8843g. awesome, thanx duke!

i got the first achievements in rsv2 i've had in some time. played through a large chunk of the game on realistic coop with duke from the tripleA. had a good time and a good game. i fiddled with mass effect on hardcore for twenty minutes and resolved to just finish hardcore and insane as fast as possible. but that could have just been because i was so tired by that time of night.

i'm also not looking forward to the inane required fetch quests that lie between me and finishing oblivion yet again. but it needs to get done...so likely it'll wait till the weekend. that said it's probably good that mass effect and oblivion are on the docket as they are both single player, and i woke up to find a lovely clusterhump by comcast so my internet is out at home and they have no idea when it'll be back up. lovely.

anyhoo. if anyone goes looking for me online, that'll be why no response comes from me. man they better fix that quick.

8808g. almost 500pts up. not a bad weekend.

i downloaded the new maps for rsv2. those are nice...and dark. not happy to use night vision but whatever. and who thought it was a good idea that i can't shoot thru chainlink fence????! bad call ubi. good thing those maps were free.

speaking of free maps...i may go back to halo3 for a day or two. chill out is comin today, and it looks nifty. truth be told, not a lot really goin on right now. think i'll go take a nap.

8388g.... i'm in utter shock.

and this is for a number of reasons. for one, i kinda thought i'd be dead today. i was home sick yesterday, and boy was i sick?! oh dear lord...didn't stop me from gaming or watching tv tho. speaking of which, big surprise, or more shock, the the trophy patch for ps3 is causing rampant freezing and system lockups....ouch. has to suck for them. i had a good giggle, went to the bathroom...again...and went back to play mass effect.

i got through 50% of mass effects content yesterday. it was awesome. i earned oodles of achievements and got all the way to virmire. i will likely finish the game tonight. then i can start on the next playthru to finish off my achievement hunt on that bad boy.

at one point in the evening, i had just finished fighting a lot of rachni, and took a break. while on dashboard i get a message from preditor to join him for some rainbow vegas 2. i think, "fun. that'll break up the mass effect progress for me." so i settle in for some rsv2 shooting action. upon loadup, i get the prompt to process an update patch. of course this is old hat, so i do so...doo be doo be doo...the game loads to the title screen, and (((KaBlammo!!!!))) i get a 50pt achievement telling me i made elite rank?!?

wtf? so i look at my content and all stuff is unlocked, and low and behold the rewards screen verifies that yes, i just received an 8-rank boost to my standing. i get a congratulatory message welcoming me as an elite, and i get into the game with preditor. he about has a baby when he sees the patch on my arm.

"where did you get an elite rank? and why is it gold?!" he proclaims with thinly veiled jealousy. i explain i have no idea. he continues, "weren't you working on captain's rank?"

i say, "uh huh! i don't get it either. did you get a rank boost? it has to be something with that patch i downloaded."

he replies he did not receive any such gain, and is still rocking the 2nd lieutenant rank (he just finished warrant officer-which takes forever and a day). so at this point i start thinking it's some kinda glitch, and i worry it will auto correct and i'll lose what progress i had made myself. so we lose that round and i go check my stats...and there it is. not only am i elite, i'm an elite lvl3. one level shy of maxed out. i figure the patch added a heightened rank system, and i noticed grenade indicators ala cod4 showing up in game, (which dumbs the gameplay a bit). then i find it. the key!

the patch increased the aces ranking. they had previously capped at lvl 20, and now it goes to lvl 100. and the reward for all those ranks is mass experience. well i've been earning huge marksman points for over a month for nothing. basically the patch came through and my rank totally exploded!!

so apparently it is legit. i spent another hour hunting terrorists, and boom i hit elite lvl4...and am now maxed out on rank. turns out my buddy preditor hadn't earned a lot of aces points. so i told him to get to work.

all told, it was a very productive 300pt day, and i expect to clear 8500g over the weekend. when i'm not shootin fireworks and drinking that is.

so still rockin 8083g.

no pts last night but i did some cleanup on forza. i have to finish buying up the country cars. dumb side job really. i put in 45minutes with rsv2, and cleared 2500xp towards my capt. rank. and the rest of the night was all about mass effect. i cleared a lot of systems and several side stories. no achievements but that'll be different tonight, and i'll have my beloved spectre weapons tonight as well. eggcellent!!

anyhoo, onto the meat of this entry.

i went out to have a cig and watch xplay at 130a, and they were jabbering on about how fantastic their e3 coverage will be, and that g4 is the official broadcaster. does anyone have the heart to call and tell them that might just be because e3 is dying? i mean yes, g4 has gained a considerable amt of clout in games tv broadcasting because they are relatively unopposed. but cbs has already taken steps to have their -bizatch letterman network- subjugate gamespot and corporatize this into a completely irrelevant site...but at the same time they will have positioned themselves to compete with g4. so my point(s) is(are) gamespot will eventually start to lose more credibility (something that's never happened before right?) and g4 will get knocked off it's somewhat presumptuous pedestal.

but until that spectacle happens, i'll hold off on buying the popcorn and pretend e3 still matters. never mind the oxygen tank, and euthanizing nurse standing behind it. e3 has never been stronger! wow that was one hell of a tangent...

my point is i'm replaying mass effect and will pry finish it about the time they announce mass effect 2 at e3. and they better announce info on mass effect 2 at e3. if it doesn't happen, i'm not even holding bioware responsible, nope! if it doesn't happen as a matter of policy, blanket blame will now fall on the e.s.a for being wholly incompetant and useless. huzzah!

huzzah for scapegoats!

now pardon me. i need to go track down the latest podcast and see if tom mcfizzle has discovered a new way to prove he's not a nerd. i still can't get over the raider's thing. moderators, feel free to overreact and penalize me for this but no gamer, scratch that...no adult male in this country can have self-respect and simultaneously try to justify their ignorance of indiana jones' trademark fear of snakes. i make no equivocations on this point. that's no different than claiming to have no knowledge of what a red light means.

here's what you do gs. put little tommy thru public high school. note i did not say again. my theory is that perhaps he was homeschooled and deprived much of the standardized pop culture knowledge that we all have. for a while i thought perhaps he was amish, but i don't know that he can grow a beard. in any event sending him thru the public high school system would assuredly inundate him with the basics, and make him a fantastic functioning member of the gs editorial/news staff.

the alternative is to send him on a two week ski cabin bender with tor and his mountain buddies. if he survives i think it's fair to say the gs community would consider all previous trangressions forgiven. he's a good kid, but he definitely needs some seasoning.