Meh, I don't feel like writing much right now, so I'm keeping it short. My birthday has come and gone and all and all it was good times. Saw Jackass Number 2 with Kyle and Eddie, which was pretty damn funny. It was also good to see Eddie and Kyle again since I haven't seen them in forever. The following week I went to County Line with the gang and Melvin for dinner. Afterward we all went to Julie & Howard's to hang out and watch Fearless and selected scenes from The Protector. Both were pretty good, although I would have liked to see them on the big screen.
A couple weeks ago I bought a 20" Dell widescreen flat panel monitor that was on sale (thanks Slickdeals!). It's not top of the line, but good enough for the $230 price tag. After buying that, I just had to buy the VGA cable for the Xbox 360 so I can use it on the flat panel monitor. I also bought an adapter so I can use my computer speakers with my 360. So far gaming has been awesome. I can finally read text in games that was normally too tiny to read on my crappy 13" GXTV. Melvin gave me Lego Star Wars II for my bday, which was a hilarious game, though I have since beaten it, except for a few achievements I need to wrap up. Around that time, Dead Rising was on sale at Best Buy, so I used my $10 gift card and a $5 off coupon to pick it up for $25. A few days later, Julie called to let me know that Toys 'R Us was having a buy two get one free deal. So, after crawling out of bed, I decided to head down there and see what they had. Melvin later joined me there as well. The selection was slim, but I ended up walking out of there with Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Enchanted Arms, and Prey. Oblivion is just plain awesome. I just wish I had discovered it sooner. It's so long though, it'll take me forever to finish it. I haven't really been into FPS' lately, but I picked up Prey anyway. It turned out to be better than I expected. It was a bit short though. It took me just under a week to complete it. This past weekend I started Enchanted Arms. I've never really been much of a RPG person, but I was in the mood for something Final Fantasy-like, so I figured what the hell since it was free. So far it's been pretty enjoyable. It's a Japanese RPG, so it's pretty anime-like, which is a little too much for me at times, however it's just enjoyable enough to keep me playing. Last week Need for Speed Carbon came out, which I picked up, of course. So far it's been pretty easy, and it seems like it's considerably shorter than NFS Most Wanted. I'm not too thrilled about it always taking place at night, and the new crew mode crap is annoying as hell. Oh well, I'll be done with it pretty soon. So, right now I'm playing Oblivion, Dead Rising, Enchanted Arms, NFS Carbon, and trying to snag the last bit of achievements in Lego Star Wars II and Prey. Tomorrow (today) Gears of War comes out, which I have already preordered. I'm sure that'll eat up plenty of time as well. Hopefully it's not as short as Halo 2. Although that might be good so I can have more time to finish the rest of the games I'm playing. I hear Contra is coming to Xbox Live Arcade on Wednesday. I'll probably be picking that up as well, simply for the updated graphics and online co-op mode. As I plunge further into the depths of gamer hell (or is it heaven), I realize I'm gonna have to quit my job just to play all these games. That's not a bad idea actually.. :) Plus, the Wii and PS3 are only about a week and a half away. (Un)Fortunately, I wasn't able to preorder the Wii, so I probably won't be playing any of that any time soon, which gives me time to finish the rest of my crap.
Hmm, so much for keeping it short.
You won't have to worry about me catching up to you for awhile. Pre-occupied with FFXII and Star Wars at the moment. I might get the collector's version of NFS: Carbon if the GT-R34 Skyline is in the game (That's why I didn't pick up Most Wanted). Also pre-ordered Gears of War and Zelda (but no Wii's). Forza 2 is also coming out soon (haven't preordered that yet). Anyway 'grats on your new monitor. About time.
There is a Skyline in the game, which you can either unlock or purchase on the Marketplace. I don't think there's an STi in this one, which is pretty disappointing, so I guess I'll have to settle for the Lancer Evo. I hope it's not the last car you get because my current cars suck. I forgot about Forza 2. I never finished the first one, but I'm looking forward to 2.
I was just watching the bonus DVD for Carbon and it looks like the STi *is* in there. The only bad thing is it's the 2005+ model with the jacked up grill. Good enough I suppose.
Yo Ant!
I am sure you heard about being able to rent HD movies via Xbox live? Looks pretty cool, but I don't know how often I'll be using it. I downloaded the demo of Dead Rising and haha damn that game is crazy fun. Have you played that Table Tennis game? Joseph got it for me for my birthday but I haven't played it yet. Supposedly it's wicked fun.
Just got back from a trip to Mexico City. It was awesome -- I was up there during Day of the Dead. In some of the markets their they had bootleg DVDs and I picked up Jackass 2 (the first copy was a shitty camcorder version, but the second is pretty good), Saw 3 (good quality), and Superman Returns. Haha sweet!
Kyle:
Yeah I read about that. It sounds pretty cool, but I don't know how they're going to do movies unless they stream them. My hard 360's hard drive is always full. It's awesome though that they're going to be releasing Jackass 2 on it, haha.
Dead Rising is awesome, but I haven't played it except for the beginning. I've got so many games to play right now that it has been on the backburner. Rockstar's Table Tennis seems pretty fun. I downloaded the demo a while back and I played it for a while with a friend at Circuit City. I don't see myself buying it though.
Wow, Mexico City, and on Day of the Dead. That must've been pretty crazy. Is it pretty polluted now? I heard they have air vending machines so you can get some fresh air if you need it. Is that true?
The bootlegging reminds me of when I was in Vietnam. There are cd/dvd bootleg shops all over the place. One night we all went bootleg shopping. They had a ton of stuff. I didn't buy any because I have to have a brand new, real copy, but my friends grabbed a bunch of dvds. Unfortunately half of them didn't work. They made for a good plane ride home though.