Congrats Barack!

(click photo for Barack's amazing victory speech)

Congratulations to Barack Obama for his big win in South Carolina, hopefully he can parlay this momentum into positive results during Super Tuesday.

Life is but a game...

In of my favorite articles that Wired magazine has published, Daniel Terdiman highlights the bizarre effects gaming can have on one's life, particularly when the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred. He describes several instances in which gamers have trouble separating real life from their games.

After many years of gaming, I have had my share of bizarre experiences.

The most vivid of these occurred last year, when I was living on campus - in dorms that happened to be right across from the baseball team's practice area. I had a couple of hours to kill in between classes and decided to play a couple of rounds of America's Army, the super-realistic FPS designed by the Army themselves as a recruiting tool for young, impressionable youths.

Turning down the lights and donning my trusty headphones, I sat down, intent on killing some terrorist scum. Cut to several hours and many deaths later, I glanced at the clock and realized it was almost time for class. Hurrying out of the door into the blinding sunlight, I am startled by several loud, metallic bangs - one after another. Convinced that I am taking fire from a unknown location, I dove behind some cover and waited. Then it hit me - this is real life, those were aluminum bats hitting practice balls over in the batting cages, and I am an idiot. Glancing around to make sure that no one saw my masterful dive into the bushes, I hurried to class with my tail between my legs.

Other, less embarrassing stories include:

• Wondering if there is a redeemer on the top of Century Tower, because if campus was a map in Unreal Tournament 2004 that's obviously where they would have put it.
• Thinking that the people direct-connecting on their NEXTELs are really Combine soldiers from Half-Life 2.
• Looking down on the countryside from the window seat of a 727, thinking that I could have designed a much better city.
• Scoping out good skateboarding spots... and wondering how many points I could rack up if I skated them in Tony Hawk Pro Skater.
• Thinking that the church that I attend back home would make an awesome map in Counterstrike.
• When playing Doom III in the middle of the night, my brother comes into my room and yells "ITS ONLY A GAME, YOU DON'T HAVE TO SCREAM SO MUCH!"

Ok, maybe less embarrassing is not the correct choice of words.

MSNBC gains viewership, including myself

Having a routine is the key to getting up early, and I have found a TV news show thats perfect for having on in the background while getting ready for the day. Morning Joe on MSNBC replaced Imus in the Morning after it was canceled last April.

Hosts Willie Giest, Mikia Brzenzinski (daughter of foreign-policy expert Zbigniew Brzezinski) and former Florida congressman Joe Scarborough guide viewers through the day's news, with a heavy slant towards the political. The show attracts the big names and Washington insiders who offer information beyond the headlines.

Morning Joe has caused me to totally switch my cable news viewing habits, as now MSNBC is almost always on when I'm not watching a particular show on TV. I find their team of journalists and pundits to be heads and shoulders above the rest. Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Dan Abrams, political director Chuck Todd, and the always feisty Keith Oberman are a hard team to beat.

MSNBC has seen a 20% increase in its ratings year-to-date, a fact that CNN's Jonathan Klein sees as a major challenge to the number two cable news outlet behind FoxNews.

I thought this was a joke.... Hackers holding cities hostage!?!?

Upon seeing the headline to this MSNBC article, "Hackers demanding cash disrupting power" I thought I was reading a summary of the plot of the next James Bond movie, or a synopsis of Die Hard 4.

Could this be the best SW game since KOTOR?

GameVideos has a short video posted on LucasArts' new take on Star Wars action games, The Force Unleashed. The name is quite fitting, as it is the first game to really allow for control of a character with such immense power over the force (throwing entire squads of Stormtroopers across the room, throwing Tie Fighters around, massive force lightning attacks filling the entire screen - basically lots of throwing and electrocutions).

Main focus of the video is on the underlying tech that allows for all this action to happen, and happen in a realistic and believable manner, very interesting stuff!



This is one of the games that I will be watching very closely over the next few months.

First Post!

Welcome to a blog about the things I love; Consumer Electronics, Computers, Video Games, Movies, and TV. In short: Media, Entertainment, and Technology, or M.E.T.

This is a temporary design until I get all the bugs worked out.

It's time to explore the METa-verse!