That's a lot of turmoil and stress there. I can't even begin to fathom, to be honest. Sadly, it seems the stress got the better of him and he broke a six year streak of sobriety. Accordingly, the wife decided she didn't want to deal w/ the drinking and moved back home to her mom. I'm just so floored I can't even express how I feel about it all.

Hell, I'm not even sure if I should be blogging this or not to be honest. All I can say is to re-iterate what I said to my friend. You know how to reach me on IRC, via email, and via my personal cell. You are not alone in this matter. Please feel free to lean on me.

It's a damn shame my trip to the office was a couple of weeks ago and not now. I'd /kill/ to be able to physically be there to chat.

Don't give up the fight my friend. You can turn this around.

EDIT: Seems some clarification is needed. She left not cause of the drinking itself but because of the dishonesty around it. And I totally got the order of events wrong (as far as job, moving, dad's death), but I still think the point is accurate.

The entire world is physics driven and littered with plenty of explosives. You'll soon find yourself plotting each firing of the slingshot to 'link' multiple explosives and environmental reactions together for the biggest destruction. It's quite addicting.

The biggest attraction to the game, IMHO, is its sense of humor. The developers have coded the game in such a way that it doesn't take itself seriously. Fling Jarvis into something he hits head first? Get awarded a 'clothesline' or 'noggin knocker' award. And the comments Jarvis himself makes are hilarious. For example, if you manage to crush his family jewels on a ledge or something, he'll exclaim "My biggie smalls!" or something equally amusing.

Hrm. I can't really do this game justice. Trust me and spend the $10 to download it. You'll enjoy it after a day of pulling your hair out @ work. It's a great stress relief mechanism.

I was a late-comer to the PlayStation party. I admit it. I was a Nintendo fanboy and basically shunned the PS2. Until I finally found a couple of games that were PS2 only that I wanted to play. I'm still a fan of the big N and while I liked my PS2 enough, I was taking a 'wait-and-see' approach to the PS3. I'm actually fairly glad I didn't jump on the PS3 when it was first launched, but now that I have one I totally grok what the hype is all about.

The unit is amazing. Truly amazing. Blu-ray player? Check. PS2 backwards compat? Check. Remote play w/ the PSP? Check. Online play? Check. USB hub? Check. CF reader? Check. And those are only the features that I actually use. It's a sweet looking unit too. Makes the entertainment center just scream 'futuristic'.

And the games on this beast? OMG, the graphics are amazing. I literally have been killed in several games because I got distracted by the gorgeous scenery and stopped watching the character I was controlling. Seriously. And the developers haven't even really learned to stress the system yet! Another thing I really like is that the developers all seem to be taking the graphics in different directions. Some games are like watching a film. Others are like watching a highly-stylized moving comic book. It's an amazing visual smorgasbord.

Oh, yeah. The unit is pricey. All I can say is: save up, and watch for deals. It's totally worth it. Especially since it's not just a game system. Re-read the abilities above (and note that I don't even use all it offers). Bang for the buck? Totally.

If you check the online reviews of this book, you can see that a lot of people were disappointed in this book. I can't say that it was great, or even more than 'OK'. However, being a fan of the series, and needing to know how things were wrapped up and where we're starting from for the new series, I had to read this one. And like I said, the other plot lines were interesting. Some stupid shit was pulled though, don't get me wrong. I mean, the new Chancellor? Get. A. Grip.

If you're into the Star Wars EU, you need to read this series. A lot of people die, a lot of demarcations are redrawn. A lot of stuff happens. And you spend a lot of quality time with Fett and the Mandalors. In fact, I'd revisit this entire series just for that particular bit as it's really well done. Perhaps some new series will continue that further. One can hope.

Mixed bag. I hate to use that phrase, but it's apropos.

So anyway, on to the movie. This movie was merely OK. The commercials/previews made it look a lot better than it was. In fact, they made it look like it could/should have been. The dude can teleport. And there are other people who can do it too. Always have been. And there's this religious order hunting them down on the premise that only God should have this power. And that's about all the movie tells you. Is it genetic? Is it only males who exhibit this or was that merely a casting bias for the movie? They can take things w/ them when they jump, but only certain things. Why? Etc, etc.

This movie could have spent the 90 minutes of my life exploring the jumping ability and its origin and the impact it has on the life of the person (while said person happens to be fleeing for their life). Heck, they could have had the religious cult explain the whole situation when the main character confronts them about why they are chasing him. Yet, this movie goes on and on about how the main character's life sucks and all this crap that is orthogonal to the fact that he can jump. I mean, OK, you want to build character depth/history. I get it. But people went to see this movie cause of the jumping. So let's focus there, eh?

Rocky has once again retired to the middle of nowhere hiding from the world. And he gets wrapped up in what happens to this group of missionaries, and suddenly he's Mr Bad-Ass again (reluctantly, of course). And, predictably enough, he's only a 'bad ass' in getting these people back. He's not interested in stopping the oppression per se. He just happens to wipe em out as a by-product. Which means if you've seen Rambo 2 or 3, you basically know the story, just transplant it to another location on the planet.