Dear Jane Letter Part 2

It’s hard to judge someone when you know them, but we all do it. And often times it’s really hard to say “I told you so” to someone you like as a person and you want to continue a dialogue with, but...

Dear Jane: I told you so!

Last July, Jane Wells of CNBC’s Funny Business posted something on her blog about how the PS3 will win the console because her son wanted one and traded in his Xbox 360. Link. I went off on her. Link. I then had her on Geezer Radio and apologized for my rude comments. Link. Well, perhaps the final chapter in this interesting saga has finished. Link.

She made some interesting points and I’d like to talk about them. In her lessons learned section, she said:
1-the gaming experience is more than a few games and cool graphics.
I can agree with this completely. Let me list every game that I have purchased this year. Rainbow Six Vegas 1 & 2, Guitar Hero 2 & 3, GTA IV, Viva Pinata: TiP, and will be getting Left 4 Dead, Gears of War 2, and Fable 2. What do these titles all have in common? Multiplayer (mp). Not one of them is solely a single player game. The one game that I considered to purchase that didn’t have mp was Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, but as the game came nearer to release, it was discovered that it just had too many bugs and it wasn’t worth putting up with since you couldn’t play with friends.
I really think that the one thing that has completely changed my perception of gaming are my friends on Xbox Live (XBL). If I had to choose between a sole single player game with AWESOME graphics, and a multiplayer game with decent graphics, I would choose the mp game in a heartbeat just in case my friends get the same game and I can play with them. Great graphics pale in comparison.
Something else in that sentence: few games. The reason the PS3 is not the console of hard-core gamers is because of the lack of games. The PS3 has some cool games coming down the pipe, but they are 3 to 4 years in development and the ones announced in 2005 have still yet to come out. The reason for this is the processor that can create those cool graphics, takes forever to create code for. It’s just BAD.

2-repeatedly doing trade-ins at Game Stop is a money losing proposition.
Sad and Bad. A sad fact that is GameStop. And a bad lesson to learn by doing something like this.

3-PC games like World of Warcraft can actually MAKE you money.
Are you sure? How many months was he spending $15 to $20 to keep the account going?

4-don't talk to your mother about these things.
Being 30-years-old, that’s something I don’t do.

In closing, let me ask you this, Jane. Now who’s going to win the console war? I couldn’t find the answer in your article. Does your son switching back mean the 360 is going win the console war? Is this “ultimate proof”? Did you know that the 360 outsold the PS3 in August by 10,000 units? Did you know that Microsoft (so take this for what it is) is reporting that 360’s are “FLYING” off the shelves? Anyway, it looks like the console war not over yet.

Next SkypeCast

I just wanted to let everyone who reads my blog (yes, both of you) that the next SkypeCast is scheduled for next Monday (9/29) at 9 pm EST over Skype. We will be discussing the recent Halo 3 news. Please, if you can make it, I would love to hear from you. If you need my Skype Id, send me a PM through GeezerGamers and I will send it to you. I hope to talk to you there!

New Halo Campaign Experience

One of these day's someone will have to explain why Halo 3 announcements happen on September 25th of all days. I know that Halo 3 was released last year on this day, but did they ever consider my feelings? I mean it's my birthday and they are overshadowing it with their announcement of a new campaign part of Halo 3. With that narcissistic rant out of the way, OMFG!!! I loved Halo 3's campaign and loved the 4-player co-op so I am VERY hyped about new campaign for the game...if that is what it is.

Link

And just to let you know, I'm not really narcissistic, I just think the world should revolve around me!! ;~)

Just In Case...

You didn't know, a new Episode of Geezer Radio is ready for everyone to download.

Didn't Mean It

When I said "I do hope that King Wulfgar will not mistake our conversation on Thursday for what it actually was: a friendly debate and that I agree to disagree." I really meant to say: I do hope that King Wulfgar will take our conversation on Thursday for what it actually was: a friendly debate and that I agree to disagree.

For one reason or another, I can't type today. And that was a BIG typo!

Doomsday, Congrat's, Politics, Podcasts

Doomsday
First, let’s get this out of the way so that my worried wife will rest better tonight. The world will not end before my 30th birthday. The Large Hadron Collider that could potentially destroy the world is offline and will be for two months. So, doomsday has been postponed.

Congrat's!
I hope that King Wulfgar and his wife are doing well after their baby was born on 9/21! Congratulations! Here is a link to his post.

Politics
Last Thursday, I think that in the middle of a spirited debate some feelings may have gotten hurt, and by that I mean that the person I was talking with (King Wulfgar) and I came to the conclusion that we do not see eye to eye on the state of our economy. Now, normally I don’t talk politics for just this reason. But I would like to say a couple things in hopes of mending that broken fence. First, I think that two people should be able to disagree on a subject and still have a spirited debate. Two, I think that two people can and SHOULD agree to disagree when they reach an impasse. Not everyone will agree 100% of the time and that is the whole fundamental purpose of the First Amendment. Third, I shouldn’t have started talking about politics in the first place because religion, politics and the economy are three things that garner most of the ill when debate becomes an argument.

That being said, I will be voting on character and not promises. I think the economy will recover (I don’t know how to run’s the United States economy, but I do know that there is someone in a position higher than me that does and I have to trust that they know what they are doing. What else can I do about it at this point, anyway?) And that is all I have to say about that!

I do hope that King Wulfgar will not mistake our conversation on Thursday for what it actually was: a friendly debate and that I agree to disagree.

Podcast
Spark and I recorded a podcast and I will hopefully be putting it up online sometime today for everyone to listen too and download.

So Cute

Last weekend was a GREAT weekend. My wife, the wonderful, beautiful, hot, sexy and outstandingly outstanding, JedisPadme, planned a surprise birthday party that was a 90% shock. I knew that something was going on because she wasn't acting in a way that made me suspect something was up. But, I was completely shocked to arrive at my sisters house to be surrounded by my friends and family. I think close to 20 people were there, including but not limited to: SparkStalker and his wife, Nate H and his wife, Ben M and his fiance, Mildred the woman I adopted as a mother and her husband, my mother, my sister and her husband, Julie J, who I've been friends with since I was 3-years-old and my grandmother-in-law and grandfather-in-law. We had a fun time joking and laughing and having a fun time trying to get the dogs to play fetch with complete strangers. Ben was having a heck of a time trying to getting Alex (my sisters older child [Dog]) not only fetch the ball, but bring it back to him.

We ate hamburgers and hot dogs, with beans and potato salad. I was outside joking with my friends from work and social life, my wife, then opened the patio door to ask me whether I wanted to eat cake next or open presents. Now, I was taught that you always eat first and open presents last. So, I said, "Cake." And no, the cake was not a lie. My wife said okay and closed the door. Less then a minute later, my wife opened the door and said, "Let's open presents next." With a confused, but accepting face, I said, "Yes, dear!" Spark looked at me and said, "Good job. Don't ask, just agree. First lesson in marriage." So I opened my presents, and then we actually did have cake and ice cream. Overall, I had one of the best birthday's I have ever had and I can't thank everyone who attended enough.

The next day (yesterday), I sorted out my gifts and put things together. One of my gifts was a statue of Boba Fett, my favorite character in Star Wars. I thought that it came put together, but I was wrong. Once I finished putting it together, it looked like this. I showed it too my wife and she squealed and said, "How cute!" HOW CUTE!?!? (Rolling my eyes) Anyway, with my favorite sports team improving to 3-0 with a big win yesterday, it was perhaps the best birthday weekend in a LONG time.

Freaking Out

Why is everyone freaking out about the economy? I just don’t understand it. It’s been a long time coming, and it’s not the first time that we have had a financial market crisis. Do we not remember the Enron scandal? How about the first day the Stock Market opened after 9/11/01? What about Black Monday? Every time something “horrible” happens, people panic and the stock market goes down. Does anyone know what happens after every one of those incidents?

THE MARKET AND ECONOMY RECOVERS!

I just don’t see why people right now are selling their stocks in a panic. And just because the stock market is going down, doesn’t mean that the economy is in trouble. My mother and I have close to 35 years combined in the investment/banking industry, and the one absolute fact that every time there is a financial crisis, our economy recovers. But people don’t see that.

What they see is the financial managers (I’m talking about the investment managers that manage mutual funds) holding all those individual stocks in their mutual funds selling those stocks and everyone says, “OMG! I have to sell before my paper gain becomes a paper loss and when the sell, their paper loss (a loss only on paper) becomes an actual loss and they blame the economy for loosing money on their premature sell.

The media is the one to blame for over-hyping this “crisis” just the same way that they over-hype the price of gas in the summer months. I recall one outlet (I don’t remember who) predicting that gas will go to $7.00 a gallon...the closest it came to that was $4.05. That’s $2.95 off from their prediction. And there was a reason that I never mentioned the price of gas on my blog...that reason, I didn’t want to fuel the fire (no pun intended).

So this is a message to all those people panicking out there: GET OVER IT! IT WILL RECOVER!

Ahoy!

Arrgh!

The Nature of Politics

I don’t understand why I am caring about this issue, so please hear me out and let me explain myself before jumping on my back. But before you read the full post, please follow the link. LINK... Now, let’s begin.

What do celebrities and politicians have in common? No privacy. Now, I understand the concept that people want to know juicy details about famous people’s lives, but come on. Celebrities deserve some kind of privacy. Politicians deserve privacy but for reasons, don’t get it. Now this thing about Gov. Palin’s Yahoo e-mail account being hacked has me on both sides of the issue.

On one hand, I think that Gov. Palin should have the freedom to send out private e-mails to family and friends. If she used a government e-mail account to send out personal e-mails, people would be calling for her head. So, what does she do? She gets a yahoo account and sends them from there. I send out private e-mails through my Gmail account from work and one time it was about a job offer (which I turned down). Is what she did so different? Private pictures of her family were exposed. That, to me, is unacceptable. What if that e-mail account didn’t have anything wrong in it at all? That would be a complete and total invasion of privacy! And it is.

On the flip side, it appears that she did government business from that same account. What kind of business is still not known by me at the time of writing this, so I’ll reserve judgment, but is this a crime? Is this something that should disqualify her as a Vice President? Well, that remains to be seen, but I doubt it.

Another question we should be asking is: should we even know about this? McCain supporters would say no. Obama supporters would say yes. I don’t know who I’m voting for, but I will say that I am glad this leaked out. My reasoning for saying that is that even if we like the Governor from Alaska, we have a right to know if an elected official that could hold the second most powerful office in America is capable of doing something illegal.

With all that is at stake in a presidential election, things like this happen. On the one hand I’m glad it leaked out so that I can see what she is REALLY like. On the other hand, doesn’t she deserve any privacy at all (especially in regards to her personal family photos)?

I hope that nothing harsh comes from this and that the authorities look into this matter with the full weight of the Justice Department (and I think it is). And if anyone in Obama’s campaign is responsible for this, then he has officially lost my vote, because what was done is ILLEGAL!

Other political outrage for today:
Lindsey Lohan is getting political and then get's turned down by Obama’s campaign. A plus for Obama in my eyes. She said on her blog, “According to this Associated Press story, the church of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is hosting a kind of conference devoted to the "conversion of Gays" -- no kidding.” Where was her outrage when Sen. Obama’s pastor said disparaging things? Listen, Miss Lesbian Lohan, stop telling me how to hate someone for being a part of a political party that you’d never vote for.