Brutal Legend.

Pending reviews...Xbox 360 : Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising

Nothing!  A little breathing time to play ODST, Ghostbusters, Monkey Island and Batman.  Whew!  (and of course some Fallout 3)

If you're going to go that route, I've found the Durex Extra Sensitive to be the least bad.

+1

Shadow Complex + Ghostbusters

PSP - UMD....really? One analog stick...really?
Wii - Overpriced for a bowling + tennis machine.  And not even 720p...really?

Damn Pete.  Sorry to hear about the mess and life continuing to f*ck with you in general.  When you catch a fish be sure to punch it in the face for good measure.

Here's another great sports commercial from SF Giants country:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuNIB-181No

And the Onion Apple Wheel commercial was brilliant!   

All for free...

GIMP - Crazy nice photoshop-lite clone
Eclipse for programming PHP - Very slick open source IDE with tons of plug-ins available
Firebug for Firefox - If you're web programming without it, you're wasting valuable life cycles
Rocketdock - Mac dock clone
WinGrep - Powerful GUI file search program based on the UNIX 'grep' command
PuTTY - Telnet client
CygWin - Linux/unix command line for windows
Vim  - Linux text editor for windows
TortoiseSVN - Pretty specific, but a slick interface for SVN code repository access

Research the company and know their products/services/history/etc.  I give a lot of interviews and that is now one of the first areas I drill down on.  People who do that bare minimum research show me that they have common sense initiative.

Possibly:
Terminator Salvation for the 360.
Jagged Alliance for DS.

Ugh, I picked this one up but never started playing.  Stupid lack of time.   

If this game is at least averagely playable I will buy it just to support such a f'in awesome theme.   

Empire: Total War

Ok, here's phase 1 of my tattoo which was done a month ago.  You can see the one I'm having covered up as well.  I've never minded having a tattoo, I just didn't care for what was there as it didn't have much personal meaning.  It was an impulse decision I made when I was 19 and had gone with my buddy to get his done.  I had part of it removed but put that on hold when I moved a year ago.  The subsequent rebooting/reinvention/awakening in my life inspired me to get a phoenix on my arm.  It represents a lot more that I've been through in my life than just my move, but that's a PeteRock-ian post perhaps for another time.  Though I'm not much of a writer.     Through chance I found a local artist who's work was exactly inline with what I like.



I went in yesterday and had about 80% of the coloring done on it.  I'll post a pic of it in a day or so when it's looking better, but I'm scheduled to go back in 2-3 weeks to have to have it finished up.  I'm much more in to Western art so it was inspired by European shields and crests.  The bird is being colored in very dark with some feather highlights while the flames will go from yellow on the bottom to red on the top portions.

Theo Mindell:  http://www.spidermurphystattoo.com/theo1.html

...although I'm already thinking I would really like to get a dragon at some point as I really connect with its symbolism as well.

Very nice!  I going in for final color and detail on mine this Friday.  I'll try to remember to post a pic this weekend.

Facebook is a very well run and user-conscious site.  I use it to keep up with friends and family all across the globe.  I am a member of several groups consisting of about 10-15 people like my local board gaming group, happy hour group, my Mom's side of the family formed one, etc.  If you're worried about privacy all you have to do is dig in to the settings and they have tons of options.  You can even create custom groups and only allow ones you specify to see various parts of your profile.  The default settings even trend towards to safe side.  It's a fantastic site and they are very proactive about keeping it clean and un-ghetto (a.k.a MySpace-ish).

Braid
Catan
Geometry Wars 2

The first Fallout 3 DLC (Anchorage) comes out tomorrow!

Giggety.  Also, MLB Front Office pending decent reviews.

If you want a Jasper unit, but need a large HD, probably best to go with the Arcade system and 60GB HD which will run you $250 minus what you sell your current system for.

Hmm, this seems like a great option.  I have to go and get a couple final gifts this weekend (ugh) so perhaps I'll reward myself by seeing if I can find these at Best Buy.

Hey all,

I've very close to maxing out my 20GB hard drive and am ready to pick up one of the bigger models.  I hoping to pick up the 60GB but it seems to be out-of-stock on Amazon.  Perhaps the holiday bundles might have used up the stock? The 120GB ones are available but run $160.  However, I noticed that the new Jasper units are out and I was wondering if it was worth it to upgrade (the 60GB bundle) from a heat/sound/stability standpoint.

Cheers.

Picked this up last night and I hope to get some MP time in over the extended weekend.  See you guys out there!

1. Monsters, Inc
2. Toy Story 2
3. Finding Nemo
4. Toy Story
5. Ratatouille
6. The Incredibles
7. Bugs Life
8. Wall E (1st half was great, 2nd half was average.)
X. Cars (This is the freak-anomaly of Pixar movies.  Utter crap.)

I picked this one up on a whim after the positive feedback.  Just finished up Chapter 6 last night and absolutely love this one.  It's basically Doom 3 with the problems fixed plus a whole lot more with the upgrade system.  Lights out, surround sound cranked, subwoofer on max woof =  a f'in intensely awesome experience.

Fallout 3 - 360

Fable 2
Portal
Rock Band 2 Special Ed.

Excellent and thanks for the tips.  I'm hoping to move in right after the New Year but I'll certainly start checking out those places and the neighborhoods in general.  Potrero does seem like a really nice location, though.  The only bummer is that the company is moving to a new temporary building soon and then somewhere to be to determined afterwards.  But overall I want to live in a cool area of the city and, well, just be in the city.

Cheers!

Saints Row 2 is a must for me as I've been waiting for the sequel since finishing the first one.  I'll wait on Dead Space for a bargain price as Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2 will likely keep me busy for the next, oh, 6 months or more.

@gellar - The job is currently located at South Van Ness and 17th in the Potrero Hill area.  Any recommendations are most welcome.  I've heard Nob Hill, Hayes Hill and SoMa are good places to live.

@DragonFyre - well I really don't have a gaming background either other than loving to play them.  I've spent the last 12 years doing medical software in Visual Studio and just the past two web programming with PHP, JS, etc.  I had a couple game programming classes way back in college and have dabbled here and there in it but nothing really to show.  What they wanted was someone who really loves games and had a solid background for my position (programming + PHP).

Anyone interested can start at the job board.  But as you'll notice at the bottom they're open to applications for any and all comers.  They are going from around 100 to 170 employees.  There were 10 people in my orientation and we're about to move in to a new (temporary) building.  Just send it on in, put me down as a ref and I'll do what I can to at least let the right people know...although as I'm a complete newb I naturally don't have much pull (well, none to be honest).

Not the kind we're all used to around here, but a game company for the new emerging casual frontier.  Zynga.  If you don't know (and were too lazy to make one click ) they do games for Facebook and MySpace.  The big one is Texas Hold 'Em but they also have Mafia Wars, YoVille, Pirates, Space Wars and many others.

I'm on the Pirates, Space Wars and Mafia Wars team.  I was hired as a PHP programmer and will eventually own a game project.  Today I started out learning the system by fixing some bugs on Pirates.  Woot!  You're welcome, mateys.

It's about a 45 minute commute in to the city for me, but I hope to eventually move in there once I'm better established.  While the hours are going to be long I am getting the pay I wanted and the atmosphere is a typical start-up casual great.  Even better since they are profitable and flush with cash.  A ping-pong table, MAME cabinet, Rock Band setup, free lunch and dinner cooked by students from a culinary school, etc.  So I figure the fuel costs are more than offset by all of the goodies.

If anyone needs a job in San Francisco let me know.  They're hiring like mad right now...and I get a nice referral bonus I'd be glad to share.

Yay for DLC!!!  New chracter skins and new campaign stuff!

http://kotaku.com/5056648/new-campaign-characters-coming-to-the-force-unleashed

In without question...well, one question...will Luke, Obi-Wan and the other goodie-two-shoes Jedi be able to use lightning?  I thought it  was a dark side power.  Although Luke certainly walks in the gray area if you include the expanded universe.

Wow, that's looking great!

Possibly Mega Man 9 on XBLA.  But if I buy anything it'll be either Rock Band 2 or Brothers in Arms: HH.

going back through the game the second time with all your powers, combos, and attributes is wicked fun.  just wish it was possible to go through that way on the harder difficulty and get the credit for it.

Um, wait...how do you start a new game with all of your existing powers?!?!  When I hit New it started me over with nothing to my name.  What the heck did I miss?  Oh, and let me throw in a pre-emptive 

[Spoiler]

Finished it up yesterday and am already on my second play through on the third difficulty.

Pros:
--------------
Excellent story, writing and voice acting
Force powers are very well done and extremely satisfying to use
Lightsaber combat is a complete joy
Customization of force powers and skills makes for some nice replayability options
Excellent artwork with some amazing vistas

Cons:
--------------
Camera is too close and doesn't pan smartly
Frustrating deaths from camera problem (attacks from behind, blocked visibility)
Some cheap boss fights
Force resistant stormtroopers, while not as big a deal as I had feared, are still a bit odd
Lock-on system needs a method to toggle an enemies-only filter

Overall it was a very enjoyable experience and highly entertaining.  I don't feel that the gameplay was groundbreaking in anyway, but it adequately filled the bill to make me feel like I was a Sith badass.
Graphics:  10/10
Gameplay: 7/10 
Controls: 6/10 (due to the camera)
Story:  9/10
Sound:  10/10
Overall:  8/10

Spoiler for Hiden:

On the topic of cheap boss fights I found it exceptionally disappointing that the team somehow found a way to make pulling a Star Destroyer down monotonous and, well, boring.  Sigh.

1)  Can we please get a spoiler tag on this thread?  While there may or may not be plot points there are still many details of the discoverable "goodies."   Thus I have not read most of it as I prefer to experience it on my own.  Thank you.

2)  I have a good friend who's husband works for LucasArts out here... apparently the division is so poorly run that new management is brought in every handful of years to attempt to fix it.  In the process they usually flush the existing teams.  Rinse and repeat.  I do know that a significant portion of the currently dev staff was recently axed.  While I haven't followed it closely I would not be surprised if it was the team responsible for this game.  In the short (sighted) run it's much cheaper to make a bunch of money off of a Star Wars game if you don't have to pay the benefits of staff while they idle/spin-up for the next project.

3)  I picked it up to day on my way back from the airport.  I loved the demo and I cannot wait to play the full game.  I downloaded the iPhone version and it was an amusing diversion.  But my good friend in Dallas has me psyched for the real version.  "You're not my Father!"

Sounds like another incredible time, Pete.  I'd love to attend but a) it's my birthday weekend (which with planning further in advance I'm sure would be stellar; alas I have a good friend coming in town that weekend) and b) it looks like I might be starting a new job soon so I really can't commit to any travel plans at this point.

Naturally as our teams are division rivals I'd like to see the 49ers win.   But after the most amazing game between our teams last Monday, I (painfully) have the utmost respect for the Eagles (and our division in general) as worthy contenders (although still so very bitter) to believe that such an upset will occur.  So party on to you, your lovely wife and two most excellent hounds.  And do not fear, I am all too aware of what keeps the cows in...

Cheers!

Good thing I'm about to get a job with full time benefits and pay...it's going to be an expensive Fall...

Lego Batman
Brothers in Arms: HH

...and to catch up:

Star Wars: FU
Rock Band 2  (although I might just wait and pick up the new bundle)

Cool, thanks for the tip.  I'm about half-way through Mass Effect.

Wow, what an incredible game!  I'm certainly glad that my Cowboys came out on top, but honestly I would've been satisfied with their performance if they hadn't.  Both teams were on fire the whole game.  Games like these are why I love me some football. 

My god, the MNF announcers are just terrible.

Jaws is awesome.  The other two range from meh to SUCK.

gellar

Agreed, but I'd say that Kornheiser fills the latter slot.