I was going to say, "this has been a long week", when, in fact, it has been a long month. It seems like whenever I breathe a sigh of relief something new crops up . It started with two or three days of hardcore, deep cleaning on the house. You know, that sort of yearly clean everybody calls spring cleaning? Around here, it's summer cleaning. You wake up, start cleaning, and 24 hours later you pass out to what is hopefully a much tidier house.

Once that was over with, I had to go in to crazy crunch mode to get the newest demo of my Sonic game out there. That was three weeks with very little time to stop and catch my breath. Very little leisurely activity. Ask Ashuku! We normally sit on GoogleTalk all night and play Counter-Strike: Source or something. In three weeks, I think we played two games of CS:S.

Once my demo was done, I had to dive head first in to TSSZ's (the site I work for) news coverage of a Sonic community event called SAGE. In five days, I wrote 7 full-length reviews and 15 mini reviews, for a grand total of 22 reviews. From a guy who normally writes one review every four months (if that).

As perhaps a grand finale, I just spent 7 hours being dragged around the mall shopping for various tomfoolery (the mall being something I visit maybe once per year). My feet have been destroyed. None of this is stuff that is bad on its own, but when compacted in to a month with no time to catch my breath, I just really want to kick back and relax and not do anything for a week.

Unfortunately, I have a brand new motherboard staring me down, which is its own long, drawn out song and dance involving backing up tons of data, finding a Windows XP Home Disc, and crossing my fingers. Out of all the components in a computer you add/replace, changing the motherboard is probably one that makes me the most nervous, because it's basically everything else that makes me nervous all wrapped in to one. Removing every component and then plugging it all in on a new board. The processor makes me especially nervous. Most people don't get a chance to see me when I'm doing computer maintenance, but even simple acts like switching a HDD make me sweat bullets. It feels sort of like defusing a bomb.

In other, more belated news, Microsoft contacted me about my Xbox console a few weeks ago. I don't know if it was because I complained to somebody high up or if Microsoft simply goes around the internet reading blogs from people who have tech support issues (apparently Comcast does this and a few other companies are doing it, too) but essentially it went as I expected: Pay them some cash to get the old girl repaired. They offered me a discount, which was cool of them, but the last $50 I had went to buying my new motherboard. So unless another $50 magically falls in my lap, my Xbox 360 is going to remain borderline worthless for a long, long time, and the discount they offered me is only available for a limited amount of time (and, c'mon, if I can't afford the discount, there's no way I can afford it at full price).

On the plus side, Bionic Commando: Re-Armed is one of the few games that doesn't freeze the system. Being my first time through Bionic Commando, I am loving it quite a bit.  Might be the next game I review, though right now, like a man who is eaten too much food and then sees a commercial for Burger King, reviews are the last thing I want on my mind right now. I hope Castle Crashers (available later tonight) works. The number of games that work vs. the number of games that don't work, and their reasons for working/not working puzzle me.

Alone in the Dark (Demo) works. GTA4 doesn't work. Wall-E (Demo) doesn't even get through the menu to start the game before freezing. Sonic 2006 works. Crackdown (Demo) doesn't work. Soul Calibur XBLA doesn't work (same as Wall-E). Spider-Man 2 (Backwards Compatibility) won't even boot. Too Human (Demo) doesn't work. Lego Indiana Jones (Demo) works. Geometry Wars 2 and Braid work. It's not a problem with the HDD, as I've removed the HDD and GTA4 still freezes. Can't be the disc drive because demos and XBLA games freeze. It's just the Xbox 360 is a piece of crap, has been a piece of crap since day one, and it needs to red ring so I can get it repaired for free.

Oh well, I guess that's about all I need to say. If you will excuse me, I am going to go curl up in front of the TV for a bit.