Keeping up the tradition

Well, just like my writings on Last.fm, it seems that I just can't manage to do this whole blogging thing on a regular basis. I was hoping to do it at least once a week, and I've already gone 2 weeks without posting now - yay me!

I hate stress. Have I mentioned that? Between work, Kim's back surgery and just life in general, it's just adding up. At least I get a "vacation" soon with the surgery. That seems to be a trend this year - all of my vacation time is going to be used up staying home and taking care of the kids. This time, I get to take care of three instead of just two, though. :)

I have been enjoying the Olympics, though. It's a nice change to watch sports that I pretty much never see outside of the Olympics. And it seems like every time they come around, I always feel like I'm not interested and that I'm not going to watch them at all. Then, before I know it, there I am in the middle of my 12th hour of Olympic coverage and wondering, "WTF just happened? I totally forgot how fun it is to watch!!"

I've gotta say, Michael Phelps is an absolute animal in the pool. The way he dominates is unlike anything I've seen in sports - beyond Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, even. The world record with goggles full of water? Absolutely incredible. I don't think anyone else would have even medaled in that situation - just imagine the time he could have turned in if he wasn't swimming blind!

Gaming
I picked up Madden '09 on release day. I've made it through a couple of games, and it's a huge improvement over last year. Graphics on the PS2 are a decent step up, but the game play is just superb. They made the same leap that NCAA did from last year to this year - except Madden actual improved the graphics instead of just keeping it 99% the same like NCAA did. Even better, both games have done away with the forced use of QB vision in Heisman/All-Madden difficulty. Yes, it made the game harder which was their intent, but I hated it so much that I would just stop playing. Now, maybe I can actually enjoy playing once All-Pro gets too easy to enjoy any more!

God of War has proven to me that I'm getting old in gaming years, for a couple of reasons. First, it showed me just how much I'm on Old Man Time. A game like this, I would have picked it up within a week or 2 of release and poured hours into it until I beat it. Now? It's already a "classic" that I picked up in the cheap bin... And second, it's HARD! Where have my skills gone? Granted, I've never been great at fighting games, but I find myself running into spots that take me 5-10 tries just to get past and that's never happened before. Who would have thought that 31 would be over the hill for console gaming?? I sure didn't...