Posted 7:54 PM by Eric
I just got back from the badger game. It was cool, it was against Purdue and it was homecoming. At homecoming the seniors at the law school all run down the field and throw a cane over the goalpost. If they catch it it means that they will win their first trial. It's hilarious, they all are chucking canes in the air and running around trying to catch them. My dad's friend who is a lawyer from UW Madison said that by the time they throw the canes over it they are all drunk and can't catch anything. Anyways it was a fun game.

Call of Duty is coming on consoles?! That's awesome I really want to play that game. It looks really cool. I heard that one of the Russian missions is you have to follow around a Russian soldier until he dies so then you can take his gun to use.

The Simpson hit and run looks cool, I was gonna rent it but it was all checked out. I remember this really old arcade game that was a side scroller fighting game were you could be Bart, marge, and homer. It was co-op too. It was awesome, I would love to have that game moved to PS2 I love that game so much. It was on the ferry that took our car across lake Michigan when we went to New York. That game was so cool, I played it for like 2 hours.

Yeah I think my mom got that e-mail. I read it when I was going through Outlook express on my dads computer.

I really hope that this starts another space race. Because wouldn't we look bad if china got to mars before we did? Maybe Bush will try to make the space program better because he doesn't want to see china get there first.

Oh and about my PS2 It's really easy to do that stuff. The only part I am most scared about is there is one screw that you need to take out to get to the laser. Well, that screw is right next to the mother board and I am always so scared I'll drop the screw and it will fall into the mother board and I'll lose it and it will mess stuff up. I didn't like having to mark this one gear either. It was really only putting a dot on their with a permanent marker and it wasn't near anything important but my had was shaking really bad. But yeah its not hard. I might do it again sometime to see if DVD's will work.

Posted 2:00 AM by Mark
Call of Duty is looking really really good. Michael Giacchino released some mp3s from his soundtrack on his website. Check it out: http://www.michaelgiacchino.com/cod.htm. The tone is a lot darker and scarier and more chaotic - a more sobering and realistic portrayal of the cost of war. There aren't very many catchy themes like the Allies and Nazi themes. But it still sounds really good. The Pegasus Bridge cue, especially. It says you can preorder the soundtrack along with the game on the site but when I clicked on the link, it said that it was just a soundtrack sampler, not the full soundtrack. So I'm not sure. Anyway, our computer won't be able to play it. Oh well. Hopefully I'll get the console game.

Btw, Michael Schumacher and Ferrari won the F1 championship again last week, which really sucks. It came down the last race - Kimi Raikkonen would've won the champioship it he had won the race and Schumacher had finished out of the points, but it didn't happen. Williams came really close to winning the constructor's championship, but that didn't happen, either. Oh well. The WRC points race is getting really close - Sebastien Loeb is looking really good and might come from behind to beat Richard Burns.

Oh, and I had my wisdom teeth pulled today. They gave me laughing gas and then put me under with an IV and now my teeth are a bit sore, but it wasn't too bad. I won't be able to eat solid foods for a day or two, but it's not so bad. Oh, and did your mom ever get my email back to her about that Korean kid she knows who's going to look for his birthparents? I don't check my markthewarrior address very often anymore, so it was like a week before I got back to her, and that was like a month ago. If she never got it, tell her that he can email me at dodgeconceptcar@hotmail.com

Posted 10:44 PM by Mark
Well, China has just become the third country to put a man into space. Man, this is so incredible... And it's kinda sad, because no one really cares. Remember how we learned in school and grew up looking back to the 60's when the Soviet Union first put up Gagarin in 1961 and then Alan Shepard went up for the US, and how that was the defining moment of that generation, when man first left the rock he had grown up on after 6 billion years and finally had the will to go off into space searching for knowledge? And the entire decade for our country was devoted to going further out into space. And now, China is following in our footsteps, some 42 years after Gagarin, and it didn't even make our local 10 o'clock news tonight. But hopefully, this will get the US going again.

The reaction I hope the government doesn't make is to just quickly launch military technology in space, to restablish supremacy by simply making sure we can shoot down any spacecraft we need to. That's one way to stay ahead of China. But hopefully, assuming China keeps pushing the fact that they are putting real people into outer space and making the kind of heroes out of their taikonauts that we made out of our cosmonauts and astronauts in the 60's, then hopefully the US will have to respond by also putting people into space and kickstarting our manned space program.

Hey, congrats on fixing up your PS2! All that stuff sounds really complicated. I have an intense aversion to opening up my PC case or working on the insides of anything involving electronics. I don't mind mechanical things, but I've never had good experiences with working on my PC - the last time I opened up the case it was to install a new video card that didn't work. Btw, I don't know if I already told you this, but I got EA's new Rugby game, Rugby 2004. Yeah, I think I already did. Anyway, we can play that when you come up. I found this really cool rugby TV ad. It's a Nike ad, but they don't show it in the US. But go to www.keeptheballalive.com and click on the link to watch the ad, and then click on the 90 second spot. It's really cool, a bunch of businessmen in black suits start playing rugby in the downtown of some huge city. There's one part where they all get into a huge ruck and it looks the clones fight scene in The Matrix Reloaded.

Socom 2 looks cool. Now that Socom 1 is $40 now with the headset I might get it. Or I might just get the $20 version and wait for the Logi headset. Also, I rented The Simpsons Hit and Run and Red Faction 2. Those are awesome games! Hit and Run is great, it's like GTA only with Simpsons characters - it's hilarious. And Red Faction 2 has awesome multiplayer modes - it has deathmatch, arena, capture the flag, and team modes. The weapons are awesome - you can have dual pistols or dual machine pistols where the trigger for the gun in your left hand is L1 and the right trigger is R1. You can fire with one gun while you're reloading the other - it's so cool. And there's a grenade launcher that shoots out like 6 grenades at a time, and you can make it fire sticky grenades, so you can shoot them and they'll stick to the wall, or even stick to other people, and then they'll run around for like 3 seconds before they go off and kill them.

Btw, I don't think MGS2 is really set in 1989. I know Solidus says that, but I think Kojima didn't want to give the game an exact year for its setting, so he just wrote in "200 years" in the script. I don't think he really meant exactly 200 years, or maybe it was just a mistake, but anyway, the game's not set in 1989. I remember seeing a timeline that some guy put together of the entire MG series by extrapolating from certain events in some games and estimating where other events should take place. I think like the NES games take place in like 1999, and then the GBC game is like in 2005, and MGS1 is like 2002 and MGS2 is like 2007 or something. I'm not sure...

Well, anyway, I am so excited and happy for China. Their nation has been around for thousands of years - they were the pioneers of rocketeering - they invented fireworks in the 8th or 9th century, after all, and now, finally, they've come full circle and sent a man into space. I can't imagine what China must be going through right now - it must be the same way we felt when we first sent up Alan Shepherd. And it's all happened so fast for China - the way their spacecraft works is that the service module of the craft, which stores all the resources that the humans need, is left in orbit when the command module returns to earth with its taikonauts, and the design is that as each new spacecraft is sent up, it will leave its service module in orbit and take the one left from the previous mission and dock it with the one before it, to create a space station. It's a pretty ingenious idea. So basically, in their first manned launch and only their fifth ever space launch, China already has the first module of a space station in orbit.

I'm really excited about the future of our space program, too. I just read on the BBC's website that some people in the Bush administration are absolutely terrified, to the point of paranoia, about China's space launch and about losing our supremacy in space. Let's hope that maybe, just maybe, tonight is the beginning of the second space race.

Posted 8:03 PM by Eric
Well, I fixed my PS2. At least it runs SOCOM II now. It still wont run Aero Elite though. Oh well.

I just played throught the demo mission. I have kinda mixed feelings. I really like the socom series and I know that I will enjoy the game alot but it seems like they are completly forgetting about socom one. I mean instead of Jester's old low, calm voice that he used to have now he has a really high pitched voice that sounds like he had too much caffeine. He sounds like this really annoying kid that sits next to me in english class. The kid makes these like beaver impressions... pretty scary. Wardog is is cool but I dont see what happened to spectre. I mean boomer left the seal team, but zipper never mentioned anything about spectre. Spectre rocked, he was an awesome sniper and one of the coolest character models online. The other member is Wardog, he is cool, but he was talking about how the ruins in the city we were in were almost 500 years old. Well I don't care how old the wall that is protecting me from bullets is. I only found the 9mm sub, the model 18, and the 12 gauge shotgun in the level. But wow shotguns rock! But it sucked, by the time I got to get the shotgun there were no enemies left in the level to kill, so I killed jester. He screams funny. Its really loud and it hurt my ear REALLY bad. Its cool now when you kill your own guys your guys will kill you. Kinda weird, and it will suck if the ai run into a grenade blast. The ai now can be pushed kinda, so when they are blocking doorways and crap you just push them out of the way. They still do a good job of getting in the way during inside battle. The machine gun turrets are cool but I never got to kill anyone with one, but I just shot it for fun.

The demo doesnt have online so I cant say anything about that.

Anyways overall its an awesome game. Most of the things I mentioned up there dont hurt the game at all. It just bugs me that they changed jester's voice.

btw, I don't know if HQ is Vanessa Marshall. It sounds a little like her. But it might not be. Kinda hard to compare when she is using russian accent.

Posted 5:13 PM by Eric
I just went to the mall and got a new shiny SOCOM II Beta Disc. But as luck strikes my PS2 won't read it because its a blue-bottom disc. Well I'm opening my PS2 again, to try to fix it. This time I'm adjusting the laser height... Sounds kinda complicated but it's really just turning a wheel until you find the right setting. This is my last try before my parent's say they are gonna buy me a new PS2. I want to fix it because if they buy me a new PS2 I'll probably be less likely to get a new computer in the near future. I really hope this works. Its from TechTV so it seems like it should be good.

Wish me luck guys.

Posted 12:33 PM by Eric
A while back in september Dan and I noticed something in MGS2, I dunno if you ever got around to reading it but it was about in MGS before you fight solidus he says, "do you know what day it is today, April 30th, 200 years ago today George washington was brought into office as the first president of the United States." Well we went online and found out that George Washington was sworn in on april 30th 1789. So it means that when raiden is at federal hall it is 1989! That is pretty weird. I dont think things like the Metal Gear Ray would be around in 1989. kinda weird. I dunno maybe you noticed it too.

What do you think about that? Its weird that they set it in 1989. I mean Hideo Kojima has to have some reason for doing it. I think he would know that he did it. But maybe thats one thing that slipped by the whole team. But if Hideo Kojima has something symbolic about just about everything in the game it would seem like he would have a reason.

I remember when you guys came down here last spring we tried to play your rubgy game but it had a scratch in it.

I reserved MGS3: Snake Eater last weekend. lol the guy there is like, well its coming out next month and I asked him if it really was and he was like yeah. But its coming out 1 year and 1 month from now. I think there computer only has the month and day on it, not the year.

I can't wait for Twin Snakes to come out, that will be awesome. I think it comes out by christmas, if it does I can probably bring my Gamecube up to superior during christmas break.

Dan bought OFP and its pretty sweet to play over the internet.

I installed CFS2 again and I learned that my computer can play it on high so its pretty fun now. I lags a little when u are right behind a plane and shoot it down and then you fly through the smoke.