Reviews and More

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I haven’t been doing much with my PSP lately, and I hate to see an expensive little device like that just gathering dust in my desk drawer. So I went out and tried to find a new game title that sounded interesting. After browsing through Electronic Boutique for a bit, I settled on Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07.

I’d heard that this game got some good reviews, so I was eager to check it out. I haven’t played Tiger Woods in a long time and there have been so many changes over the years that I was basically starting from scratch. Here’s what I think thus far.

Pros:

• The graphics are fantastic! This game looks very good on the PSP screen.
• Tour mode is both challenging and fun. I’m still slogging through and it’s good to know that the game is neither too easy nor too difficult to play.
• The power meter allows you to gauge your shots perfectly.
• The Game Face customization feature is neat. You can create your own character and customize his/her looks.
• Nice variety of courses to choose from. The different weather elements add an additional degree of difficulty.
• Pretty easy to learn how to play. I went through the tutorial in a few minutes and was playing full rounds shortly thereafter.
• I like how the galleries follow players around from hole to hole.

Cons:

• I don’t like having to use the joystick to control my swing. It’s very difficult for me to be accurate with that thing.
• The putting looks pretty cheesy to me. I don’t know why, but it always looks like the player has mis-hit the ball.
• The announcers get very annoying after a while.
• There are only two minigames included with this title, and neither are that great.

Overall, I don’t like Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 as much as I like Hot Shots Golf, but they both have different strengths and weaknesses. I think the Tiger Woods game is entertaining enough and should offer hours of fun to anyone who likes playing golf games. I give it 7.0 stars out of 10.

I’ll admit that I don’t do nearly as much as I could to help preserve and protect the environment. Sure, I recycle, use energy-efficient appliances, and drive a fuel-efficient car, but I’m sure there are many other lifestyle changes I can make that could have a positive effect on our fragile world.

For example, I just read an interesting article about the environmental benefits of artificial grass. I never considered tearing up my lawn and putting down artificial grass instead, but the points highlighted in the article are definitely worth thinking about. By having artificial grass at home, I would be able to conserve water, get rid of my noisy, fuel-consuming mower, and forget about having to use pesticides and fertilizers. This kind of surface would obviously be much easier to care for than natural grass, which is another plus.

I doubt that my homeowners association would approve an action such as this, but it certainly is an interesting concept. Maybe those of you who have complete control over what you do with your yard will be able to take action.

The New Adventures of Old Christine returned Monday night with two brand-new episodes in a row. The second was number 2×16 and was called “Undercover Brother.” Here’s a quick recap of what happened:

Christine is worried that she’s lost her “mojo”. Guys don’t come on to her anymore and nobody responds to her flirting. She’s definitely going through a dry spell in the dating department and needs to shake things up.

Meanwhile, Richard announces that his brother Joe is coming to town for a visit. Everyone is excited about this news because Joe is fun, good-looking, and always has some great stories to share. Joe ends up knocking on Christine’s door late at night becaue he couldn’t sleep at Richard’s place. Christine is getting ready to watch a movie and drink some wine, so she invites Joe in and offers him the couch. Joe would rather stay up and watch the movie with her, so they head to the bedroom.

They fall asleep in the same bed, but nothing happened during the night. Then, in the morning, Joe kisses Christine. She’s freaked out by this and goes out to the kitchen to talk it over with Matthew. Matthew tells her that it would be a big mistake to get involved with Richard’s brother. Christine reluctantly agrees, and takes solace in the fact that her mojo is evidently back.

Christine goes back to the bedroom to talk things over with Joe. But he interrupts her to say that the kiss served as confirmation that he’s gay. The rest of the episode then deals with Joe’s unwillingness to come out to Richard and the implications that the revelation has on Christine’s mojo/self-esteem.

My Reaction: I thought this episode was slightly better than 2×15, but again, I didn’t think it was worth waiting two months for. I read another review of the ep that pretty much summed up the way I feel: the subject matter of a gay man hesitating to come out to his family is a bit tame as far as sitcom fare goes in this day and age. So while some of the individual quips were funny, the plot as a whole was kind of a bore.

The New Adventures of Old Christine has been in something of a slump lately as far as I’m concerned. I hope the writing picks up very soon, otherwise we’ll probably be reading about another cancellation and the continuation of the so-called “Seinfeld curse”.

I have a friend whose husband will only go on vacation to one of two destinations: Las Vegas or St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I think it would be pretty boring to go to the same two places every year, but they make it work by trying out different activities each time they go. For example, they’ve been on a St Thomas catamaran sailing voyage, they’ve gone scuba diving, and they’ve even gone deep-sea fishing.

I’ve never been to the Virgin Islands, but I would definitely be interested in visiting sometime and participating in these fun activities. It sounds like it would be an awesome adventure and a vacation to remember for a lifetime!

After a nearly two-month long hiatus, The New Adventures of Old Christine returned to the airwaves with back-to-back new episodes. The first one that aired, episode 2×15, was called “Sleepless in Mar Vista”. Here’s what happened in it.

The episode opens with Christine lying in bed at 3:15am, desperately trying to get some sleep. For a few minutes, I thought I was watching the pilot again because I seem to remember something like this taking place in that ep as well. At any rate, Christine can’t fall asleep, so she’s cranky to Matthew and Ritchie.

Christine then goes to an appointment with her chiropractor, after which she runs into Burton, the guy she dated for a few episodes during season one. Burton is in the building to see his therapist, whom he first started going to after Christine dumped him. Christine rejoices a bit in the fact that she has “destroyed” a man.

In order to get some rest, Christine breaks down and starts taking prescription sleeping pills. They work great except for one side effect: they turn her into a completely nice person who calls people in the middle of the night then doesn’t remember what she said to them.

The rest of the episode deals with various situations that Christine gets into thanks to the influence of the sleeping pills. She ends up going out with Burton again, and both of them declare their love for each other only to discover the next day that they’re both on medication and were completely out of it the night before.

My Reaction: I was looking forward to seeing this show again after such a long break, but I have to say that I was disappointed in this episode. I liked the premise of Christine being on medication that makes her nice, but didn’t like the way the writers went. I didn’t like Burton the first time around and he wasn’t any better this time.

I liked that new Christine was included again. Before the break, it seemed that we were seeing less and less of her, but I always felt she was a pretty major component of the show. I like how dumb she is and laughed out loud at her confusion over her watch settings.

The Matthew character still hasn’t grown on me. I find him as annoying now as I did in Season One and really wish the writers would just get rid of him. On the other hand, Barb is a character that is woefully under-utilized. I would love it if she became a bigger part of the show.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty mediocre episode. There were some funny moments, but it’s not something that I will remember a week from now.

Are you a video game whiz? Are you one of those people that can pick up any game and master it within minutes? If so, then I’m sure you’ll be interested in this contest that I just heard about. It’s being run over at ArcadeCow.com and the rules are very simple. All you have to do is head over to the site and play free arcade games between now and April 14, 2007. If you achieve one of the five highest scores on a game called “The Milkman” before the contest deadline, you can win an iPod Shuffle, iTunes gift cards, and even cash!

You might be thinking there’s probably a catch, right? Well, there is: You have to sign up for a FREE membership in order to play because that’s the only way that your game scores can be saved and recorded for the contest. That’s it! I don’t know about you, but I think this sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Plus, don’t forget that once you register at ArcadeCow.com, you can play more than 2500 different flash games — all for free.

Read the official Reality Knights press release right here and then get on over to ArcadeCow.com to start playing.

Reality Knights and www.ArcadeCow.com, a free flash games site with over 2500 free online games available to members and non-members, will be running a high score contest for Arcade Cow members from March 13th, 2007 to April 14th, 2007. Prizes will include an iPod shuffle and iTunes gift card for the players with the top five highest scores. The top player will receive an additional $30 cash prize.

While Arcade Cow offers a free online gaming experience to both members and non-members, a free membership is required in order for gamers to participate in the high score contest, because membership allows for saved game scores. The contest will revolve around a game called The Milkman, and there is no cost to register, participate in the high score contest, or play any of Arcade Cow’s free online games.

Arcade Cow’s free online game high score contest will have members competing for a high score while playing “The Milkman.” Players will earn points by virtually shooting a milkman as he pops up in various areas of the playing screen, which is a photo of a barn. Shooting the milkman earns various point levels, whereas misfiring costs points and will eventually end the player’s game or “life.”

Users interested in registering to participate in the free online gaming high score contest to win an iPod shuffle or cash prizes, can do so through a simple registration form at www.ArcadeCow.com.

About ArcadeCow.com ArcadeCow.com is a free online flash game site, launched in 2006 by Reality Knights, LLC. In its short life, the site already boasts over 700 registered users (despite the fact that free registrations aren’t required to play free online games), more than 480,000 online game plays, and over 2500 free flash games. Games are available from a variety of genres, as well as classic video game emulations.

For additional information about ArcadeCow.com or the high score contest, please visit http://www.arcadecow.com/contest.html

That’s all there is to the contest, so check out “The Milkman” right now!

The most recent episode of 24 was number 6×13 and took place between 6pm and 7pm. Viewers were treated to some pretty good action, we got to see a couple of familiar faces, and we were introduced to a new character as well. Here’s what happened during the hour.

Jack: Jack actually didn’t do very much during this episode. He managed to escape from custody by using a belt to secure his captor’s gun and then using a conveniently drawn knife to cut through his bonds. From there, he made his way to the basement of the Russian consulate where he basically waited until CTU agents arrived.

CTU: I’d heard a long time ago about Ricky Schroder joining the cast of 24 this season, so I was looking forward to this episode. I really haven’t seen any of his recent work; I still remember him as the kid from Silver Spoons and the movie The Champ. I was totally surprised at how old and…haggard…he looks now, and I’m afraid that distracted me during every one of his scenes.

Anyway, Ricky plays a character named Mike Doyle who is called in to head up the black opps unit that is supposed to storm the Russian embassy. He comes into CTU and immediately starts bossing everyone around. He gets into it with Milo (the two used to work together in Denver) and even manhandles Morris at one point. Basically, his character was a complete jerk. Doyle eventually gets his team together and charges into the embassy, killing the consul and rescuing Jack in the process.

White House Bunker: We got just a few brief scenes of Tom Lennox and the Vice President going at it yet again. Tom eventually agrees to say that Assad was the one who smuggled the bomb into the bunker and attempted to take out the President. In return, the VP will have Tom’s name cleared and absolve him from any wrongdoing.

Logan/Martha/Aaron: This was the surprise of the night for me! As you know, I never watch previews so I had no idea that Martha and Aaron would be back on tonight. Charles told Bill that he thinks he can get the Russian president to hand over the consul, but he would need Martha’s help to do so. Unfortunately, Martha has been instituionalized so they don’t know if they can count on her cooperation or not.

Charles decides to give it a try. He goes to see Martha, who apparently has taken up with Agent Aaron sometime during the last two years. Martha seemed crazier and more unbalanced than ever before. She wavered several times between calling the Russian first lady (with whom she has a close relationship) and not helping at all. Finally, she completely snaps and STABS Charles in the shoulder with a knife she had been using to cut fruit.

I knew Martha was going to do something with the knife because the camera kept focusing on it, but I thought she was just going to slice off a finger or slit her own wrists. I had no ide that she would lunge at Charles!

Once Logan is carted off in an ambulance, Martha still goes through with the phone call to the Suvarovs. The plan works and the Russian president sanctions the U.S. attack on the consulate.

Fayed/Gredenko: We finally get a couple of short scenes showing us what the bad guys are doing. Fayed has now arrived at Gredenko’s location in the desert and it looks as though they’re about to release the drones and the three remaining nukes very soon.

My Reaction: I actually liked this episode a lot. While doing my recap here, I realized that not much happened during the hour, but it was very entertaining nevertheless. I loved seeing Martha and Aaron together, though I have to admit that I liked them a lot more last season when they had to fight their attraction. I don’t think they have nearly as much chemistry now that they’re a couple. I also liked how Martha reacted after she stabbed Charles. She could hardly believe that she was in handcuffs and her line about deserving a medal brought out a chuckle. Jean Smart can bring the crazy, that’s for sure!

I was disappointed in Mike Doyle. I wonder why the writers chose to make him a complete jerk? Why couldn’t he just be tough and competent like Curtis was?

There wasn’t enough Jack in this episode, but at least the majority of the non-Jack scenes dealt with Aaron, Martha, and Logan rather than the boring White House bunker. BTW, why was Jack clutching his side all episode long? I know he got kicked and punched, but he usually shakes the effects of those kinds of beatings off within a few minutes. Was he hurt in the explosion? If so, I must have missed it.

Anyway, this was a good episode overall so I can’t wait for next week!