Today at Pax Gearbox and 2K announced that Duke Nukem Forever is completed and will be released in 2011.  The game was thought to have been cancelled when 3D Realms closed their doors in 2009.  As it turns out however after 3D Realms closed their doors Gearbox Software took over development.  For the first time since development of the game started in 1997 a playable demo was available.  This was possibly some of the greatest news I could have received, I have been a fan of Duke Nukem since I was 12 and when the news of the game being completed came out, I freaked.  So have you ever played any of the Duke Nukem games?  Did you like them and are you excited for the newest installment?

Why Disqus?  In order to answer that there are first a few parts I need to talk about.  First off what is Disqus?  Disqus is a commenting system for blogs.  It is pretty robust and offers a lot of features, multi tiered comments as well as the ability to log in via Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo or OpenID make it very easy for anyone to comment.  It also offers a lot of options on the back end.

Now I would like to talk a little about the blog, I first started this site on Barakwontserve.com which was a collection of ramblings and every once in awhile I would get what I thought was a good idea and write about it.  I migrated the top five or so posts from that site to the one you are currently on.  Another thing I did was focused more on what it was I wanted to accomplish with this site.  I didn’t want it to be the normal, “So I did and I am doing this,” sort of thing I used to write and have seen elsewhere.  What I wanted to do was write about topics that I was interested in or would be a chore to write about so I could grow as a writer.  That is really what this is about, growing.  You can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results particularly with writing, so I have tried to push myself a bit as well as find my voice.  Sadly a lot of my comedy still hasn’t come out in my posts, but like anything in life it is a process.  So that’s just a little bit as to why this blog exists.

If you have any ideas for posts or things you would like me to write about you can suggest them via Twitter(@MikeyVB) or e-mail(you can find that under the Contact page).  If you leave it in the comments I might not see it, but the avenues I listed are sure fire ways to reach me.  What do you think of Disqus?  I wanted to give you as much of a voice as myself and I hope that you use it, I really do value your opinion.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes the Dreamcast has finally returned, well sorta.  On Sept. 15 Sega’s Dreamcast ports will make their way to Xbox Live, a PSN release is planned for a later date.  Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventures are the first titles planned and Sega will start rolling out other games from the Dreamcast library.  The games will include the same gameplay while adding higher resolution, leader board and achievements.  There hasn’t been a price announced yet ,though people are speculating 800 MS points ($10).  For those of you that don’t know the Dreamcast was the last console that Sega released back in 1999.  So are you as excited for this as I am?

Update: The $10 price has been confirmed.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is due out on 10/05/10 and I haven’t seen much promotion.  When I first saw the trailer for this game at E3 ’09 I was floored to say the least.  Since I started following it, it seems that it is only talked about at trade shows and even then it’s not positioned very prominently.  People that have played the game have said that it is very good, yet Konami isn’t really pushing it.  Maybe it is just me but it seems that whenever a Japanese publisher has a western development team behind one of their titles they assume it is going to fail and just send it off to the slaughter.  What do you think, have you seen this from other publishers as well?

Google is in talks with major hollywood studios to rent pay-per-view movies via YouTube.  The movies would be available for streaming the same day the DVD is released like the current setup with On-Demand.  Currently you can stream movies from Amazon, Apple and Vudu.  The price per rental that has been flying around is $5 which isn’t bad especially if you can stream it to your tv.  This type of service could become very popular as more and more people are making the move from cable to streaming content from the internet.  What do you think of this new service?

A local station here in San Antonio WOAI reported on two strange events this week.  With less than a day between the articles they reported on UFO captured by a motion camera and a women being attacked by a chupacabra.  Both events happened near Dallas, having lived in Texas all my life I can attest to some strange happenings, but it is however extremely rare for the media to pick up on them.  We have our share of ghost stories and UFO sightings and recently bigfoot and chupacabra sightings too.  I have never thought of Texas as a paranormal hot bed, but the recent events say otherwise.

I don’t know what attacked the lady and I don’t know what the motion camera captured.  The images that have come from these two events seem to speak pretty loudly though.  If you are a skeptic then you will likely write these off and if you are a believer then this might be justification, but no matter what your stance it is pretty weird.  So what kind of strange things have happened where you are from?

If you have never hit up the clearance section at Target you are sorely missing out.  I tend to pick up a lot of video games on the cheap thanks to the clearance section.  For example my brother picked up Tony Hawk Ride for $35 today it’s normally $70, I also picked up Naughty Bear for $25 instead of it’s normal $50.  You might be thinking, “yeah those are good prices, but still crap games.”  I used those examples to showcase what I have gotten recently, a few months after Heavenly Sword was released I picked it up for $15.  It really is a crapshoot, you never know what you will find but you will almost always find something.  So what has your experience with Target been?

Photo Credit: Paul Sakuma via syracuse.com

Isn’t it funny how much of an effect the little things have on life.  For example the new dryer came today an LG DLE1310w, I think I’m in love.  This is a huge upgrade from our previous dryer which would take two hours to dry a large load of clothes, the new one takes about fifty minutes.  I am extremely happy with this dryer the next purchase will probably be an accompanying washer.

Today a new FreeBirds World Burrito opened up at Plaza Del Norte (125 NW Loop 410, San Antonio, TX 78216).  The new location is much closer to my house and work, so it’s a win-win.  I am a huge fan of Freebirds and this new location is no exception.  Let me get off topic for a second, I tend to write about things I love or had a positive experience with, however I will write about bad experiences just the same.  It is important that you know above all else I will only write what I truly feel, I am not trying to sell you anything and I am not on any payroll or anything I have mentioned on the blog, I just feel compelled to write about it.  Now that I got that off my chest I would like to say that the new location feels really spacious and is a lot nicer than the one I am used to.  I received an e-mail this morning about how the store’s grand opening was today and checked it out on lunch and then again for dinner.  I enjoy the food and the atmosphere, I think I have pimped Freebirds enough, so I will leave it at that.  So what are some of your favorite restaurants?  I would love to hear about it in our brand new comments.

Last night I signed up for Hulu Plus.  I had gotten an invite a month or so ago, but being charged to be in a beta turned me off.  For some reason last night was different, maybe I just really wanted to check it out or maybe I was just really bored, either way I’m now a member.  There are some things however that I don’t really understand, like the lack of Syfy channel content.  I know they got content from the big networks, but seeing how Syfy is owned by Hulu’s parent company it would be nice to see some more of their content.  Another thing that is strange is when I was first reading about the new service there were pages of content, when I checked last night it showed me four pages and then said these are available on all devices even though I was on a computer, so maybe I missed something?  I would also like to point out that there are still commercials on Hulu Plus, I understand the need but they could at least show a few less or allow you to select the types of commercials that pertain to your situation like some other services do.  I am sure they are working to make it better but as of right now I don’t see anything that justifies $10 a month, unless you don’t have cable but if that’s the case then Netflix gets my recommendation, not Hulu Plus.  What has your experience with Hulu or Hulu Plus been?  Or do you have Netflix and don’t see the need, whatever you situation I would love to hear about it in the comments.

Photo Credit: Mac Daily News