The Walking Dead did the right thing by making Sofia become a zombie; I particularly enjoyed Rick having to finish her off, though I also kind of liked Shane's taking charge and blowing all the barn zombies away. I hope they leave the farm soon as it's becoming a bit old at this point; sadly we have a 2.5 month hiatus until the season resumes (fucking retarded).

I've been eying a particular camera for the past couple of weeks but just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger. Originally it was $220, then slowly it dropped down to $180. In the past day or two it dropped down to $150. Combined with some Amazon discounts it's only going to cost me $90. I wasn't sure if it was a Black Friday deal or what, so I went ahead and bought it; I mean really, it's not going to get much cheaper than that. There was also a deal where you get a free mini-HDMI cable and 4 GB SDHC card, and a cheap case was on sale for $3. As recently as last week I was prepared to pick it up at my local Best Buy for $150; glad I waited.

Best new show: Homeland. It's not even close. That show is probably the best new show of the past 5 years. They've done everything right. Also, Claire Danes = hawt.

Worst new show: Terra Nova. Again, it's not even close. My God, it's quite possibly the most uninspired show in the history of Western civilization. I honestly have no idea why I keep watching it. I guess I'm hoping it's going to get better, but we're 8 episodes in; it is what it is.

So we had the Oklahoma State kick on Friday, then tonight we have situations with Florida State and Oregon. Florida State gets a last second reprieve after Virgina has already started leaving the field. The kick looked like it might have been good from the only angle we saw it at, and the crowd in the stadium reacted as if it was good; I give a little more leeway in this one as there was no netting behind the goalposts so the depth perception wasn't quite there. Then Oregon looks like it might get blown out by USC, but they come back and are marching down the field for a last minute scoring attempt to tie or win the game. With a few seconds left they set up for the field goal, but they false start; oopsies! Luckily USC is offside the very next play so Oregon gets the 5 yards back. And of course the kicker pulls it left; fucking kickers. At least it was an obvious miss. Now Oklahoma is trying to come back against Baylor; is it going to come down to another last minute field goal attempt? One can only hope (not).

Lee Corso dropping the f-bomb on College GameDay made my day.

I like BCS chaos as much as the next guy, but I'm pretty sure Oklahoma State should have won that game. Like the Boise State / Nevada game last year, a seemingly good field goal towards the end of regulation was declared to have missed. I don't think there is any kind of conspiracy or anything, but it boggles my mind that in both cases they didn't bother to show another angle. I mean come on, they have a dozen cameras at these games and they've only got one pointing at the goal posts during a field goal attempt? It doesn't make sense. It should be almost impossible to make a controversial field goal call and we've had two big ones in the past two years. I know the referees are directly under the goal posts on the field so they probably made the right call, but all I can go on is what I see and both kicks looked good to me.

So there is a recall of the 1st gen Nano due to a potential battery issue. I checked and mine is eligible for the recall, though I'm not sure I want to do it. First of all, I haven't used it in probably 3 or 4 years if not longer. But more importantly, they are replacing it with the current gen Nano which has zero buttons and is completely touch driven. I already hate touch on the full size iPod Touch (I got for free), I can't imagine trying to drive the tiny Nano without dedicated buttons.

This is certainly my favorite new show, and quite possibly my favorite show of the season. Hung is still up there, though they're different kind of shows so it's hard to compare them. Anyway, the most recent episode was the shit. The sitdown between Carrie and Brody was fucking intense. On the flipside, it was kind of like True Blood in that you're building up all this tension over the season and then all of a sudden out of nowhere they throw something at you that somewhat renders all of that previous shit totally meaningless. Still, Claire Danes is totally fucking killing it in this show. I'm somewhat concerned that there are still 5 (out of 12) episodes left in the season, though. Also, it was renewed a while ago for a second season; I'm a little worried that it might diminish the events of this season similar to 24.

In totally unrelated news, I'm starting to have issues with my router so I checked it out and right now there are fucking 13 devices using it; only 3 of them are mine. There are 6 other wireless networks here and all of them are secured; I've left mine open because I just don't give a fuck, but when it starts to impact my use of my own devices then it becomes a problem. I've thought about putting different firmware on there and doing something more advanced, but to be honest it's just not worth it; I'm not running a charity, here. I just wish people could be more considerate.

Just finished the campaign; I don't recall the exact time, but I'm pretty sure it took less than 5 hours. Overall it is what it is supposed to be, but like Gears of War 3 it just didn't stand out to me for whatever reason. Lots of balls out action and whatnot, but just nothing particularly memorable. The gunplay is as tight as ever, in stark contrast to Battlefield 3 which felt extremely loose and a bit clunky to me. Still have special ops and multiplayer to check out, but to be honest I'm not quite feeling it just yet. Might go back to Arkham City's combat and predator challenges first; I did a handful of each earlier before getting frustrated on one of the predator maps.

Last year it was Nevada, this year it's TCU. As soon as Boise State's kicker came onto the field I knew he was going to miss. Fucking kickers. They weren't going to make it to the national championship anyway, but at least they could have made it an interesting argument. Hopefully they'll still make a nice bowl game.

Beat the main story part of Arkham City today. They did a nice job of being very inclusive of Batman's enemies, but in the end it sort of felt a little watered down because of it. IMHO Joker is the star, and in that regard I thought he did not have enough screen time and the ending was not to my liking. I won't spoil it, but if there is another game I hope it will be a slight of hand or "just kidding!". Overall a pretty good game. At times it felt like they tried to do too much (too many enemies, too many gadgets, etc), but everything is done quite well. As I said before, this game is an improvement over the previous game in almost every way so if you liked the first you will love this one. Now I'm sweeping through the last handful of Riddler trophies; still got to find a lot of the cameras, but I'll get there.

I just found out about the lamest achievement ever. You have to play Arkham City on 12 specific holidays and talk to Calendar Man. First was Halloween which I missed, next is Thanksgiving, etc. That's the gayest shit I've ever heard of. I'm not normally one to cheat the system, but I'm definitely getting that one offline by changing my console's time. It would make more sense if you had to talk to him once a month, but holidays are bad because people go out of town. I understand the novelty, but at some point practicality has to take over. Seriously, what the fuck?

By far the greatest thing about Arkham City is the ability to glide freely around the city; coupled with a grapple boost move you get during the game, with minimum effort it is possible to stay in the air indefinitely. You just need to be careful not to get yourself in a bad situation. At first Arkham City seems pretty large, but that is deceptive as there is a large zone in the middle of the map that is cordoned off. Also, it doesn't quite feel Gotham enough for my taste. I suppose that's because it's not actually Gotham; it's a small area of Gotham that got sectioned off into a containment area for prisoners. I guess this fits more in line with what the game is about, but it would have been nice to be able to patrol Gotham proper. The only thing that bothered me about the flying was that they threw in some challenges to test your skills. They can be frustrating at times, and one of them in particular was a major bitch to get as you have to thread the needle. Advanced AR Training 1, kindly die in a fire.

I'm about halfway through the story and so far they've done an impressive job of including most of the major villains (and many lesser ones). I won't spoil the fun, but it really runs the gauntlet. I am a huge fan of the animated series, and this game like its predecessor has a very similar feel. I think my favorite thing so far has been the Riddler side missions. There are the usual hidden trophies and clues, but they've added a twist by having many of the trophies locked in different types of puzzles which require various gadgets or special moves to access. The only downside is that you won't be able to access many of these until you progress further into the game and obtain the requisite abilities. Still, they are fun. The best, though, are these side missions where you have to rescue hostages from Riddler rooms. It involves similar mechanisms as the trophies, but the puzzles are larger and more intricate.

Fighting mechanism is mostly the same, though there are even more moves available now (perhaps too many). They also introduced a few new types of enemies - so far I've encountered body armor, blades, and riot shields. Sadly they seem to have done away with the knives and electrified batons of the previous game; Shock and Awe was one of my favorite challenge maps from Arkham Asylum. I really like what they did with the riddle locations, though. Instead of finding a lame map, you interrogate certain prisoners for their locations. Basically you'll come across a group of prisoners every now and then where one of them will be indicated as the leader / informant / whatever. If you beat all the other guys up first then you'll be able to get the locations out of him. You have to do this a lot as there are 400 items spread across the city, but the challenges are varied enough that it never really gets old. You have the standard story missions and then there is a nice amount (and variety) of side missions. Honestly, I think they outdid themselves. I would have been satisfied if this game simply wasn't a letdown, but it's one of those rare gems where the sequel is actually better than the original. My only minor quibble so far would be that it seems all the enemies are tougher. It just takes more blows to bring down the average prisoner than it did in the previous game; that can kind fuck up your rhythm when you're dealing with a large group. Other than that, excellent.

Finally got into it this weekend. All I can say is that it's good. Really good.

This is a terrible weekend for college football. Sure, you've got the Game of the Century (TM). But aside from that, there really isn't anything going on. I live in SEC country so I'll probably check out South Carolina and Arkansas, at least until LSU and Alabama kick off. Oklahoma State is somewhat intriguing, but I'm not a big fan of the Big 12 and Kansas State is severely overranked. For the first time this year, there's not a single fucking day game that catches my fancy. Awful. On the flip side, I may be able to get some shopping done.