i fell into a burning ring of fire

good lord, i can't wait for this to arrive in the mail so i can get my grubby little paws on it. yes, that's the real cover, not a photoshop. at least that's what i'm praying, and i choose to let myself believe it at this point. supposedly the uk version of the magazine is already out, with the review score being a 96%! it's also very likely that the game will come out in november. apparently that month CAN get better. in my opinion half-life 2 coming out then would overshadow else in november. yes even halo 2.

...except for jess' birthday, of course.

here's an interview from halflife2.net interviewing Chuck Osborn from PC Gamer, who got to review half-life 2:

Icarus: What was your reaction when you found out you would be the first to review Half-Life 2?
Chuck Osborn: It was a mixture of excitement and trepidation, because of the responsibility of being the first one to review it.

Icarus: Was it worth the wait?
Chuck Osborn: Absolutely

Icarus: How long is the review?
Chuck Osborn: Nine pages, plus we have a four page story telling you what you need to know about running Half-Life 2 on your system.

Icarus: Did it seem dated?
Chuck Osborn: Not at all.

Icarus: Are there any spoilers in the review?
Chuck Osborn: There are some mild spoilers, because you can’t review it without giving away something. I say very clearly when to stop reading if you don’t want to know anything. If you read the entire review, there are a lot of surprises I don’t talk about, because I want you to be surprised. This is not a spoiler review.

Icarus: Does it have multiplayer, if so what are they?
Chuck Osborn: Counter-Strike Source is the multiplayer.

Icarus: Only CS:S, no Deathmatch?
Chuck Osborn: Only CS:S

Icarus: Has it (CS:S) changed any from Beta?
Chuck Osborn: It’s what they say it’s going to be, but with a few surprises

Icarus: Who did you get to play it with?
Chuck Osborn: Valve as well as playing in within our own offices

Icarus: Did you get to play HL Source?
Chuck Osborn: Yes.

Icarus: Can you tell me anything about HL:Source?
Chuck Osborn: Nope

Icarus: Is it (HL:S) included in the review?
Chuck Osborn: Yes, it's discussed in a sidebar along with a few screenshots.

Icarus: Anything you want to say the users before I go?
Chuck Osborn: I'm just glad I don't have to keep my playing Half-Life 2 a secret anymore! It was killing me. Trust me...you won't be disappointed.

take time with a wounded hand, cause it likes to heal

back in school, it's going all right so far. i like 3 of my classes so far, american history to 1820, intro to american govt., and political theory. i dropped russian after two days, so i'm taking econ102 (macro) to fill that spot. and despite absolutely noo feedback from my wonderful advisor, i fixed my own math problem by dropping college algebra 2 for prob and stats. i looked up major requirements and the polisci recommendations are to take a 3 class sequence of prob and stats. hopefully i won't be too behind after missing a class. spent over $500 on books which is way more than any other quarter. hopefully it'll come down a little after i return all the russian and algebra stuff, especially if austin lets me use his old econ book.

in other news, john kerry backs the renewal of the assault rifle ban... just don't ask him to give up his own chinese assault rifle.

oh goody, iran has the ability to launch strategic missles against it's nieghbors (israel, iraq, u.s. forces in the middle east). that's just what we need to make this region stable and safe.

in the year 2009... the tonight show will become the funniest show on tv.

forever in debt to your priceless advice

holy crap, could november get any better? first of all, we get halo 2 and the return of the king extended edition. that was going to make the month awesome enough. and now there's a good possibility we'll finally be getting a nirvana box set, including dvd?!! the only possible way this month could get any greater is if half-life 2 came out or courtney love went to jail.


oh, and more people need to hurry and join my yahoo survival football group. it really only takes two minutes each week, so get anyone you know to join. the more people the better.

so i made a big mistake, try to see it once my way

for anyone who's interested, i made a yahoo survival football league. basiaclly you just pick one team to win each week, but you can only pick a team once for the whole season. if you pick a team that loses, you're out. it's a lot easier to manage than fantasy football, so everyone should join and invite whoever you like. the league id is #31767 and the pass is bengals.

got a flame in my heart, can't get my fill

here's one senator i'd definately vote to reelect.

the winds of thor are blowing cold

part 2 of the phone card saga. yesterday my mom volunteered to take the card with me over to the cingular store in the western hills plaza to talk to them about my problem. well once there the guy said there was nothing they could do about it (surprise surprise) because they don't make the cards, some company called fastweb or something does. so he told us we should go back to target and talk to a manager. so we go back and talk to todd the manager. at first it seems like he's going to put forth a half-hearted effort into resolving the problem and just tell us "sorry" if things got too difficult. to my shock, the guy spends a good 40 minutes hunting for the phone number to the downtown cingular office, getting the number for the fastweb people, discussing the problem with fastweb, and then getting them to add the $30 to my phone. i have to admit, i was extremely impressed and he won me back as a target customer.

of course, from now on i'll make sure to only add money to my phone online instead.

she'll come back as fire to burn all the liars, leave a blanket of ash on the ground

well it seems i'm no longer a target customer. the idiots sold me a $30 cingular phone card, execpt it was missing the pin number so i could actually redeem the card. so i took it back and all they can say is how it's nonrefundable or exchangable. they said i just have to take it to cingular, that there's nothing they can do about it on the store level, never mind the fact that they're store sold me the defective piece of crap. now that's what i call quality customer service. at least i'll get it back when i screw them out of $30 by returning the defective civ3 that i didn't even buy there. that'll be the last time i set foot in that crappy place.

i successfully completed my attempt at eating ice cream for every day during the month of august. the best part was when i topped it off by eating an entire quart of sherbet on the 31st. i swear, i thought i was going to go into a diabetic coma.