I recently uploaded my pictures from my week long trip to Ohio and the following weekend I spent at a lake house. They have been added to my Flickr page and will be the first to show up (for now) if you click on the Photos tab on this site.

Yesterday I went to a memorial mass at the Loretto Motherhouse that was held to honor my recently passed grandmother. It was a lovely service and various members of my family conducted parts of the ceremony (even myself, the bread carrier).

While down there I took a few pictures of family as well as this amazing Ginkgo tree located at the motherhouse. On the way back, my mother and I stopped at this amazing looking church, St. Rose Priory, so I could take a few photos there.

There were some amazing stain glass windows and old gravestones. It could not have been a more perfect day, with the sun shining, and a little overcast in the distance. It reminded me so much of Ireland. All of the pictures have been uploaded to my Flickr site. Have a stop by there to look at them or click on the Photos tab on this site.

It is the year 2000. Humanity no longer needs legs to move around. We are all born with a metal sled under the top half of our body. The oceans were flooded with melted wax and oil and have since coated the entire earth in a shimmery gloss coat. Want to go across the country? Simple get a good push off of a tree in your front yard and you can be wherever you want to within the day.

Perhaps the future is not quite that drastic. Instead of sliding around, I find myself writing on my blog more and more during the week. While it used to be that I would update maybe once a month, or twice if I was feeling generous, I have felt the need to write some more and give at least a few updates per week. In addition to the updates, I am hoping to start a comic strip that I can put up once a week or once a month. Naturally it will have to do with gaming, I am just trying to think of some original content. Hopefully the first strip will be up within the next month.

In the meantime, anyone up for some sledding?

What a deep question, are your cows happy? Actually, it has nothing to do with this post except for (rightfully) unpleased consumers. Recently I stumbled on a site called Sarcastic Gamer.

They have some great articles about various gaming news and other pokes of fun at gaming corporations. The coolest exclusives that I thought the site had to offer were these parody songs that they had made for each system. Have a listen, it is well worth it. I whipped up a catchy graphic for each to showcase them.

The Wii song (which is perhaps the best) is the most recent song they have done (July 9th) and is extremely well done. I have been offered a contributor position at their blog, and may take them up on that. It would be fun to write a few articles here and there for them. Be sure to stop by there and let them know what you think of their songs.

I recently developed the slides I had from my AP Art portfolio from High School and got it put on digital disc. I then uploaded it to my Flickr page, and put it in an album.

For AP Portfolios you have to have a concentration, and it can really be anything, just to need to play around with it and show variety. For mine, I chose hands. There are some simple pen drawings, some sketches, some paintings and colored pencil hands in there. Check it out and let me know what you think!

This morning I got a request through Flickr that someone wanted to use some of my pictures for their article. I checked it out and then consented to it in a second. Maireid Sullivan from NowPublic wrote an article about whether the Hill of Tara should be added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites. I read through it and found it a very interesting article.

This site in general was one of the more interesting sites on my Ireland trip, not because of its abbey or castle, but because of its history. It has a deep history that dates back to the original inhabitants of Ireland, St. Patrick, and a battle where the Irish died for their country.

I just recently added a Photos page to the site which displays pictures from my Flickr account. I uploaded all [all the decent ones] from my Ireland trip as well as some others to my account just recently.

Feel free to check them out. Drop by my Flickr page if you would rather view them there, add me as a friend, or see larger versions.

It has been far too long since I have updated this blog. Although I would have like to posted more in the last month (or two), my lack of posting has just reasoning. I have been busy with other things. I have joined the staff of The Blue Skittle, a new magazine focused on gamers and gaming culture. Between working on an article and various features for this month’s issue and editing other’s articles, it has kept me pretty busy.

I have also been doing various side projects, like designing a site for someone [to date, still not finished] for them to sell their fudge. I alway have enjoyed designing sites and playing around in Photoshop to get the desired effects I want.

As always, I have still been very active in the Tied the Leader community, write and do graphics for the TTL Blog, and make my way to gaming events we host.

Nice to finally post an update, hopefully I can do these more often…

Warning: The following is a Rant. You are more than willing to disagree with me. This is an opinion of mine, but I am willing to have my mind changed, so do your best.

Before I ventured into the a world where all the boxes were stamped with an “X”, I used to be a devoted Playstation owner. I rocked the old gray console then got the PS2 the week it launched. Xbox Live didn’t exist at this point, and other than some experiments the Dreamcast did, neither did online console gaming. Since I only enjoy first person shooters against the most dangerous game, another gamer, I found RPGs to be a nice way to spend my time.

RPGs rely heavily on a good story line and a lot of customization. The more types of wooden swords I can equip to my characters, the better. It seems like nowadays those priorities have changed. Tagging the addition three letters “MMO” to the beginning of RPG was the death of classic role playing video games as we know it. Now the concern is more about how good you are versus other people online, or how powerful you can make your character before selling him on eBay to someone none the wiser.

What happen to games like Lunar? I invested so many hours into that game, not because I wanted to defeat my friend down the street, but because it put its first priority on story. I am a slave to games that are more enjoyable than they look. Sure all these old RPGs had small characters in which the detail of their faces were depicted by 6 pixels, but I didn’t care. Lunar had a nice balance by having amazing anime cut scenes interjected throughout the story.

Lunar does not stand alone by any means. I played the hell out of Star Ocean, Suikoden and the Breath of Fire series’. I even dabbled a little with Legend of Legaia, a experimental 3D RPG game. When the Playstation 2 launched and graphics became more important than gameplay then games like this failed to reach the United States. Sure there are plenty classic RPGs out there still, hiding in other corners of the world. Every once in a while they get remade for different versions of the Gameboy. Since gameplay [for now] is the thing keeping portable systems alive they can afford to put out classic RPGs that gamers-on-the-go can sink their teeth into.

Since I highly doubt Microsoft will invest the money into making a classic RPG game for the 360, it would be cool if they released some to the arcade. They have some other lousy attempts at RPGs already in there. You bet I would be buying up all the Microsoft Points from my local Best Buy if some of these classics hit the XBLA. So who do I need to send my letter to?

Major League Gaming [MLG] has really taken off in the past year. The competitions are aired on multiple networks on television and it seems to be what all the young gamers want to do. With this explosion of popularity and recognition, it really does make this competitive form of gaming seem like a sport. Why not? The top gamers are making a hefty six figure salary. Does Major League Gaming belong with other ‘Major League’ sports?

While there are youthful golfers, young tennis pros and let’s not forget Lebron James, it is safe to say professional gaming is saturated with youth. All the top players are still in high school or only a year into college. However popular MLG is becoming, it is still considered a youth sport which leads to leaving a bad taste in some people’s mouth.

It is only natural for there to be taunting in any sport. Football players are known to mouth-off to their opponents. Tennis players will scream, throw their racket and bark at the judge. How far do they go though? One of the things that people don’t like about MLG is the conduct of their players. During the game things will get intense and players will scream. That doesn’t seem that unnatural. It is when they resort to phrases like “rape” and “owned” that puts chills down everyone’s spine. Do these kids know what rape is? Do they know what it means to own someone? Sure phrases get altered over time. The word “gay” used to mean happy well before it meant homosexuality. Will the use of “rape” and “owned” become the common tongue in kids? We can only hope not. It doesn’t seem to phase the gamers they look up to. Is this how a Major League sport will conduct itself?

What if other sports resorted to these tactics. What if the NBA [for example] were like Major League Gaming. That is hard to imagine that a professional sport could condone [and encourage to an extent] the use of such vulgar terms.

Steve Nash just stole the ball. He is hoping for a fast break and rushing the basket. He leaves the ground for the hoop, and gently puts the ball in the basket as he yells “Raped!” I would fear for Steve’s life after his mother heard him say that. Being a professional athlete means more than fearing your mother though, it means acting professional. That sport is your job. You can get fired, you can get hired, and you can get raises. If you are in a profession then you are expected to act with maturity and respect.

It is easy to understand that a fourteen year old who plays first person shooters all day may not be up to par on their maturity. You would expect a person getting paid more than their parents to at least have enough respect for their opponents [and their own parents] to where they wouldn’t dare utter such terms. Perhaps being professional means something different now. If Major League Gaming attracts viewers like they do then they must be doing something right. What happens when these gamers grow up? Do they get more mature, or do they search the dictionary for more vulgar terms to exploit?