Halo 3 Bliss

This Thursday when I got home I said HI to my cats, tossed my stuff in the bedroom and decided to fire up my Xbox 360 to get into Halo 3 that my wife was kind enough to purchase for me while I was away during the launch event. I started on playing it on regular difficulty because I haven't been playing my video games all that much lately since I don't have the time these days.

I must say though, that my expectations have been met or exceeded with this installment of Halo. One of the sad things is that I know that this will probably be the last Halo game where I go around as the Master Chief shooting things to oblivion. The level designs are way better, the vehicles are super fun to drive, the graphics are excellent and the weapons are also good since there are a ton of new ones to take advantage of.

From what I've played so far, this is going to be a fun game to replay a few times through. I would play on Xbox Live but I'm a cheap skate and I don't have the optional Wireless adapter for it. I'm still going strong on my Wii but for right now, Xbox 360 will rule my living room until I'm done with Halo 3 :)

Halo 3!

This Tuesday will be the the biggest release of a video game EVER! Only one game can garner this much attention, HALO 3! I am the proud owner of the previous entries of the Halo series on the original Xbox. I can say with a straight face that I liked the first Halo game over the second one. Playing as the other side in Halo 2 just wasn't all that fun, I preferred playing as the good ole Master Chief. I've already read the reviews on Halo 3 and they're all favorable. It's supposed to be totally bad ass with a ton of action. If I wasn't so cheap, I'd get Xbox Live and play online but I just don't have the time to do that sort of thing anymore.

Since I won't be home when its released, I'll be picking it up this weekend. I'm sure to get a copy somewhere, there are at least 4 Gamestops in a 10 mile radius of where I live. This weekend will be interesting to say the least :) Booyah!

Jamba Juice

I traveled to The Woodlands tonight as I'm supposed to and I'm staying at the Hilton Garden Inn. The great thing about staying here is that I'm close to a shopping center called The Marketplace (at least I think thats what its called). Anyway, my wife has turned me on to Jamba Juice, so right after I checked in headed out to Jamba Juice. This is the first time I've walked anywhere around here but the walk really wasn't that bad. If I have some free time later this week, I might try and go to the mall or something right after dinner. It's really close by, the only bad thing is that I have to walk through the parking lot.

I got this awesome peach smoothie, my wife picked it out for me today since she had a menu from one of the times I went out to lunch with her. It was really good and only cost around five bucks. I'm going to start booking this hotel for my entire project since I want to be able to walk around the area. I can't do that from the Courtyard Marriott. Anyway, if the opportunity presents itself, I'll get another Jamba Juice smoothie this week.

Ninja Gaiden II = WOW!

I decided to look on my RSS Reader for some news and I saw an entry that was show casing some video from the up coming Ninja Gaiden 2 game for PS3 and Xbox 360. Since I own an Xbox 360, this is definitely a game I would be interested in. I have an original Xbox as well and I beat the original Ninja Gaiden on that console and the game itself was absolutely amazing back then. After looking at the newer game, I can tell that this game is probably going to be harder than the last one and it looks like they added a ton of new weaponry as well as some new ninja spells. How can this NOT be a sweet game? This is the only other game that I'm looking forward to so far besides Halo 3. Call of Duty 4 might get a look from me because its more modern combat and not WWII this time around. There are so many games that I want for the Wii and Xbox 360, I'm gonna go broke!

If you want to see the trailers for Ninja Gaiden, either hit up 1up.com or ign.com Both of them have it and if you've played the original, you'll be wow'ed by the sequel.

Continental Airlines is pretty sweet

Today I flew out to my new client out in Houston TX. This client is a little unusual because I have to fly out on Sunday evenings. No matter really, my wife understands this is the needs of my client. Besides I get more hotel points this way anyway because I stay an extra night. I don't get any points with Avis anymore because I'm not renting a car and I may start to get Marriott points because I should be staying at the Courtyard Marriott but they don't have any rooms available so I'm staying at the Hilton which is fine by me.

OK so anyway, to get to and from Houston, I'm using Continental Airlines as my carrier. First off I'm allowed to shove all my miles to Delta which is pretty awesome although I may want to rethink that since miles don't expire with Continental unlike Delta which expires every two years or so. Second, its a direct flight to Houston. That is a huge plus in my book because I don't have to hurry around an airport to rush off to a connecting flight. It's just a straight shot and then I'm heading to ground transportation to get my butt to the hotel. Third, they offer better snacks than all the other airlines I've flown so far. They offered me a turkey sandwich for a measly two hour flight. Thats pretty unheard of really in this day and age. Normally you would have to pay for that sorta stuff on airlines like American and Northwest. At the most on Delta you'll get some peanuts and a drink. And finally, the planes seem to be generally newer than the other airlines. The ultra huge carriers like American (MD 88's?? come on how ancient are those?), Delta (older Boeing 737-400's) or Northwest (Airbus A320's from the early 90's), Continental is using some later model 737-800's which is NICE!

If I didn't have to connect in Atlanta for so many of my flights, I'd go ahead and switch my rewards points to Continental from Delta. We'll see how things work out though over the course of the next month or so. Well, more later this week after I get to experience all that Houston TX has to offer. Btw, I'm not really IN Houston, I'm in a suburb but if I'm lucky I'll actually make it to Houston one of these days.

iPod movie bliss

Since I've been home for work recently, I've taken the opportunity to put some video's on my iPod so I have something to watch. I had movies before on my iPod but most of them were action movies for the most part. The one that got the most play with The Godfather but I needed more comedies so this week I converted a few of my DVD's to iPod format. I bought some software a long time ago that would do the conversion (I know, strange notion, I actually bought software) but its been working really well, much better than the normal freebie software that I use.

My library is getting quite extensive, but I'm also starting to run out of hard drive space on my computer. I can't load all my movies on my iPod because I don't have the space, I need a lot of space for the mountains of music that I own. I've seen the new iPods and I'm not yet all that impressed. I dont' want to buy all new accessories and it doesn't look like the new iPod touch will be easy to use in the car.

Now I'll have something to watch on the plane Sunday evening when I go to Houston for my client. There are good things and bad things about leaving for the client on Sunday, the bad thing of course is that I get to spend less time at home with my wife and cats, the good thing is that I get to dress like a schlub instead of wearing my work clothes and heading straight to the client site and I won't feel all messed up when I show up for work on Monday morning.

Cell Phone Rant

I've been a Verizon user since before Verizon even existed. I remember my first Bell South cell phone that I got back in 1999. Currently they are the largest wireless network in the US that is using the CDMA protocol. Almost all the rest are on GSM except for Sprint. I find it distressing that for its huge size and customer base, Verizon still has the most piss poor phones on the market.

I'm personally not a regular cell phone user, I use a PDA/Smartphone but even then, I still think that there needs to be a better selection of phones from my carrier. I like the ones that Cingular has but they're GSM and my current phone is not compatible. Even Sprint has better phones than Verizon and they're a distant 3rd place in the cell phone wars. I'm not a big fan of the Blackberry right now but still, I keep on seeing these bad ass phones like the Pearl and the Curve coming out for all the other carriers but not for Verizon! BOOO! I wish I had at least the option. If I ever became disgruntled with my Treo I would so go for a Pearl. I've seen my friend Johnson's Blackberry Pearl and its super sweet.

Oh well, I can but hope that Verizon will get in some new phones by September 25, thats when my wife is eligible for a new phone :)

2007 VMA's

Last night I was going to watch the MTV VMA's but after only half an hour I just had to turn it off and watch Family Guy re-run's on Fox. My wife pointed out to me that normally they hype the VMA's like crazy but this year they didn't and I can see why. The whole show looks like it was put together by some college interns and run by the TV broadcasting club of some po-dunk university out in the middle of no-where.

They were using some weird 80's theme that had a female speak and spell voice going through all the nominee's and it was really hard to understand. They also showed clips of each video in small little boxes to make some sort of collage which didn't really work either. I was only able to really watch the first main performance that started off the award show and then they continued to show snippets of other performances that were taking place at "parties" in other locations of the Palm's Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Truly an interesting format if you're there live to enjoy it, but for those of us watching on TV it kinda sucked. I also think the cue cards were un-readable to the announcers because everyone I saw in that half hour kept on fudging what they were supposed to say. How embarrassing!

If I were the head of MTV I'd probably end up firing the whole crew that worked on the VMA's this year and maybe light a fire under my creative team for coming up with an absolutely craptacular show. Oh and just because you make new awards, doesn't mean that anyone really cares. Stick with the tried and true, thats what made people want to watch the show in the first place. OK, rant done......... for now.............

Book rewards

I read a lot of books now that I travel most of the time. I end up buying about a book a week or so because I'm normally on a plane at least 6 hours out of the week and that doesn't include the time that I spend at the airport waiting around to board the plane.

I buy most of my books from Barnes and Noble because its just down the street from me here at home. I prefer Borders though for a few of reasons though. First off, Borders was the bookstore that was closest to me when I lived in Stamford and I liked going there a lot. The prices at Borders is normally cheaper than Barnes and Noble although they're pretty comparable. The rewards program with Borders is also free which is good for me because the one that Barnes and Noble offers you have to pay a yearly fee, whats up with that? And finally, Borders is just everywhere, from the airport to the mall, I can always find a Borders (or a Walden Books which is owned by Borders) or I can order stuff online through Amazon which has a deal with Borders.

I'll admit that the majority of my books in 2007 has come from Barnes and Noble but thats due more to convenience than anything else. If Barnes and Noble makes their reward program free, I'll sign up with them too, I could always use 20% off on new books :)

Marriott Silver!

I got a pretty cool surprise in the mail yesterday, Marriott sent me my Silver Elite card! I didn't know I had achieved Silver Elite but I guess all those stays at the Fairfield Inn that I had to endure got me enough points so that I could get the status. Granted it wasn't hard to achieve, I only needed 10 nights at any Marriott to get this far. I need another 40 to get Gold but I really don't want to get to Gold with Marriott. My next assignment is taking me to Houston TX, well a little north of there and the approved hotel there is a Courtyard Marriott which kinda stinks. I was hoping to get Platinum on my Hilton Honors account.

Hilton's so far are my favorite hotel chain, then the Starwood's, then Marriott, and last and certainly at the bottom of the pile is Holiday Inn. At least I will be getting 25% extra on my bonus points so this will give me a little flexibility as I'll be earning more points overall. There is a Hilton Garden Inn near the Courtyard Marriott which wouldn't be bad I don't think and it would allow me to earn more points with them. My march continues on to getting elite status!