Breaking Windows

If you have read my blog for any amount of time, you might have heard Matt or I sound off about how "wonderful" Verizon Wireless is. But this one takes the cake.

I do not know who to be more pissed off at, Verizon Wireless, or 2 B Mobile, the Verizon Wireless store downtown. A few months ago, as in, four, I switched from a 450 to 900 minute a month plan, because I had gone over (way over) two months in a row.

Last night I called Verizon Wireless tech. support on an entirely different matter (good fodder for another rant actually, they could not help with my problem unless I called them from a different phone -- my cell phone is my only phone.

The lady I talked to was at least nice and very helpful. She looked into the problem best she could without having a tech. call my cell phone to figure out the problem. She noted that my bill was coming out and it was rather high, because I had severely gone over my minutes. "How the heck did I go over 900 minutes!" I ask.

Here I have gone four months on the 450 minute plan. Now, those who know me know I do not get irate, I have a pretty high boiling point, but that lit my fuse. The smart ass, cocky, pimple-faced prick down at 2 B Mobile never changed my plan to 900 minutes a month. And I sure as hell would like to know what he was doing because it took an age to sit in the store while he was "working" on my account.

Needless to say I was credited $78.55 without too much bitching, and was *told* I was put on the 900 minute plan. I am not trusting anyone connected to Verizon any more so will be calling them back to double check. That or login to my account on their web site. Or both.

Kind of makes you want to switch carriers. You know, to AT&T. And get an iPhone. But its not like they are any better.

It sure was cold Sunday night. Colder than it has been in a while. I know, I was up playing Devil May Cry 4. I also know because the electric heater that brings much warmth to my apartment in the winter died. It made some rather awful sounds a machine should never make, then went kaput.

The repair guy was so busy Monday he could not make it out until Tuesday morning at 11, my landlady said. She left me a heater for the night. I figured it was a nice sized space heater -- no, it was a warm-your-ass-while-sitting-on-the-john heaters.

So it was cold Monday night, inside my apartment. It got fixed Tuesday and now life is back to normal. And by normal of course I mean my apartment has heat again. If you were thinking of any other kind of "normal" than you don't know me well.

Dear god. There's sick and then there's "please someone stick me with a plasma grenade from Halo and get it over with." That's where I am.

Saturday night I come home from work and feel fine. I get some needed writing done, and start playing Halo. About 20 minutes into the session, I start feeling sick. Like, rapidly heading downhill by the minute. Sunday morning and afternoon was spent in the hospital. I woke up about 4 AM and my cough had caused so much pain in my chest, I could barely breathe. Here it is on Tuesday and I've slept maybe a total of three hours over the past two nights because of this crap.

I'm headed to the doctor again this afternoon to get something that my actually help because the hospital meds sure as hell didn't. I just took another freelance job too and I haven't even started. I can barely stay awake to type this, yet I can't sleep either because this damn cough doesn't let me.

As promised, here is the damage to my rear bumper. The Bumper cover shows the damage, but the Absorber and Reinforcement are what are really damaged.

Click for a 640x480. Hit the jump for a picture of how far I can push the Bumper cover in where the kid hit me.

This Blu-ray saga specifically so I don't have to recap.

Last week, Best Buy provided me with the information that proved they in fact processed the return as the exact same time as the sale. Why they didn't do this earlier, who knows? So, that brought this all back on the bank, and I filed a complaint with the BBB of Cleveland where they're located plus the Attorney General and followed up with the local news channel who was helping me along.

Today, I went to deposit my paycheck as I never had a chance this weekend, and when the teller handed me the slip, it had way more money on it than I thought it should. I asked her to make sure she deposited this into the right account as I knew I didn't have that much money. She double checked, and lo and behold, there sits a full credit for the rest of the overdraft fees I've been fighting for.

I win.

Matt Paprocki - 1
Charter One Bank - 0

Not sure which complaint actually convinced them to do it (or maybe the combination), but at this point, I don't care. Thanks to any and all who helped even if they'll never read this. So, to restate:

I win.

Driving to work this morning, I am dealing with a hosting crisis, and I get nailed in the rear bumper pretty hard. The bad luck just continues through the day, too.

I am stopped at a red light at the corner of South College and Wooster, light turns green so I put my foot on the gas - but not right away, you know, because the guy in front of me still has his breaks on.

And WHAM I am struck in the back, about choke to death on the seat belt. A red Sunfire hit me right in the middle of the bumper.

Some young college kid, on his way to get flowers for his fraternity (I didn't ask). He says he saw the green light and just hit the gas, yes, he sure did.

My foot was on the gas too, and so I shot forward pretty fast, but I had enough clearing distance that I did not hit the guy in front of me.

The kid got sighted for not enough clearing distance. I got his insurance information, all of which is in his fathers name.

No major damage on the outside, just a blemish on the rear bumper. The Sunfire's license plate buckled my bumper. You can still see the impression of where the numbers on the license plate hit the plastic bumper.

At the Theyer Body Shop I got an estimate. $889 for Rear Bumper, Bumper Cover, Absorber, Center Bracket, and Reinforcements.

Like I said I was busy today dealing with web sites being down, so I did not get further than that. State Farm tells me to call this guy's insurance, Property and Casualty Insurance of Hartford, which I believe is thehartford.com, though I have never heard of them.

Yea, the 800 number I was given is The Hartford.

Hope they do the right thing and repair my bumper, of my one year old car.

I will post pictures tomorrow, it is too dark right now, even in a well lit parking lot.

Ironically Burnout Paradise is out this week, where you are supposed to crash into people.

I don't think I've ever posted about this here before, but Ken is certainly aware of our issues with Verizon. Simply put, we cannot get a signal anywhere in our house. The last month was the worst. I made 36 calls, 16 of which were dropped. My mom made 18, 9 were dropped. That doesn't include the times calls didn't even make it to me, or the times I hung up myself because I wasn't able to hear anybody. So, the following are the excuses we were given previously:

New construction in the area
We live too close to the water
Too many trees near our home
Falling leaves due to the change in seasons

However, the next one is simply the greatest excuse ever given by a customer service representative in the history of customer service:

If you read this site on a regular basis (get a life!), then you probably remember the saga of me getting a Blu-ray player. If not, here's the story. Well, even that was apparently too easy, as things took a turn from frustrating to "absolutely freakin' ridiculous" in a matter of a few days. The saga continues:

For those not in the know, I planned on getting a PS3 with my tax return. It would be a belated Christmas gift from my parents, and I would split in the cost to pay for it. They even got me some Blu-ray movies to open on Christmas to let me know the plan was still going.

So, yesterday I stop into Best Buy to browse. It was a mistake as always. I really should know better than to go in with the attitude “Hey Matt, you’re just looking at the HD DVDs.” That’s never worked.

As I’m browsing, a guy comes up next to me and starts looking at the Blu-ray. After a minute or two, he looks over to me and says, “Do you have this Blu-Ray stuff?”

That's right folks. You can own MY 360! The one where all of the magic on the review section of Blogcritics comes from. Well, most of it anyway. It's simply become too much for me. The achievements are an addiction, and once I admitted I had a problem, I had to take drastic steps. Selling it was my only option.

I'm missing out in the finer things in life, at least I'm told I am. It's time to explore other things. I mean, if I died right now, I would have never had the chance to experience 360 games in HDMI coming from the brand new 360 Elite I'll be buying with the funds. How could I miss something like that? It would be a tragedy I tell you, a true tragedy. That's not going to happen.

I had the weekend planned. Really I did. Saturday I was going to Detroit for their giant monster film festival to see the original Godzilla on the big screen. Sunday was a lazy day of catching up on movies and games, along with getting a new grill.

As you can probably assume, I’m not writing this because all of that happened.

We lost another. Sierra was given to us after being found running through a neighborhood loose. She was extremely aggressive, biting everyone and everything. It earned her the nickname Vampira. It’s amazing anyone would let her go, especially given her gorgeous albino coat that assuredly cost someone a staggering amount of money.

You know it's your birthday when you get 392 emails from forums all over the globe wishing you a happy birthday!

Now, 392 might be a little exaggerated, but I do frequent quite a few message boards. I got an email from every last one of them this morning.

Cheap Ass Gamer was the best, they actually took the time to edit the standard template (DP did a good job in changing the standard form email too). I am going to enjoy my cheap ass birthday, thanks!

So, yea, I turn 29 today. Yay.

Digital Press has a wonderful little saying at the top of the site’s main page: “consoles precariously wired in spider-web fashion...”

Yeah, that just about covers it. Every once in a while though, something goes wrong when you’re dealing with stuff like this. In this case, it was a new TV. New cables led me to a new switch box, new cabling, and moved systems.

Now, it’s simply not plausible to move two consoles around. The mass of tangled wires behind the TV doesn’t allow for something like that. In this case, there’s only one thing can be done. The dreaded, all encompassing “movement of them all.”

I really don't know why he hasn't posted this yet, but he just got a new HDTV. It is a Westinghouse 37" LCD that does 1080p. I bet he wishes that was a PS3 standing vertical next to the Wii and not a PS2 right now.

Congrats on getting a HD set over a year after you bought you Xbox 360. Just think of all the games you missed out on seeing in their "Full HD" glory.

This is the official set of "Matt P. needs a new TV since his is a broken POS so bid high on these auctions of incredibly crappy games." I mean, you wouldn't want me to be without a TV and likewise be unable to provide you with incredibly high quality reviews, now would you? See, bidding on these auctions and paying me money helps you, see?

There are a couple good reasons to live in this part of the state. Well, OK, I can only think of one: It takes less than an hour to drive Detroit or Cleveland.

This Saturday, the 13th, and Feb. 24th are two of the biggest auto shows held in the U.S. Yes, they are the Detroit and Cleveland North American International Auto Shows.

And I am going to both. I will be going with fellow Scion owners from across the state. I can't wait to go, I have never been to the Cleveland NAIAS, and I know full well how much fun the Detroit NAIAS is.

You can expect literally hundreds of photos. Now, if I was smart, I would have tried to get a press pass for Detroit through Blogcritics. That way I could have gotten much better pictures (it is going to be jam packed Saturday) and would have been able to write a news piece for BC Magazine. Oh well.

Click!

Please take special consideration of the before and after shots. Hit the jump to see my new car, a 2007 Scion tC. It was raining pretty good when I got it home, so sorry for the crap quality. When we get sun or better weather (this is Bowling Green, so likely better weather) I will take some nice shots of my new ride.

Before

The panorama moonroof has the same standard welding as a car with with a solid roof. The design exceeds federal roll-over requirements.

The rear seats recline from 25 to 45 degrees back. With headrests removed, both front seats recline to be even with the rear seats, creating a "social space." The rear seats also fold forward, flat with the cargo area.

The tC utilizes Toyota's first ever driver's knee airbag.

The tC braking system is virtually identical to that of the Celica GT-S.

The tC has more sound deadening material than anything built by Toyota that's not a Lexus.

Turn the key once in the drivers side door to unlock only that door, twice within three seconds will open all doors simultaneously.

The driver's seat has seat position memory for when you load rear passengers or cargo.

The headlights automatically turn off when the car is turned off and drivers side door is opened, and will automatically turn back on when the car is started. Oddly, this is only true for the driver's side door.

You have access to open/close the power windows after the car is turned off, but only if you DON'T open any doors.

Last week, I decided to clean one shelf. One shelf. It turned into an entire project when I realized how I could use the space. It ended up with two rooms redone partially, systems moved, and games swapped. I gained extra room for at least a few hundred games when it was said and done. As such, new pics were bound to happen. I also added better descriptions (click on each pic for more info) and titles to make it easier to piece together.

One of Ken's buddies interviewed me for the paper he writes for on the PS3 launch. Aside from sounding like an idiot when I said kids would use their gift cards for a PS3 after Christmas (I meant kids have some extra cash and could use them on another game console in their price range), it went fine.

Mines bigger than Kens. That is all.

It only took 11 months, and 77 games (!!) but I have past 10,000 Gamerscore Points. Now, I am not the Gamerscore whore like Matt (he is close to 30K right now), but 10K is a milestone.

Does the Gamerscore work? Yes, it does, I don't think there is any question about that. Achievements give you more reasons to play your games. Beyond artificially lengthening the game, it really squeezes more out of your $60 purchase. That is a very good thing.

Ask any of my close friends, especially ones I play games with on Xbox Live, and they will likely tell you that I am out of touch with reality.

Well, I really can't dispute that. Case in point: I thought for sure that it was Sunday night. I went to the newsroom and only two people were there. So I asked, "awfully quiet, don't you have a paper due in a few hours?"

No, this is Saturday. I was so sure this was Sunday night. My days are becoming blurred. That is out of touch with reality I am.

Of course this means I have an entire extra day to get work done. For that, I will do a happy dance!

When your father notices you have not updated your blog in a while... there is a problem. So this update is for you, dad.

I have been quite busy with many different things. But I am not here to get into all that. And of course when I went to post today, I found out that I had no privileges to the MT CGI scripts. For some unknown reason (spam hitting the CGIs).

Yesterday it snowed in BG! Sure, not unusual for snow in North West Ohio in October, but its the beginning of the month!

Today Aaron and I finalized plans to attend the East Coast Gaming Expo. I hope to have a couple articles for Blogcritics covering the show. It is going to interesting, to say the least, meeting Rob Hardcore.

I forgot to ask if the Quality Inn had Internet access. I will have to call back.

One day I hate eBay, the next day I love it. That is how it goes. This time the find was Ikaruga, complete. It wasn't cheap (it's only money), but I got it. And it is good.

I also recently picked up O~3's Chaos Field. I played the Japanese version of this game, and was so glad the 'Cube was getting a US port.

Both are great verticle shooters, though Chaos Field did not score too well. But we all know how wrong video game critics can be.

I am glad to have both of these in my collection, and my GameCube is actually being played again!

I signed up for GamesnFlix on the 8th. Two days later I got my first three selections. It costs $16.99, and I love it for being able to rent games and movies.

I rented V for Vendetta, Munich and Stacked for the Xbox. You should watch V for Vendetta -- great movie. I need to review Stacked, because I sent a review copy out, and never received a review in return -- not a good thing.

I sent the two movies back and today got Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel and Chibi-Robo.

Wonderful service so far. They have a warehouse in PA, and I get stuff in a day or two.

I just picked up a DVD set from one of my favorite cartoons of all time. Pinky and the Brain Vol. 1 shipped in July, but our Meijer just got it. From the Wiki entry, it looks like other DVD volumes are planned. Goody!

Vol. 1 has 22 episodes, and one lone feature. It is a four-disc set. Watching them on my HDTV sure makes me realize how far saturday morning cartoons have come.

I will surely be looking out for vol. 2 this Christmas.

I have major news to tell you today. I found the bottom of my Inbox! This has to be a first time in well over a year. It took a couple days, but I actually have less than 10 emails in it right now. That is down from who knows how many. 100? 500? Blame the great sorting and coloring options in Entourage 2004.

It is such a good feeling to have Entourage organized again. Now to get my Blogcritics Inbox down to that same level...

The other day Jordan and I found one heck of a deal at Best Buy. He needed a laptop on the cheap, and this one is on the cheap!

Costing $600, after a $150 in-store rebate, this 15" Toshiba Satellite is one nice find. It has a Centrino chip (1.43 Ghz if I remember correctly) plus 512 MB RAM, 80 GB HD, DL DVD-RW, and 128 MB Integrated Graphics.

We found similarly priced Acer and HP laptops, but they both had Celeron chips, which suck compared to Centrino. Now all Jordan needs is a wireless signal he can steal use.

While helping Jordan find a dirt cheap PC laptop, I found a replacement for my iPod Shuffle. A 2 GB Kingston DataTraveler USB pen drive will fit the bill quite nicely -- on sale for $55 at Circuit City.

Why they see the need to put all this crap software on these things is beyond me. It has all this U3 software pre-installed, plus more I can download from the site! Oh boy, I'll go do that right now.

A whopping 45 MB of software is was on my Kingston drive. What is the purpose of this crap? There is also a virtual CD that mounts with the pen drive, it has an EXE on it to install this U3 software. Absolutely worthless.

Who knew buying a USB pen drive would net you as much crap to uninstall as buying a name brand PC laptop.

That sums up just about everything right now. This is my official request to restart this year from scratch. Earlier, we lost our five year old ferret Marvin to cancer. A month or so later, our 19 year old dog Bitsy needed to be put down due to cancer. This morning, I broke my big toe, and it's now one of the most disgusting things you'll ever see. A guppie in the fish tank was found floating and dead as well about the same time.

Tonight, we also lost another ferret. Hermes didn't make it to two years. He died after 90-minutes of surgery to remove a spleen that had outgrown his body and was litterly sucking his blood dry. He died twice on the operating table and was brought back both times. Post op, he died again, and this time was gone for good. Hermes survived a previous surgery when he was barely a month old and died then on the table too. He fought for everything, and I can only hope he enjoyed some of the short time he had with us. I know I did.

My iPod shuffle had a good life. It was even replaced for free when it fell apart. But Apple is not going to replacing it this time. Not when I leave it in my pants pocket and run it through the washing machine.

I need the USB drive more than I need the MP3 functionality, so I think I have found a suitable substitute.

Or not, but last night we had one hell of a weather blast. It started with an ominous green sky, which in basic terms means "you're screwed." While I'm sure they see them often in Oklahoma and other states in the tornado belt, I only remember seeing one one other time here in Ohio, and that memory was vague. I wish I had a shot of the radar, because it was by far the largest and most concentrated line I've ever seen.

My DS is up for sale on eBay. My shipping is cheap and you get two absolutely terrible... err, near classic games too! If you're looking for a DS, this is the best one on eBay*. Oh, and check my other auctions for horrible... err, near classic DVDs!

Monday, the 24th, is my 28th birthday. Yay me. I will be heading home in a little while so I leave the site in Matt's hands (BWA HA HA). Please don't brake anything.

Now, if you wish to send me a present, I would suggest the GP2X Power Supply, GP2X Custom Joystick Cap, or the GP2X Screen Protector (I sense a theme here).

It seems some sanity still exist in this world. Charges will not be filed against the six girls who strewn Super Mario question mark blocks all around their tiny Ohio town on April Fool's day. According to Portage County Prosecutor Victor V. Vigluicci, "I do not believe that they had any bad or malicious intentions ... [the girls] were not thinking about the consequences of their actions in this day and age."

I figured they would not get any kind of reprimand for this. I can't believe that Portage County is that concerned "in this day and age." They just wanted the media attention, and they sure got it, nation wide. Too bad it makes Portage County and Ravenna look like a bunch of hicks without a clue.

Oh wait...

Yes, Ravenna Ohio, my home town. Njiska alerted me to this article on Joystiq. Funny thing is, he had no idea Ravenna was my home town!

You can also read the story from the Record Courier, and this story from the Akron Beacon Journal.

The bomb squad, HAZMAT, Kent and Ravenna fire, Portage County support offices were all called in. This is going to cost Portage County a lot of money. All for some cardboard boxes! The crux is the girls may see criminal charges from the Portage County Prosecutors Office. How wrong is that, its an April Fools prank!

The quotes from the police chief are just priceless: "This game is evidently being played all over the country.”

This is a joke most people get. But in Ravenna, the bomb squad is called in. Yes, I am such a proud (Ravenna) Ohioan right now. I called my good friend who works at the Record Courier was not available for comment. Oh well. I will keep calling to see what, if anything, comes of this.

Placing the boxes on the steps of the Catholic Church in downtown Ravenna might not have been the brightest idea. Turning themselves in was a smart move though, I will give them that.

The "official" site of the mario question boxes even picked this story up, having this to say:

To clarify some of the points in the article: this is not a sinister 'game', it is supposed to be a comment on public spaces being routinely used for advertising (billboards, etc) but not for art (these boxes). Also, despite what Ravenna Police Chief Randall McCoy says, the purpose of these boxes is not "just to see what kind of response you get". It is to bring a smile to people's faces, to get them to connect with their neighbours, to bring colour into an otherwise grey urban landscape. Posterchild and myself are both deeply sorry that things are not working out in Ravenna.

It is no surprise that Sam Goody is going out of business, or rather changing their name to FYE. Hopefully FYE will not be any worse than Sam Goody was.

At any rate, the (s)mall's Sam Goody in Bowling Green is having one of those nifty bittersweet liquidation sales. Most everything in the store is 20% off, while other things are 25% off. The games are only 20% off, and I saw nothing I truly needed. Yep, that is correct -- you heard me -- I walked out of the store without a game.

That is more than I can say for Matt, considering the last time we were there (his first) he bought $20 of clearance items that I would classify as "junk," other than a cheap copy of NFL Street 2 for the Xbox. This was a trip I get yelled at for too, because I made him spend the money. Yea, that's it.

So maybe it is a good thing Sam Goody is changing to FYE. No more forcing Matt into buying any more junk that he already bought two days before for twice the money. That is a plus.

What really sucks is the Replay Points that I have at Sam Goody. I need to call them and inquire about those. It is really nice getting $5 and $10 off on new video games, like Oblivion, which I just bought from Sam Goody last week.

I guess I had it coming. It has been at least five years since I got screwed out of an auction on eBay. On March 10th I bought Ultimate Block Party for the PSP, a Buy It Now auction. On March 15th I got a USPS notice email, as I payed immediately via PayPal -- this all seemed very normal and acceptable to me. Only the USPS email only gave me a tracking number, no actual package tracking included. I checked in a couple days, but nothing. On March 23 I sent an email. On March 27th I sent another email. It is now March 30th and all I have received is an automated email telling me to use the eBay message system as the seller gets a lot of spam otherwise.

No I don't know about you, but I get quite a lot of spam that looks like it came from the eBay message center. So I do not know how a personal "hey what's going on with my game" email could be construed as spam. At any rate I used the eBat message center and fired off both of my previous emails that way.

As I said, it is March 30th, and still nothing. In a few more days I am going to go ape-shit on this seller, because I want my game and I worked hard for that money. 98.4% positive feedback or not, don't buy anything from "moviecheapnet," I never will again.

I notice the game is covered under PayPal Buyer Protection, so I may have to go that rout. Just a FYI, you have 45 days to file for it.

It's always tough to lose a close pet, but it's even worse when you know it's going to happen and the call is on you. That was Marvin's situation. What we thought last September was an intestinal disease turned out to be adrenal glad cancer. The past week showed a serious decline in the little guy. He was listless, constantly sleeping, and his back legs were slowly giving out on him.

Marvin's stress level sent him into seizures whenever we gave him any type of medicine, so there was nothing really left to do. This morning we took him in and the vet confirmed he had a quarter-sized tumor. It hit fast. At five and with his condition, surgery wasn't an option either. He had only a few days left at best, and after seeing him lay and stare blankly at me last night (almost like he was trying to tell me what needed to be done), we made that inevitable call this morning.

Marvin was five, a rescue from someone who decided not keep him after an argument with his girlfriend. His love for sock theft (which we'll likely still be finding around the house for the next few years), dangling objects, plastic bags, and buckets will not be forgotten.

It has been (about) a year that I have been on medication for having a low thyroid. I had to go in to the Health Center to get a new prescription and have a check up. I learned that I lost 15 pounds! This is great news. It means the medication is helping a lot. Now if I could just make the time to get off my lazy ass and exercise. Then I might lose even more weight.

Hooray for me!

It has been a wonderful Christmas! And I have not minded being off line for the past few days. I am not too sure when I will be home either - or when I will be back online again before I head back to BG. We will see.

I will have to run down all the goodies I got for Christmas later, some great stuff, a banner year for sure.

And no, I was not going into withdrawal from no Internet access. At the moment I am at my dad’s house and he has broadband, something my grandmother does not have.

Ok, it's not actually MY book, but I did contribute a few sections, along with a few other Digital Press writers. Once you've bought it, make sure to drop a customer review off at Amazon stating what an important factor it was in your life to have Atari Lynx games running on your Mac and what a helpful guide this was towards completing that goal.

Got a new entertainment center so things needed moved. Lots of changes, including the semi-removal of the arcade game which seems like I'll never have enough cash to get it working again. I'll be updating the magazine pics in the next few days. Finally got them in order by dates and it looks SO much neater.

And just in case you even think for a second that I have too much stuff, I have NOTHING on this guy.

This is quite old news, but I wanted to post it anyways. During Homecoming weekend this year (September 30th - October 1st) The BG News held their 85th Anniversary Reunion with festivities Friday and Saturday.

Had some issues with them a LONG time ago and communication broke down. But, here I am, featured as they wanted my collection. It's a great site outside of this too.

After royally busting his ass, Ken managed to pass his sociology class with a score of 93%. He was probably going to post something on it, but this will save him the time. This is all after he claimed he had a "project" to look through magazines for ads that "exploited women." How convienient.

Congrats!

Got this today from DP member Dji:

Hello Mr. Paprocki,

Just wanted to say thanks for the many reviews you have here. I've found many of them quite informative and/or funny. I've nodded in agreement at most of your assessments. Of course I haven't read them all, but one thing's for sure: I'll be reading any review I encounter with your name on it. And that's saying something, since I can't stand reviews 95% of the time, especially mainstream ones. In fact I don't even read them anymore. Especially those by Matt Casamassina, of IGN fame. 9 out of 10 for Donkey Kong 64? ("Buy it.") What about Ivan Sulic's review of Jak 3 ("If you like games, you'll buy this immediately or we'll come to your house and beat you to death."). Bleh Damn I can't stand being told "you're not a true gamer if you don't buy this" or other such nonsense (I hate the phrase "must-have" with a passion), which most reviewers are extremely fond of... as well as calling every other game the best ever and giving 9's all over the place.

And what about Hilary Goldstein's review of Metal Slug 3 for Xbox, in which he (yes, he) actually recommended that the reader download a rom instead of paying the "ridiculous amount of money SNK was asking" (not actual quote). This was taken down shortly thereafter. Damn IGN sucks. And it's not like GamePro, EGM or especially the official mags are better. I'd be willing to bet that most of these guys have never seen a Neo Geo (whether AES or MVS) in their lives, yet alone played one. GameSpot seems a little better, yet it's skewered towards PC gaming too much for my tastes.

Anyway... I can see you're a huge fan of beat 'em ups, run and gun, fighters, etc. and so am I, so that's nice. I'm eager to read your reviews for genres I'm less familiar with/interested in, too. You are obviously knowledgeable and you have strong opinions. Nothing worse than a wishy-washy review, except maybe a fanboy's review. Thankfully, you've found a nice balance as a reviewer. Keep it up. However, I've noticed a few typos here and