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I hope everyone has a great Independence Day. Today will probably be a movie/gaming day for me. For some reason I don’t really want to do a lot of stuff outside today.

I played the demo for Prey. It reminded me a lot of Doom 3, but this one could potentially be more fun. I’ll definitely be interested in buying it when it comes out on July 10. I’ll just need to upgrade my old computer or buy an Xbox 360 first. So, I probably won’t be playing Prey when it first comes out.

Time to get some BBQ.

My return to online gaming never really got that far off the ground. I was finding it hard to motivate myself to put the time into it. World of Warcraft was great, but I never got into Dungeons & Dragons Online as much as I wanted to. I decided that I didn’t want to pay monthly fees for games that I wasn’t even playing, so my subscriptions have now been canceled.

My offline console games are much more appealing to me right now. The second helping of Tales of Symphonia is almost complete. I starting playing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and now I know why so many people are crazy about this game. Also, I rented a copy of the 24 game. It’s not a great game, but fans of the TV show should like it.

I did spent a little bit of time playing an old PC favorite of mine: Diablo II. This is a game I can really see myself putting some time into. Stay tuned.

A while back I wrote that one of my favorite authors was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. Another of my favorite authors, Terry Goodkind, was recently found to have “a potentially fatal defect in the major artery that supplies blood to my heart”. He says on his website that he had surgery and that everything was repaired. His doctor told him that he had the heart of 20-year old. The penultimate book in his Sword of Truth series is called Phantom and it will be released on July 18.

I told myself a long time ago that I shouldn’t start reading any series that the authors haven’t already completed and so far I’ve stuck to that. Something could happen and it would be a shame not to be able to see the end of a series I put so many hours into. I hope everything will be ok with these two authors and they will get to write all the books that they want to write. I can’t wait to read Phantom in a few weeks.

I used to sometimes participate in beta tests for video games . I was going through some files that on my computer and came across an old list that I had kept of games that I got a chance to beta test. I’m don’t know why I kept the list, but looking at it brings back memories of games I had long forgotten and some I don’t think I’ll forget for a long time. Diablo II was the first. Here goes:

Act of War
Anarchy Online
City of Heroes
Command and Conquer: Renegade
Conquest: Frontier Wars
Diablo II
EVE: The Second Genesis
Everquest Online Adventures (PS2)
Everquest Online Adventures: Frontiers (PS2)
Fung Wan Online
Ground Control
Ground Control II
Guild Wars
Horizons: Empire of Istaria
Killzone (PS2)
Knight Shift
Kohan II: Kings of War
Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle
The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game
Lords of Everquest
Massive Assault Network
The Matrix Online
Mimesis Online
PlanetSide
PlanetSide: Core Combat
Project Entropia
The Saga of Ryzom
The Sims Online
S.L.A.I. Phantom Crash (PS2)
SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs (PS2)
Star Trek: Armada
Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain (PS2)
There
Ultimate Baseball Online
Unreal II: Expanded Multiplayer
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
World of Warcraft

Recently, I started re-reading a series of books called A Song of Ice and Fire. I first started reading them about 4 or 5 years ago, but I started again because the latest book came out last year and I just bought it last month. They fall in the fantasy category, kind of like The Lord of the Rings. The story is loosely based on The Wars of the Roses which took place in England during the 1400’s.

In so many of the other fantasy series I have read, you don’t see any permanent major misfortunes fall upon the major characters. Any misfortunes are usually made right in the end. George R. R. Martin books don’t follow that same pattern. His characters don’t come across any unnatural string of good luck. No matter how attached you become to them, they may die. No matter how much you hate them, you may start to feel sympathetic toward them. Early on when somebody died, I would always think that person was going to come back, much like Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. Now I don’t have those delusions. If you are a fan of the genre, check it out. The first book is called A Game of Thrones. The fourth book, A Feast for Crows, was released last year and there should be a total of seven in the series.

This November will see the release of the Transformers: The Movie 20th Anniversary Special Edition DVD. I remember that my sister took me to see this movie when I was young. It was the first movie I ever saw in a movie theater and I don’t think I’ve seen it since then. Yes, I am that old.

Now I recognize some of the actors that provided the voices (Leonard Nimoy, Judd Nelson, Robert Stack, Orson Welles) though I probably didn’t back then. I’m sure I’ll check it out when it gets released.

Pearl Jam actually released a new music video. Is the world ending? The video is for the song “Life Wasted,” the second single from their new album. You can get it here for free until May 24. The video is being offered under a Creative Commons license. Interesting.

Update 5/24:
Now it’s free until June 1.

I went to an MSU graduation ceremony for the first time on Saturday. I got two degrees at MSU and never attended graduation. It was interesting but seemed to go on forever. And that was only one of the two ceremonies taking place that day.

I got up early Sunday to spend Mother’s Day with the family. I had lunch with my mother and sister and spent time with other relatives later in the day. It was great seeing everybody again since I hadn’t been home in a while.

I came back to Starkville on Monday. On the way back I picked up a copy of the new new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, Stadium Arcadium. This is a great album to own if you are a RHCP fan. It’s a double disk album. I haven’t finished listening to it yet and I already know I’ve got my money’s worth.

I finally got my CD called Pearl Jam by Pearl Jam. It came in the mail today, two days later than expected. I don’t know whether to blame Amazon.com or the US Postal Service. Oh well.

I really enjoyed listening to it this afternoon. I probably shouldn’t try to rank it against their other CD’s yet. The newness may give it an unfair advantage. However, I really do think it’s some of the best stuff they’ve done in a long time. Lots of rocking. They continued their tradition of beginning the CD with a fast, heavy-hitting song and ending with a slower, more mellow song. There’s even a reprise on it, which I haven’t seen often on rock albums.

Since I had a lot of work to do and I tried to be sociable in real life, I only got to play the Dungeons and Dragons Online trial for about 2 hours over the weekend. It’s different, but it was still fun to play. I liked the voiceovers describing what was going on around you. I wonder if that will get annoying.

Here’s an example of how little I know about D&D rules. I was duel-wielding a longsword and an axe and didn’t realize I was taking a major penalty for doing so. No wonder those kobolds were giving me such a hard time. Once I realized what was going on, things got much easier.

Yesterday, I bought a copy of the game complete with that handy little instruction manual. The first half of the week will be busy, but after Hump Day I’ll be free for a few days.

Update, 3:05pm
I forgot to mention this, but I’m a human paladin on Xoriat.