http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASGXDJGozG4

- Bought GTA IV. Oh wait, that wasn’t that awesome. How did this game get 10s across the board? How did Zelda: OOT get dethroned by this sluggish, buggy game? Ok, the scope and detail of the world is nothing less than impressive, but the framerate is pretty awful and the game almost seems to have a blurry filter. The 20fps only serve to excerbate the already sluggish controls. Everything just moves so damn slowly. I’m not even going to rip on the driving like I’ve seen a lot of people do. I guess Rockstar just wanted to go a more realistic route this time around. They didn’t want to try to compete with Crackdown, which I’m tempted to say is the king of the sandbox genre at this point. I was just playing that game endlessly a few weeks back, so the transition to the gameplay of GTA IV is jarring. The online makes the game worth a purchase, though. The first day I played mostly multi, since I kept getting invited to games. It’s funny how the gameplay is the worst part of the videogame, yet it still is universally praised. It’s not a surprise I haven’t played the game at all this weekend. But that may have to do with the next thing…

- Got a new laptop. A huge 17″ Dell Inspiron 1720 with a 1920×1200 LCD screen. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I had both the Google Sidebar and Vista Sidebar going at one time, and it was totally unnecessary and awesome. Unfortunately, that wasn’t supposed to happen, so I’ve never managed to recreate the gloriousness. I’ve played Team Fortress 2, Company of Heroes, and Trackmania Nations Forever, leaving my GTA IV to rot in my 360 disk tray. Birthday + Graduation gifts FTW.

- Speaking of Company of Heroes, I’ve missed the RTS genre so much. I’m truly not sure of the last RTS I bought. If SimCity 4 doesn’t count, I think it’s Warcraft III. So my re-entrance into one of my favorite genres of gaming has made this a good week. The physics in CoH are incredible — watching an entire city get destroyed over the course of a mission is one the most awe-inspiring things I’ve seen in a game. Watching artillery strikes rain down on enemy units reminds me of watching siege tanks destroy hydra rushes in Starcraft. Oh God, Starcraft 2.

- Got a new job — one that will hopefully turn into a career. (Not that half of you would even know what an actuary is. And if you do, it’s probably from that god-forsaken Ben Stiller movie that I’ve heard people bring up a bunch of times.) A family friend connection basically got me the job. Yeah, that’s right. Not that I was under-qualified or anything, but I never would’ve known about the place otherwise. It definitely changed my plans for at least the next year, and probably many more. Now I will be able to buy an HDTV!

- And that brings me back to my orgasmic laptop. FULL HD with BLU-RAY. When I first got it, I didn’t think I would want to bother watching movies on it, since it’s still only 17″, but the latest Dark Knight trailer changed that. So I bought Terminator 2, Blade Runner, and 2001: A Space Odyssey on BD. I love me some sci-fi. Why is it abbreviated BD anyway? It should be BRD. Whatever, everyone says “Blu-Ray” anyway.

- I also had no exams and next to no work this week. I had to read Issac Asimov’s I, Robot and one of his short stories — but those were totally awesome. Which was a nice change of pace between the two exams and paper of two weeks ago, and upcoming finals and actuarial exam. Fun stuff.

Right now, Grand Theft Auto IV is having its midnight launch of the US East Coast (the time zone that matters). I never preorder games anymore, unless there’s an awesome free bonus. I still have little doubt I’ll be able to walk into Best Buy tomorrow morning and pick up a copy for my 360. I’ll check both Best Buys that are on the way to class. If that doesn’t turn out well…I guess I’ll check Walmart or something. I really do not expect such drastic measures. I even put a month GAF ban on it.

The reviews GTA IV is getting are absolutely off the charts. Pretty much the most lavishly praised game since The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, perhaps even more so. I just felt like typing that whole title out for once. I’m getting caught in the hype at the last minute, like with Halo 3. And with both series, the last iteration really didn’t do much for me. But somehow I’m sure that GTA IV won’t disappoint like Halo 3. And there’s no game coming out analogous that could overshadow GTA IV the way Call of Duty 4 showed up Halo 3 by releasing around the same time.

This upcoming weekend there is the release of Iron Man and Redbelt. (And I didn’t even realize until today that Harold and Kumar 2 was released last Friday). The former is probably known by everyone, and I’m pretty sure it will rock, if only due to Robert Downey Jr. being the star. And the special effects don’t look too bad either. Redbelt is written by David Mamet and revolves around MMA. That’s enough to get me to want to see it. In case you are unaware, Mamet wrote Glengarry Glen Ross. That’s all you need to know.

Last but not least, there was SUPPOSED to be a new The Dark Knight trailer virally leaked today, but it never surfaced, unfortunately. I think Warner Bros. was just messing with fans. Talk about blue balls. My anticipation of that movie has been much greater than that for GTA IV. Still over two and a half months away. ARGH. But hopefully by the end of the week, it will be on the internets.

Of course, this whole post will be wrong if I am not hired. But at least I’ll have GTA IV. Hopefully.