2007

It seems as though a lot of my friends are going and having kids. And with those comes the baby showers. It is odd seeing my friends get all crazy trying to find princess baby shower decorations. At least I know that if I ever have to shop for a baby shower (not any time soon), I know of a good baby shower party supplies store. Shopping early and not rushing around the last minute seems like the best thing to do with this, but I guess I won’t know until I have kids of my own one day. I love kids and everything, but don’t want one for a while yet, a long while if I have anything to say about it.

I’m going to throw this out there now, so if anyone wants to join me send me a message and let me know.  On September 25th, Halo 3 comes out and I was playing around with the idea of a 24 hour Halo 3 session.   That means ranked matches, unranked matches, custom games, or even campaign mode if you want to join me even for just a half hour or so send me a message.  If you’d like to join me for 24 hours straight send me a message and we’ll see if we can collaborate a time to do this.  What KI mean is even though it comes out on September 25th, it might not have midnight openings in most locations.  If EB Games where I preordered from has it at midnight I will do it from the time I get home on September 25th to 24 hours from then. Let me know.

In other news, I am very behind on commenting and I am sorry about that.  I’m trying to keep up with my Despair comments, but others are kind of behind for one reason or another.  I am going to make an attempt to comment everyone back this weekend.

I’m always looking for better ways to keep all my files together and more organized, especially now that I work from home. The problem is that I have a laptop and am sometimes away from the desktop computer, but I have found an easy solution to that little problem. There is an affordable and easy way to receive remote access from your main computer to other computers around the world. The solution is Remote PC. With a 30 day free trial and plans as low as 4.95 a month, I might consider doing this if I know I am going to be going away a lot.

The Sony and Nintendo Press conferences were earlier and I want to give my take on both of them.  First Nintendo.

First off, there has never been a time I’ve wanted a console more than I do right now.  The Wii hjas Mario Kart and Metroid Prime 3 plus a new Resident Evil game that is exclusive to it.  If only I could find one.  They also announced a Wii Zapper, which is a gun controller for the Wii.  That is going to be huge and playing Metroid Prime with will be killer.  They also announced a Wii fitness game called WiiFit.  Although it looks more like a Yoga tape than a game, the mat for the WiiFit and the game itself are really impressive.  I hope some FPS come out using the mat.

A lot of people are talking about how Sony really stepped it up this year with the announcement of some great looking games and the announcement of upgrades to Home.  I was dissappointed.  Yes the games do look impressive, but they also look like games that I’ve seen before on the 360, like Gears of War.  The only game that they showed that I was impressed with was Metal Gear Solid 4.  I really liked the second one, but I couldn’t get into the third one.  Metal Gear Solid 4 looks like it is going to be Playstation 3’s Halo.

Out of the three major press conferences, Sony was number 3 Microsoft came in second and Nintendo stole the show, much like it did last year

Wow just wow.  Two years ago Microsoft was in second place with the Playstation 2 leading the game, my how the tables have turned.  Not only is Microsoft leading the way with games like Halo 3, Resident Evil 5 and Grand Theft Auto 4 with exclusive downloadable content, but they also have the Games for Windows set to have some awesome games out soon.  The best one looking to be Gears of War with 5 new levels.  On the market place front, Marathon and Sonic along with Golden Axe seems to be leading the way.  Along with a new partnership with Disney allowing Disney movies to be available on XBox Live.

I’m sorry if this post didn’t make much sense to you nongamers, but I will try and have non E3 posts in the next four days, but I am not promising anything.

I found a site that takes Online Backup to the next level. With IBackup you can have drive letter access to your online site. What does that mean exactly? Well you know how you have a C: where most likely your installation of Windows is located? Well now next to that you’ll have a D: that goes right to your online drive. How convenient is that? Don’t worry, though, Ibackup is still available from any browser on any computer, so getting to it is as easy as typing in a URL in the address bar. Now that is convenience.

E3 kicks off tonite with the Microsoft News Conference.   Last year, no one really thought that they had anything big, and then Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV were announced.  This year it is looking like they will most like show some Halo 3 campaign footage.  I don’t know what else Microsoft has in store, but hopefully it will be more than the Halo 3 footage.  Yes Halo 3 is a great game, but I sometimes think that that’s all people see Xbox as, the Halo machine.  We’ll see what happens and maybe I’ll report back after the press conference tonite.

Krissy and my anniversary is coming up next week. I’ve thought long and hard about what I want to do for her. At first I was thinking maybe going to a concert, but I didn’t know who she’d want to see and I wanted i to be a surprise. Next I thought what about a play? Broadway Plays are very romantic and they almost can never get a guy in trouble.  That didn’t pan out either though, as the ones I was looking in are hard to get tickets to.  Whatever I do, I need to figure it out soon, though, because it is next week and times are waisting.

I’m watching Boy Meets World, and I am thinking back when TGIF rules Friday nights on ABC. It was the episode where Cory chases Topanga to Florida. I remember when that aired and the whole night was Florida themed episodes with each show crossing over into the next, Boy Meets World had Dana from Step by Step. It just seems so long ago. I mean now Topanga is doing weioght loss commercials, its weird how time flies.

Everytime I go to a doctor, even one I had been to before, it seems like they are just starting out with all the people running around and all the paper work stacked up behind them.  One thing is for sure, the medical industry needs a big over haul.  Things like a medical network that ensures patients records go from doctor to doctor, and more efficient ways to keep track of your information are two key ones.  Another big one is taking less time in the waiting room filling out paper work.

Things are improving, however. With medicscan they can easily scan your insurance card for future purposes. Medicscan easily connects to your computer via USB port and can be saved as a file, sent to another program, published through FTP, or sent by Email.  This would cut down on time, especially if you forget your insurance card.  With this scanner, it would make it easier to email the insurance cards and information from doctor to doctor.  It will also mean less paperwork for you and the office that has one.  It doesn’t just scan insurance cards, but any photo ID.  It would take less time for them to scan your license and insurance card.  Less time waiting in the waiting room, means less time at the doctor and if you ask me, that’s a good thing.

Krissy woke up sick yesterday, so I spent most of the day in bed with her. I hate it when she’s sick, not because of reasons you might think, but because I hate seeing her in pain. Oh well, I guess I will be taking care of her for the next few days.

In America there seems to be more and more teenagers that need help. Schools can’t deal with these kids because the schools have 2000 students or more and they can’t keep track of one student whose in trouble, so that student may fall through the cracks. The fact is though that kids nowadays have more problems than can be fixed, or even recognized by schools. That’s where parents have to step in and know how and when to recognize when their child, or one of their friends have a problem.

There is a website called Teen Help that will help you to identify when a child is in need of help. They are professionals with over twenty years of experience with troubled teenagers. Nowadays far too many teenagers fall through the cracks and end up living on the street, or worse.

As a society if a teenager does something bad, we usually blame a form of media. In 1999, after the Columbine shooting occurred, there was an uproar that placed the blame on the music the kids listened to and to the video games they played. The truth is that while that may have played some factor in it, there were warning signs that went unnoticed by their parents and teachers. If someone had taken noticed and attempted to get those students help, thenmaybe we would have never heard of Columbine High School.

If you suspect one of your children is in trouble, or their friends, then please, don’t hesitate to get help. We don’t want to one day hear of Nowhereville Iowa High School because of a tragedy that could have been prevented had someone stepped up and recognized a problem before it was too late.