every summer, the majority of the video gaming world, all come together in one epicenter of videos, demos, information, and hype.  that’s right, it’s e3 time.  the electronics entertainment expo is on, and while all the internet is abuzz with all of the haps, i’m not going to try and act like i’m bringing you some exclusive.  i’m just going to talk about what has caught my eye thus far.

first off, ds is back in the win column!  after last post’s ugly news that a “buffy: the vampire slayer” game was coming to my cherished handheld, good news came today in the form of organized crime and the rebirth of the most sought after classic, maybe ever.  first, joystiq has the official pics that grand theft auto is heading to chinatown and the ds.  while there isn’t a lot to this so far except for the title, it’s exciting to see nintendo welcoming a bit more grown up franchise.  not that what ds and even wii has done so far isn’t spectacular, it’s just nice to have a change of pace.

and secondly,  chrono trigger is back.  and no it’s not some emulator and i didn’t dig up an old snes and cartridge on ebay.  nintendo finally came around and made a remake of one of my all-time favs and honestly, one half of the reason i love rpgs to this day.  (final fantasy III on the snes (VI in japan) is the second).  I can’t wait to beat this game, and beat it again, and again, and again, since even back then, they had the vision to give you all your stats and gear back so you had a reason to persue the multiple endings!  here is are some screens on ign.  cue the salavation.

 nintendo also seems to be doing it up big on the wii.  while i don’t own one, i love my time spent with the console and i continue to be impressed by their innovation.  as if yesterday’s announcement of a even more accurate motion controller wasn’t enough, they are taking their already successful wii sports franchise on vacation.  kotaku, the best home for gaming nerdery on the net, has the pics of wii sports resport.  and yes, i do want to play wii frisby with a wii puppy.  does that make me less of a man?  if anything, i would say it makes me more of an american.

but i can’t leave sony out of this nintendo lovefest.  everytime i think i’m out, the bastards pull me back in.  thanks a lot sony.  just when i thought i was going to keep some money in savings for a bit, you have to go out and make the ps3 that much more attainable.  but i’m not faltering yet.  i need something besides mgs4 to get me to drop that kind of cash.  but then again, my stimulus check does come soon since i was part of the last group to have them mailed….snake?  SNAAAAAAAAAAAKE!

since a web dump.  but here we go.

we start at boing boing with a double shot from those guys.  first up, is something that might be the best thing i’ve ever posted on here:  an idea vending machine.  seriously.  i get so frustrated with an indecisive group who can’t figure out what do, and i’m just as much a part of the problem when it happens.  but now two quarters solves that problem in an instant.

the second hit from boing boing is a bit late, but i didn’t have time to post.  it’s pretty simple.  iran tested some missles, but then tried to lie about it by putting out some photos that were…doctored.  well, needless to say it didn’t take long for the fierce gavel of judgment to come crashing down on the site of the next season of “the war” coming to fox news, cnn and msnbc this call.  dear iran, you suck at photoshop.  thx, the internets.

in bike news, comes an amazing idea from trek, featured over at gearfuse.  the bike company has come up with the ingenious concept of a biking vending machine/repair station.  the one-stop-shop would have come in especially handy a couple weeks ago when i found myself stuck on the side of the road with a flat.

in something that needs little explination, lazarus has developed wine labels so the blind can get drunk a lot easier.  

in music news, radiohead keeps staying like 5 steps ahead of the pack and this time they are doing it with their music video.  apparently thom yorke and crew decided that they didn’t need cameras for their new video, just lasers.  the pics are amazing and the video should be coming soon behind.

and finally, for the first time since i decided i wanted one and persued tracking it down after christmas for three months, g4 has given me a reason to not want a nintendo ds anymore.

so i said see you monday, but it’s actually sunday now. new york was amazing but also exhausting. i got to go to so many cool stores that i normally just shop at in the virtual world. and i also ate great ramen and pinkberry. and word on the street is, starbucks just bought them so it will no longer be an “only in new york” thing soon. here is a link to their website, but be warned: the song is ridiculously catchy.

so getting to the title of this entry. there is an apartment in my neighborhood. well there are a lot actually, but i don’t have the time or reason to talk about them all here. this one in particular was special. because in the ground floor window that faced the street on my walk home from one of my favorite restaurants and also a local market, was the man himself. the leader of the autobots and quite possibly the greatest american without an actual heartbeat: optimus prime. and i’m not talking about some new rehash. this was the original. the same one i found in my mom’s closet around christmas of 1986 i believe.

it was always so comforting knowing that the best of the best in all of the transformers kingdom was there watching over the neighborhood. ready for anything. if the decepticons attacked, he would be there. if a dinobot got out of control, he would reign them in. or maybe you just wanted to say hello. optimus was always there for you. but no more. sadly, optimus prime and the other robots (which were cool but not transformers, maybe in training though) has moved on. there is just a curtain there now. and no robots to be seen anywhere.

i mean, sure. over the past almost two years i have lived in my current place, i have grown a lot. and i’m not saying i don’t need optimus there, but i think our little slice of rva is going to be ok. we have good people, and i know deep down inside, if we need prime and the rest of the autobots, they will come to our aid. but i will miss seeing his robot face, smiling at me under that cool looking thing that covers up where his mouth would be.

so one last time, in honor of prime, autobots….transform and role out.

i’m leaving today…..see you monday.

you know, when onerythym and i set out on this blog adventure worthy of a major motion picture adaptation, i didn’t expect any real fame and fortune.  i just wanted a place to share all the things that we think are entertaining, without actually having to tell them to people face to face or repeat them to different friends at different times.  some might say i’m lazy.  i would agree.  but i’m also efficient.

however, i came to realize the real magnitude of internet punch today.  as i was pouring through the many comments awaiting to be approved (read: 62), i said to myself “by golly! we’ve arrived!”  ok, i didn’t say that.  saying “by golly” would be rediculous.  but i did realize, this fame thing has sort of snuck up on us.  how, you might ask?  well let me explain because it would be rude to just tease you without offering a resolution.

so back to the massive ammount of comments and their link to fame.  i used to think that the insurance companies, gambling sites, and other web incarnations that are posting in languages i don’t hablo were just trying to push their own agenda of insuring you, taking your money, and confusing you with their strange dialects.  but no, that is not the case.

it’s obvious to me now, they all are competing to ink a huge endoresment deal with us.  and why wouldn’t they be?  have you been keeping up with this site?  if you have, you are probably are getting calls from your friends, family and work, wondering where you have been. simply tell them “i’ve been in a paralyitic state of entertainment,” and then send them over here.  they will stop bothering you then.

now some of you would might say, “wait just a minute guy.  those are just spammers.  they are trying to use your internet space for free to push their own agenda.”  and i will say to you sir or madaam, stop being a jerk.  first of all, spam is delicious and to try and use it as a put down is just unfair to that retangularish can of meat.  secondly i would say, you are just jealous.  don’t be.  i don’t plan on selling out anytime soon.  i can’t speak the language of half of these posters, i’m very happy with my insurance, and i don’t have any money to gamble because of (insert complaint about gas prices here).

so no worries internet punch faithful.  i’m staying true to the cause.  besides, i don’t do deals that don’t go through my agent (hint:  contact my agent and we can talk money! i’m talking to you hot iron poker dot com!)

no one really expects anything awesome to happen at home when they are at work.  usually i go in, do my radio duty, and get back to my life when i leave the station.  sometimes you come home and someone has left you a message on instant messenger about hanging out or maybe linked you to a funny story, but today, my friendswere overachieving.

first up jeff.  he and i are both avid soccer fans and euro 2008 is currently underway. not to mention the us blasted bardbados on sunday 8-0 in their 2010 world cup qualifier. so today i came home to this message from him on my  computer screen:

jeff: barbados sucks
jeff: i want obama in midfield by WC2010instead of bradley

world cup in usa?  si se puede! that was almost as great as this story my buddy jason im’d me:

jason:  omg. i am in a hippie coffee shop in c-ville and the chick working here was reading some email that she got out loud (she is a loud talker) and apparently someone sent a link to icanhascheezburger. she didnt click it, just said “i dont even eat meat”

man, nothing worse than a hippy.  except a hippy n00b.  lolz.

then there is this awesome link from onerythym.  you might know him from such other interweb hits as this blog.  his awesome contribution while i was at work was this amazing pic of barack obama:

you know how i know he will be a good president?  he is obviously owning that go kart.  if he got stuck on one of the ones that just spins in the middle and gets nailed by everyone, then i would have my doubts.   yes we can, indeed.

not a lot of time to post tonight, but i didn’t want to forget about posting these awesome lego games that will never be made. props to the guys over at the-minusworld.com for this. enjoy it, friend-o.

hanging out. bikes. parties. soccer. it’s all very awesome. i guess i’m starting to realize that i do a lot more inside and alone things in the winter, and really get out more in the summer. even when the temperature is about 100 like it was early last week. or when the state of north carolina is on fire, but somehow we get the smell and smoke here in virginia. i still haven’t figured that one out completely.

the euro 2008 tournament has been amazing so far. since my job is sports and i try and keep home life and work life separate, i don’t usually want to get on that topic here, but there isn’t a ton of soccer talk on our show, so futbol has remained “my thing.” spain is looking sharp (see david villa and his hat trick against the russians), but not nearly as awesome as the netherlands have been. and while i do have a place in my heart for the orange jerseys of holland, spain is my pick. outside of that, the turkey story is really turning out to be amazing as well. they could be this year’s greece.

two weeks away from a trip to new york and i keep adding things to the list of what i want to do. it’s a short list, and i’m going with a lot of other people who i think will all come up with equally amazing things to do so it should be a blast. and somehow despite all the madness, i managed to not empty my back account on a ps3 and become a shut in, hanging out with only solid snake. besides, the rebirth of super dodgeball on the nintendo ds is about all my life is allowing me for video game time anyway. viva espana!

is it possibly to be 40 and 16 at the same time?  i would say yes.  i find myself in these “adult” situations more and more these days.  and i’m not talking about work, or paying taxes or things of that nature.  i’ve always been sort of ahead of the game on those things, working at an early age.  heck, i knew what i was going to go to college for and what field i was going to work in when i was a freshman in high school, and it’s pretty much been spot on.

but i mean more like, sitting around at a bar or coffee shop with friends talking about work, the weather, and gas prices.  the other day it was so bad, because i found myself with some of my nearest and dearest at a restaurant and we were talking about the show “friends.”  i never liked that show, but i did work at a tv station that aired it for an hour a night during my shift, so i can’t pretend i don’t know about it.  i was in that conversation too.  when did this happen?

now to the kid part.  last year i had two must-haves in the spring: a bike and a nintendo ds.  i now have both and when you combine that with the manga i can’t stop reading, i’m totally a kid.  i guess it’s a nice balance because i’m not sure if i have ever been happier.

staying in that vein, while it’s been a while since i’ve bought any legos, i still can’t help but get really excited when i see something like johnny 5 made from those magical bricks.   (ps. short circut 4 is rumored to be on the way)

speaking of movies, i watched the trailer for “choke” this morning and you can do if you click that link.   it looks pretty funny even tho the lead guy seems slightly annoying to me.  his best friend in the quasi-creepy neighbor in “me you and everyone we know.” back and forth forever, indeed.

uncrate also took me back today with the unfortunate return of british knights.  i can’t completely hate on this development because i had a pair.  they were like the ones pictured but yellow and white instead of black.  and i mean, highlighter yellow.  that’s the price you have to pay to be the coolest kid in fifth grade.

and finally, i’m not uncovering any real secret here (lol@ me.  i’m clever), but each sunday i really enjoy reading postsecret. frank warren started this project a long time ago.  maybe you;ve never heard of it.  maybe you just forgot about it.  also, his new facebook page offers bonus secrets!  don’t tell anyone or do.