A comprehensive list of things that are more fun than being hung over in the San Antonio airport all day long:

This Guy is Amazing

Check out this guy's Amazon.com reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AYZJJ929YCN1J/ref=cm_pdp_rev_all?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview

Seriously, read all of them, or you'll miss gems such as:

"You here the pop song Crack a bottle which in my oping it was a sold out to what eminem is most knowed for ."

and

"Their is not much else to same about shogun besides they take their fcuking heads!!!" (faux censorship preserved)

Review: Droid

I picked up a Droid last month and my buddy sent me an e-mail asking for my thoughts on it. Thought I might as well post them here as well:

I deliberated for a while over different phones and carriers. knew I wanted an android phone with a tactile keyboard, so it mainly came down to Samsung's moment (w/Sprint) or Motorola's droid (w/Verizon). I was already a Verizon customer so I got the phone at a discount since I was due for new hardware.

Pros:

- On Verizon's (awesome) 3g network

- Screen is gorgeous

- Android! It doesn't have nearly as developed of an app store as iPhone (yet) but honestly a big thing for me was that I could download NES, SNES, and Genesis emulators (free lite versions, pay a few bucks for each if you want to be able to save your game). Played through the entirety of Shining Force 2 one train ride to work at a time.... and it was awesome

- Tactile keyboard. A lot of people complained about how flat it is, which worried me. But I got used to it almost immediately and I prefer it to a touch screen for just about everything (but, again, especially for emulators. the thing basically has a d-pad on the right hand side)

- Call quality is good, speaker is very loud

Cons:

- On Verizon's (expensive) network

- Camera is weak. This one doesn't matter so much for me, but a lot of online reviewers are complaining about it and I can see why... it's pretty bad. 5 megapixel but terrible focus.

- Android still seems to be a work in progress. I love that it's open etc but the phone apps do crash once in a while

- The volume up/down button feels like its about to fall off (which is true for all droids)

- I actually didn't read this one anywhere else, but the screen gets dirty really easily/quickly from the oil on your fingers. I don't know if this is true with all phones, but my buddies with iphones and HTC Heroes never have this issue and noticed it immediately on the Droid.

Overall, I'm happy with it. Definitely not a perfect phone, but I knew that going into it and its a hell of a lot better than what I was using before (Blackberry Pearl). As Android develops (both the OS and the app store), this phone will only get better. However I'm sure bigger better things will also be coming out every few months.

UPDATE: It's been a couple weeks since I sent the previous e-mail, so there are a couple things to add:

- I dropped the phone onto a sidewalk an inch deep in slush, didn't realize I had dropped it for half a minute, and went back to find the phone drenched. I assumed the worst, but after shutting it off, taking out the battery, and letting it air out on the counter for a while, I was happy to see that it still works beautifully.

- No Flash 10, which severely limits the amount of media that can be viewed on the web. However...

- The web browser kicks ass and works beautifully with the hi-res screen. A lot of people are dismayed by the lack of pinch zoom (especially since the pinch functionality is built into Android 2.0, just not implemented in the browser). Doesn't really bother me, but it would be nice.

The Best 30 Seconds of My Life

The Most Productive Conversation Ever

The other day one of my (anonymous) coworkers struck up a conversation with me that went like this:

[2:25 PM] J: hi

[2:38 PM] Me: hey

[2:38 PM] J: hi

[2:47 PM] J: ?

Your guess is as good as mine...

Five Video Games That Kick Ass

DOOM

Doom/Ultimate Doom, Doom II, Final Doom, Doom 64, Doom multiplayer, and the thousands of downloadable maps and mods... none of it ever gets old. As much as I love crappy stories (Halo), pointless cut scenes (Halo), sluggish controls (Halo), and monsters that sound like Jar Jar Binks (Halo), nothing stacks up to the raw speed and simplicity of the classic Doom games. Every monster, gun, and texture in Doom could eat the entire Halo universe for lunch.

One of the many kick-ass Doom textures. Eat your heart out, Bungie.


SHINOBI

When I was in high school, I would always always come home and empty any change from my pockets into my dresser drawer. After doing this for a while, I eventually counted up the change, and headed to my local Nazi base camp (GameStop) to find a ninja video game that I could buy with a sack of quarters. Robert Hamburger (owner of Real Ultimate Power) must have been smiling down on me that day, because I ended up picking Shinobi. Truthfully, I would like to think that Shinobi picked me... but a game that kicks this much ass would never seek out a chump high schooler that uses scrap change to buy it as an afterthought. I am so ashamed of myself for not discovering this game sooner. Every morning, I attempt to repent by doing a backflip right onto my neck before going to work. I've been doing this for 7 years.


Shinobi is everything that a ninja game should be. Featuring fast, simple, responsive controls, it includes running on walls, shurikens, disappearing in front of your enemy and re-appearing behind him, and ninja magic. You wield a soul hungry sword that must be constantly fed by slaying your enemies and, if you don't keep it satisfied, will eventually start consuming you. In a given battle, the more enemies you kill in a row the stronger your sword gets. Kill all of them in one sequence and you've achieved "Tate" (tah-tay). The screen freezes, you put your sword away, and all of the enemies suddenly fall to pieces where they stand.

As long as I've had this game, I've yet to beat it on the hardest difficulty. I've come back to it every few months or so but still haven't quite done it. As one metacritic.com reviewer describes it:

TATE in my language means...male testis (how I laughed!) and that proves it...you need balls to play Shinobi-and if you dont like the game then you dont have balls! Simple!

I couldn't agree more.

GOD OF WAR

The first time I played God of War, the in-game tutorial told me to hit the Circle button to grab an enemy, so I did. I picked up the enemy and... nothing happened. So I arbitrarily hit Triangle and Kratos (the main character) turned the monster on its side and ripped it in half with his bare hands. I literally paused the game, set the controller in my lap, and caught my breath... did that really just happen? I unpaused and played through roughly 9 hours of snapping necks, ripping wings off of harpies, shoving blades down minotaur's throats, smashing medusa's face into concrete, and ultimately ended up ramming a sword the size of a city into Ares's heart. They were the manliest 9 hours of my entire life.

Normally, mindless violence in video games doesn't do it for me. But this game is pure adrenaline. You control a pissed of Spartan hell bent on exacting revenge on the God of War. The cut scenes are intense, the soundtrack is intense, the way you run is intense. Hell, opening doors is intense. This game will put hair on your chest.

HALF LIFE 2

Half Life 2 is every nerd's dream come true. Your character, Gordon Freeman, is a theoretical phycisist who runs around with a crowbar, a machine gun equipped with a grenade launcher, and a laser-guided bazooka. Unlike the Doom series, the sequel is actually a great extension of the original, building on the killer story and gameplay from the first Half Life.

I can't even think of the right words to describe how great this mind-blowing game really is. It has the highest score of any game ever to be reviewd on metacritic (96), and Valve continues to release quality episodes that extend the story further. If you haven't played Half Life 2, shame on you. Go to Valve's website and download the game immediately.

CONTRA 3: THE ALIEN WARS

I defer to Maddox

:-\

What the hell is up with :-\ ? What emotion is it supposed to be conveying? Can anybody actually make that face?