I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Just when I think that I'm somehow less nerdy that I was before, I do something that not only fastens the geek badge to my chest, it shines it up and makes me puff my chest out. That's how I felt at 8 a.m. this (Sunday!) morning driving around to various Targets and WalMarts trying to get my hands on Nintendo's revision of it's workhorse handheld. I wouldn't have felt the nerdiness as pronounced if I didn't have company. When I wandered into Target, there're four other people awaiting the system's release. A father and his 10 year old kid, and a young Asian couple. The Target said that it would release on Tuesday instead of Sunday, despite people arguing that Nintendo's own website listed it as releasing today. (I heard the manager say that they sold some of the systems early, and Nintendo may have fined them and forced them to release it at a later date. Who knows.) So I headed back home, called around trying to find the system somewhere. Called a W

This is the first World Cup that I've paid attention to; I've seen matches in the past, but I didn't care at all. The reason I care now is sort of weird and embarassingly speaks to how much games influence my life. I've developed interests in my life from topics of videogames I've enjoyed. I've read Theodore Doge's books about Alexander the Great , Hannibal , and Julius Ceasar from working on the expansion pack for Rise of Nations . Started looking at Wassily Kandinsky's art after being mesmerized by Rez . Now I'm watching the World Cup thanks to Winning Eleven . The World Cup often has great matches. The lack of commercial breaks makes it a great viewing experience; games typically clock in only a few minutes later than the 90 minutes played. The level of enthusiasm of the crowd and the players on the field is nearly unmatched, even in the preliminary games. The tournament is quite short, so every game, every goal can have a drastic impact on how

Paul Barnett of Mythic Entertainment gives an inspired pitch for Warhammer Online. Barnett is a master; it is hard to watch his funny, involving, and informative spiel without getting excited about his game. Brilliant!

Friday afternoon, Don, Casey, and I were "testing" Sid Meier's Railroads multiplayer. The game involves laying down railroad track, building depots, buying and routing trains around to pick up goods at certain industries and deliver them elsewhere to make money. The way to win the scenario was by buying out all of your opponents' stock. Anyways, Casey was having a good game and I was having a bad one, and he bought me out pretty early on, with a complimentary "suck it!" when he purchased the last bit of my stock. When you buy out a player you get ownership of all their tracks, trains, and stations, but somehow I was still making money even though I was out of the game. It turns out when a buyout occured, the trains change owners but the train cars did not. So Casey's trains that were once mine weren't making him any money; in fact, they were actually losing money because he had to pay maintenance on all of them while I (a "dead player") wa