Ka-Boom Blox!

Wow, my 25th birthday was freaking AWESOME. List of swag is as follows:

SWAG

• From the wife

1. Pillow - I'm quite particular about my pillows when I have a choice in the matter. I like them firm. Unfortunately, the wife has stolen all the pillows to place around herself come bedtime. Pregnant women need their pillows. So she got me my own pillow. I have since installed a high security, electric fence around it. It's mine.... my... precious.
   
   
2. The Dark Knight on DVD - We saw this in the theater when it first came out and I loved it. It is definitely in my Top 10 Movies list. The acting, pacing, plot twists, visuals.. everything about it is amazing.
   
   
3. A tea maker - BPW loves his sweet tea. I get it whenever I eat out somewhere, as that is the only time I'm really ever going to be able to drink it. But now I can make it in my own kitchen! HI FIVE! I haven't tried it out yet, but I'm excited. Tea whenever I want.. wowsers.

• From Slamin and his wife, a 3 month subscription to Netflix. This is awesome. I've never had Netflix before and ever since the Xbox was updated with the ability to stream Netflix at any time, I've been wanting to try it out. Well, thanks to J, now I can! We fired it up and watched The Sphere last night. The service was absolutely 100% perfect. Very easy to setup and select movies, perfect quality digital stream on the Xbox. Really, it was like watching a DVD. Wow. A++++++ Would buy from again.
• From Moxa and his girlfriend, 1600 Microsoft points for the Xbox. Super cool. I already spent them actually. I bought BC: Rearmed and 4 additional maps for Call of Duty 4. BC: Rearmed is alot of fun so far. It really takes me back to the feel of the old NES games. The game is hard! It doesn't hold your hand- you have to figure things out for yourself. For example, I went tried to infiltrate a cave, but it was dark. I couldn't see anything. But the game didn't stop me from entering. I'm pretty sure that I could have actually beaten the level if I knew my way around. But since I didn't, no way that was going to happen.
• $15 Target gift card from Meglet. Thanks Meglet! I have no idea what I'm going to spend it on yet, but whatever it is, it will be awesome.
• My parents went a little nuts! They got me a full-year subscription to Gamefly! WOW. Totally unexpected. An entire year.. I'm actually going to be able to play all the great games that came out this past year! Gears of War 2, Fallout 3.. wow. I can't wait!

Oh.. and don't forget this amazing system seller.

But really, my birthday was awesome. A co-worker took me out to lunch, wife and I got to eat at Olive Garden that night. A great start to what is definitely going to be a huge year for me. 39 days until baby. HOLY CRAP!

Bad boy!

As with almost every blog ever started, I went on a break. It wasn't really intentional- I just stopped writing. I've continued to play games and such of course, and life has really swung into gear.

Wife and I found out in late May/early June that she was pregnant. She called me at work and told me that she had bought a home pregnancy test and it turned out positive. I don't remember much of our conversation, but I'm sure it consisted of quite a bit of silence and "Uhhhhh..."s and "REALLY?!"s. I do distinctly remember getting tunnel vision and not being able to focus my eyes on anything in front of me. Good thing I was sitting down when she called. We went to the University health center where they did a more thorough test which confirmed the at home test's result. Wife and I looked at each other- "Holy crap, we're gonna have a baby."

The past few months have been very babyrific. We've completely reorganized the office by getting rid of my old college futon and college entertainment center(to sister-in-law), my N64 and wall length desk (to Slamin), and a bunch of stuff to Goodwill. We needed even more room, so we started selling books on Half.com. I had no idea how many books we had, or their worth! In about 2 months, we sold well over $450 worth of books. Heck. Yes. The office is currently in the process of being turned into a nursery. Other than a daybed to replace the futon, we haven't really gotten any big pieces of furniture yet. But there will be a crib, dresser/changing table, and other assorted goodies.

Football has started up again, and the Dawgs are 2-0 and are ranked #2 in the country. Their first two games (against Georgia Southern and Central Michigan) were pretty much blowouts. The second game featured this incredible display of athleticism.

HOLY CRAP!

Up this weekend is an away game against the South Carolina Gamecocks. Can't wait!

In gaming news, I'm going to try and list some games I've been playing recently. Upon learning that I am going to be a daddy, we looked at ways to start saving money. I decided that I would go ahead and cancel my Gamefly subscription. I really enjoyed the number of games I was able to play that I probably wouldn't have had a chance to check out had it not been for the service. Thanks Gamefly, I'll probably be signing back up again in the future.

Madden 09 - played the demo and thought it was awesome. So I traded in some games and got this puppy.
Grand Theft Auto IV - lots of fun, though I'm beginning to tire of it. It is easily the most beautiful game I've played, and the technology behind almost every facet of it is mind blowing. I still have fun clipping people in the leg with a car to see the realistic way they react. However, beyond just a couple of modes, the multiplayer is not very engaging. And I am not a person that enjoys collecting things, so feel no compulsion to hunt through the city for 200 freaking birds.
Condemned 2 - Got this through Gamefly. Pretty fun little game, and creepy as hell. I played this a few times at night with the lights off, and there was more than one time I screamed.

The next few weeks are going to get pretty crazy. Next weekend is our first babyshower, being thrown by the wife's family. After that, my weekends are full of either football games, work, more baby showers, and camping. I'm pretty excited. While the weekdays are filled with the doldrums of work, the weekends should be pretty exciting. Huzzah!

Update-a-thon!

Two days in a row. Wow, huh? This is just to add some photos. After I got married in June 2006, my wife and I adopted a puppy in February 2007. He was a Valentine's Day present. A mutt, they told us he was a mix of Husky, Chow-Chow, and terrier. Seeing as how we were in the midst of watching 24, we had to name him Bauer.

He's been an awesome guy so far. Of course, the above picture was taken back when we first got him. 8 weeks old, 5 lbs. He's now over 10 months, and 54 lbs! Here's a more recent picture.

What a beast, huh?

WORK UPDATE!

So, since I last played around with this blog, I got a job with a company called Daktronics working UGA sporting events. Everything I do gets shown up on the Jumbotron at the different games (football, mens and womens basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball). My responsibilities range from running cameras to operating a couple computer systems that handle all the graphics and animations. I am working on a new demo reel for my work, and I am including some highlights of my camera work. Here is a short rendition that I'm pretty proud of.




GAMING UPDATE!

I've been playing some GUN, and I have to say, it's pretty fun. It has some great gunplay and shootouts, some fantastic voice acting, and great music. A very good atmosphere that, while violent and a bit over the top, comes pretty close to what the Wild West was like. At least, as far as I imagine.

Resurrection

Out of seemingly nowhere, I've decided to begin updating this blog again. Over 2 years have passed, and alot has happened. However, I'm going to keep the personal stuff short and brief. I will be taking this blog in a whole new direction. Formerly, it was more of a random thing. I would post about various things I found on the internet, or things going on in my life. The blog will surely still contain some of that. However, I hope to incorporate alot more aspects that tie into gaming. For example, on the right hand side of the blog you will see a running list of games that I'm playing now, as well as a list of games that I've beaten recently. With being married now, I have a lot less time for gaming. But I hope to keep this updated as regularly as possible.

Gaming Update!
Back in September, I took the plunge and signed up for an account at Gamefly. So far, I would rate the experience as a positive one. It sucks that the distribution center that ships to Georgia is all the way in California though. Sometimes it takes a week for a game to make it to me. Most times though, it's only around 4 days or so. So far, I've been able to play Excitetruck, Animal Crossing, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II, Mario Party 8, and a couple others thanks to Gamefly. Right now, I'm awaiting GUN for the PS2 to arrive in my mailbox. I've heard good things. It's nice to be able to keep up with the industry, without having to shell out a bunch of money buying stuff.

I should be picking up an Xbox360 in the very near future. I'm excited. The system supports a large library of great games, but the one I'm looking forward to the most is Mass Effect, set to release November 20, 2007. Everything I've seen about this game just blows me away. I'm also excited about Assassin's Creed and the possibility to play already released games like Bioshock, Halo 3, and Crackdown.

So yeah, I just want to reiterate how I'm hoping to keep this thing going. With the sheer number of quality games coming out in the near future, I'm sure I'll be good to go!