Oh man! I finally get my grubby little hands on a next-gen gaming console and NOW I can’t even find the time to play it! It’s kind of eating me up inside. I do have certain family-related responsibilities so it’s an eternal battle between good and evil, yin and yang, Vader and Luke! On the lighter side, the kids are getting great use out of it because of our Netflix subscription. They have an endless library of kiddie shows to consume. The wife and I can watch old movies and whatever else is available in my “instant queue”. On the darker side… I’m just not playing as much games as I’d like.

As of date, we have a couple decent games in our collection (my son and I):

• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Lego Batman
• Lego Star Wars: The Complete Collection
• Pure

My main motivation to get a next-gen system was to experience GTA IV. The irony of my purchase is I feel very outdated whenever I post a microblog or status update about it. So; all the fun I’m having with GTA, I have to keep it to myself. The Xbox came with Lego Batman and Pure. We presented those games as a present to my son, Alex, for his birthday (over the weekend). So; now we’re playing those games.

I’ve also tasted the sweet nector of “Game Demos” with such titles as:

• Mass Effect 2
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Just Cause 2
• Split Second
• Forza Motorsport 3
• Iron Man 2

I first tried Iron Man 2 with the thought that maybe this could be a good mini-game for Alex to play with. Wow; what a god awful game! I quickly removed it from my system. It actually felt nice cleansing my system of such a badly created game. My brother ranted on and on about how awesome Arkham Asylum and Just Cause 2 is. I can certainly agree. Arkham Asylum is a lot more fun that I thought it would be and the darkness of that world is very engaging.

Funny; while writing this post I realized that I actually have played a lot of games, but in my head… I want MORE!

Rub it in Why Dontcha’

To make my late purchase even worse, about two weeks after I finally bought an Xbox 360… the NEW Xbox 360 was announced at E3! It has 250 GB of hard drive space compared to my 120 GB AND it has built-in wifi. I paid $100 for that stupid wiki adapter I have plugged into my console! Damn I feel more and more outdated!  So; we’re going to see if we can give back the outdated Xbox to BestBuy and get the new console. It’s releasing this week.

Engaget has a good article explaining what’s new with this slim version of the console.

So; today, May 6, 2010 is my thirty-first birthday. It started out pretty good; I even had lunch with some guys from work. We headed out to the usual spot — Mellow Mushroom for some good ol’ pizza. We all geek’d out a little bit by “checking in” with Foursquare. I realized finally experienced how fun social media could be when you’re actually participating with people you know. I’ve been socializing with complete strangers for years.

Once work was finished, I picked up Leeanne from school and headed home. My wife planned a small gathering with a neighbor and my mom. So; their kids came by and it was typical noise four children make… NOISE. I don’t think there is any other word to express… the… well… noise.

Facebook

To be frank; I’ve been pretty bad with wishing people “happy birthday” on Facebook. I seems like a chore… roughly every day is someone’s birthday. I barely log on or do a lot of interaction. So; I’d have to allocate time just to wish someone happy birthday… it seemed like too much work.

Well; I’ve changed my tune. I received a decent amount of birthday wishes today and to my surprise it warmed my heart. Since I’ve experienced it, I’m going to try a little harder to share the love.  So; thank you to all my friends and family that wished me happy birthday. It was well received.

Remainder of the Evening

After dinner, homemade ravioli, we had some cake and ice cream. I posted some pictures on Picasa and Facebook.

What a day! Today we had a small birthday party for Alexander, our 4-year-old son. His birthday was during the week, so we threw something together and invited some friends over. It was a good event, but very tiring. At the end of it, my wife and I were on our last leg.  Alex is really maturing and I’ve been enjoying him more for the past two weeks or so. He still has a temper, but when he’s not in “Hulk-smash” mode, he’s a great kid! My wife works really hard with him on rationalizing things so that forces me to do the same – it’s hard work thinking things out!

Right now, he’s into Star Wars (clone wars era) and Spiderman. So; we got him those kind of toys. I have some pictures posted on Flickr, but I have more to upload. Happy Birthday, son!

I pretty much enjoyed the day and I was rewarded with our DSL package coming in the mail earlier that day – so we have Internet at our new house! Sweet!

Achievements… That I Can Recall

• Has a healthy marriage. So far we’ve lasted 5 years and plan to continue.
• Somehow- I’ve obtained three beautiful children (3, 2, newborn).
• Had a vasectomy so I don’t obtain any more beautiful children.
• Home ownership – My wife and I bought a townhouse in Fairburn, GA on May 1st.
• Very low debt rate. I can only account that to my wife. I like my tech toys and pleasing my insatiability impulsive  characteristic.  Because of my wife’s discipline, I’ve been able to not get into frivolous debt.
• I have a real career! I’m actually considered a “professional” at something. My overall trade is web development and right now I work as the “Web Team Lead” for the National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases (NCZVED) at a government agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That looks pretty cool on my resume.
• I’m running Linux (Fedora) on my desktop as my full-time operating system. I dual-boot with Windows to play video games though.
• Found out that Star Wars Day is two days before my birthday and the original Star Wars was released May 25, 1977. Good things happen in May!
• …

Overall; I’m happy. My wife is talking about getting me a big screen television soon, so I’m even more happy. Things are looking up. So; enjoy yourself on my birthday. Everything’s on the house!

Anyway; HAPPY BIRTHDAY Jenelle!