I used to love FPS games; but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve lost most of my taste for them. Probably because my reaction time is down and I’ve had less spare cash for PC upgrades to be able to run modern FPS games.

I’m also a bit cheap so I don’t tend to go for the latest console systems. Though I did end up buying a Wii last year and have been enjoying it greatly. Specially the Lego games (Lego Star Wars, Lego Indian Jones, etc..).

I’ve also played Rock Band/Guitar Hero at friends’ places and enjoyed those as well but haven’t picked up it yet (cheap + pricey controllers = delay in buying).

In response to Do You Game? by Shawn Powers.

Do any of my readers game? If so what do you like to play?

I used to love playing video games and would waste entire days doing nothing else, but over the last couple of years I’ve started slipping away from that hobby. The expense of keeping my computer updated to handle the latest games combined with the pain I’d get in my wrists just kind of killed the fun. Particularly since I wasn’t seeing a lot of new games to keep up my interest. Well, if the game behind this trailer plays anywhere close to as good as it looks; then I’ll be back to burning the midnight oil to lay waste to the enemy. *grin*

You see, one of my all-time favorite video games was the original Team Fortress mod for Half-Life. The class choices, mayhem and fun were an unbeatable combination1. Then as other mods were developed further; Valve announced they were going to go all out on making TF2. This was 5 years ago and was the last we heard from Valve about it. At least the last we heard until this month when they released the official trailer for TF2. The new character models are wicked cool and oddly enough something about the trailer reminds me of No One Lives Forever (another great video game).

Just wow! I cannot think of any better description of how cool this trailer looks. Go on, hit the link and watch it yourself!

1 At least I’ve always thought so, but others have preferred that POS called Counter-Strike.

Today, I have to travel to my company’s home office to teach a class. The day before I’m supposed to drive over I find I’ve got a voice mail. As I do 99.9999% of my job either via emails, IMs or F2F, this in itself was extremely odd. Then I listened to the message and found out it was a sales manager from dealership where we bought the new car.

It turns out that they want to borrow the car for a bit to have to their insurance people look it over (since it was on the lot at the time of the tornados hitting Iowa City). I thought this more than a little odd. As I was busy getting ready for my trip to the home office, I kind of blew off the message. Then this morning, I got another call from the dealership asking for the car again. I called the guy back and explained that I’m driving out of town today. He said it should really only take about 20 minutes and they’d give the car a wash while they had it. He also said they’d bring a loaner by for me, just in case.

I agreed to let him do it and then immediately got a tad nervous about it. I checked their website and found him on it. A little bit later our receptionist called and said a guy from the dealership was here. I went up to the front desk and the only person around was a scrawny looking kid. But he was wearing a sweatshirt with the dealership’s name & logo on it. Then he held out a key to him and we walked to the parking lot. The key was to a 2005 Volkswagen Passat. The stationwagon version. With a dealer’s plate in the back window, a sales sticker on the same. I felt a lot better about giving him my key and took him to my car. He drove off, and I hopped into the Passat for a quick peek.

Oh my God! The wagon is fully loaded with all the goodies Volkswagen has to offer. Now I feel slightly cheated in that I won’t get to drive this puppy for my trip. Don’t get me wrong, I love our new car and our new car does have more gadgets in it than any car I’ve ever owned. But still, that Passat sitting outside if so dang plush and luxurious. I could definitely enjoy driving that card. 😀 Oh well, at least I’m getting a free car wash. Though, now that I think about it; I’m wondering if I should have asked them to top off the gas tank. With gas at $2.84/gallon, that would have been a nice bit of savings for me. *shrug* That’s probably being a little greedy and they’ve been good to me already.