Maybe it’s the fact I finally got used to the streets turning back on each other? Maybe it’s the fact I can pick up prostitutes any time during the day? Or the fact I can “Clean up the ‘hood by offing Drug Dealers?

Whatever the case may be, I’ve got a jones for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and have been playing it off and on for the past week since it arrived in the mail. I’m not that far into the game knowing how deep GTA games are (missions, side missions, etc) but I’m far enough in to know I like what I see.

Gang Wars? Check. Drive bys? Check. Great music? Check. Corny Dialogue? Fuck you, nigga’!

Grand Theft Auto in la Cuidad de San ANdreas kicks ass and I am going back to my game RIGHT NOW….

Damn you Metrocall / Weblink Wireless!!!

I start a conversation with my friend Michelle around 5 PM on Friday through my text messenger. “Hey Hey” with Michelle’s standard “Howdy” response.

Well, after that Howdy from my AFI loving friend, I couldn’t send nor receive messages from anyone on a cellphone all weekend long (still the case at 11 PM Sunday). I was able to receive email like normal, I was able to get messages from the Internet, I was even able to set up getting messages from my scarcely used AOL account on the pager but I couldn’t do text messaging with Cellphone users. Bummer to be left out of touch with friends like that. It made me want to replace my pager with something like the Sidekick… Oh well.

I’ve alluded before on Der Stonegauge that I was an early adopter of the DVD format. In 1998 I had the money to blow so I went out and got a player before the format even took a firm hold on society. Over the years, my Panasonic DVD-A105 has shown hundreds of hours of DVD video in high quality without a ton of bells and whistles like some of the new models that come out. It isn’t a progressive scan DVD player, it doesn’t have digital zoom, or a hard drive or whatever… it’s just a solid machine that has gone the distance time and again.

I bought Star Wars original trilogy (pirates :p) on DVD when the problems really started with my player. I attempted to play each movie and I had “digital breakdowns”, so to speak. I had been noticing the machine acting funny lately besides that (even though I clean it regularly) and just giving a few more problems than normal…

Well, Star Wars seemingly did a number on the machine. I tried playing Gladiator last night and what happened was… well, I couldn’t get past certain chapters due to digital breakdown on a clean DVD along with several messages telling me I had no disc in the machine while I did.

I bought condensed air to clean my machine, I ran my DVD laser cleaner, I tried running those DVDs again and the same problems came up. The machine would lock up while having the tough time reading the discs and end up ejecting the DVD from the machine or just plain turning off.

Sadly, I knew that my 5+ year old Panasonic is on it’s last legs…

I started looking at new players today seriously with regards to replacing my machine… And as I was sitting down to write this entry, my brother dumped a new Toshiba. Personally I would have preferred to find my own system but… Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, ya know?

Nice, Altoid’s now offers breath-strips much like my fave Listerine Cool Mint breath strips…

Oh, the life of a walker-bound sports fan…

Last night me, Michelle, her brother Geoff and one of Geoff’s friends attend the Lightning vs. Devils game at Times Palace. The game itself was a bore for the most part but the company was real good.

What sucked was getting to and from the arena.

I haven’t walked through a cityscape with this walker and my first experience with that was last night – it’s tough folks. It’s even tougher getting into an arena without knowing the access points for cripples and gimps… No offense intended towards the disabled.

And leaving the building? Don’t get me started…

Well, what happened with Johnny when he lost his Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Playstation 2?

He started playing with his Christmas presents…

I had received to different computer games to bide my time with at Christmas but I hadn’t installed them until mid January and barely played the first one. The second one was Sim City 4 and that was fun but it gets old fast.

So I went back to the first game I got / installed — Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic

This game is usually heralded by gamers for it’s challenges and it’s depth, and I have to agree with that. I am not a hardcore gamer, nor will I ever know the depth and versatility of Video Games like, say, Gabe and Tycho over at Penny Arcade… But for me, Knights of the Old Republic was truly a fun game and a challenge… And personally? Thinking of the story line (well, there are several alternate story-lines, mind you, but for the sake of the argument – the one that has the main character a Jedi Knight and not a Sith Lord) could very well serve as a movie… No, not another one tied to the destiny of the original or prequel Star Wars trilogies…. A new movie with a stress on PREQUEL – no ties to the movies you know besides Sith Lords, Jedi Knights and Tatoonie.

I won’t publish any tips or hints here (how can I? I suck :p but I will guide any KOTOR gamers who are stuck to Gamebanshee… They were my savior at certain points in this game and I am looking forward to playing it again sometime in the future — just not yet. Not yet indeed.

Oh, one thing that sorta bummed me out at the end — the hero doesn’t get the girl! It ends up sorta like the end of the original Star Wars movie with a medal ceremony… And yet there is this small buildup of a relationship between one character and another and at the end — nothing happens! No kiss, no hug, no admittance of feelings… Nothing! Nada! Zip! Zero! Zilch! Ugh, how unforfilling! Oh well, it’s only a computer game…..