Black Christmas specifically… While trying to set up some future recordings on my DVR… my trusty TimeWarner box took a shit on me.

I don’t really know what I did to stress the machine…. I guess the OS isn’t very stable.

INHD had a repeat play at 2:00AM so I managed to capture that broadcast. Anyhoo… don’t assume that your recordings will always be there for you when you come back home.

Finally got around to visiting downtown San Antonio over the weekend… While there I took me’trusty camera along to take some shots of the City here are some photos of my visit.

I’m not entirely familiar with the buildings around town yet…. so I can’t point out the buildings below. My visit downtown (or the Riverwalk as its more commonly known) was my first real visit that I’ve ever done by foot.

Here’s a photo I took of a church on St. Mary’s street. I didn’t catch the name of the church but with the “virgen” hanging there mightily… I think it’s a pretty safe bet that it shares the name of the Street its on.

It occurred to me on my way back to the car that I didn’t take many snapshots during my first visit. Spent way to much time in deep conversation with my friend Chivo… I did however stop for a moment and took a shot of the “Robert E. Lee HOTEL” in the distance. I didn’t go up to street level to walk closer to the building for a proper shot… it was well over a 100 degrees so we sought out cover when ever possible.
The Riverwalk – Again.. it was my first visit to the Riverwalk by foot. I found myself enjoying the visit a lot more than I thought I would. I was in the area around 1:00PM so many of the places that I thought would be of interest (BARs) weren’t exactly open for me to swing in and get a swill. I had a nice lunch on the River… my friend and I ate at a place whose name I can’t remember at the moment. The food wasn’t anything to really write home about. It did however hit the spot.

Highlight of the visit was a killer ice-cream shop that had a beautiful bi-level deck to sit on. Very touristy… but I’m anything but a local for the moment. I hope to swing by at nite in the near future so that I can write up a proper report about the watering holes in the downtown area.

Ted, James and I post our 5th LOST (the TV show) related podcast.

We talk about the different DHARMA Initiative stations, what they are and what they do.

Three new characters join the cast of LOST for season three and Rollie makes many mistakes on tape one of them is about Angelina Jolie.

.aCr.

Its about 5 after 7… heating up some breaky before I bust out for work. Looking for something (anything) to watch before I bust out of here I see something on the channel guide called “the story of ruth”.

Thinking it had to do with the Yankee Slugger I tuned in…

Was I surprised when it turned out to be about the The Old Testament Moabite that converts to Judaism, flees to Bethlehem and falls in love.

I so want to call in sick so I can finish watching this.

It has Elana Eden and Stuart Whitman. Who is kinda dreamy in a poor-mans Heston sorta way.

.rollie late to work.

I was a little hesitant to go see V for Vendetta when it hit theaters because I really wanted to read the celebrated graphic novel. It then occurred to me that I could count the number of graphic novels I’ve ever read on one hand…. two. (Ghost World & the Originals)

Knowing very well that I wouldn’t get around to reading it till sometime next year I opted to go ahead and rent the movie.

I won’t go chapter and verse into what the movie is about… Think 1984 with an Anarchist Batman in a Guy Fawkes mask.

Much to my surprise I got really into the movie last night. The dialogue is quick and witty… so I found myself paying close attention so that I can figure out all the Orwellian backdrops.

Anyhoo if anything described above is of any interest to you… go out of your way to rent it. Me’thinks you’ll dig it verily.

.alamo city rollie.

Looks like I’m not the only one who thinks this Pluto thing is bunk. Get your bumper sticker HERE.

The International Astronomical Union voted this morning to redefine the term “planet”, thus demoting the Ninth planet “Pluto” to the status of a “dwar planet” – leaving our solar system with a uniform 8 planets now…

I’m a little upset about the Astronomical Union decision on this… Pluto, albeit a planet I rarely think of, was a planet I think many could relate to. It was furthest from the sun… it had a wacky orbit that made it the 8th closest planet from the sun… it was one of the sure fire answers in 6th grade when I had to pencil in the planets in order.

Anyhoo… I’m really bummed.

Neptune… know that you will never have a cartoon character named after you.

.aCr.

Picked up my copy of Madden 07 last night… but didn’t get a chance to throw it in the 360 till 11:30PM because of some Podcast recordings earlier in the evening.

I debated getting the title all together because I picked up NCAA 07 with the purchase of the 360 a week ago… but found a brand new copy for 46 bucks (retails for $59) at a local WalMart. Knowing that I would pick it up at some point I opted to get it now… throw it in every once in a while until I totally commit to starting a franchise on it.

Threw it into the console late last night to see the differences between it and NCAA 07… Both games were developed by the same development team so there were a number of similarities in the game play and controls. This was good.. particularly in the game play so I could get through a tune up game without getting my ass handed to me by the computer.

While tooling around in a practice game (Pats VS Bengals) I decided to alter the elements to see what a game would be like in the rain. The game played incredibly well with the altered settings… the graphics are amazing and EA went out of their way to show that they could detail little things such as field conditions when players tear up a wet turf.

I’ve read a lot of good and a lot of bad reviews for the latest Madden installment. The Madden franchise is everything that’s great about sports gaming while at the same time it represents everything that is bad about gaming… I haven’t purchased a Madden football game since Madden 2001 so I’m looking at the game from a very different perspective.

The game has come a long way since I first started playing Madden. While it’s a very solid game… its not my favorite Madden of all time.

That honor still goes to Madden 1993. I purchased that Madden for my Super Nintendo and I played that fucking cart until it could be played again… Those who had this madden will remember that it only had the Players Union agreement so there wasn’t any official teams.

The game lacked from any key features. it didn’t have a regular season. you could only participate in a playoff and you had to write down really long codes to continue play after a game because it didn’t have any memory on the cart to save your progress.

The reason I loved the game so much… Madden 93 started the playbook calling by having you select your play calling by selecting – STRONG, PRO, FAST (i can’t recall the terminology) but that had a very big effect on who was in the huddle. You could catch a Defense napping if you were quick enough with your play calling so that their player assignments were back on the field yet.

How did a feature this good get lost over the years?

Player substitution is a big deal. It happens on almost every play – thanks largely in part to players having “specialist” duties. Players now magically appear in the huddle and you get to the offensive line with far too many pre-snap options.

Ok… maybe you can’t have enough pre-snap options… but introducing player changes would add a much needed degree of difficulty.

So… I’ve had the XBOX 360 for about a week or so. When I’m not playing NCAA 07, I’ve been rocking out a little bit of the XBOX Live Arcade.

I was a little hesitant to purchase any games at first… but I was shocked by how easy it was to download and play the available demos. A demo that really wooed me was Rockstar Games (maker of the GTA) Table Tennis for the 360. I took a little while to download the playable demo but it was worth the wait.

The game has some of the easiest controls I’ve ever absorbed on a first play. It’s also highly fucking addictive. I have a gift certificate laying around and me’thinks I found myself my second title for the 360.

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