Jsaquella

Bringing Hexy Back • 42 Years Old • Male

Random Thoughts on Kids, Games and Whatnot

The past few weeks have been a bit rough for me. I fell and gave myself a nice little concussion. My youngest kid turned one and for some reason we decided to hold the party at our house. Work has been like an avalanche. My Xbox died and took 3 weeks to get repaired by Microsoft. The wife and I had been butting heads a bit over these and other stressers.

I don't go into that to elicit sympathy. Really, they are hardly more than normal everyday areas of stress. Nobody has a serious illness, or is facing serious issues of a legal nature. I mention them, to sort of set the tone.

My youngest daughter, the one year old, has an ear infection. There's nothing that cuts your sense of self to shreds faster than a little baby howling in pain at 3 AM. You feel powerless.

The other reason I mention kids is that my oldest daughter spent a few days at her Grandmother's. She had a great time, of course, but her abscence certainly left a little hole in my heart. She's my little buddy-we watch TV together, play with her dolls together, watch hockey together.

I guess that I intend this as a reminder, because I felt like all the other issues were going to give me a nervous breakdown. But the one year old's ear infection and the older girl's being away made all the other BS seem unimportant.

If you got 'em, hug 'em.

Anyhow, nobody's reading this, expecting a bunch of maudlin crap, so here's the Random thoughts section:

-The Xbox 360 "red ring of death" sucks. However, I have to give props to the Microsoft support folks. They answered my questions, were more than professional and sent me a new unit in about half the time they estimated it would take-all free of charge.

-Thanks to BD Gallof's brother, the estimable Dr Teeth, for suggesting BioShock...Great, creepy first person shooter. The game is set in a doomed underwater utopian city in 1960. It's sort of "Halo" meets "The Island of Dr Moreau" in the Twilight Zone. Very graphic and compelling game, great graphics set in the art deco Atlantis-esque city of Rapture. I grabbed the special edition with a figurine of the baddest of the bad guys, the overly visceral "Big Daddy".

-Sticking to games, I also grabbed Madden. Overall it's a solid experience. Graphics are crisp, the gameplay is solid and the online play is good. My biggest gripe after two days is the playcalling menus. Thanks to Capt Pantalones for suggesting this one.

-Both NHL games are scheduled to be released on September 11th. From the screenshots, it seems EA Sports is the slicker looking game. The skill stick is back and EA has FINALLY made a farm team addition to it's franchise/dynasty mode. That was one of the better selling points of the NHL 2K series. I will have a full review of several games, but especially the NHL titles, in a future blog.

-I still think that Jeff Carter is one the hottest seat in Philadelphia. Every other guy being heavily counted on has a decent to good track record or alternate option. That isn't the case for Carter. He seems to grasp this, adding muscle this off season. If he can manage a 30 goal, sixty point season, the Flyers will be in good shape down the middle.

-Well Michael Vick plead guilty.....Most appaling thing about it? Morons like Roy Jones jr and Stephon Marbury trying to find a way to defend this clown. Marbury, in particular, is moving higher than imaginable in the Pantheon of Stupid that I store in my head.

-I will be trying to get Richard Branson to throw water on me.

-I had a blast as Eklund tested out HB Radio on Talkshoe.com. BluesFan44, Captain Pantalones and I-among others-talked to Ek and have high hopes for this in the future. I am submitting my application to host the HB Radio Morning show with BF. We will be the Chevy Chase and Magic Johnson of internet radio hosts, I have no doubts.

-Thanks to Flufflet for the picture of Stadler and Waldorf that I stole for my avatar.

-Instead of an awards prediction, here's a couple of rules, I'd like to see tweaked:

1. Eliminate the minor penalty on pucks shot into the crowd. Have a defensive zone draw and don't allow any changes.

2. The trapezoid-allow goalies to play the puck in the 'zoid, but make them fair game out of it.

3. When somebody says "a couple" it should be acceptable to mention 3 things.

-I'd like to start a poll. Please PM me or post a comment mentioning your choice for top movie below-I'll tabulate and we can name the offical movie of Hockeybuzz.


-Finally, Congrats to all our new bloggers and moderators. Good luck and I look forward to reading your work.

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