First off I've got a link for you if you're in need of a home lawn or re-financin', thanks to the humor kings of Homestar Runner. I just love creepy comb-over Strong Bad, so cool!

The God-like Ernie at little.yellow.different found the old SNL sketch selling robot attack insurance so might as well use some of that mortgage money to hook that up too, because robots are everywhere and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.

The trailer tries to introduce us to, what I can only assume will be the playable characters of the game. However, since they don't want to give away much of anything they can only say things like "A Princess, when it all goes down wants to rebuild again." But still, it's got me thinking again of FFXII and that's really all it's meant to do so, good job Square-Enix.

The 15th anniversary collection of Mega Man was released this week. Inside it features the first 8 Mega Man games as well as two that we’ve never seen here in the US. My initial reaction to playing the first MM game again was “uh, these graphics are kind of fuxored” and indeed they are, your health meter in the upper left corner wonks in and out when fire or electricity is flying around the screen, when you land on the flying robots to ferry you over they get fuzzy, and there is some noticeable slowdown when too many things are moving on the screen at once.

I got over these problems in about 5 minutes, because I then started to both remember how much I enjoyed this game when it was new and began to enjoy playing the game immensely. I also had a hell of a time with the stages at first. I couldn’t time the jumps right or kept on bumping into enemies and dieing. At first I thought that I just sucked at games now or something. But in my defense I haven’t played a platformer since Super Mario Sunshine.

Great fun, but also very short. A scant couple hours of play and I’m already at the final stage. But that’s fine since I’m itching to get to MM3 - my favorite of the series.

Quote of the day (I know that I don’t ever really do this but I found this too funny not to mention):

“Michael Moore Kicking Self For Not Filming Last 600 Trips To McDonald's” from The Onion. I’ve always disliked Michael Moore and pretty much anyone else who thinks running around in public with a camera ambushing the unsuspecting public and then editing it for their own gains is funny or art. Yeah Tom Green, Truth.com, I’m talking about you too.

Ok, so I appear to be at odds with most people (pajamo and John, especially) about Harry Potter 3. I found myself slightly disappointed with the film. I thought the second half, while very good, could not make up for the disjointed storytelling in the first half. I’m curious to see what someone who hasn’t read the books thinks about it all but most of the folks I know who haven’t read the books have no real desire to see the movie. Catch 22. Oh well, hopefully I’ll be able to watch it again and perhaps I’ll come around.

In the news:

Sega’s latest ESPN NFL game, the previous games in the series have been touted by critics to be better games than the more popular EA Madden series, will sell for a mere $20. I wonder if this drastic move can take some of the steam out of the Madden juggernaut’s sales, but I just can’t see it. Most gamers gladly pony up the $50 to buy the latest copy of Madden, it’s like an annual holiday for them. I think this pricing strategy might get some of the more casual gamers to give Sega football a try, but the only way they’re ever going to win over any Madden fans is if EA drops the ball (hehe) and delivers a (couple) bad Madden game(s).

In memoriam:

Ray Charles Robinson (whom you will know better without the surname that he dropped in deference to the original Sugar Ray) passed away yesterday. I urge any of you interested in seeing him off to pop the Blues Brothers in and watch him in what is probably my favorite scene.

I know I should be updating more often but I'm buried under a pile of work at the moment, but don't worry prattlings and rantings on Harry Potter 3, comic books and the NBA finals are headed your way.