What's going on fellas, hope life is treating you well on this day, where ever on this earth you may be, as for myself, life is crazy as always, big events that used to happen to me on a yearly basis seem to be happening on a weekly basis now. Life sometimes can be quite rough and careless when playing with you, and for those young ones outthere reading this, no, life does not play fair or cares whether it runs you over in its randomness, enjoy these days while leaving at home, for most of you they will be the easiest days of your lives.......But enough preaching, lets get this entry started right?!

New PSP

Well you all saw the horrible pictures I placed a couple of entries ago, some of you are still recovering from the shock, well this monday I recieved my brand new PSP. You can say a lot of things about Sony, but the fact is that they did not give me any trouble in sending me a new PSP, and that says a lot. I would like to say one thing, me having this brand new PSP would not be possible at all without the help of a fellow forumite. I know all of us sometimes question why we spend so much time on the forums, and if its even worth hanging around, well I am 100% sure that the forums are a great place, they are a great place because of the friends you make, finding a good friend is a very hard thing to do in real life, and even much harder online. I am proud to say that I have many good friends in the GS community, and that makes this whole experience worth the time. And to my good friend Shame_Us Blackley, thanks for your willingness to help a stranger online, I'm still wowed that I recieved such a gesture, and my wife is even more incredulous. Thanx.

New Car

As some of you know, I was involved in a car accident two weeks ago, that basically totalled my crappy 2000 Cavalier. I was lucky not to have been seriously hurt, but I still am a little sore, not from the accident, but from the 12% interest I had to pay on my new car, God, I was paying 4.9% on the Cavalier, Oh well, that's the economy for you. Anyways, the Cavalier was not our primary car, that honor goes to our hooked up 2002 Ford Escape, a nice little SUV that has served us very well, the cavalier was stripped down to the bone, so we weren't looking for a great ride, just something that would get us from point A to point B. We ended up setteling for a 2001 Kia Optima LX Check it out:

It has a V6 DOHC engine, compared to the measly 4 cylinder one the Cavalier had, plus Power everything, cruise control and tinted windows, definetly a move up from the Cavalier, but here's the kicker, it actually cost us less than the Cavalier, so things aren't all bad :P

Bomb Threat

Last Monday was a very weird day, as I actually was on the phone with someone calling in a bomb threat to our hospital, I can't go into details since it is still an open investigation, but I can say that the whole thing was quite a frightening experience. Not being allowed to leave while the possibilty of a bomb being placed in your building can freak you out, even worst being the person that actually answered the phone is even more traumatic. I'm dealing with it quite well, but I did find out that I was being much shorter than I usually am, but slowly things are coming back to normal. very strange days these days that we are living in, but somehow it makes me feel safer that I work in a place where a bomb threat was called in, since they really wouldn't try to do anything there now, right?...........

Dealing With It All Alongside Master Chief

With all the craziness going on, I figured I better hire a body guard, and who better than the man himself, Master Chief, to protect my must precious possesions, check out the man in action!

Make one false move and its sniper city baby!

The Chief would only protect my property if it was "New" Thanks to Sony's generosity, he didn't have a problem :twisted:

Well peeps that's pretty much it for this week, see you on the forums, hopefully things will slowdown a bit ;)

Above is my desktop, mac all the way right? Except that's windows. It all started when I recieved my iPod Shuffle, its beauty had me love struck for all things apple, but I can't afford a G5 right now, what do I do?! I'll make my PC look like a Mac until I can afford one!

I started looking around for programs online, when I ran into windowblinds, a pretty cool program that lets you modify your windows into pretty much anything. After digging around some more I found a dude that had pretty much captured the look and feel of Mac OS X Tiger, granted its not the real thing, but for something that is free it was pretty damn good, my friend who uses macs at school said its hard to tell the difference, I myself can't tell, since I've had very little time with a real mac, yet I must say, I like this look 10 times better than the default XP look, and one day I shall own a mac!

Podzilla Jr.

That's the name of my sweet new iPod shuffle, a little something that I got myself to hold me over until my PSP returns (Thanx Blackley ;) ) Its 275 songs of pure bliss, there's something about having your music play randomly that says who you are musically, after listening to a mix of all my songs, I am quite pleased at the selection of music that played for me, the variety was awesome, from Tool to Kanye West to Incubus, Talib Kweli, Jack Johnson, Outkast, Maroon 5, Ludacris, Sublime, Jay Z, to Green Day and U2 and many more, my shuffle showed me my musical tastes, and I liked how it tasted, like a little bit of everything.

Crash

Well after working a 12 hour day on Thursday, I was so ready to come home, ready for a 4 day weekend, but life had other plans for me. I was rear-ended pretty bad on my way home, Im OK bar some stiffness and neck pain, but it was bound to happen, you see I drive on US 19, deemed the most dangerous road in America, Im just happy I was alone, and that noone was hurt, I think from now on I'll avoid the most dangerous road in America, yep that makes sense :P

Finally I like to apologize for the floaty nature of this entry, its very early in the morning, and Im pumped full of pain killers and muscle relaxants......I have to go now, for I must chase that crazy butterfly that keeps laughing at me, see ya on the forums! :P

What's going on people! Here's hoping you find peace on this day, as for me life is moving at a 1000 MPH, which leaves me with about 1 sec to spend on GS, so I'll make the best of it, lets get this entry started!

Greatest Joy

Well as must of you know, I became a father again on June 18th 2005, I was blessed with Dominick Anton Zayas, a stud weighing in at 8.85 lbs, 21 Inches. Above all he is a very healthy boy, and for that I am most grateful.

For some strange reason society sort of frowns upon parenthood these days. Stigmas about enjoying your youth and horror stories about parenthood leave young americans with misrepresentation of what parenthood really is. In my opinion you should be a parent ideally when you have a stable relationship and career, but if there is something living in the real world has taught me, is that ideally rarely comes along, and most often than not you are presented with very tough choices in life.

Being young and being a parent in my situation is not a curse, our first child wasn't exactly planned, and my wife and I weren't exactly done with school, but we made the best of that situation with what we had, and today I couldn't be happier. I have a great career, an awesome marriage, and at 24 I am done having children, that means that when I am 42 the kids will be out of the house, and I will have the time and money to do pretty much whatever I please, mainly travel the world along with my wife ;)

Granted that scenario is not guaranteed, and I am giving up a portion of my youth, but the way I see it is that being a young parent has made me a better, more responsible, driven adult, and it also doesn't mean i automatcally become a dull parent, I still see myself as a young person, I go to concerts regularly and I party when I'm able to, but Im responsible about it, and frankly I don't miss waking up drunk in a strange girl's house:P

A Great Sadness

Honestly I must warn the faint of heart to look away, for what I'm about to show you is a horrible sight. The birth of our new son has driven my daughter Alexis to do whatever she can to get attention, she is also a 2 year old, so she hardly has a grip on her emotions. 2 nights ago I was playing Hot Shots Golf Open Tee on my PSP after a long day at work. My daughter was acting up, throwing giant legos at my direction. I was on the floor playing, and when one landed on my head I put my PSP down to playfully chase her, what happened next is painful to describe.

As I stood up to chase her I put my weight on my knee to stand up, sadly my PSP was directly under it, and a horrible crunch traveled up my spine, immediately I knew it was bad. The screen is permanently like that. I checked out my warranty and I have coverage for one year, sadly it doesn't cover accidents, which this clearly was, so for now I'm thinking of a story to tell Sony that would explain a shattered screen, and it somehow was a manufacturing flaw. The best that I have come up with is that I had the PSP inside its case in the pocket of my pants, I bend down to tie my shoes and I heard a pop, I don't know if they will buy that, but I've got to give it a shot, if any of you guys have a better plan, please post!

A Great Artist

Meet Raul Midon, a rare triple threat ( writes, plays, and sings his own music) that has taken my music world by storm. Raul's debut album State Of Mind is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise cookie cutter industry, his sound is blend between Soul, R&B, and latin Jazz, and he plays the spanish guitar like noone I have ever heard.

Raul is also blind, in an interview he said he knew he had to play the guitar well because music is all he had, he couldn't be a waiter to pay the bills, so he practiced and practiced. He moved to NYC where he quickly developed a following, and on his debut album he has collaborations with Jason Mraz and Stevie Wonder, not bad for a widely unknown artist, if you get a chance check him out, you wont regret it.

Finally today I ordered an 1 GIG iPOD shuffle to help me get through the loss of my PSP, Im looking for accesories for jogging, but if any of you have it and tried jogging with the lanyard, let me know if a band strap is necesary, that's it people, have a great day!

Well its been a while since I posted on my journal, something I'm not proud of since journals to me are one of the best features of Gamespot, I would like to tell you all the reason I haven't posted is because I've been traveling the world with rockstars trying to find a cure for cancer, but actually, I just haven't had anything to write about, sort of like an inspirational drought. But actually, all of this has given me lots of time to play my games, currently I have active files on Forza, Jade Empire and Area 51, and Im actually doing a pretty good job keeping up with them. Jade Empire I love, but it has fallen victim to Forza, even though Im closer to beating JE.

I was sort of dispointed that I had to get Area 51 after returning the horrible Advent Rising, I really wanted Republic Commando, but it wasn't available, so I took Area 51 home with, jaded that I was forced to play a subpar game. In reality I was up for a pleasant surprise, Area 51 is a very enjoyable game with excellent graphics and awesome white knuckle firefights.

I've come to realize that a game does not need to be epic to be fun, like Blackley said the other night, Bayou Billy was a fun game back in its day, and it was the furthest thing from epic, sometimes we demand or expect too much from games, instead of just enjoying what they are. Im actually glad I got Area 51, its a throw back to old arcadey games and cheesy stories, but still hell of fun.

GEV #2 : The calm before the storm

I took this pic last night while I was calmy playing Area 51, I wanted to record how gaming was before being the father of 2, being home alone playing while my daughter slept, because come any minute now, it wont be that way for a while. I love pictures in that they capture things as they are, and like a good song, they can easily take you back to how older times were.

Random Thoughts

The new BEPs album is Ok for now, Im not particularly fond of their commercialized brand of music, but i'd be lying if I said I did not enjoy their beats, and I was actually surprised to see they re-did one of my favorite Jack Johnson songs, its such an odd mix but it works pretty well, because "Gone Going" is such a good song, it stands for so many things I believe in, here's an excerpts:

"Look at all those fancy clothes, but these could keep us warm just like those, and what about your soul, Is it cold? Is it straight from the mold and ready to be sold? And cars and phones and diamond rings, bling, bling.

Those are only removable things, and what about your mind, does it shine, with other things that concern you more than your time?

"What about does shoes you're in today, they'll do no good, on the bridges you've burnt along the way"

As you can see, not exactly ostentatious hip hop material, and although I liked the original song better, I like the BEP's approach.

We'll peeps, I would actually like to keep this going, but I have to deal with diapers and the such, see you on the forums!

As usual, May is still kicking my ass with a crazy schedule, but my main source of stress is the wait for my wife to give birth, granted, this ordeal is 100 times harder on her than it is on me, but lately it just feels like I've taken this huge breath, right before going on a whirling roller coaster, but the drop off is just not coming. This week my wife is 37 weeks pregnant, normal pregnancies run anywhere from 36 to 40 weeks, so any day now. Well that's it on my neck of the woods, hope life is treating you kindly in yours :)

The E3 Exile

The forums have been quite dull since E3 started, I attribute this to a mixture of events. First, alot of our hardcore forumites have actually gone to E3, Lucky souls like Wedgewu, Archie Gates, and Dkittles attended, leaving the forums to trolling fanboys and girls who have been infesting the boards with all sorts of lies and deceit. Its amazing how much poison people can spew over something as simple as "which console will to buy" the fact that humanity can go at eachother's throats over this gives me little hope that there will ever be peace on earth, humanity likes to fight, even over which toys we waste our time with.

All this madness has kept me out of the forums as of late, and I've noticed a drop off from other forumites aswell. I know JonathanL had to take a couple of days off from the forums this weekend, I know he mentioned work related stress as part of his retreat, but Im betting the low quality and poison in the forums lately had something to do with it. It seems like slowly the forums are getting back to normal, and I can't wait 'till Thursday to set things back to normal again.

Crash Over Sith

So an excellent opportunity presented itself this weekend, my mother inlaw offered to babysit our daughter on Saturday, giving my wife and I the chance to go to a movie in almost a year (*watching movies without TC just isn't the same :lol: *) Now for most of you the choice of which movie to see would have been crystal clear, but *braces for lynching* My wife and I aren't Star Wars fans, so we decided to to watch Crash. Crash tells the interlocking stories of a slew of races in L.A. it has a monster cast with Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Ryan Phillippe, Brendan Fraser and Larenz tate among others. Crash was directed by Paul Haggis, his screenplay in Million Dollar Baby should tell you something.

To me Crash's strength lies in its ability to make you care about the characters, the fact that without any political correctness we all see ourselves in the biases protrayed on the screen has a big impact. Laughing at the jokes that are made about each race was refreshing, especially since the crowd at the theater was a very diverse one. Im not going to spoil the movie for everyone, and I'm not going to say this movie is without its flaws, but in the end I walked away wanting to be a better person, and holding my family closer, any movie that does that in my eyes is a great movie.

Gaming Over Posting

Like I said earlier, I've been away from the forums, and that has given me extra time to put into my games. I'm glad I'm back into the full swing of things, Forza is still captivating me, I've reached Lvl 20, and the game's carrer mode is extremely rewarding and addicting. I've also put about 8 hours into Jade Empire, my character is steadily walking the path of the Open Palm, getting stronger and right now he is at the Dam off Tien's Landing, fighiting some rats, and beggining to understand his place in this world. Jade Empire is an awesome game, if you find yourself itching for an RPG, check this one out.

Well peeps that's it for now, hopefully I'll be around the forums more often, but right now I have some bussisness to attend in ancient China, Peace!

I have never been an avid sim racing fan, lets just say my favorite racing series has been Mario Kart ;) I never really got into Gran Turismo, or any other sim for that matter, not because they were bad games, but because I sucked at them! I don't know if its just me, but playing a racing sim usually consisted of constant crashing, spinning out of control, and raging frustration that I could not advance in the game, so why did I buy Forza, probably because of its customization and online aspects, little did I know I was about to be consumed.

I had my weekend planned out, I had 4 days off (Fri-Mon) and I had just gotten Jade Empire, a game that I have been anticipating to play for a while, and I figured I would play Forza in between, just for a change of pace. Well its Sunday, and I have barely touched JE, Forza has grabbed a hold of me, and it just hasn't let go. Once you get a sense of the mechanics, the game becomes addicting, you want to check out the next beautiful track, you want to see want kind of ride you get next, and you can't wait to get parts to make it blow the competition away, and customize it to your sick little desires :twisted:

The big difference maker for this game is its innovative green path, for horrible drivers like myself its a gift sent from heaven, basically you try to follow it around the track, when it turns yellow its time to let go of the gas, when it turns red you brake, and green you floor it! I believe this feature will do wonders for Forza, by bringing casual fans like myself and making them believers, I probably wing around 60% of my races...that blows my mind, considering I rarely got 1st place on tough races in games like PGR2 and GT.

Its also nice that I get to jam to Outkast while I'm tearing it up in Laguna Seca, not only that but you get to listen to your custom music while in the menu too, and that's a good thing, because the ingame music is bland at best. This is starting to sound more and more like a review, but that's not my intention, I've only played the game for only 2 days, and there's plenty of time for me to run into something I don't like, considering I'm only at level 11, and have only completed 7% of the game, but one thing I can say for sure, I have never been this excited about a racing sim before, hopefully a lot of casual racing fans pick up this game and experience a good friendly racer at last.

finally I would like to leave you with pics of my 2 babies, the Mitsubishi Lancer was designed in honor of the new 360, and the Integra is just a little project Im working on....enjoy!

What's going on friends! Hope everything is well on your neck of the woods. Now must of you know that I'm a sort of photo geek, I probably post way too many personal photos, and my journal makes 56K modems crap in their.......well whatever modems wear for pants ;) My point is that pics are what Im all about, I just can't help but take pictures and share them with the world. That being said, I also like my photography to have meaning, I'm not a pro or have taken any cheap photography courses, I just have a passion for pics, so I've decided to start a segment on my journal called Gamer's Eye View, where I basically try to portray certain images that impersonate my gamer lifestyle, or just simply portray where I was at a certain point in a generation, I see pics as fine wine, they get better with age, so hopefully I can keep this up for a while. Now lets get to my first GEV!

Gamer's Eye View # 1: "Chillin On A Friday Night."

"Friday night, its midnight, the wife and the baby are asleep, and so begins the night of a gaming owl"

What's going on people, May has absolutely been kicking my ass, but all in all life is good. Hope life is treating you the same in your neck of the woods. Now without further a do, lets get this entry started!

Happy B-Day Bro

In honor of my bro's Abel birthday, I've decided to change my header to a very cool pic of him and I at Bush Gardens when he visited us last October, my bro is such a cool guy, I felt I needed to reminisce on the journey that has brought us to were we are today. We grew up as 4 brothers, each one of us 3 years apart and very early in our lives we got involved with gaming via the NES. Our lives pretty much revolved around the damned thing. I remember the day my older brother beat SMB1 for the first time, he was on fire that day, making those impossible jumps on 8-1, seeing the difference in the envirenments was awesome, you really felt like you were entering a large kingdom, and when he finally rescued the princess I was ecstatic, I can't believe how much that moment affected me back then.

Of course growing up with the 3 of them meant that we fought....alot. Many a times we ended up with each other's hair afetr arquing over who's turn it was to play Contra, those 30 lives took a long time, and when one of us tried to cheat it meant war! Life Force had that same effect. Another game that stole a good chunk of our childhood was Mike Tyson's Punch Out, we played that game to death! beating Mike Tyson was just pure awesomeness, and 007-373-5763 (May be wrong) joined the hall of fame of cheat codes along with "up, up, down, down" and "Justin Bailey".

We kept being hardcore gamers all the way from the SNES / Genesis Gen to the PS1 / N64 Gen, when I finally moved out. Today we are spread around the country, Abel is in the ARMY right now, mostly playing RPG's, and Christian (The fat hairy one) still the most hardcore, is currently playing through RE4 for like the 20th time...I could never do that. Jesus the eldest is the shy one not pictured, but he is still the most Hardcore wrestling fan I've ever met, collecting everything wrestling, including every single wrestling gave ever made. To this day we all remain avid gamers, and we still love reminiscing about the old school, do any of you guys have old school stories to share? I always love hearing those.

I Dare you for a tougher May...

Or any other month for that matter, this month is mother's day (that's mom, grandma, and mother inlaw people), 2 of my brothers birthdays, my wife's birthday, our anniversary, and quite possibly the birth month of my new son.......I am so broke! so, do you have a worse month than this? I gotta go, I have to shine shoe's at the airport :p

After holding out for a while, I broke today and decided to go on a pint sized cyber shopping spree, and it all stemmed from the game below.

Jade Empire

Well after much hype and constantly fighting with myself on wether to get this game or not, Jon's constant praises for the game were the straw that broke the camels back, I've really been itching for an RPG lately (FFX being the last one I played) and Jade Empire seems to be the perfect fit. From what I've heard from everyone so far the game is not uber-hard, which is something that I was looking for, since my backlog has multiplied ever since I decided to become a multi-console owner.

As always I refused to do the easy thing and just buy the game at my local store, no sir, I spent all morning earning my game by bidding on ebay, in the end I believe I got a steal by getting the limited edition for only $38.99 including shipping.

I'm excited to get into the game, lately it seems like Halo is the only game I'm playing, and I'm ready for a change of pace, I think Im going to choose to be an open palm guy, Im always striving to be a good guy in real life, its only natural that I do the same in a game that gives me the option.

Kung Fu Chaos

I know this game is like a gazillion years old, and apparently it had a lot of flaws, but when I first heard of it I tought it was the coolest thing, too bad I only had a PS2 back then. I love party games, and when my wife saw it she wanted to play it, and she hates video games, the fact that it was only $8.00 didn't hurt either.

The game also has some nice graphics for being so damn old, plus this is a game with which I will not feel the pressure to beat right away, since the concept is so damn goofy. Come next week my Xbox will be pretty busy!

Shaolin Soccer

Finally I picked Shaolin Soccer, something that I have been meaning to do for a long time, seeing the previews for the movie I actually got chills, but since I don't go to the movies anymore (Baby) I missed supporting Hong Kong theater. This movie was made by the same people from Kung-Fu hustle, so I can expect a nice mix of over the top special effect mixed with some nice humor.....all in all a great day to shop in cyber space, I only payed $9.99 for this puppy. I love cyber shopping ;)

" Uh huh, this my sh*t
All the girls stomp your feet like this

A few times I've been around that track
So it's not just gonna happen like that
Cause I ain't no hollaback girl
I ain't no hollaback girl
[2x]

Oooh, this my sh*t, this my sh*t [4x]

I heard that you were talking sh*t
And you didn't think that I would hear it
People hear you talking like that, getting everybody fired up
So I'm ready to attack, gonna lead the pack
Gonna get a touchdown, gonna take you out
That's right, put your pom-poms down, getting everybody fired up

A few times I've been around that track
So it's not just gonna happen like that
Cause I ain't no hollaback girl
I ain't no hollaback girl "
[2x]

These are the painful words that along with some horrendous sounds make up the song: Hollaback Girl, the single out of Gwen Stefani's new albmun Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Whatever happened to Gwen Stefani? Back in highschool she was the idol of millions of anti-hip-hop teens who loved her intense rock ballads as the lead singer for No Doubt, even tough I was more of a Hip Hop child myself, I do sure miss this Gwen Stefani: as opposed to this one:

What's worst is the music this woman is putting out, they are this pseudo-ghetto lyrics that are supposed to appeal to who? Vanilla Ice? Well word to yo; motha' Gwen, you and Vanilla go hand in hand from now on as far as Im concerned.

EDIT: I failed to mention why I hate this song so very much: Gwen Stefani as a gangsta making millions.......I think Im gonna go puke:? see ya on Halo night