Alan Wake comes out today and I will be picking it up. I believe it's supposed to be a thriller much in the vein of Silent Hill. from what I understand you're a writer who's investigating something and you start finding pieces of your own story only you haven't written these pieces yet. Spooky. It's been one of those things where you hear about how good the game will be as you're zooming around the internet. These little whispers that don't reveal more than what could be considered opinion at best. The facts, well the facts will tell you that this particular game has been in development for 5 years. In that amount of time I've dropped out of school, got a decent job, and gotten married. All positive steps in my life more or less. So my opinion is it better be fucking good if it's taken 5 years to make the damn thing.

Red Dead Redemption also drops this week, if not today specifically. It's basically Grand Theft Auto set in the wild west. Horses, six shooters, and the like. I've heard more good things about this one but I'm not sure it's in my alley of usual gaming. I think I'll wait till someone tells me it's awesome and I can't miss it to pick this one up.

I'm really enjoying Dragon Age. Can Bioware miss? So far every single game I've played that they've been involved in has been fantastic. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that the titles that I liked the least out of the ones I've played, and that ain't saying much because they've all been good, are the Star Wars titles and that's only because they're older. A little more dated. If I remember correctly the next Star Wars game they're involved in is The Old Republic. I haven't explored this too deeply yet, shame on me I know, but I believe it's going to be a mmo for consoles and I'm sure it will be available on pc. Most of Bioware's stuff spans the gaming spectrum. Now I know I've expressed disinterest for those types of games in the past, but for Star Wars and Bioware... I'd be willing to take a twirl around the maypole, if you will.

And finally, the Smash Tournament. I have some 'splainin to do, to quote Ricky Ricardo. I had initially recorded the fights about a week and a half ago. I was feeling pretty good about it all until I sat down to edit and upload them this last weekend. Much to my dismay I come to find that a good chunk of the fights didn't make it into the save file with the rest of them. So, being steamin mad, I set out to re-record the entire thing and as of yesterday I'm halfway through with editing the fights. I'm using Windows Movie Maker and there are some effects I'm using that will make these fights easier to follow and hopefully more entertaining in the long run. I sincerely apologize for the delay. Bear with me. I'm learning how to do a lot of this as I go but I promise I'll make it as good as I can. So basically I've got a completed bracket (Jericho can vouch for those battles) that won't be uploaded, and a third bracket that will have fights attached to it. I think I will post the bracket from the lost fights and score it since it was basically the one that was supposed to happen and then I'll upload the next one. I've also calculated each fighter's winning percentages through the three brackets for use in seeding future brackets. I just hope you guys are all still interested by the time I get this crap on the forum. /sigh

You know, I guess I'm okay with that. Affleck is the bomb.

If you'll recall my story about being two days away from paying off my tickets and getting two more of the same citations, I had a hell of a time getting out from under all this mess. But I was finally on the home stretch after six months. Then last Friday - the morning of THE PAYDAY itself - I was pulled over on my way to work. "Any reason you don't have an inspection sticker?" the officer asked. So I told him the story going back to November. Tickets, payment plans, license reinstatement, surcharges, new insurance policy, more tickets, broken water pump - and now on the payday that I'm getting the car inspected, I'm pulled over. He was gracious enough to let me off with a warning.

Ahhhhh. For the first time since November, I'm free and clear of all legal obligations. My tickets are now completely paid off, and everything about me and my car is now appropriately documented. So I don't have any money this pay period, but starting on the 28th, I'll have money I can actually keep to myself, and I should be able to finally get that new tablet I want. Maybe. Kiddo's talking about possibly calling off the Bahama trip, but if I can get that bank I'll be able to cover the few costs that go along with it.

Lines. It turns out that the thing I'm trying to do with my lines won't be possible in GIMP, the program I use to draw. I need photoshop to respond to the pen sensitivy like I want it to. Ah well. Jeri looks pretty good in the second panel, but Corbin's lines are too thick for my taste. Ah well. This is the week I'm going to try to do a practice drawing every day and see where it takes me. I may not be up to posting the doodles right off the bat, but we'll just see how it goes.

I'm in the studio today sitting in for the mixing of the final tracks on my 12 track demo. Can't wait to be done with these songs and never have to think about them again. To move onward and upward. Huzzah!