Mr. GOH!

If this thing has a robust library of PS2 and PS3 games so I can catch titles I missed, I'm sold. Well, as long as it's under $350.

I got a star from Totilo for writing a critique of MW2's transparent attempt to recreate what made the SP campaign in MW1 so interesting and how that attempt was both clumsy and a failure. My favorite comment is probably some snarky reply I made to another commenter.

Hearts of Iron 3. I'm still just trying to figure the game out. It's a process that takes many, many, many days.

Classic Pixies tune as a haunting piano piece.

My handwriting in cursive and print is just awful; it looks like the writing of a 6 year old or a severe schizophrenic. My signature is an illegible scrawl that is totally unrelated to my cursive writing ability. I hate writing anything to be read by others by hand; I even type up informal thank-you notes. I think my bad handwriting is just par for the course; I can't draw, paint or do anything resembling handiwork to save my life.

The new Green Hornet. I cannot explain it, but I legitimately enjoyed that movie. I did not expect to enjoy it, I don't necessarily recommend that anyone else see it and I have no reason to ever see it again, but I had a good time watching it.

You're not alone. I think it must be the house and trance music I've listened to, but I'll have a phrase in my head that I'll sing, repeat, and then expound upon. I really only do this at work because 1) It can be really slow and 2) No one can hear me sing, even if I'm loud. I haven't done this in a while, probably because there's more interesting people to talk to at work now. Oh, when I sing like this, I'm very, very loud. I have a pretty strong voice as it is and when I sing it just gets louder.

I sing nonsense syllables interspersed with random sentences about what I'm thinking or doing. I can get quite loud. I only do this when I'm alone or when I'm intoxicated in very, very comfortable company. I've seriously startled roommates whom I thought were gone with my abrupt nonsense songs while going about chores or my routine or just puttering around the apartment. I guess sometimes I just feel exuberant and need to express myself or something. Or perhaps I'm going mad.

Well, I might now if your experience has been good. I've just been really careful with anything "extra" when it comes to Best Buy. The employee did try setting up an online pre-order for me, but I couldn't login to my Reward Zone account. Truthfully, I don't like to concentrate so much in a busy/noisy store. Eff, I remember trying to purchase my new computer. Everything would have been fine, but it was a busy Saturday and some douche turned up the bass and speakers in the store. Did I just step into an underground party? Anyway, the cashier is telling me all the extra options that would cost much more money. I'm trying my best to decide on whether any of the options would be worth it, but instead the eff-ing loud music is killing me. It took a bit of time, but I got out without being ripped off. Obviously setting up a pre-order isn't as costly, but it was like the same scenario (minus the bumpin' bass). It's nice. I even order online for in-store pickup when I'm not pre-ordering because I so detest the big box store experience that I like to go directly to the pick-up counter, pay, and then leave ASAP.

Why not just pre-order online for in-store pickup? I bought 80% of my 360 games from Best Buy that way and never had a problem, aside from them not accepting my check once because the number was too low and my debit card had ceased to work. But that was hardly Best Buy's fault; I have only written a total of two checks for retail items in the past five years. I usually only use checks for loan repayments and rent. But, anyway, yeah; the online pre-order system from Best Buy has never let me down.

I demand you pay me $150 in damages because your post made me flashback to 1L and it was terrible. Payment will discharge all debts owed by you to me. IIRC, UK law allows for more judicial review of these sorts of claims than U.S. law does; US law favors settlements more than most other countries' laws.

Many apologies for posting twice in a row, but this fucking Kotaku article really steamed me. Not for the supposed content about JRPG's, but for the godawful and weird writing. Take this paragraph: "It's common for role-playing games to feature young characters as they are entering adulthood. Stylistic choices, such as hairstyles or even settings, are shared among many Japanese role-playing games. The shame, however, could be said about Western shooters, but that's another conversation for another time." Ignoring the obvious typo ("shame" instead of "same"), it reads like a dry news article. But it's also unsourced and fucking vague as all hell. Now, you and I know what Ashcraft means and he doesn't need to tell most gamers about these common JRPG features, and so the paragraph is superfluous to the intended audience and should have been cut. But wait! Maybe Ashcraft is trying to let non-gamers or other clueless folks know about some of the salient features of JRPG's. If that's the case, the paragraph still fails because it's too vague. I mean, "games about young characters entering adulthood?" I guess it's true, but that's not what annoys Westerners; it's the particular tropes attending a Japanese Bildungsroman RPG, like taking place in a high school, the whiny teen who rages about dumb shit, the magical girl who grunts playfully, etc. Indeed, Ashcraft doesn't even assert that these things turn off western gamers; he just implies it with a wimpy and vague paragraph. For a site that calls itself a blog, this article is aefully short on style or editorial content. For a newsite it's awfully short on sourced explanations. Fucking Kotaku

It's a Gawker crosspost. They do that with io9 and Giz all the time.

Last really good movie I saw was the new True Grit. Last movie I saw that I enjoyed was, beyond all my expectations, The Green Hornet. It is not a good movie, nor would I advocate anyone see it. I just sorta enjoyed it for some really weird reason. I think I was just in the mood for something stupid, even though I'm usually a hater.

I liked guerilla. But it wasn't very fun to drive around Mars and once the map really opened up I hated slogging around to get to missions and I just sorta stopped playing. I still have my save on my PC, and I'll sometimes get a hankering for destruction, but it gets old after a while. Armageddon may be good if the devs can find a better variety of things to do.

I dunno. Just heard that people bitched about it.

Heh. My non-widescreen monitor is what I'd play either version on. My 360 is set up in my room.

Decision time: should I buy this on PC or Xbox? I don't currently have LIVE Gold (the Internet at my place is all wireless and I'll be damned if I'm paying $100 for an Xbox wireless adapter), but I hear EA gimps the PC version. I have the first one for 360. Thoughts?

My friends will probably get it for the 360, but I'll be getting it for PC since my 360 isn't hooked up to the Internet.

I am a terrible misanthrope, so I prefer SP. Although I do enjoy MP with friends. Unfortunately, most of my RL friends play different games than I do these days, or have wildly different schedules.