My time with Gamertag Radio has finally come to a close. I'll be honest, it's something that's been on my mind for a while. I guess it was a combination of things that lead to my departure and thankfully none of them are negative. Sometimes life changes and sometimes what you want chages but when you're working on a project like GTR with friends you have to treat it differently.

I'd say it started just before the summer but during the summer lots was on my mind. I went through some life changes this summer, for the better, and that left me analyzing many parts of my life. Since GTR was a big part of my life and very dear to me of course I had to take a look at that part of my life as well. I'll always love doing the shows for GTR, that's definitely the part that I'll miss the most, but it was all the other things that go along with that that made me leave. There's was a lack of motivation and inspiration to write for the site and continually contribute content on a regular basis. I really did step it up during E3 but that was something I did more out of respect for Godfree and the rest of the crew. I couldn't be there at E3 because I was going through some "life things" and I felt really horrible about that. Although I should point out that no one at GTR made me feel that guilt, they were all nothing but supportive.

Then there's the changes that GTR wants to go through in order to grow. I was never unaware of my lack of contributing to GTR so that probably helped in the end. How can I help GTR grow when I was already not helping out? Was I even in favor of the things they wanted to do in order to grow? Doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity so I'm glad change has and will continue to come. I just questions whether I can really be a part of that change or if I even wanted to.

So combine the fact that I knew I wasn't contributing to GTR with questioning if I even wanted to be doing this and it should be very easy to see why things worked out the way that they did. Did I make the right decision? I'm not sure, but I think I made the best decision I could. I can't afford myself the luxury of being able to endlessly debate how I feel and what I want to do when if effects people I respect and care about.

Will I continue to update this blog? Good question...

So I missed out on E3 this year, I'll admit that did suck just a little. It really wasn't my fault though. The ESA didn't send me my invitation to E3 until 7/1, yes that's two weeks before the event itself. Problem was that by that time it was too close to make the arrangements, and to be honest I had other personal obligations by that point. While I did miss a lot by not being there, it didn't sound like E3 was that great. Hopefully this isn't the last one, I'd like to be at the last one for some odd reason so maybe that will be next year. Onto the future, and the future is PAX. That's coming up soon, it's just a little more than a month away now. I hoping it will be better than last year, even though last year was awesome. The one thing is that the role of media at PAX is a bit hard to define. With E3 just one before it's hard to know what's expected of us and how companies feel about our presence. Some seem to not really care in fact, but with the convention growing every year and E3 declining I'm hopeful. I guess I'll just have to wait and see, either way it's fun. Great chance to see the friends I only see a few times per year, or once a year in some cases. Oh well, see ya there.

As if not blogging since PAX wasn't pathetic enough, I finally reached over 10,000 for my gamerscore.  I'll admit, I have earned more than this across multiple profiles, but it's still nothing impressive.  I'm just finally happy that I made my main account hit the five figure mark.  I guess a lot of it had to do with my Fight Night Round 3 addiction.  I wasn't getting any achievements because I've been playing the same game over and over.  Oh well, it's finally, time to nap.

First of all I see that there are new people subscribing to the RSS feed of my blog.  I assume you're new, or you realized I was blogging again, so welcome or welcome back.

We've all come down from that beautiful natural high we experienced at PAX.  I know I can't be the only one missing it, but in some ways it's nice to be home.  The harmony and good nature of the event and community are really hard to understand if you weren't there, but trust me when I tell you it was beautiful in a way.  Instant friendships were forged, and there was just this general understanding that we were all there for the same thing and it brought everyone together.  So if you're like me and feeling a little less than thrilled to be back at work then maybe I can help cheer you up with a few cool items.

Halo 3, oh how we love you.  The release of Halo 3 is around 4 weeks away, that's got to get you pumped.  How can that not excite you?  If four weeks is too far into the future to look then how about this?  Blue Dragon is released this week, I'm no RPG fan but for those who are this is a huge title.  If you haven't already please go download the demo and see for yourself.  Finally the Call of Duty 4 public beta sign ups went down, now you too can get in on the fun.  If you get your token look for me, I'll be playing that this week since last week's gaming got cut short by my travels.

Just a friendly reminder, the Community Gamerpics are available for free download on Xbox Live Marketplace.  You can choose the logo from one of six Gamercast Network shows or the Gamerscoreblog logo.  Please download and use the pics.  While it's great for us to be the first community content on marketplace I'd hate to be the only.  The success of this venture will determine what is done in the future.  Sorry if the blog was short, or not all that interesting, I'm trying to ease into this non-PAX blogging thing.  

I think the title really says it all.  PAX was and is all about the community.  I did more community networking at this event than posting on forums and going to other events could do in years.  The thing is, there's just this understood bond between Xbox community members.  I met Kikikat my first night at PAX, I'd seen her on the forums for years, yet she didn't know me at all.  However after 15 minutes we were like old friends.  The same went for Ooopy and Syn, it was just a thing of beauty to see the community come together in the way it did for PAX.  This even relates to Xbox employees.

I had an awesome time with the Xbox team.  First of all the Marketing Team continued to be awesome.  John was just there for us, Tony kept us up to date on things, Chris was there on all levels, and Sara was just Sara and awesome.  I love those folks, they may work for one the largest corporations around, but they get it.  Then there's Trixie, now I get how KP is her little helper monkey.  She's just so much fun, and you want to be a part of that silliness.  Throughout PAX I let Trixie put a pink tiara on me, make me makeshift pink dress, put lip glopss on me (which I wasn't so willing to do but it was funny at the end of the day), and allowed her to pretend to beat me and actually twist me nipple on cam for the GSB peoples.   It's like not matter who from I meert from the Xbox team they end up being just what they seem to be.  However I have to give Trixie special mention for just being so silly and so much fun.  The few moments of just being goofy were equal to in memorability to the curious looks that Diva gave me.  I'm almost forced to say that Gamerchix rock. 

As for the rest of the community, damn, it was great.  It's just flattering to have influential community members, and Xbox employees, know who I am.  On day one I had about five people ask me if I had seen Knuckles Dawson.  Why they thought I knew where he was I don't know, must be our mutual investment in the world of Xbox.  But then when when I saw Knuckles, for probably the thrid time, at PAX he stopped me and was like "Feelz Good, What's up?"  This and other events just prove that Xbox Live really is a community.

Shouts outs to the following, and if I miss your name or site please correct me:  Tony, Chris, John, Sara, Trixie, Kiki, Forsakeme4all, Knuckles, DaKing240, Avid X, GodfatherX,  All Games, Carpal and the crew, Chrissylas306 (I only talked to you  little but we're connected, Twitter friends 4life), Syn, Ooopy, Drea, Dave, Morgon, Zack, Harmonix (you rocked at E3 and PAX), Eidos (Kane & Lynch looks cool, and you were so cool)  D3 Publisher America (you've been good to us, and Dark Sector looks awesome), Natalie from Achievement Junkie (just because I met you and you're real, Nelson is the man too) JVB and Vicious (cuz you're stupid and didn't come), Gamercastnetwork.com, Sarcasticgamer.com, UncleGamer.com, VGS.org, Podtacular.com, damn I know I'm missing people.  Bobby Blackwolf, Obey, Joystiq, GayGamer, hell even the Frag Dolls.  Special shout out to Bioware for the Mass Effect demo, but the demo at E3 was way better.  I'm a part time Krogan Battle Master. HAHA.  To any I missed I'm so sorry, because I love the whole event and I love everyone I met.  Oh, special props to Randy Kouture for kicking butt at age 44, you're holding it down homie.  I really want to see you got at it with Krokop or Fedor, like you or anyone even connected to MMA will ever see this...

Peace and love to all, look for more PAX stuff later, time to get into travel mode.  Also this isn't the end of my blog, it's the rebirth.  I'll continue to update post-PAX with just generally crazy gaming related things.  I like it like that.  Oh, and shout to Heather Paladino for being just as much of a smartass in person as she is on the GCN forums.  It was cool to meet you Mrs CPal. 

To be honest, I didn't do much in terms of playing games today.  Most of the games at PAX I've played at E3.  If you really have questions feel free to ask me on Windows Live Messenger, email is galaxaphonic@aol.com.  This whole event has been all about networking and meeting community folks.

I woke up very late as I said today, I had way too much fun the night before.  I had a good amount of fun tonight as well so it follows suit.  I was on the show floor, Godfree and Tom got to meet with Gametrailers so that was awesome.  There was also the panel on podcasting and blogging that Godfree was on and he held it down.  While I wish I could've been up there, since I'm so into the podcasting community, Godfree did a damn good job at representing us all, friend or foe.

Sadly, today for me was all about UFC 74.  I'm a huge MMA fan, did martial arts all my life, even competed in 4 non-professional mma fights.  I hate it, don't worry, not a time to sing my own praises, I sucked.  However I was able to find someone to watch the fights with me. Obey from the GCN forums wanted to see it so we met up and did that.  After the fights we still hung out and had some good times.  Drinks were consumed, crazy fun times happened, and it was great.  Gotta give a shout out to Obey, cuz it was awesome.

Tomorrow is the day I've gotta get to work and cover games.  The first day we did some interviews, but yesterday we didn't do much, even though Godfree did hold it down and get there on time.  I was late, sorry, I like to party when the chance presents itself.  So you can look for lots of interviews coming up from GTR, because while I love to enjoy these events it is work.  I might not get payed, or get recognized (Gofree is the face of GTR, rock on you internet celeb) it's what I do and love.  I love to bring any info I can to the community.  The thing is that at the end of the day, I'm just a community member like anyone else.  Sure I may qualify as media and press, but I'm no different than you.  I just love the fact that I get a chance to deliver info to people from that perspective.  It's all about the gaming community, MS gets it, EA gets it, Activisions gets is, but more importantly I get it.  I do what I do for people like me. Not to appease companies, get my name out there and be recognized, or to be some internet celebrity.  For me, it's all about the community.  You're/I am the people that matter, and nothing will change that..

I knew the background story to this game before I ever played it, and the story alone is enticing.  I have to say if you're a graphics whore then this game probably isn't for you.  The graphics are on par and all, but for a game that's been in development for as long as K&L has I'd expect more.  Although in all honest the gameplay might make up for that.

The thing about K&L is that the gameplay really does seem to mesh together what shooters have become.  You're either a run and gun kind of guy/girl or you're in the tactical side of things.  While the run&gun strategy does prove to be effective with K&L, it's not the only aspect.  Sure, the developer wants to bill the game as the perfect melding of the two world of shooters, but it's not.  The two aforementioned strategies are imortant, but it's not quite perfect.  However it is a lot closer to perfect than we're seen in the past.  The game can draw in the "I want to kill people" shooter fan and the "let's have this person go here and the other two go there to flank their squad" gamer. 

As per usual, I hate to judge a game off of build, and thus I won't.  Thought I will say if you favor graphics over gameplay then Kane and Lynch might not be you game.  The thing is, it is a balance between tactics and run and gun games.  That's what they're going for and they achieved it.  The only thing is it could've been done better, but K&L is definitely a step in the right direction for shooters.

Wow, day 1 was crazy, at least the night was.  I played some cool games which I'll blog about later.  Also, last night there was a party for Trixie over at GameWorks.  Things definitely got a little out of hand, but a good time was had.  I got a late start today, but one thing I saw and played was the Scene it demo.

Now if you don't know what Scene It is it's a movie trivia game that has its own special controller.  One large button at the top, and A B X Y below vertically.  I'd never played or even seen the game before but I was interested.  Things kicked off with the demo being presented by none other Tony "The Godfather" Hynes.  There were a couple of different games we got to see.  Fill in the blank movie lines, what's missing from this still of a movie, a short video clip then trivia on it, and children's drawings of movie scenes and you have to name the movie.  All were fun, but the children's drawings game was tough. 

Overall I liked the game, it seems like one of those casual games you can get all competitive playing, especially with friends.  There were some issues with the game, but because this isn't a finalized version I won't go into them.  One glitch was so obvious that there isn't any way they won't fix it.  Everyone playing had fun with it, even when they/I were doing horribly.  This was a game that interested me but I never planned on getting, now I might consider picking it up.  It's just good clean fun.

So I got to play Rock Band again, it's been like a month and a half since E3 so I've been itching to play.  I of course got a chance to play the drums, as usual, but I tried out vocals for the first time.  I was actually really surprised with how easy it was.  Most people are playing on Easy or Medium, I chose medium because how hard can it be to sing?  I've never played a singing rythm game before, yet I somehow managed to get 89%, way to go me.  Overall the game is everything you'll expect.  You have no hope of playing the drums if you lack rhythm, it's just not going to happen.  So if you know you don't have it, don't even try.  You've still got hope with the guitar, base, and singing though.  If all I can have is Halo 3, Rock Band, and Mass Effect I'll die happy.

Well apparently today media wasn't supposed to get in one hour early, but we managed to find someone who didn't get that memo and escorted us right to the floor. Of course we went straight to Microsoft's booth, and they were still setting up.  It's nice to get see a little of the pre-PAX stuff, though they've been working on it forever now.  Now you might be wondering how I got PWND and who did it.

After hanging out a little and talking with Chris and Tony from Gamerscoreblog the Gamerchix, or at least their leaders, arrived.  They had all kinds of purple and pink goodies, including a fuzz pink lava lamp which I helped to unwrap.  You'd think with me helping them they'd say thanks Feelz, you're the best.  Nope, I was then given a tiara that says princess on it and fluffy pink stuff.  I thought that was funny, in fact I'm still wearing it.  Then Trixie got another great idea, why no take the pink plastic tablecloth, wrap it around me like a dress (I still don't know why it needed to tucked into my underwear Trix, but it's cool).  The Trixie ran around me with packing tape about 5 five time to ensure it would stay on.  So there I am an in a impromptu dress and tiara.  There are tons of pics of it, in fact the official PAX cameraman came over to get video of that, so it could show up in the PAX dvd.

Actually I wouldn't say I got pwnd, because I had fun with it.  I always enjoy Diva messing with me, and Trixie is more than welcome to be added to that list.  Of course hers doesn't make me feel stupid.  Next will be game impressions.  I've checked out Dark Sector, Kane and Lynch, and about to go play Rockband.  This is so great.

Welcome to the craziness that is my blog.  I'm here in my hotel room, about 5 blocks from the convention center, and the PAX show floor opens to the public in apx. 3 hours.  However I have a media badge, so I get in a hour early.  I plan to wonder the show floor playing games and meeting even more awesome community members today.  I know that we (GTR) have some appointments today, and guess what huge game we have an appointment to play and talk about at 4:30pm?  ROCK BAND.  While I've already played it I look forward to getting some more time with it.  So look for some info on that game later today. 

Just because the show floor hasn't opened yet doesn't mean nothing's been going on.  I know you want to know about all the pre-PAX from yesterday.  After endless hours of traveling I finally made it to my hotel and got settled in.  The internet here works pretty good, that's a huge plus.  Last night I went out to dinner with a bunch of community members, only two of which I'd ever met.  Trixie even stopped by and hung out with us for a while, she's always fun.  Others from 360Style.net, 360Achievements.com, The Blue Skittle were on hand for the fun.  We ate, drank, and were generally merry.  After that it was back to their hotel to hang out, record some videos for GTR Vision, and general "fun".  Roaming the hotel we ran into lots of community and industry folks, it's weird.  There's always this understood bond with gamers, after one minute of talking it's as though you're old friends.

I left the hotel sometime after 1am, and that's where the one funny thing happened.  I'm not at all familiar with Seattle but I figure I can navigate cities.  Unfortunately I left the hotel out of a different door than I came in.  So I walked about 6 blocks in the wrong direction and had no clue where I was.  Thank God people here are nice, two guys on bikes walked with me to get me back on track.  I found the convention center and was soon back in my hotel room.  On a side note this hotel has the most comfy bed I've ever slept in, props to Hotel Max.  Anyways...check back later for more.

I had someone ask me that a few weeks back and I unfortunately said yes.  I say it's unfortunate because I can't for the life of me figure out what to do with this blog ever since I joined Gamertag Radio.  I can't really post news, and my general commentary I try to reserve for the show.  Right now I'd love to tell everyone what I think of the whole HDMI situation, but I know that will come up Sunday night.  I've at least found one purpose for my blog, PAX.

In addition to interviews, video streaming, and podcasting with GTR I'm going to use the blog as a general PAX rant.  Rant may not be the best word because of the negative connotation, but it's the best I could come up with.  I'll basically try to convey the experience of being at PAX and the crazy situations I'm sure to encounter.  So in a mere two weeks you'll start to see much more content on here, provided the internet in Seattle is better than it was in Santa Monica.  Until then I'm just going to continue doing what I do and hopefully start playing my 360, instead of other consoles, more.

The thing I miss about blogging is saying whatever the hell I want.  I've never really been limited with the things I've posted on GTR, but I want to keep things civil to some extent with the content over there.  So allow me to take the time to say Peter Moore leaving Microsoft is comepletely assed out.

I'm not mad at Peter Moore, well I am but I know I shouldn't be, since he's leaving for personal reasons.  If this move is benficial to his personal life in a way other than he gets more money I totally understand.  My real issue with this is the timing, E3 just ended.  I just watched you give a speech about how Xbox 360 is the best thing since string cheese (yes string cheese eclipsed sliced bread long ago for those of you who didn't get that memo) and now you're working in a multi-platform environment?  That just doesn't make sense.  I would've thought that Peter Moore's presence at E3 would be downplayed if they knew he was leaving.  Honestly I'm just ranting right now because I still can't believe it and I'm just plain not happy. 

There is an actual issue to be discussed here.  Microsoft's inability to maintain and keep a public figure at the executive level who represents Xbox.  So far we've been through J Allard and now Peter Moore.  Now if you want to point out that J still works at Microsoft I know, but if you know me I don't like the Zune so I could care less.  The thing is there are people at Sony and Nintendo who stick around and are the face of those companies for years.  I do realize that Microsoft has public personalities.  You've got the Xbox.com team, specifically Trixie and Major Nelson, and the Gamerscoreblog crew has really stepped up in the last year or so.  It just seems like there's no "face of Xbox", and I think Microsoft needs that.

Allow me to grieve in my own way, I appologize.

So I've been thinking of reviving the blog for quite some time now, but I'm still unsure as to whether I'll actually have the time to maintain it.  Then I think of some other people blogging on Windows Live Spaces and I know I can at least keep pace with them.  I doubt anyone even checks my blog anymore, but there may be a few RSS feed subscribers who end up seeing this. Don't looks to this blog for gaming news, because that's not happening.  I will definitely comment on gaming, but my life in general will slowly work its way into my entries.

So to get started I'm back from E3 and that means back to work.  Thankfully work is just as slow as it was when I left, but I keep taking off when new equipment is brought in.  That makes things a little harder because I don't get the official training on it, but I can manange.  I guess for now I'll just have to countdown the days until PAX, and the release of Rock Band.  That game is seriously awesome.  I'm sure I"ll end up sucking at it just like I do at all games, but at least I'll enjoy it.  Oh well, just testing the waters to see if anyone's out there.  Take it easy.

So here's a general message to my friends list, as I don't want to send some stupid mass message and the people this applies to will likely see this at some point.  Stop sending me messages and invites for Halo 2.  I haven't played Halo 2 in over a year.  If you want me to play Halo 2 with you wait til April 17th when the new maps come out, cuz I'll be down. 

Just because I accepted your random friend request doesn't mean I'll jump at the chance to play with you.  In fact if I don't know who you are you should get on the game I'm playing and try to play with me.  Yes I accept the random requests, but no I'm not going to stop playing what I'm playing to hang out with you.  I don't mean to sound rude, but you're clogging up my message box.  I have 98 friends, and I"m always getting friend requests, give me a break.

I know, and hopefully you know, Gamertag Radio Episode 92 was released earlier this week.  If it happens that you somehow haven't heard it then you might want to check it out.  On this week's episode we've got an exclusive interview with Treyarch, developer of Spiderman 3.  The game and movie both look sick, so you should really check it out.

Listen to GTR Episode 92

While most people are used to me complaining and being negative on my blog that's not going to happen, well sort of.  First off props to Microsoft of the painless rapair of my Xbox 360.  While yes it sucked that my 360 broke, and not having it to play was horrible, overall the rapair process was good.  MS recieved my console, sent a replacement unit, and everything is now making its way back to being normal.

Now allow me to be cocky and tell everyone to piss off.  Today the Xbox 360 Elite was announced/confirmed.  While you won't find a post on my blog specifically about the third sku I've talked about it at some point.  You can find me telling people about a third sku over a year ago both here and on the Xbox.com forums as well as other various forums.  No one believed me, everyone thought I was just making things up.  It doesn't matter that I knew about the third sku far before the launch of the Xbox 360.  Even the fact that I knew there were 2 sku's at the launch far before the announcement of the core and premium versions didn't matter to anyone.  I point this out because this announcement just proves that you should trust me.  When I get rumors from other websites I'll state that they're rumors and unconfirmed.  The thing is when I hear from someone from Microsoft about their plans yes I'll say it's a rumor, but I'll tell you it's firsthand knowledge.  So stop doubting me when I come through with a rumor that someone told me, just deal with the fact that I know what's up and you don't. 

Yeah that's right, I said it.  I'm seriously starting to get worried about getting my 360 back.  First off they rescheduled my delivery date for tomorrow, that's fine I guess.  My real problem is they're just slow as hell.  Here, tell me I'm crazy.

PHILADELPHIA, PA,  US	03/25/2007	1:31 P.M.	ARRIVAL SCAN
DALLAS/FT. WORTH A/P, TX,  US	03/24/2007	11:36 A.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
MC ALLEN, TX,  US	03/22/2007	7:24 P.M.	DEPARTURE SCAN
	03/22/2007	2:19 P.M.	ORIGIN SCAN
US	03/21/2007	8:59 A.M.	BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

So MS had the thing ready to ship on 3/21 at 9am, but UPS didn't begin processing it til  2:19pm the next day.  The UPS guy visits the building I work in like 4 times a day, I put a package outside on a shelf and it's gone.  Here's my second problem, it's sitting in Philly.  What, you couldn't just send it to DC?  There wasn't a truck or plane coming to DC?  I find that hard to believe.  Oh, and why the hell is is still sitting in Philly?  It's one day later and my 360's chillin in Philly.  I'd be willing to go get the damn thing, Philly's like 2 hours from here.  Come on people.  I know I'm not getting it tomorrow, I can already see this happening.. It felt nice to vent. 

Well I'm glad to report that my 360 was recieved yesterday by the repair center and a new one was shipped out today.  Ok, it probably isn't new, or even my unit, but I'll take a refurb.  The package should arrive in 2-5 days, hopefully this whole ordeal is over for the most part.

Not that anyone reads my blog anymore but I might as well update my repair status.

All in all in repair status as of now has been pretty good, nothing like the horror stories I see all over the net.  My console was set to arrive on Monday March 19 and being the idiot I am I forgot to go to FedEx.com to check the shipment status.  Since I'm at work I naturally don't have the tracking number with me, not a problem, I have the reference number from Microsoft.  So I figure I'll call up 1-800-4MY-XBOX and get some help to see if they got it.  Now here's the thing, they don't know.  It's not that they've lost track of it or anything that should be seen negatively, it takes their system 48 hours to update.  So if I call back tomorrow or the next day they should be able to help me.

Fine, I guess I'm ok with that, and Courtney was friendly so that's cool.  I'm just a little bit surprised that it takes 48 hours for things to update.  24 hours?  Ok maybe I'd get that, but you're freakin Microsoft.  You invented Windows, well actually you stole the idea from Xerox but that's neither here no there, I would just expect things to be a little more advanced there.