Once again I put $200 into an account and started playing poker over the internet. What follows are what I consider to be the pros and cons of online poker versus live poker.

The Blinds (a strong opening)

Advantages

1. Playing in the comfort of your home and at your hours

2. There’s always a game going

3. You see more hands and experience more situations

4. Get to play with a variety of different people from punk kids to pros

5. Freerolls and Bonus Rewards

Disadvantages

1. It’s Hard to set-up a Real Money Account

2. I Get Distracted Easily on the Internet

3. Don’t Drink and Play

4. The Majority of the Players are Crazy

5. Trusting the software, is it a fair game?

The Flop (advantages)

Let’s start off with the advantages. First of all, if you don’t live near a casino or if you don’t have any friends that play poker than online poker is your promise land. And it’s great that you can play whenever it fits your schedule and not have to worry about spending money on gas, tolls, or parking garages. The other great thing is that there is always a game available no matter what you want to play. If you want to play Stud, Hold’em, Omaha or even Razz most poker websites always have at least a few tables of these games in progress. Sorry, I haven’t found a poker website that offers Acey-Ducey yet though. And with all these games available your poker experience is going to grow faster than it would in a normal live game.

With a CPU acting as dealer instead of a human dealer that has probably been dealing cards for the last 2 days straight you’re going to see more hands and get to react to more poker situations than you would in a “live” game. You can also play at more than one table at once which also increases the number of hands you get to play in a night, something that would be hard to do in real life unless you have arms like Mr. Fantastic. By seeing more hands you learn faster when to bet, when to call, when to raise and when to fold. You’re also going to experience more bad beats, but that’s poker. And if you’re a good player you should be receiving more bad beats than you dish out. Most of your bad beats will come from the sea of newbies who are green to the game after watching it on ESPN. Just like in real life you should always be looking for the sucker at the table. And as the old saying goes, “if you can’t spot him, it’s probably you!”

Check out his entire flickr set here

Video games and news started out on pretty good terms. The only time the news would say anything about video games is when it was impossible to get a Gameboy for Christmas. As time has gone by, the news has change to what I like to call “slum news” where everything they report on has to make you worry. Topics like “how to protect your kids from Myspace!” are a perfect example. At some point, a very astute investigative journalist (there’s a bit of sarcasm in there) noticed that kids would rather play video games than do homework. They also noticed that kids are fat and lazy and would rather watch T.V. and play video games than go outside. I refer to this as the first attack era. All the sudden video games are bad for you.

The second attack era happened when some overly concerned parent showed Joseph Lieberman Mortal Kombat. There was a national outrage towards violent video games that sent overly sensitive people everywhere into a frenzy. “Oh my god! Did he just rip his head off and hold it up with his bloody spine dangling?” Yes. Yes he did.

In a quick reversal, the $139 I just paid Microsoft this past Sunday night after my 360 broke is being refunded. Free repair FTW!

I learned this quite by accident since I decided to follow up with customer support to find out where the hell my empty UPS box was there were supposed to have to me in 2 days so I could ship my console back to them to get fixed.

It would seem the comapny has pulled a total 180 and is now covering the repair costs of any console made prior to 2006. In other words if you bought the console at launch or for Christmas, you won't have to pay anything to have it fixed up.

So if you've recently had your fixed or it's currently broken (Fronz this may apply to you), call up and make sure you're getting it fixed on their dime (It's actually 1390 dimes, but you get the drift)

There's no doubt the Wii is going to be fun. But can it ever move beyond simple pick up and play games? Obviously games like Wario Ware:Smooth Moves will excel on the system. But is something like Zelda really going to be better on the Wii controller? Or even preferable? Portions of it would be (fishing, arrows, boomerangs) but what about platforming, boss battles, and stealth? Can the Wii-mote completely replace the standard type of controller we've all gotten used to? I played Zelda at E3 and while it was impressive to control, I wouldn't say it was any better, just different. In the end I'm pretty sure I'll be buying the Gamecube version.

Games like Excite Truck are perfectly suited to the system. The system of tilting and turning your car in mid-air is more fun that it initially seems to be. But could you ever play a game like Gran Turismo? People will argue that they'll sell a steering wheel attachment or something similar, but if you look at the percentage of peripheral controller sales you'd know that the idea of buying all these attachments and upgrades will never catch on for the majority of users, therefore the support won't be there %100.

Now I'm not down on the Wii, I really enjoyed playing it and I'm really excited to get it into my home. I just don't think it can live up to the image we have in our minds. It's not going to change the face of video gaming anymore than the DS has. And it's not like innovation ends up living up to the expectations all the time (Rembmer those Virtual Reality games from the 90's?).

I guess what I'm saying is be careful for what you wish for. For some reason the Wii is commanding positive press like I've never seen in a console launch. And if everyone out there believes this system is the second coming, and it turns out to just be a lot of fun, we're all going to be let down. I think we're putting un-due expectation on a system that it has no way of meeting.

So what do you think? What games do you think will and won't work on the Wii? Will it be able to please the hardcore?

They claim that their $600 solution is potentially 10 times cheaper that specialized systems.

Not to mention that it's something the patient can use in the comfort of their own homes.

I don't pretend to be a scientist, so why don't I let them explain it.

Rutgers' low-cost hand rehabilitation system is based on the commercially available Microsoft Xbox video game and Essential Reality P5 gaming glove that detects finger and wrist motions to manipulate on-screen images. The engineers made minor modifications to the equipment and created software that delivers two types of finger flexing exercises needed to help recover hand functions in stroke patients.

In one exercise, a patient attempts to wipe clean four vertical bars of "dirty" pixels that obscure a pleasant image on a computer display. The bars are erased in proportion to each finger's flexing motion, giving the patient immediate feedback on his or her performance. And in an exercise to promote finger flexing speed, a patient tries to make a fist quickly enough to "scare away" a butterfly flitting around on the screen.

The engineers noted that the gaming glove they use doesn't have the accuracy and resolution of gloves designed specifically for rehabilitation, nor can it measure exact joint movement or provide force feedback. But such systems may be attractive for clinics that can't afford more expensive equipment and could open the door for supplemental home training with remote monitoring by a clinician over an Internet connection.

Read the full article here

However, the Video Game Voter Network is on myspace and wants to be your friend.

The Video Game Voters Network wants to be your friend...on MySpace. In order to find more gamers who are ready to join the network and take action to protect video games, we're taking our operation to MySpace. MySpace has already connected game players from across the country through groups and friend networks who meet up to play. Now we want to take those connections to a new level, encouraging those gamers to join our network and work with us protect video games.

If you're on MySpace or ready to join, please be our friend.

As we move ever closer to the "HD-era", a major problem has popped up that's barely ever mentioned but has the potential to seriously effect videogame players everywhere. The problem of HD-lag is very real and can wreak havok on your game playing, rendering a large part of your games unplayable.

In short, when your TV has to convert a signal (Standard-Def to High-Def), there's a tiny lag while the TV does the work. All HDTV's have the issue, some more than others. There's a good chance you won't even notice it. But it's nice to be informed. Take a look here for an entire forum dedicated to the topic. All CRT's (current TV's regardless of quality) are the same because the resolution is always the same.

Recently I upgraded to an HDTV, and ran into this problem full force. After a vast amount of research, I feel prepared to try and help out any of you out there thinking about buying an HDTV. At the very least give you the basics and alert you to the potential pitfalls. I've seperated this article into a few sections, so you can skip down to what you're interested in. I tried to be as layman as possible, there are some uber-technical resources out there which can be pretty intimidating.

HDTV primer

First, a short explanation of TV. A regular old TV has a resolution of 480 scanlines. They display at a rate of 30 frames a second (it's actually 29.97 frames a second, but that's a discussion for another time and doesn't effect us here). Now each frame is broken up into 2 fields which flash one after the other, odd fields then even for every frame. The picture to the right shows 1 field of video. The frames flash so closely together your eyes merge them together (This was needed as a way to deliver the signal with the bandwidth available back in the golden age of TV). This is known as interlaced video, which explains the "i" you see after the numbers sometimes.

Progressive scan merges the fields together to create one frame, technicially represented as 480p. So that's what those progressive scan DVD players are doing, essentially doubling the resolution of the video. With me so far?

Hi-Def on the other hand has 3 different resolutions, but they are all based on the explanations above. They are 720p, 1080i and 1080p. The numbers are the lines of resolution and the letter denotes interlaced of progressive. HDTV stations broadcast in 720p or 1080i because there is no standard for 1080p over the airwaves as of right now.

The short answer is no, we're not, but at least the game they're porting now is a perenial favorite and not-easy-to-find PaRappa the Rapper. First released in 1996 here in the states for the PS1, Parappa essentially introduced American audiences to the Japanese rhythm game craze.

While I'm actually kind of excited about the idea of this game being re-released, I have a feeling it's going to feel very dated. I played the game for kicks not long ago and it felt very rudimentiary. We've come along way with these rhythm games since this game came out. It's also not very long.

Read the press release here. Expect more details to surface during the TGS.

Last night I got a nice little taste of horrible, horrible irony. This past Friday my brand new HDTV was finally delivered, and all was right with the world. I bought the cables, ran the lines, and had everything set-up for HD gaming goodness.

Fast forward 48 hours, I'm getting home from work Sunday night and decide to unwind with a little bit of Saints Row. Apparently, my 360 had other plans. I really wasn't a fan of these plans, since it involved flashing the red ring o' death and breaking down beyond repair. I'm not saying for sure Saints Row killed it, but I've had zero problems until that game.

I call support and try out the automated steps. It actually seems to work! I decide to try a more stable game. Loading up Oblivion only locks up the machine once again (though the frozen image looked damn nice in HD). 1-800-My-Xbox again, this time I talk to a human being. After walking through the steps with him again he says, "And that brings us to the end of troubleshooting." I swear I could head the sound effect they play on "The Price is Right" when you lose. Long story short they're sending me an empty box and I'm sending them $139.00...

Keep an eye out for my review of the XBOX repair center, coming in about 14 business days.

So what did I learn from all this? That progressive scan games on the PS2 look surprisingly good on a 56" HDTV. As for 360 games, I'll have to tell you in about 2 weeks.