At long last the web site has all the sectiond completed. Tonight, the Old School is open. Remember the fun of Rock, Em, Sock 'Em Robots. Reviews of The Last Samurai and Mystic River coming soon.

A review of Big Fish has been posted. Coming this weekend is my first virtual reality column in the Gameroom as well as a review of The Last Samurai. And finally, I hope to get the Old School section designed. I'll hold off on the details for now. And that's the update segment of our show today.

I need a little help from you XP techies. I compressed the files on my C drive the other day. I tried to run a game last night and no luck. Tried a different game and it was ok. SO, I rebooted. XP says there was an error and wants to send a report to MS. I cancelled that out and tried the troublesome game again. Got much farther but then encountered a directx problem. Thinking I screwed something up, I tried to auto restore which also caused the system to pop up a problem report for MS. If I can't auto restore, what are my options? Do I need to reinstall directX, XP, etc? [Discuss in the forums]

If you don't live in Northeast Ohio, be very glad. We are having the worst weather I've seen in a long time. The last time the weather was this bad, I was still in grade school and was out of school for nearly a week. Everything is iced over and the snow is coming. Unfortunately, the only way I can get out of work is if the roads are closed. If it keeps raining/freezing, that might happen. Chances are slim with all the salt they have. I'm sure driving home will be a real treat. I just LOVE driving when it takes an hour to drive 8 miles. [Discuss in the forums]

Another week is here which means more updates. The Gameroom has been opened. Inside you will find some news on Nintendo's new system. Expected this week are reviews for Big Fish and The Last Samurai. Talk about the new Nintendo system, people talking during a movie and the RIAA suing anonymous users in the message boards. And, don't forget about this week's trivia.

So much for planning a schedule. I had intended to post a review for Bad Santa and put up new trivia questions on Monday, but my body had other plans. Thanks to a herniated disc, my back has been killing me since Monday morning for no apparent reason. I can't do much for it other than rest and take some pain killers. So, I can't make any promises on when updates will be done. If things work my way, I'll post the review tonight and hopefully update the Trivia section, but it looks like the Gameroom will be closed until the weekend. Any one interested in submitting strategy articles for your favorite games, let me know. Send me an e-mail. [Discuss in the forums]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DAD!

A review of Cold Mountain is available. Trivia questions will be updated tomorrow, sop be sure to get those answers in. A review of Bad Santa will be posted tomorrow or Tuesday and the Gameroom will be open by the end of the week.

Thanks to all of you that have posted to the messageboards. Keep it up. It's good to get some quality debates going. It's a chance to talk to people you've never met before and for friends to keep in touch.

If you see any problems with the site (bad links, illegible text, etc.), please be sure to report them.

Home sweet home. How wonderful it is to trudge through 6 inches of snow and temperatures in the mid teens. As if that weren't enough, the maintenance staff lets the snow pile up everywhere. Apparently the thought of lawsuits appeal to them as the steps are constantly icy and/or snowy. When I came home today they were clearing the sidewalk for the first time since 5:30 this morning. To take that even further, the people drive the snowplow like a dragster buzzing up and down the driveway as fast as possible. I can't wait to get back to Alabama. At least if it gets icy down there, everything closes and you get a day off work. [Discuss in the forums]

I'm really enjoying my XM satellite that I received for Christmas. There are so many channels that I barely knew where to start. I spent a few hours on Monday carefully listening to all of the stations in the "Hits" category. After all of that, I only found one station that I would want to program into the radio. Most of the stations were urban-pop, but there was really something for everyone. A couple stations had light hits from artists like Kenny Rogers and John Denver. There was even a station featuring broadway tunes as well as movie tunes. It's almost like listening to college radio again. You never know what you are going to hear. I enjoy having some variety instead of the same 15 songs playing repeatedly. I suppose I am to blame for some for the burnout. Having an 8-5 job and listening to the radio all day doesn't help. Eventually I will make it through all the categories that interest me. I have yet to explore the rock, comedy or sports stations but that will come in the coming weeks. I will be hard pressed to listen to local radio again. [Discuss in the forums]

You may notice some subtle changes to the site. The message boards are now up and running. Click the link to the left to peruse the boards. The review of Timeline is also available. And last, but not least, this week's trivia has been posted. Yep, I've been busy the past week.

The messageboards are coming along, but it's taking longer than expected. I'm carefully creating a skin (making the messageboard have the same graphical design as the site). Believe me, that terrible looking candy corn theme was ugly. If you want to see the default scheme yourself visit www.mercuryboard.com. Because of all the work designing graphics, I've neglected movie reviews. I'll try to get a few of those up by the end of the weekend.

EB Games has great prices for used games. Unfortunately they also have terrible policies. Any other game store I've visited to buy used games has always let me inspect the disc, instruction manual and even the box before I buy. Apparently EB Games does not support this type of customer service.

I visited EB Games on Sunday to buy a few used games I had seen the Friday before. There were 3 games in all: Starfox Adventures, Timesplitters 2, and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. Starfox happened to be behind the counter, and I pulled the other two off the shelf and took them to the counter. By the time I retrieved the games from the shelf, Starfox was already sealed up. The sales associate grabbed the other two disks from secret drawers underneath the register and put them into their respective boxes and slapped a sticker over the opening before I could do anything. I asked politely about the condition of the discs since I was never allowed to look at them and was told they were in good shape. Ok, great. I pay my money and leave the store.

When I get home, I decide to open the boxes and read the instruction manuals. I've always been the person that enjoys reading the manuals. Call me sick or demented. I open up the boxes for Dark Alliance and Starfox to find that neither of them had manuals. A little peeved I called the store and was told because I had broken the seal on the boxes, a refund would not be issued, only an even exchange for the same title or store credit. Well, since I wasn't presented an opportunity to inspect the disc or the manuals, how am I supposed to know unless I break the seal? On top of all of that, the policy was not posted in the store nor told to me before I left. "The policy is on the back of the receipt," I was told over the phone. Right. Who reads the back of their receipt for no reason? I couldn't exchange the games at that store because I had their last copies.

Arguing for 15 minutes really got me no where. The guy finally said this one time he would refund my money, but what I really wanted were the games. I had looked in every game store I came across over the weekend to find the best deal. I ended up having to call every store in the area to see if I could find another copy with manuals. The closest I found was at a store 15-20 miles away which I promptly went to yesterday. Amazingly, that transaction was hassle-free.

What a pain in the @$$ just because the sales associate at the store Sunday didn't tell me everything wasn't included in the box. I'll still shop at EB because of their prices, but I'll be sure to insist on inspecting everything before I leave from now on.

The Return of the King review is up as well as this week's trivia. Enjoy.

Who knew that being an electronics geek was so tiring? After spending the last 24 hours working on hooking up my XM radio, I've finally reached a point where I'm happy. Not only am I happy with the satellite radio, but also with my entire entertainment arrangement. While I was tinkering with cables for the satellite radio, I also hooked up the TV to run through the stereo speakers as well as my Gamecube. The Gamecube set-up is thanks to my parents. Playing at their house over the holidays with surround sound was amazing. It was like dangling a steak in front of a ravenous lion; I had to have it set up in my apartment.

Before getting everything configured properly, I thought a visit to Radio Shack would be beneficial. There was no easy way to plug in the satellite radio to the radio tuner so I needed at least a splitter to plug everything up. I entered Radio Shack with the idea of buying one cable; I left with two cables (neither of which a splitter) and an audio/video switch (over $40 of stuff).

Once I finished hooking up everything, I found out I didn't even need the cables I bought. Isn't that always the luck? Radio Shack better take them back; the cables alone were almost $25. Anyway, after hours of contorting my arms and hands to plug and unplug cables, crawling through the bottom shelf of the entertainment center and testing each configuration, I'm able to enjoy nice robust audio as I watch TV. Thankfully I have the rest of the evening to recuperate.

I'm getting used to this not working gig. I've had to work 2 and a half days out of the past 2 weeks. It's been nice but next week it's back to the classroom. I don't really mind teaching but I'm going to miss sleeping in, watching football and playing video games during the day.

I finally had the time to hook up my XM satellite radio that I got for Christmas. I just finished activating my account so I'll have to play around with it in a few minutes. Well, maybe not. It's 11:20 and I have to go in for a few hours tomorrow morning. I'll fill you in on that tomorrow. Aloha (Sorry, I just finished watching Stitch! The Movie)