Earlier in October I preordered the game Call of Duty Black Ops II with credit I received from trade in of my old games I no longer used to Gamemine. This last Tuesday the game was released but the game was not sent to me by Gamemine. I tried calling Gamemine at 561-939-8052 but only get a voicemail box which I have left messages, but they do not respond. I have tried to leave a message on their website about the problem but that system does not seem to work as well as their email customerservice@gamemine.com. So they have the games I traded to them and are not sending the game I preordered.

I tried them as a alternative to Gamefly and if you don't live next to one of their distribution centers you could wait a long time for a game. Took about a week or so to get a game for me. Not sure what I was thinking trading some games to them if I wasn't happy with their rental business... But since they had some higher than normal trade prices for some games I thought...

Went down to my local Blockbuster tonight to see if I could pick up the most recent game Brink and it was explained to me that due to bankruptcy that this has messed with their purchasing and they did not get any new movies or games today. Wow, we only have one Blockbuster after the other one in town closed and this is gonna kill them.

They couldn't really give me any idea when they might get any new games/movies and I tried to get a refund on my gamepass since without the opportunity to get new games it seems like a waste to keep it. They said they couldn't but I knew that was not true since the last store that closed had my gamepass was able to refund me a pro-rated amount so I could pick up my gamepass at the store that survived. Hopefully I can talk to the manager tomorrow and see what is gonna happen in the future with this store.

After loosing my gameplan with Hollywood Video after they closed and now Blockbuster having troubles with getting new games...

Yesterday I got to meet the American Pickers, they were appearing at the National Motorcycle Museum in Anamosa Iowa. I've been on a roll after seeing the Pawn Stars Tours a couple months ago. I didn't really know what to expect crowd wise but I think everyone was surprised by the turnout. I knew things were gonna be crazy when the whole parking lot was full and they were pushing snow off one of the nearby lawns for extra space. So we got inside and this is what we found.

The museum's free space was pretty much filled with people, we were able to get up to Frank and Mike in about two hours. I have to say that Mike was the nicest guy and exactly what you would expect if you were watching the show. Frank was pretty quiet but things were pretty crazy there with all the people so it may have been kinda overwhelming.

I was hoping that like the Pawn Stars Show I went to they may have some time for questions but with a line of people out...

I know things are not that great with the economy but when I saw this story on my local news channel it made me wonder how bad things could get.

Link to story and video

Second link I found to the story

This Gamestop just opened a few months ago and I guess someone decided to make their own cyber monday deal and robbed the store in ski mask by gunpoint yesterday. I know that the local convenience stores have been a popular target lately for robbers but how much cash can be in the till on Monday afternoon at this store? Also this strip mall has two used video game shops and the other one called Video Games Etc. must have been breathing a sigh of relief since if could have easily been their store the gunman walked into.

Anyway, just weird news...

Last week I got the chance to meet a couple of people from one of my favorite television shows the Pawn Stars at the local Casino. Didn't have anything very interesting to trade so I just went along to enjoy the show and what other's brought. The question and answer session with Corey and Chumlee was interesting and worth the trip right there.

But once the road show started and the people started going up and trying to sell their stuff is where things got slow and boring for most. Overall the show wasn't planned very well and felt thrown together. They didn't have a set up for the order when people would go on stage and the bedsheet for a screen to project images and video during the show was a nice touch... About 30 minutes into the whole thing a lot of the people sitting around me were bored and started to leave. I did stick around long enough to meet the pawn stars to say hi and get a autograph. All in all the show was okay but a little more...

Over this Christmas my wife's checking credit card # was stolen and while we only had one purchase made of $300 on it before it was caught it still sucked being the holidays and all. So this morning when I got a call from my credit card company to verify some possible fraudulent purchases I started to freak even before the call was ended.

Relieved to find out that my Steam purchases are what triggered the alert. I've bought stuff before but this last sale I purchased more than usual I guess(who can pass on Trine for $4 and Torchlight for $5?) Don't get me wrong since my experience this Christmas I would like them to be more proactive. Wonder if anyone else has had this happen.

I just had to make this inspirational poster after the reaction my friend had from his wife after purchasing the Millennium Falcon at Toys R Us. Suppose I was brought along for his voice of reason but I'm not any good at that. 50% off I thought, what the hell, do it man! He just looked sooooo damn happy I had to take a picture.

After my last blog post about my Xbox dying I finished up Halo 2 for Vista and was about to dust off my old copy of Battlefield 1942 and fire it up and I noticed the Indie deal running this weekend for 10 games at the great price of $30. Must have been put there to keep me in games till the busted Xbox returned.

I've really enjoyed Braid, Everyday Shooter and World of Goo and hope to get some more time to try out The Path next which I heard is a really cool horror game. I'm trying not to spend to much time on one so I enjoy them all before it's back to my Xbox games.

I'm going to have to keep I eye on steam more in the future and not miss out on the deals they have here and there. Anyway, if anyone wants to add another friend on Steam let me know my player name is the same as here mrnivek.

My Ipod has to be the one possession that I really couldn't live without and last Friday when I dropped it at the gym and cracked the lcd screen I was pretty upset. I dropped it after realizing someone had wiped their snot on one of the machines I started to use. I almost went out and bought a new one right there and then but money is tight these days so I decided to give fixing it myself a shot for $35 in parts.




I'm not a real handy person so this was a stretch for me. At first it was a bit stubborn to open but with the tools I got from the lcd replacement kit it worked pretty good. After cracking it open and figuring out what went to where and how the little ribbons are attached things went pretty smooth and the lcd slipped right out.




After getting the new lcd slipped back in and getting everything reattached I turned it on and it worked to my surprise. But unfortunately the click wheel slightly came out...

The week of E3 is pretty fun for me, what's not to like with all the game podcasts dropping daily to keep you up on what was interesting at E3 and the first look at all the games your going to be playing later in the year. One of the most interesting I heard so far is the Giant Bombcast one for day 3 with Paul Barnett that gave a interesting behind the scenes on some things that happened at E3, definitely check it out!

I've been trying to catch up on all the shows from G4 I recorded and so far have gotten through the Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft and not too far thru the Sony and Nintendo conferences. Not a hater but just don't own those systems due to money being tighter these days.

Microsoft had a great press event and did all they needed to do, showed me all sorts of cool games and a little taste of what would happen in the future.

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Last Friday me and the wife visited one of the local casinos to eat out and on the way out just threw a $20 in one of the machines and won $367. I wasn't excited at first because it was one of those newer machines with some weird and complicated payout systems.

Not the old bar, cherry and jackpot symbol that I'm used to. Hell, the last time I went gambling they still used coins. Felt a bit stupid when I first asked a teller for some coins and the lady said, "sir we haven't used those in awhile!"

Anyway it felt pretty good to win once, I always enter those contests here at CAG and other gaming websites in the off chance I win a free game or something with no luck. I should be good and save the money for a vacation this summer but it's going to be hard with the Gamestop 3 for the price of 2 sale and Best Buy $10 game sale...

I don’t own a Wii but this is the first game I have played that has made me want to purchase that system. I rented this from the local video store and shared playing it with one of my friends who has a Wii. Finally got him to pop that Wii Sports game out of the machine since he bought it. He was pretty surprised after the mature rated game really got going.

First off I love the music and look of the game, black and white with the blood contrasting in red really made me think of Frank Miller and the Sin City books. Second, the raunchy commentary between the announcers John Di Maggio the voice of Futurama’s Bender and Who’s Line is it Anyway’s Greg Proops was very funny. Can’t tell you how many times we just burst out laughing from what was said or trying to make sure that is really what they said.

Finally, I just have to say the game is fun. Not for the...

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