with my other cousin to retrieve my copy. I was all pumped up and ready to battle against Slash and that hack Tom Morello.

I hurried home and quickly opened the box. The shiny black Les Paul was very nice looking. I was suprised because the SG that came with GH2 was hideous. I got everything put together and popped in the disc. It had to update my Xbox and I was ready. BUt, wait. The motherfuckin' guitar wouldn't work.

I thought I was just an idiot at first. You know, the 30 year old gamer, who is losing touch with technology and just can't figure out these new age gadgets. However, after RTFM and checking things online, I was doing shit right. My fucking guitar was broke. It will semi-connect to the console, but the only thing it will do is turn the damn thing on. The console doesn't see it as a controller and won't add it for whatever reason.

So now I have to trade this one in for another one. Worst of all, it came from a Wal-Mart, so now I have to go back to the hell hole and deal with customer service. I can't catch a break.

Christmas Hangover

'Tis the season to be a slacker. I'm the only one in the office until after the first of the year. I take my vacations during the warm weather months. The other co-workers take a week of theirs during the Christmas->New Years week. This really equals a vacation for me as well. We usually aren't busy. The boss is usually on the road or working on his sales stuff for the next year. This equals me in the office by myself with minimal phone interruptions. This usually means I slack off all day long too.

Christmas was decent. I got some nice gifts. I got some badly needed tools, 2 pairs of real shoes, 1 pair of bowling shoes, Superbad (funny as shit!), Guitar Hero III for the Xbox 360. I got a few other odds and ends as well. I finally got my parents to keep from going "all out" for Christmas. THey still spend way too much on me and other relatives and friends. However, they are much better than before. Now If I can just train them into having a more simple Christmas in the future. My parents had like 25 people in their house yesterday. My mom was worn out from all the cooking. My aunt was having anxiety attacks trying to get everything ready. It was a mad house.

As far as poker goes, I took yesterday off. I actually fired up Full Tilt to datamine some tables, but then ended up just deciding against playing. I opted to watch Superbad instead. I'm not going to make Iron Man on FTP this month. This was mainly due to the PokerStars bonus I had to clear. I have 6 days left in the month and have to get 6 days of 100 FTP points. That normally wouldn't be a problem. Except on New Years Eve, I'm not going to be able to play. I'll be leaving from work to go directly to Charleston for my New Years festivities. I'm still going to try to play a lot though because of the double point promo. I really want an iPod Touch. I'm a ways off right now, but I'm grinding.

In other news, I've still been unsuccessful in finding a Wii. My cousin's husband's parents had one they didn't need and he is supposed to check on that for me. I doubt they still have it though. I have found a few online, but they are all bundles. This bundle shit is a rip-off. I mean when the fuck am I going to find time to play 10 games? Maybe if you spread it out over the course of a couple years. I mean check out this bundle on Toys R US's website:

This Bundle includes: Wii Console, Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, Transformers: The Game, Bee Movie Game, Crash of the Titans 07, Dewey's Adventure, Zak & Wiki: Quest for Barbaro's Treasure, Raving Rabbids 2, Geometry Wars: Galaxies, Petz Dogz 2, and Soulcaliber Legends

The only game interesting to me in that bundle is Geometry Wars: Galaxies. Why would someone pay $700 for a console and 10 shitty games that nobody wants? Hopefully the eBay prices will drop way down today.