I'm not Jason Bergman, I just play one on the Shack.

	Nintendo Profit Drops Great Zelda and GameCube sales during the past month or not, Nintendo is slashing its earnings forecast for the fiscal year that ended March 31. While the company had hoped to sell 10 million Cubes, it ended up selling just 5.6 million of them. The company is still posting a $547 million profit though.
	Halo 2 Details Quite a bit of Xbox news tonight, starting with Halo 2. Over at Unlimited Lives you can find an interesting article on the game, based on a recent presentation by Bungie programmer Adrian Perez at Carnegie Mellon University. It offers a bit of Halo history and then goes into the improvements that are planned for Halo 2 graphics and AI.
	Sega GT Online Announced Sega today announced that Sega GT Online is in development. Xbox Live enabled (support for up to six players), the game will feature 160 cars which players can customize and tune as they wish, and they can be traded between players or betted on before a race. Sega GT Online is due out this fall.
	F-Zero Track Info PlanetGameCube has posted details on the F-Zero cities and tracks, taken from the latest issue of Famitsu. There is info on Mute City, Port Town, Green Plant, Lightning and Aeropolis.
	Sphinx Preview IGN has posted their first look at Sphinx, a PS2 action adventure game in development at Eurocom. THQ Project Manager Mark Morris offers some info on the game, and seven new screenshots are included.
	Brute Force Preview New on GameSpot tonight is this preview of Brute Force, taking a look at Digital Anvil's long in development third person shooter. The preview is hands-on, but there are no new screenshots included. There's also a six page preview of the game on IGN.
	Midtown Madness 3 Impressions, Q&A Computer & Video Games has posted their impressions of Midtown Madness 3, offering new screenshots and movies as well. You can find an interview with the development team at HomeLAN Fed.
	Command & Destroy Advance Announced The people at Cypron Studios have announced that they are working on Command & Destroy Advance, a strategy game for the Game Boy Advance due out this sunmmer. IGN has some screenshots.
	Misc. Media GameSpy Daily has several Enter the Matrix screenshots, taken from the PS2 version of the game. Activision released some screenshots from the Return to Castle Wolfenstein console ports, click here for PS2 (Operation Resurrection) and here for Xbox (Tides of War) screenshots.

Console Game of the Evening: Star Control 2 for the 3DO. "It was one of the painfully few PC ports to this system that actually improved upon already perfect gameplay. One of the few 3DO games I had and made the doomed system very worthwhile." (submitted by Omaha).

I need a maid. Maybe two. Games, the common *cough* cold and shacking have kept me from my duties as master of the house, and I haven't done the dishes in oh... 8 days or something. I do have enough plates and glasses to keep me going for at least another two weeks, but my tiny kitchen is too small to actually store the dirty ones!

And in totally unrelated news - Now that Kazaa has folded, the RIAA needs a new target. And the winner is....AudioGalaxy. Audiogalaxy guys, say "hello" for us to Nikki Hemming if you see him next week in the homeless shelter, okay?

I have a feeling this is going to be a long weekend. I'd better get started...

The final day of E3 is about to begin. Maybe it's just me, but this year's E3 hasn't been as exciting as past years. (With one notable exception - the Doom3 video) Lots of good games are coming up, that's not the problem. But nothing "big" has been announced.

But, it's probably just me.

E3, Day 2. I'm not sure what we can exepect, but I fear it will be more of the same. Someone should whack the id Software people on the head with a realdoll or something, and convince them to release that other Doom3 video.

In other news, Kazaa is about to fold. Now, don't get me wrong, I never was a Kazaa fan (spyware, etc), but I still think it's sad. It's sad because some American companies or institutions apparantly have the power to sue other companies to bankrupcy, and they can do it to every company in about every country in the world. Kazaa (A Dutch/Australian company) is folding because it does not have the financial resources to defend itself against some American record companies. This, dear readers, is one fucked up world. But, I guess that's nothing new. And just for the record, (No pun intended) this is a rant against corporate and legal structures around the world, not Americans or Dutch in particular :)

Now, on to the news...

Well, not a bad day, although I believe the internet coverage of the event is not as good as last years. A lot of good sites have died the last year, or started to suck, or moved their good content behind subscriptions. Bummer.

Anyway, who cares about Doom anyway? The good stuff!

• Hubba Hubba Hubba! *Finally* a site that gets the priorities straight up!
• Proof that brittaney spaers fans are illeterate poepel!
• I wonder what this guy does when he catches a speeder. Somehow I'm hoping it involves a lasso.
• Not enough time to play all your games? Here's the solution: Caffeinated Soap.
• And, finally, a game that has proper balance in gameplay.

Thanks to all the posters of the links. I forgot to write your names down, so no credits. Steve, Maarten or Jason will probably update later tonight, in case something interesting happens. If not, then you'll just have to wake up extra early tomorrow to read huge morning update...

Return of the BEER - Bulletted Early Evening Reading! Things you did not know about BEER are:

• If a young Tiriki man offers beer to a woman and she spits some of it into his mouth, they are engaged to be married.
• Among the Bagonda people of Uganda, the several widows of a recently deceased king have the distinctive honor of drinking the beer in which his entrails have been cleaned.
• The Chagga people of Tanganyika believe that a liar will be poisoned if he or she consumes beer mixed with the blood of a recently sacrificed goat.
• It's illegal to sit on any street curb in St. Louis, Missouri, and drink beer from a bucket.

And in related news:

• French fries, potato chips, and reading the shack can cause cancer! (But cancer is the least of your problems when you eat peppersteaks like this.)
• If you have to eat fast food then pizza might be a healthier choice.
• A rabbit chasing your mousepointer. Old, but pretty funny.
• JeffK reviews tomorrowind in his usual elegalant waj

And last but not least, in the category 'small and useful applications', one of my personal favorites - StrokeIt. (Opera style mouse gesturing for every app.)

Ok, I've gotten this forwarded to me about forty times in the past two days. This auction is just a sickening collection of games. It might even be almost as much as Jason has :)

Seems Maarten forgot a little something this morning, and I know he really doesn't like these anyway :-)

I'm so glad Nintendo is finally getting their act together. As Jason mentioned last night, Mario Sunshine is shipping here in August. In addition, Eternal Darkness won't slip (according to an interview on the locked part of cube.ign.com), Resident Evil's done, Star Fox Adventures might actually come out this year, my game's slated for this year, Zelda should be out. It looks like the second part of the year might finally be a good one for Nintendo. And I was starting to get worried.

It's also still a pretty damned good time for gaming as there has just been one good game after another coming out. I'm still playing Baldur's Gate, but I also picked up Maximo. That game is really hard but I'll be damned if it's not fun as hell. Of course, if I would have known it was the sequel to Ghouls and Ghosts, I probably would have picked it up earlier. I also picked up Sega Soccer Slam for the GC, which will hopefully become the new co-op game that Berenger, Steve, and I play since we got the Stanley Cup in NHL Hitz 2002, which was some underrated great fun incidentally.

So darn early it's Afternoon! Well Ice Age was ok. To me it just felt unpolished and poorly presented at times. Typical Disney'esque style plot line. I think I'm gonna sucker the woman in to starting to give chick opinions on movies since I drag her along with me every weekend to see something.

- Navy robot sub
- Mars water debate rages on
- A bit more description on that brain cursor control stuff. Thanks GAKera
- Gadgets at CeBit
- Another CeBit gadget
- Even more CeBit coverage
- Russia selling low-grav time.
- The company that pioneered flash ads is looking for a home. DIE! DIE!

Lastly, everyone say thank you to McDonalds for having excellent french fries. It's actually only about a 1 outa 5 ratio that you get those "perfect" fries... but when you do. oh my! I think Wendy's is the most consistent on their fries though.. always good.

A quick ER while Super Bowl XXXVI is going on. Uhm wtf New England?

- Police and nudity don't go together well.
- That's cute, the Enron executives who will testify tomorrow will fly with private jets. Thanks Fark.
- Bill Gates has his own thoughts on the economy recovering.
- Al Gore is back, still with the beard.
- Here's some stuff about the Olympics and technology

Back to the game..

Midnight ER! Just got back from LOTR with the parents, was even cooler the second time around. Speaking of cool the chick (I forget her name) got me one of those nifty mini-fridge dealies that just fits a 6pack of cans. Always wanted one of those things.

- 20 things about PCs to change in the future.
- That boat that supposedly had explosives on board was empty.
- I think I saw an E-Book for the first time a couple weeks ago.
- AT&T backing off of wireless a bit?
- Should US net firms collect Euro taxes?

Lastly, so we're at the end of 2001... is it recovery time yet?

Well I didn't expect a new episode to be so soon, with all of the other shows I watch in reruns... Anyway, * * * SPOILERS * * *.

Well Lex finally snapped. I never really liked the guy in the first place. His nice guy persona seemed genuine, but the way he presented himself (Tattoo's, Piercings) showed an insecurity to me, that, well, made me not really like him. I never really expected him to freak out this much, as we was trying to "smoke out the snake" who voted for him (Theresa).

So while he and Ethan were on a reward challenge (and an extremely entertaining one), old Samburu seemed to be back together, with Theresa trying to get Lex out before she was discovered (and Young Kim getting cuter and cuter, it seems :) ). When Ethan and Lex got back, Brandon's selling out of Kelly was great. He basically convinced Lex that Kelly was the leak, and got her voted out. So Brandon and Kelly swapped places in alliances and Kelly took the fall.

Pretty smart move on Brandon's part - Move from the all girl and homophobe team to the open-minded guys, dumb hick, and grandma team. At least he'll survive an extra week. As for highlights? The entire reward sequence, Kelly stomping on the seesaw at the reward challenge, and Lex acting completely insane, especially at the council. Anti-highlight? My girlfriend going all ga-ga over Ethan again ("aww, and when he gave those kids the hackey-sack...).

What's this stand for you ask? Why Late Early Evening Reading of course! This has been a wild day in the Shack shack, with me calling to wake Maarten up at the crack of 1:45pm and Steve being out all day! The excitement is now being capped off with Maarten watching the wonderful Stargate SG-1! w00p!

- Looks like thousands of limey geeks will have to rise up, then just sit back down eating more crisps and reading The Register.
- beefyconvictedterrorists.com?
- Note to self: Don't name band after deadly disease.
- And to think, I always thought Maarten was a champion pole sitter.
- Chick drivers.

Slow progress is getting made on the fileshack stuff. Don't really have an ETA on it yet but it might just be kinda cool. Also, congrats to Fat Mike on hitting 10,000 posts even if I didn't get any props and Clay did :-(~~~

Apparently Steve found something to do last night that prevented him from wanting to get out of bed.

I've been checking out that Dark age of Camelot game, and I'm sorely tempted to pick it up, except I just don't have time to play it. The quest system looks much better than EQ's and the graphics while not spectacular are certainly a large step up as well. The people at Gamestop must be thinking I'm stalking them. I go to that store like once or twice a week.

quote: Now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives. But remember, as my plastic surgeon always said: if you gotta go, go with a smile.

*blink* *blink* ... Hello world!

Well, more new comments-system testing today. Comments and suggestions are welcome, and you better come up with them before the system goes live sometime this week.

Movie: From now on, you're in the gettin'-fucked-by-us business!

The MIDNIGHT SPECIAL tonight is brought to you in part by MCHammer, Vanilla Ice, Gerardo, New Kids On The Block, RunDMC , Whitesnake , Hootie & The Blowfish , Flock of Seagulls , RATT , Color Me Badd , Stryper , and Debbie Gibson! Woohoo!

- Some more stuff on BlueTooth, really interesting.. wonder if it'll ever pan out.
- Security experts are warning against cyber-terrorism coming in the next wave.
- Investors are urging a "stock buying spree" for the market opening on Monday.

Lastly, sorry about the server load issues. Looks like we're pushing the limits of the system as it is. Working on getting things shifted to a server farm of 3 different dual cpu boxes. Right now we're on a single Dual866. We run pretty damn efficient given the # of pages being served up, but every once in a while ya just gotta throw some more horsepower in there.

The whereabouts of Maarten, Steve and jason are still a closely kept secret. Rumours of a breakup are circulating, but the DOJ refuses any comment.

Steve actually mentioned something about a broken phoneline and borked cablemodem a few days back, it might be that again.

Movie: The only true wisdom consists of knowing you know nothing.

update Jack - Or it might be because we were playing Diablo 2 at Zoid's till like 4. :-)

update Steve - An anonymous source tells me this is the case. He also tells me his Amazon owns now. Weekends are meant for this kind of stuff :)

Monday! Yahoo! Finally! Back to school, back to work... I'm sure you all love that! Steve forgot to set his alarmclock and slept late, so if anyone of you want to spank him over that then go ahead, be my guest.

Movie: Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?

Some IOTDs as a result of the little photoshop contest yesterday: Los Vaqueros Plasticos Del Norte by paper chase guy (Winner!), the nose pencil master by reobibi, Steve from the Planet of the Apes by whateva (very good) and finally a winking Ron Gibson. Check out the forums for more.

A birthday is not complete without a good amount of Birthday Early Evening Reading!

... and so ends another day of mayhem and havoc on the Shack. I will leave you for your regular programming, but not before these final words of wisdom:

• A bunch of Mexican state governors were spotted in a topless cafe. On seeing the group of reporters, the governors said they had been brought to the cafe by a driver when they simply asked to be taken somewhere for a coffee. Riiiiiiiiight!
• Barely legal self-bondage from LA. A 12 year old girl was found bound, gagged - but later she admitted she staged the scene because she was mad at her mother.
• Gays and Lesbians are not 'homosexual'. At least, according to the new Scotland Yard manual. The new manual instructs policemen to find more appropriate terms people in the LGB group. (That would be Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals)
• The existance of guns that look like cellular phones is nothing new. However, this is the first video I've seen of one in action.
• As seen in on the shackforum and in the comments - Flatulence in the matrix. Things you didn't want to know about Neo.
• (Update) New in on number one of the top ten reasons not to run a gaming website - Mothers that send in kindergarten pictures on your birthday! Our eternal gratitude to sHugamom for the picture. Scoop: Read one of the excuses our favorite webmaster made up after not doing his homework! (The word document contains nothing but the picture)

And remember: You don't know Jack Shit!

Hey. As you all know, it's Steve's birthday today. I'm sure he has a completely different perspective on life now that he has grown up. Congratulations Steve! Now.... let's all sing Happy Birthday, okay? And don't forget to record it and stick it online somewhere so our birthdayboy can enjoy it. I'm sure Steve will wake up sometime soon and post a huge update about all the cool presents he got. (Not, I guess.) Birthday movie quote: "Saturn controls your emotions and the way you treat people." Also happy birthday to: Bill Clinton (age: 55) and Jonathan Frakes (aka: Cmdr. William T. Riker, age: 49) Slow sunday photoshop contest: Photoshop something funny related to the birthday of Steve or Bill from this, this, or find something else. No gore please. If you don't have a place to upload your entries, then you can attach them on a post in the shackforum.