Color me shocked... the 'Kung Fu Panda' game is actually pretty good! I mean, its still really easy, it's a kids game after all, but for what it is, its great. The combat and action works well, the graphics are really pretty as is the animation.

When I booted up the demo, I was hit with the 'Luxoflux' logo... creators of one of my favorite games, Vigilante 8... an admitted 'Twisted Metal' rip-off, but they actually did everything right and it was a great combat driving game.

They haven't released anything that great since then, but it's nice to see they're still around.

If you have kids, or like simple games and collecting coins, give 'Kung Fu Panda' a look... i don't know if i can say the same for the movie... that looks pretty bad.

***

hung out with matt and tamara last night and pretty much just talked tv and movies for a couple hours. it was fun and we never got around to playing any games or anything.

***

I also gave the 'Sega Superstars Tennis' demo a look on the 360. I hated the PS3 demo, but when I found out it was made by the same group that did Virtua Tennis, I decided to give it another look. It works much better on the 360, much easier to control, oddly enough. I figured they should be about identical. It's still a bit too simple, even for a tennis game. they have you push XA or AX to do lob shots or whatever. you dont use Y or B at all. why not put lob on Y like every other tennis game? it's frustrating. And when you charge up for a special shot, you only get to keep it for one point. its not timed, I guess it would be useful if you're only up by one, but its awkward to initiate as well. the ball has to be in play for you to use the charge, so you cant do it on a serve.... frustrating.

***
cd

Nerf Herder - IV

HAHAHAHA!

Man... I just love it when GameSh!t fails. Really. I LOVE IT.

Those reservations they shove up your ass everytime you set foot in their stores? Meaningless.

Way to be.



I saw my dad today at my work about an hour before I got off. He said that on the news they said GTAIV was selling out everywhere. I didn't bother with a pre-order because I'm a cheapass and I always wait until I know all my options before I commit to one place or another. When he told me it was selling out though... I got scared.

I ran to Best Buy after work and they still had some left... but not many. WTF? Seriously, I expected copies of GTAIV to be choking the aisles. It's the biggest title of the year, and is already being speculated to be the fastest selling game ever. I figured supply would STILL out rank demand. When Halo 2 was so 'rare' at launch, every store I went to had stacks and stack everywhere for weeks. There was no shortage in my area at all. That was a few years ago, so internet orders were smaller even...

Did GTAIV short ship or what?

of the 10 'friends' logged into their xboxes when i was playing (at a peak... i'd say at least 15 users showed up while i was playing, maybe more) EVERY single one of them was playing GTAIV. one guy did Halo 3 for a while, then went GTA. When Halo 3 launched i had 11 friends on at peak, and only 3 of us were playing halo. just to give a comparison.

***

So what do i think of it?

WELL...

I love it.

BUT.

It really really is more of the same. It's not a revolutionary leap to the next gen. Certainly the graphics and physics are much much better than in previous titles. and there is a ton more swearing and sex talk. but its a fine tuned version of GTAIII really.

not that that's a bad thing. GTAIII is one of the best games ever made and was a massive innovation and landmark title. Everything about GTAIV is better, but pretty much the same as you would expect.

Anyone try the multiplayer? I did just for a bit around dinnertime. I did a Team Deathmatch game. I'm hoping the other gametypes are better. the level sucked and the screen was a mess. you're dressed like some guy or whatever, and there is no team colors. i mean... i dropped in and there was an orange team and a purple team. i was wearing jeans and a navy jacket. uh... who do i shoot? as i was trying to find my bearings, some thug ran up next to me. i aimed my pistol at his face and he said 'what's up man?'... ok... we're purple apparently, or he's just as clueless as i am. he didnt fire at me, so i took off running towards the nearest orange blob on my radar.... he followed my every move constantly asking 'what's up man?'. then i got sniped.

i took down 4 guys with my pistol in 3 minutes and was ranked #1 on my team. i think everyone was confused as hell.

***

also.... the moment i booted the game... i mean... THE MOMENT. the freaking title screen had not even come up yet.... i got an invitation to play. wtf? its 2 in the afternoon on launch day for a historically single player game. please hold off on the invitations a day or two. did anyone really jump right into the multiplayer right away? the beginning of the game is a 10 minute cut scene... peoples...

he sent me 3 more invitations throughout the day. i messaged him and said i wanted to spend some alone time in liberty city. he said that was fine. and then proceeded to send invites anyway. i guess he's just excited.

i have 14 more multiplayer types to try... so i'm sure i'll hit him up soon.

I think i'm about 8% through the main storyline. something like that. i just got an email account in the game. achievements are pretty random. i think i have 4 or so, for pretty random things besides finishing levels.

***

cd update

The Roots - Rising Down or something
Portishead - 3

If you don't know, now you know.

In XXIV hours from right now, I will start playing GTAIV...

I'm seriously WAY excited. Believe it or not, I'm literally more excited about my upcoming excursion in Liberty City than I was about my real life vacation last week. I'm really not joking... I haven't been this excited about a video game since... I don't even know when.

I was really excited about Orange Box, but this... this is something else...

Maybe the last time I was this excited was when I got my Wii at launch and it was just a pandora's box of mysteries.

even then... GTAIV is the reason i bought a 360. Remember at launch (*cough*still) how they sucked and had no good games and were not really that happening? well, i waited 9 months. then GTAIV was announced. that was in 2006? i thought it was coming out THAT christmas, and i saw the rare 360 in stores and bit. i didnt know they actually meant christmas 2007 (which became 2008). yes. i, in essence, paid $400 for this game already.

of course everyone knows that i love my 360 more deeply than i could ever even love my own child. so it worked out in the meantime.

here's a song i wrote:

tomorrow is the best day!
the best day in the world (besides days that i dont work)!
xbox is releasing battlezone!
its one of the best 2600 era games ever and i love it!
and its got new graphics and live camera support and its 5 bucks!
and i'm so happy!
and also they are releasing some crappy Rocky and Bullwinkle game!
and i love rocky and bullwinkle now even though i didnt get them when i was a kid!
because all the cold war jokes were over my head!
but now i love them!
i'll probably just play the demo!
but thats ok!
because its fun times for free!
but the xbox servers are crawling freaking incredibly slow right now!
and yesterday!
i'm not sure why!
maybe its the new halo 3 maps or something!
i dont know, but i hope they download battlezone very fast!
i'm very excited!

- copyright 2008 don.

I actually own Mr. Driller for the DS, and I still don't 'get it'. I played the demo on xbox live this week... is the only point to get a high score? because you can pretty much just keep drilling straight down forever as long as you are getting oxygen pick ups. i guess if you sorta focus on one color for a bit, the other colors will avalanche and you'll drop even faster.

either way... i dont see the challenge or the point.

any insight as to what makes this a 'game'?

his pops (Dig Dug) did it right.

I think, for the first time ever, I might just purchase a $10 map pack this week for a 360 game. CoD4.

Besides having people chip-in for the Halo 2 map pack, I've never seen much point in purchasing maps, but I've played enough CoD4 that some new terrain would be welcome. As far as I know, they haven't announced any plans to make the maps free in the future (but I would guess they will be at some point, maybe six months). And I saved $20 off the initial price of the game, so I still see some value in the map pack. I'm actually pretty excited. I looked at gameplay footage of the maps, something I've never bothered much with before...

Is anyone still playing Halo 3?

cd update!

The Raconteurs - Consolers of the Lonely
Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
Let Go

WOO!

***

we went to 'I Scream for Ice Cream' tonight... this little ice cream place in town... its awesome! its all packed with kids stuff and the owner is really nice and funny. great place. jon and nicole were trying to convince David to go see 'Teeth' with them tonight. he didnt know anything about it, and that was the best part. ultimately, he decided against it, so i called him and spoiled the plot on the way home. (its about a chick with teeth in her vajay... its a horror movie... should she get raped on purpose to take out rapists? or not? i dunno!)

the main character is a christian girl, so david said we should do a podcast about it. he said we could get a dentist to come on, and get Justin to talk about the moral decisions in the film... at this point i thought he said 'molars in the film' and i thought that was really funny... moral makes more sense... but molars makes sense too! So justin, if you want to rap about vaginal molars, hit me up.

***

i played a whole lot of 'FlatOut' today on the 360. GREAT GAME. after falling in love with the trailers for the first game several years ago, and then falling out of love with it once i played the demo (floating cars much?), I'm thrilled to see that they finally nailed it and made a really fun game. with great gaming comes great difficulty though... this game is HARD. especially the ragdoll minigames. you have to find zen just to get a bronze medal in any event. i kick ass at the destruction derbys, but thats about it. i cant get the last few bomb runs, or the time trial-ish events down. its getting TOUGH. but its very addictive. the last time i was this in love with a driving game was Burnout 3.

it's been a while. usually i get tired of drifting around, but this game just keeps pushing you...

$20 at best buy... if you own a 360, you could do A LOT worse. even Forza 2 wasnt this much fun.

WTF? New, weird, Weezer song... It's on the top video... you have to stop the bottom video since they're both on auto play.

***

FlatOut for the 360 is GREAT. Its like Burnouts Hillbilly cousin. it looks good, handles pretty well and the levels are destructible... as are the drivers. I didn't even touch the ragdoll minigames and it had me going for over an hour. so fun at a budget price. and they even nail the Nitro better than Burnout... when you speed up, you actually go faster than your opponents! on Burnout, the screen just blurs and all the other cars still stay in the same position relative to your position.

still... i do love me some Burnout... but FlatOut has really come a long way since the first game.

***

i made another DVD... this time i compiled all the PlayValueHD podcasts. they look GREAT on the tv, i guess thats the HD part... and its like one long documentary about gaming! i love it! i hate Dan though. i hope hes playing some idiotasshole character. hes got feathered hair, bad hornrims, a popped collar and a members only jacket. tre douche!

MFing GD. i broke my itunes AGAIN. now i have to resort the whole thing.

no, wait. i'm going to cry. it locked my itunes folder, and i cant unlock it. so i cant add anything to it. so i cant add any music. well, i can, to another folder, but if i change itunes so i takes from that folder, it loses everything else (i already did that, and thats how i lost everything). so i'm just about to cry. wtf.

***

watched 'Rashomon' today. good movie.

also finished Half-Life 2: Episode 2. good game.

man... i'm like King Midass... everything i touch turns to sh!t.

first garageband or my mic is outta wack, then my HDDVD player BROKE.

yes. it broke. it said it was having trouble reading a brand new disc, so i tried a few times and it got to the point where it wouldnt even read it. so i played the disc in the actual xbox, and it worked great.

so then, i switched out the player for the new one i bought a few weeks ago, and that worked perfectly. so wtf? this is the first i've heard of a 360 hddvd drive crapping out.

i'll call MSoft tomorrow... i'm beat.

i neglected to mention that we watched the new '3:10 to Yuma' the other night. it was ok. i just don't get Russell Crowe... which is going to make 'American Gangster' difficult.

tonight we watched 'Mister Magorium's Magic Emporium'. it was ok. i liked pretty much everything about it except Mr. Magorium. he was like an idiot manchild. yes, i know thats his job, but it was just annoying. portman faked her way through the whole movie too... that was annoying, but shes nice to look at, so its forgiveable. the little kid was pretty decent and the emporium was pretty badass. the story was also kinda decent in that it focused on areas of life that most kids movies ignore.

we finished season four of 'Oz'...

and i played some more Half-Life 2 Episode 2. it got lost in the shuffle a few months back, but its still one of my favorites. half life 2 anyway. this had some really cool stuff in it. i'm just past the halfway mark i think.

i also upgraded to Leopard. ive had a few problems. my mighty mouse and lj client didnt agree with it, but overall the transition was smooth enough. i moved my dock to the bottom just to see the shinyness for a little while. i'm sure i'll boot it back to the side soon enough though.

I played Call of Duty 4 for about 3 hours tonight... it was hard to put down, because I was on a tear! I generally suck at live games, sick at FPSes, suck at war games, suck at video games, etc. But tonight... man. The other night, I created some really tight classes, but didn't have time to test them until tonight. Once I unlocked the M5... forget about it.

I threw a red dot sight on it, last stand, unlocked claymores and spent a lot of time cooking my grenades. I got MVP at least twice, and was always in the top 2-3... not that great in and of itself, but i'm also a much lower rank than nearly everyone alive. tonight is the first time i've ranked up enough to actually play with people ranked lower than i am. i'm still only a 25 or so. i started out tonight at 17... most people have seen 55 come and go. after you 'top' out at 55, you can start over again at zero, but with a different icon... you can do that 5 times or something.

and the games i won weren't just by a couple points.... i had over 25 kills for the first time ever. also, i had seven kills in a row for the first time ever (it happened twice) and was able to call in a chopper. and got over 10 kills both times (though, the chopper helped). i finished a lot of challenges too!

it was a lot of fun! there was NO douchebaggery to speak of, although the camping snipers started to wear me thin.

the great thing about CoD4 though is that there are very very few bottlenecks. there's always some other way to get where you're going, so they couldn't camp for long. i took the long road a couple times and took out some snipers who were dominating the field.

i also officially hate 'Bloc'. what a crappy level. its essentially like that one Halo level with the two spaceships side by side. You can sit there and snipe, pretty well hidden, and if you're a good sniper (which i'm not) you'll last for a while. that said... it made them very easy to sneak up on, as they were always scoping the scene.

i never realized calling in a UAV gave you points.... but i did it often and noticed it always gave me +10. thats nice.

i played a couple levels i've never played before too. one is another level that snipers should love, but mainly because its all rooftops and its a mess so you cant tell whats what. fun level though. it was just really hard tracking down those guys, as the road is raised so you're always out in the open when you go after them.

i wish i had some real life friends on it, but thats ok. it just makes for a great group game. too bad it doesnt support local multiplayer on live.

So on the 360, there is an xbox 'news' tab. It's the very first option on the very first screen you see every single time you boot up your system.

Now... in this news section there are anywhere from 8-20 articles (ie. ads) about new content on the xbox. every day or two they add a page or two of news. at the bottom of each article is a link to the product they are hawking, or a link to the view they are talking about.

they had an ad for the new Lewis Black TV show as one of their new pages. instead of offering a link, the offer the instructions 'go to shorts, got to recent, then download'... gee... thanks. then in the marketplace, they have a major tab for shorts... they dont mean that tab. they mean to go under television, then under shorts. but that doesnt matter because...

THE VIDEO IS NOT POSTED!

i looked all over, even alphabetically.

way to go. nice. right on. ok. thanks. great. yes.

in general, i have no complaints about the 360, so maybe i'm just bitching for no reason. its just that they went so far out of their way to promote something thats not there... much like EVERY WEEK IN THE CIRCUIT CITY ADS. see a great deal in the latest CC ad? well you best forget about it because they never even carried the gotdamned thing and will call you an asshole for even asking about it.

***

CD

Michael Showalter - Sandwiches and Cats

***

i found an even worse job than lugging around shopping carts as a lot attendant... and that job is... Gas Station Attendant! B to O to the RING.


***

Fotini went to see 'Juno', so Call of Duty 4 it is! i'm tired as hell tonight though...

I hit 10,000 nerd points last night.

The very first time playing through 'Viva Pinata Party Animals', I scored 200 points... sheesh. Conceivably, I could have had nearly double that had I been trying to get the points. After every round 2-3 achievements popped up... I guess it's a kids game, so I'm not real surprised... but i was sorta surprised.

It's the xbox rip-off of Mario Party, so maybe it makes sense. I mean, at the end of mario party they always say 'played the game? here's a star!', 'lost the game? here's a star!'... this is sort of the the same thing. 'finished a race? here's some points!', 'hit a target in a target shooting game? have some points!'...

i thought it was mostly fun, but mike and fotini didnt seem real impressed.

***

Balls.

also...

***

Vote Nader.

Guitar Hero III: No Doubt Track Pack
Content: No Doubt Track Pack
Price: 500 Microsoft Points
Availability: All Xbox LIVE regions
Dash Text: [ESRB: T (Teen) MILD LYRICS,MILD SUGGESTIVE THEMES] “Don't Speak”, “Excuse Me Mr”, “Sunday Morning” as performed by No Doubt. For all song credits please visit www.redoctane.com There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.

Replace the words 'Guitar Hero III' with 'Rock Band' and you've got yourself a deal... as is, no dice.

***

CD Update

The Slip - Eisenhower
Bleach - Audio/Visual

***

Picked up 'folklore' for the PS3 yesterday for $15 new... its really pretty... but i probably wont finish it. Hasting's should give me at least $30 for it though... probably $35.

Not my favorite Lemonheads record, but a great album nevertheless... and I'm excited about the reissue!

***

Yesterday I got home early as our dishwasher was to be delivered between 10 and 12, and sure enough, it showed up at 1045. its all hooked up and will hopefully be everything we want it to be.

***

since i was home early, we went and saw 'The Spiderdick Chronicles'; Fotini has been wanting to see it for some time, and we always go see what I want to see (because there's usually no way in hell you'll find me in a theater otherwise).

It was alright... better than Bridge to Terebithia, not confusing for me at all, as someone who has never read the books. The animation is good, the acting is pretty good, the story isnt bad. its a decent kids movie. i thought it was a bit scary for small children, maybe 7+ only, but Fotini actually thought it was tame. The monsters arent just ominous like in most kids movies... these monsters physically attack the kids constantly... i mean blood and everything... even the little cute characters turn into evil trolls when they get upset (which is every 2 seconds).

so just a heads up if you have sheltered children... still, not bad, and worth a look if the trailer looks interesting to you at all.

There was one .... issue... with the audience. The theater was almost empty. 2 sets of parents with their kid, one other adult couple, and then a group of several mentally handicapped people came in. Literally mentally handicapped, not me calling teenage douchebags handicapped. There was one guy who was about my age and he screamed jibberish through the entire film... he kept yelling 'WEEJJEEJJEJEJEJJJEJJEJ WIIIIII!' over and over and over. His parents or whatever kept telling him to shut up, but he yelled it through literally the entire film. at one point they took him outside for about ten minutes. he was on the other side of the theater, so i could still hear, but it was very distracting. i realize he cant help it, and i'm not really mad or anything.... his parents probably figured it would happen, and they did attend the first show on a friday morning, so they knew not many people would be there to distract.

then in front of us was a little kid, maybe 2 or 3, who was also handicapped. the kid was making weird squeals for a while, but through the whole film it was flipping out, like having a seizure and shaking all over, at the same time breathing really quickly and very loudly.

i didnt realize there was a group, and the two people were there 'together', as the baby sat with some guy away from the others. i just thought the whole time 'why did that guy bring such a small child to a movie?' the guy didnt look like he was having much fun. he kept petting the kid to calm the seizures. i guess maybe he wanted to see the movie, so he brought the kid with him, but he didnt look like the type to dig a kids movie.

i dont know... it made me think about parenting a handicapped child. every public place you go, people are uncomfortable by the noises that you're used to. that you may feel limited about where you can go. but you just have to say 'eff it' and live your life.

again, they did come to a low attendance show, which i would consider courteous, knowing that the kids make a lot of unintentional noise. its like a really tall guy standing at the back of the room during a concert... because he knows hes going to block everyones view ( and for you tall guys that stand right in front... wtf man???)...

either way.... it was fun spending some time with fotini. we also went to coscto and cashed in some coupons... i guessed our cart value within 6 bucks!

then my parents came over, my dad helped install the dishwasher (or rather, i helped him) and my mom brought dinner. it was good, but short. i never see my mom anymore... that sucks.

***

we watched some Oz and i played a super fast game of Catan on the 360. the computer kept putting the thief on my wheat! i had a city and a settlement on that wheat, and the computer didnt have any wheat, so wtf? i was getting a TON of cards, but it was all sheep, ore and bricks... which means you can build absolutely NOTHING. so i would just pile them up and port trade. the leader flip flopped more than i've ever seen... all three of us had the longest road card at one point. one of the AI players went from 9 to 5 points in one turn by losing longest road and largest army. i ended up winning, just barely.

if they had not ganged up on me, and my wheat, it would have been over in no time. my wheat was an 8 and they rolled an 8 SEVEN TIMES, while under a thief. it was really frustrating. sevens were rolled 18 times... and they played 11 soldiers against me. sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh. its like playing with jon and david.

i do love those post game stats!

***

i woke up at 345 today... which sounds early, but its awesome to sleep in. i feel all energetic. i also woke up at 11 last night (ie. the middle of the night) because the dogs were pawing me. i went to let them out and saw that there was a light on in the house and i freaked out for a minute... who turned a light on? someone is going to murder me! then i remembered that its 11 and the light is on a timer for midnight or something. i may need to fix that...

so out the dogs went... for the whole night, because i wasnt about to wait on them. they need to go when i put them out BEFORE bed. so they've been outside all night... and its still raining like hell. they're probably soaked and freezing because they're too dumb to go under the shelter. ugh... cant wait to deal with this...

***

Go buy The Albuquerque Trib today... it's your last chance!

Geez Louise... THIS freaking moron on Call of Duty 4... the dumbass was heavy breathing into his mic for not only the entire intermission, but then during the entire round.
Halfway through I figured out 'oh its None Higher because his name has been on the screen 100% of the game'
so i said 'NONEHIGHER turn your shit off. you're driving everyone nuts.'
he goes apeshit and yells 'its not me you dumb f%cker! shut the f%ck up! shut the f%ck up!'
so i unplugged my headset... and it started coming out of my surround sound... haha...

so then we're in the after party intermission and everyone told him to eff off, so he dropped and wouldn't you know it? the BREATHING STOPPED. what a jackass. so i left him some negative feedback and i'm avoiding his dumb ass.

why would he be so defensive about it? it was obviously him, why didnt he just say 'oh sorry' and unplug his mic? we werent even doing anything that needed much communication, its just that i was playing with some real life friends and its more fun to chat with them.

some people.... i will say Thank You Xbox Live for giving me the option of avoiding him from now on. I love you for that. I do with CoD had a Halo-ish mute button though.

and i hope david lets jon use his 360... you gotta get in on this CoD man!


***

we started in on 'Oz Season 3' today. EVERY show is a cliffhanger. or rather, maybe not a cliffhanger, but something big happens at the end of each episode, and then the show ends so you dont find out where it goes until the next show. i'm glad i dont have to wait a week!

i really love 'Oz' and fotini is into it now too... i would actually say i like it more than Sopranos at this point, as far as HBO dramas go. Sopranos has a lot more humor... Oz has nearly NO jokes, no obvious ones anyway... Adibici is the main source of humor... i used to hate that character, but now he's one of my favorites. and i used to like Schlesinger, but now he's been a dick for far too long and i just want him to get shanked.

I noticed this the other day... Shepherd looks a little... familiar...

***

New (awful sounding) podcast is up!

***

We watched 'The Transporter' last night.  I thought it was a pretty good for a bad action movie.  Typical Jason Statham, which isn't a bad thing.  It was better than 'War'. 

We also started 'Jesus Camp' but once you've seen one loony Christian, you've seen them all.

Forget Indiana Jones... THIS made my heart skip a beat...

alright... so... this morning i cashed in some Hasting's gift cards when I saw that they had the Collectors Edition of 'Stranglehold' for the PS3 for $40. It comes with 'Hard Boiled' on Blu-Ray, and I figure the resell is good, so I bit. I played the demo about 6 times as I liked it so much, I just heard the game was really short...

I played about 3 hours today and I loved every second of it. It's easily one of the most FUN games I've played in ages. It makes no excuses for what it is, big explosions, bloody bullets and a massive body count, but it's great.

I'm pretty far in I guess, but it's set up really weird. There is a first level, with a boss, and it feels natural. after the level you get a rating and all, then you play the second 'level' for about a million years, it seems to span several levels in one, there is no boss, then all the sudden you are rated... then shortly afterwards you complete the third level, but with a boss, a much harder boss than the first one... so I'm just after that battle... however far in that is.

the scene before the second boss was really hard. you're in a ballroom, with a jazz trio playing, and you battle wave after wave of enemies, while trying to kill the band (as they play on). I kept running out of ammo and health, and kept dying. there were just dozens of waves of villains. it was pretty cool though, you shoot the sax player, boom... no sax, but the drums and bass keep playing.... very cool.

i love it. its just everything i want in a shooter. VERY destructible environments, lots of crap to knock over and jump over and shoot, lots of interactivity in the levels, cool gunplay, very natural controls...

i did a slo-mo 'matrix-ish jump backwards while i was wielding dual pistols shooting at a guy, at the same time i landed on my back on a counter top and instead of sliding off to the floor, or clipping through to the floor like most games, Tequila hit and did a backroll to the floor and took cover. really... just perfect.

you dont dive into the walls and clip and fall. if you dive into a wall, you run up the wall and do a backflip. its a little weird sliding over every flat surface like it were the hood of the General Lee, but it also looks badass, so i'm not complaining.

awesome game.... 50 stars...


***

i also played a little 'skate' today... for the first time in several months. another fantastic game, so relaxing...