Fallout 3

*****
The year is 2277. It’s been nearly 200 years since the ‘Great War’ between the U.S. and China that resulted in a nuclear holocaust of nightmarish proportions. You’ve been living in a vault your entire life, sealed off from the horrors outside since just before the war. Then one day…you’re father disappears. Or…as someone explains to you…he ‘escapes’.

What do you do?

You try to find him…

And that’s when Fallout 3 really gets good. I haven’t been a gamer for some time. I’ve been playing video games most of my life…and owned virtually every system at every level…but I was lucky enough to get an XBOX 360 for Christmas, and I went out and bought the one game that really had me salivating at the notion of playing a game again…and boy did it live up to my expectations…and then some. I’ve tried to explain to people how good this game really is. Its just immense. And its not for the guy who just likes to run and gun…it’s a first person shooter with RPG elements that overwhelm you at first, but add so much to the game experience that it just boggles the mind. And for someone like me who isn't as 'quick' as he used to be, and finds the whole online craze intimidating and too 'fast' (kids these days are just a next level good at video games)...the fact that this game's timeline is completely up to you is amazing. If I want to go explore the wasteland to find ammo for my hunting rifle, I can do that from sun up, to sun down (yes, the sun rises and sets in the game.) and hope I don't run into any vicious dogs or 'Mad Max' style punks armed with lead pipes and barb wire pool cues along the way. If I want to go on a sidequest to save a town from giant fire breathing ants created by some mad scientist, I can. Or, I can keep the blinders on and look for my dad...who is out there somewhere.

From zombies and ghouls, to mutated crabs, rats and bears, to gangs of wasteland punks who will try to kill you on sight, to Super Mutants and their 'gore' bags, to a town a la ‘Lord of the Flies’, to a community built around an un-detonated atomic bomb, this game is just loaded with places to go and people (and truly scary things) to meet.

Quite possibly the greatest non-sports game I’ve ever played...and the best $70 I've spent in a long time.

(and yes...you can get a dog in the game...for real!)

Thanks Santa!

finally! (again)

The Arizona Cardinals are going to the SUPER BOWL!

The Arizona Cardinals are going...to the SUPER BOWL!!!

I've been a fan of the underdog all my life. I think my eyes instinctively went to the bottom of the standings when I went looking for teams to root for in the 2 'other' major sports that Toronto didn't have a team for...the NFL and NBA...when I was a kid. I used to love the LA Clippers, all the way down there year after year in those NBA Standings...the 'other' LA team. But my long time favourte team is the Cardinals. The St. Louis Cardinals...then the Phoenix Cardinals...and finally, the Arizona Cardinals. I've loved 'em that long. Ricky Phoehl is a legend in my eyes...not for what he did in his stint in the white and red way back when...but what he could do in Tecmo Super Bowl. Guy was a TD machine! I didn't JUST like them because they were bad...I was fond of cardinals (the birds), I also liked their logo/uniform...and I thought it was cool that a city had a football and baseball team with the same name (back in the St.Louis days). So this isn't some sort of 'joke'...I really have been rooting for, and following the Cardinals for a long time.

So anyway, I've been through so many 'maybe this is the year Arizona has a good team' and 'they look good on paper...but its the Cardinals!' that I had all but thrown in the towel after the team won the division by default, and stumbled into the playoffs, getting waxed by the Eagles and Patriots in the process...but the passing game got going again....they started using 'the Edge' again (why they stopped using him is anyone's guess?)...and the D started to look better than average...and low and behold, the team was playing for the NFC Title today...at home no less...with the winner off to the big dance in 2 weeks!

And what a game! Big plays early...my man Fitz with 3 TD's...and we're looking good going into halftime. But I knew that somehow, as crap as he'd been playing, Donovan McNabb, a guy I dislike quite a bit, would find a way to make it a game. And he did. And that same old song started playing in my head and in my heart. "Oh So Close" by Do Wrong and the Heartbreakers...but I shook it off, and told myself we still had a shot...if only they'd stop trying to run the ball and give it back to #11 ASAP!! And on the final drive...they did...and they did...and now...they're going to the SUPER BOWL...and I actually get a chance to feel what its like for a team I've rooted for my whole life, to play in the 'BIG' game.

Go Cards!!!

***This whole post has been rendered obsolete as my wasted ass forgot that the Blue Jays won back-to-back World Series titles back in 92-93...so...I guess its still really, really awesome that the Cardinals are in the Super Bowl, and that I can get away with wearing my #11 Larry Fizgerald jersey 24/7 for the next 2 weeks...but I've lived 'the dream' already...sort of...alright, carry on....

this is all there ever will

Only wasted nights
Only wasted thoughts of you my dear

When the lights go out
All there is are thoughts of you in here
My head in here

Losing touch with all the things I told myself I’d never do or say
So long to iron will’s and stance of stone
Overcome

Now we sit at distant sides of either side of the divide
Where did I go wrong my dear
My heart in here

nice