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I can add Hitman 2: Silent Assassin to my list of completed games. Yeah, I know I was supposed to be playing Neverwinter Nights, but I took a little detour. I first played Hitman 2 a few years back on the PS2. I got bored and frustrated on one mission and ended up selling the game. I decided to give the Hitman series another try on the PC and played the first game, Hitman: Codename 47, during the summer that I spent in Ohio. Hitman 2 is a much better game than its predecessor. As the title suggests, you play a hitman and you are assigned hits on various individuals. The plot isn’t really important, but I like that there are a variety of ways to complete each mission. The sound is good and the graphics are nice at a high resolution.

After a while I did get tired of sneaking around and killing people. I had thought that I might move on to the next Hitman game, but now I think I really will get into Neverwinter Nights some.

A Hitman movie is going to be made. Originally Vin Diesel was going to play Agent 47 (the main character), but then the role was given to Timothy Olyphant. I think that Jason Statham would make a better Hitman.

I finally got around to reading the book that probably every other science fiction/fantasy fan has already read: Ender’s Game. One reason I picked this book to read next is it’s length. So many books that I read these days are newer books and are at least 600 pages, but this one is only around 300 pages. It is possible to tell a good story in 300 pages. And it is a great story with a great ending! I’m sure that I’ll read at least one more book in the series some day. I recently heard that the book is being made into a movie. Now I’m back to re-reading The Hedge Knight.

Also, I finished playing The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth. It’s been fun getting back into real-time strategy games lately. This game seems to focus more on the fighting than creating troops and gathering resources. It deviates quite a bit from the books and the movies, but it’s not a big deal. It got really good at the end and I fought some really long battles. I’m interested in playing the sequel, but for now I’m on to Neverwinter Nights.

Congratulations to Randall on getting a Wii. I now know 4 people that have them. I think a lot more people I know would have them if they weren’t so hard to find.

I’ve gotten back into Trauma Center: Second Opinion. I like to relax when I’m playing games, but this game seems to make me more stressed and depressed than relaxed. Maybe that’s just me.

John and I are almost finished with our 2nd playthrough of Tales of the Abyss. There are some things that you can only see during the 3rd playthrough, so I’m sure we’ll be playing again. I don’t think it’ll be right away though. I want to play something else first.

I’ve been so productive at home this weekend (cleaning, catching up on TV, gaming, reading) that I don’t really want to go back to work this weekend.

I think I’m going to lay off the Wii puns in the titles.

I finally got around to trying Warioware: Smooth Moves this afternoon. It’s a lot of crazy, fast-paced fun. There are so many games that you can play and from what I’ve heard I haven’t even come close to seeing them all. I had heard that the multiplayer mode isn’t available in the beginning. I think that all I need to do to unlock it is complete the single player mode.

I think I first heard about a movie called The Promise on Filmspotting. I watched it today and I thought it was awesome. If you liked Hero and House of Flying Daggers, then I recommend giving this one a try.

This is my first entry using the Wii. It may be the last.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past came out on the virtual console this week. It’s the one I’ve been waiting for the most. Mario Kart 64 comes out on Monday and Super Mario World may be soon. Awesome!

The News Channel went live yesterday, which is one day earlier than scheduled. I’m a news junkie, so I’ll probably be using it some. I hope they rolling out new stuff for us to play with.

My arm hurts. Later.

Today I played Trauma Center: Second Opinion on the Wii for a little while. I rented it from Gamefly. You start out as a surgeon early in his career and you move your way up through the ranks as you complete surgeries. I’ve had to cut people open, remove pieces of glass and tumors, stitch them back together, and bandage them up. The hospital/medical terminology is at least a little familiar to me, probably because I watched ER for years. So far it’s fun, though a little creepy.

Maybe next somebody will make a plastic surgeon game where you have to perform cosmetic surgery on people.

&tI think I may be one of the people that get Wii elbow or whatever you want to call it.

I finally got through the first dungeon on Twilight Princess the other day. It took me about 3 hours to get from the beginning to the end, though I did take a couple of breaks while I was doing it. I think this is going to be a long, fun game.

I downloaded Super Mario Bros., Altered Beast, and Dungeon Explorer from the Virtual Console. Retro fun! I’m excited about some of the games that are going to be on the VC soon, but I’m still wondering when we’ll see Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and A Link to the Past.

I rented Trauma Center: Second Opinion for the Wii from Gamefly and it should be here any day now.

Last week I reserved Wii Play mostly because it comes with a Wii Remote. Those remotes cost $50 by themselves and they are hard to find around here. I don’t think they’re taking anymore reserves on that game. It’ll be out in about a month.

Today I reserved a copy of Warioware: Smooth Moves and it will be out next week. It seems like it could be a cool party game. I don’t know much about it so I’m taking a leap of faith. If only I already had that second controller.

The GameStop employees seem cooler these days, so I’m happy to hook them up with some reserves. I know that there are some new people there and some old people are gone, but part of it may be because the Christmas season and the PS3/Wii launch are over.

I get these urges to get back into online game every once in a while. I thought about getting my Xbox Live subscription started again, but they just don’t have any games I want to play. Now I really think I want to play City of Heroes again. We’ll see what happens with that.

So with all this going on I don’t need to buy any more games between now and the end of the decade.

I had a lot of fun with the Wii last night. I played the tennis, baseball, and boxing parts of Wii Sports and they were pretty cool. I messed around with a lot of stuff on the menu, created a Mii, etc. I was able to browse longklaw.com using the browser that you can download. My friend number is 1875 7438 9934 0398. I purchased Super Mario Bros from the Virtual Console and plan on giving it real try tonight. I had the most fun playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I wish I had gotten a Wii while I still had time left in my break and not on the first day back to work. Oh well. There’s always the weekend.

I got a gym membership again today. I’m not even going to try to plan a schedule because I know I won’t stick to it. I just want to go and do something a few times a week.

I saw the series premiere of Dirt on FX the Tuesday night. Those commercials that I’ve been seeing over the past few months got on my nerves. I had heard that early reviews of the show were bad, but I was surprised at how much I liked it. It was fun and mean and crazy. Maybe it goes downhill from there. I really don’t need another TV show to keep up with.

I ordered HBO because Rome starts back on the 14th of this month and The Sopranos will be back in April. A benefit is that on the various HBO channels they’ve been playing a lot of movies that I’ve been interested in.

I’m not sure that I mentioned it earlier, but around Thanksgiving I bought Wii component cables so that the picture will look better.

Yesterday I went to GameStop in Starkville just to browse like I frequently do. I overheard an employee say that they had been sent three Wiis and they might be receiving the Wiis today. I was really tired at work this morning and my back was killing me, so I went home for a little while to rest. Around noon I went out to run some errands. I went to GameStop with the intention of seeing how many they got (I assumed they would have already sold out of the ones they received) and when they might be expecting some more. A spiffy GameStop employee told me that the UPS man was running late and they hadn’t received their shipment for the day. I decided that since I had already been gone from work for 2 hours at this point I might as well try to wait it out even though I had told myself I wasn’t going to wait in line anymore. Since no one else in the store appeared to be waiting around for the truck, I knew that if the Wiis came today, I would be sure to get one since 3 supposedly were coming.

A few other people showed up to wait for the UPS truck while I was there, but I don’t think they all stayed. For some reason I had a good feeling about actually getting a Wii today, but I was prepared to be disappointed. I guess it was around 1:30 that I saw a UPS truck at the bank near Wal-Mart across the street and soon afterward it came to the shoe store next to GameStop and then to GameStop. There was one lady who went out to the UPS truck while the delivery guy was inside the truck preparing the boxes. I’m assuming she was just trying to find out how many Wiis he had and not trying to do anything underhanded. Once the delivery guy came off of the truck and I saw how many boxes he had and the size of the boxes, I knew that I was going home with a Wii. When I came into the store the employees could tell that they had 3 Wiis and 1 PS3 just by looking at the boxes.

I didn’t really care that I was first to buy one as long as I was one of the three. Everybody seemed to realize who the first three were and I would have been highly upset if somebody tried to take my spot among the 3. The UPS guy stated for the benefit of the people who weren’t going to be able to get one that he had just unloaded 22 Wiis at Wal-Mart, but they might not make them available until tomorrow. The spiffy GameStop employee had gone to Wal-Mart and returned in the meantime and said that he saw somebody walking out with one. I’m assuming there was a reason he didn’t share that information with us sooner lol. A couple of people immediately left and I hope they were able to get one. A ponytailed GameStop employee pointed at me and said that he knew that I was first, so I went up to buy mine. The spiffy GameStop employee brought the 3 units out and then ponytail guy rang me up. Ponytail guy asked me if I wanted some games, and I told him that I already a game – I just didn’t have a system.

I got back at work around 2 and now I can’t wait to get home to play with my Wii. It’s going to be fun. I may be working late today, but when I finally do get to play, it’s going to be fun. I just hope I break something or hurt anybody.

Yesterday I used my desktop on and off sparingly throughout the day. It’s in my room and I didn’t spend a lot of time in there yesterday. I noticed a noise coming from the case, but it barely registered with me and I didn’t really pay much attention to it. Late that night when I finally sat down to really use it, I defeated the forces of Isengard at Helm’s Deep and then I attacked Isengard itself (The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth). Once I finished playing I went to bed, but I left my computer running. As I lay in bed, I heard the noise again and it finally hit me what it was. I immediately got out of bed and shut the computer off. A few years ago the same noise started coming from my laptop and within a week the hard drive failed. Back then I didn’t know about the dreaded clicking sound and I learned a hard lesson. I hope that I’ve caught it early enough this time that I can retrieve the important (and not so important stuff) from the drive. This morning I bought a new hard drive and I am in the process of getting it all set up. Hopefully, I’ll be back in Middle-Earth soon.

Oh, and I’ve been playing StarCraft some lately. Call me old school.