Unless my calendar is wrong, today is April 27. Spring started over a month ago, so what's with this snow today? Is Cleveland just the weather crapper of the world? Many people would say that Cleveland is giant toilet for everything including jobs and education. Thankfully I'm out of here in about 14 weeks. Warmer weather, cheaper prices, SEC sports: all things I can't wait to have again.

New to the website is a review for Walking Tall. Check it out in Now Playing. Also check out the new Tech Geek forum on the messageboards. Post your tech news and discussions today.

There's a new set of trivia questions posted. This set's theme is "Inventions". I've also done a little clean up on the message boards. All of my friends are Tech Geeks, so now there's a forum to argue what's better: NVIDIA vs. ATI, Mac OS X vs. XP, DSL vs. Cable. Have fun.

What a wild couple of weeks it has been. When I haven't been at school I've been out on the town. I've visited the natural history museum and the Carousel dinner theater and been to Detroit to catch a baseball and hockey game. Here are some pics from Detroit (OFoto) for those of you that haven't been. Unfortunately, The Predators lost in the first round. I'm still a little bummed, but they made it farther than ever before. Next year, they make it at least to the second round.

Because of everything going on, I haven't had much time to update the web site, but there is a list of things to do. I saw Walking Tall this weekend, so expect a review for that this week. I also have results for the next virtual reality installment of RAW. A new cyber quickie should be done this weekend and to top it all off, I plan to make some major changes for message board. Expect all this in the next two weeks in addition to new trivia tonight and a new Old School selection soon.

If you are a hockey fan, you've probably been creaming your pants over the past week. For the Nashville Predators to even be in the playoffs was good enough to me. I thought I could actually watch them on TV for 4 nights and then move on to baseball. As luck would have it, I've had to work or be out of the house for the majority of the games. Last night was the first night I got to watch them play in the playoffs. It was like Christmas. Never have I been so excited about a hockey game. By the time the score was 3-0 though, it got boring. Detroit had a few exciting breakaways, but it was nothing like listening to it on the radio Sunday afternoon. A 2-1 win is the epitomy of a nail biter in a must-win situation. Now, with the series tied at 2, I have an opportunity to go see them play in Detroit on Thursday. Now I'm the one creaming my pants. I've never been to any kind of professional sport playoff. The tickets cost way too much (and these aren't even scalped tickets). I'm sitting in the top row of the arena for $70. That's about the price of Nashville's best tickets at Gaylord Entertainment Center. Talk about a rip-off. So, don't look for me on TV. Hopefully the Predators will send me home happy with a 3-2 series lead. If not, I can always relish the fact that I got to go to a playoff game to watch them play. Who knows, they could pull it out in the end.

Even though the action is heating up in real life, the virtual world isn't that much different. I'm on my way to leading Nashville to a virtual playoff spot. I've managed to shake off a terrible losing streak to take second place in the conference, just 4 points behind Detroit. It could be just a matter of time before I get to personally take out my frustrations on Detroit. Aren't video games great?

UPDATE TIME: There have been a few new additions lately. A review of Secret Window has been posted in Now Playing. A new feature has been added to the Gameroom titled "CyberQuickies". Now, get your mind out of the gutter. These are very quick video game reviews based on various playing times. The first review is for an older game called Re-Volt.

I'm also looking for some ideas to spruce up the message boards. They seem to be getting very few hits. What types of things do you think would get more people to visit and participate in the message boards? Post a message to the improvement thread in the message boards or send me an e-mail.

I never thought this could happen, but I am finally burned out on fantasy games. I've seen more than enough orcs and elves for the time being. Maybe it's not fantasy games but Neverwinter Nights. I've got a dozen quests to complete in the second chapter and all of them seem so boring I could cry. Get this, get that, find this person, kill that. What makes this game different from any other RPG? It doesn't matter if the story is different when the game is the same as every other RPG. Gopher elf to the rescue.

Since I was tired of the fantasy genre, I turned my attention to the tycoon world and loaded up Zoo Tycoon for the first time in 2 months. That turned out to be lots of fun. I was able to let my creativity loose and create things. However, a gaming first happened for me as I neared the end of a scenario. I was saddened by the death of Albert the Anteater. Albert was the first resident of the zoo I created. His enclosure was the only one that I had been able to get a 100 rating on. I was so pleased with my work and he was the happiest anteater ever. But, old age became his downfall, less than a year after I had moved him in.

I was so surprised. An audible gasp caused my wife to ask what was wrong. What's wrong with me? This was just a game. The anteater wasn't even in 3D. For the most part I was shocked that death was possible in this game from anything except animal neglect. As I soon found out, many of the digital animals have a short lifespan. Either that or I buy animals from the senior citizen section. Not only did Albert die, but so did my jaguar and the first 3 blackbucks I had for the zoo. All died within a year of purchase.

My vote is for outrageously fast clocks in Zoo Tycoon. I brought in a female blackbuck that gave birth within 2 days of coming to the zoo. Normal gestation period is 5 months, but I suppose there's nothing saying she wasn't pregnant before she got to the zoo.