The day before Thanksgiving is usually the busiest travel day of the year, but we were saved any hassle since the in-laws are coming over to our place to gobble on some turkey.

The bird is brining as we speak, but most of the preparations will be tomorrow afternoon when we have to get all the sides ready. We do have to clean up our place to accommodate the horde that's camping out for the next few days.

As usual we'll be around and updating the site here and there, but don't be surprised if the news coverage slows down to a trickle.

Hey, look at that: a somewhat timely update to kick off the day. Feeling much better than last night, so I should be in the clear for the upcoming Thanksgiving festivities.

Is it just me, or are there way more video game sales going on than in previous years? It seems like every publisher, digital distribution place, or retail outlet is having some sort of sale going on. Of course, that's a good thing for people looking to pick up some bargains or titles they've been meaning to check out.

Didn't get to watch much last night. Scanned through a few episodes of Dancing With The Stars and my favorite new series, The Walking Dead.

Hmm think I might be coming down with something. I fell asleep while watching Chuck last night and went for a short nap but didn't wake up until morning. With my erratic sleeping patterns, I hardly sleep full nights, but when I do, it usually means I'm fighting off a cold or something. I guess the silver lining is that I usually heal while sleeping. (No, I'm not really bionic.)

Mission accomplished. We did everything that we set out to do yesterday: run a few errands and watch TV. We're professionals, trained in the art of doing very little during the weekends. We watched Bones, Burn Notice, Chuck, Fringe, Hell's Kitchen, House and Human Target, mixed in with some Vindictus, Stronghold Kingdoms and our beloved Smurfs' Village on iPod.

This week will be a rather short one, as Thursday is Thanksgiving, so most places will shut down early on Wednesday and prepare to chow down on turkey. The in-laws will be in town, so we are in charge of the festivities.

More importantly, I'm going to be scoping out a few places on Black Friday to see if I can score myself a new gaming PC.

We didn't really get much done yesterday. We went out to brunch with some friends and varnished our patio table. Shortly thereafter, it started raining like crazy, and I'm talking about rain coming down in buckets, with some hail, thunder and lightning thrown in for good measure. Somebody was having a party up there ...

Later in the evening, we went to dinner with a friend and watched Due Date, which was quite funny.

The plan for today? Quite simple: do some grocery shopping and watch a ton of shows on the DVR.

Another awesome concert in the bag! Bad Religion's 30th anniversary tour was a blast, and even both opening acts were half decent. The show was sold out and the crowd went wild from start to finish with a massive mosh pit spanning half of the concert hall. Good stuff! All that aside, 30 years is quite an achievement when you consider that most bands these days can't even stay together for a few years without having "creative differences."

Good thing it's the weekend, so my hearing has a few days to recover. Too bad for the people we're going out with tomorrow. Guess I'll just have to smile, nod and pretend that I can hear the discussion.

Yay, the weekend again! We're going to kick it off in style with another concert. Bad Religion is in town again, so into the mosh pit we go once more.

No other plans apart from playing The Smurfs' Village on iPod, some Vindictus, Stronghold Kingdoms, and trying to stem the disturbing DVR tide, as the damn thing is filling up again at an alarming rate (70% and counting). We watched Stargate Universe and Psych, but with our bellies full of food, it didn't tale long before our eyelids became to heavy and ... lights out.

I don't usually rant about the gaming industry, but as a PC gamer, it is increasingly frustrating to see developers neglect the platform.

Microsoft has been vowing to reignite its commitment to the PC for many years, first with Vista as a gaming platform (laugh) and then partaking in the PC Gaming Alliance (dead much?).

Yesterday Lionhead, a Microsoft studio, felt the need to remind people that Fable III for the PC is still in development, as if people had forgotten (how about we get Fable II first?). Fable III was supposed to be a simultaneous launch on X360 and PC, but now there's no date or any news on when to expect the PC version.

When big titles like Halo 2, Gears of War and Fable III don't reach the PC until months or years after their initial release, people tend to lose interest and move on. Coming from the company that ought to be on the forefront of developing and publishing on its own platform, that is incomprehensible. Executives who wonder why the PC ports don't sell any copies are out of touch with reality.

Ahh, it's that time of year again, when companies thank you for your service, wish you happy holidays and hand you a pink slip on the way out.

On the other hand, I'm quite positive that somebody will see the value in a reputable studio as Bizarre Creations. It would be shame if they would be lost.

Tonight we're going to a local fundraiser event, which isn't so special on its own, but it is being held on a blocked-off street, and most restaurants and bars on that strip are giving out free samples. What's not to like about free beer and food?

It turned out to be a nicely busy day yesterday, and it was topped off with the official word that APB is indeed coming back. I know a few people who will be stoked about that! Early 2011 is quite a wait, but if they can tighten up the combat and work out better anti-cheat, then I'm sure it will be a success, especially with the free2play model.

I'm sure a lot of people are waiting for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and while we have been playing the game for the past few days, we are going to take an extra day to complete our review. We want to test out multiplayer in a live setting, especially since that is one of the major additions in this title.

The weather was gorgeous yesterday, but since we were so tuckered out, we didn't take advantage of it. We slept, ate breakfast, played Stronghold Kingdoms, Vindictus and Smurfs' Village (iPod), and then we watched Bones and Fringe.

To continue our "let's hide from the sun" campaign, we saw Unstoppable (Denzel Washington,Rosario Dawson, Chris Pine). We were already looking forward to it, but it turned out to be much better than we expected — a thrill ride from start to finish. If you like suspense and a few butt-clenchers, then this is definitely a movie to watch.

If last week's Black Ops wasn't your cup of tea, then this week will bring a slew of new titles, like Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Sonic Colors and a bunch of others.

Yesterday was a bit of an odd day. We hauled furniture twice (once moving it out of the way, and then back in place), did some groceries/errands. some early holiday gift shopping, watched The Walking Dead, Harvey, and Smallville. All the lugging around made us hungry in the afternoon, which inevitably led to the fact we were not feeling like eating around dinner time. We sat down to dinner at the stroke of midnight instead.

We have nothing specific on the agenda for today, so we've settled on watching Tony Scott's train wreck of a movie Unstoppable (featuring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine, the new Cpt. Kirk).

It was a rather uneventful day. Apart from working and further tidying up the place for the carpet cleaning later today, not a whole lot happened.

Gran Turismo 5 is finally going to make it to PS3s, a few years after it was initially planned as a platform launch title. With a few years of extra polishing, it should be a rather good title, right ? We'll find out soon enough.

We watched Glee, Hell's Kitchen, Psych and Burn Notice, and maybe later this weekend, we'll see either Unstoppable or Due Date.

My hopes of having a quiet day yesterday turned out to be in vain. I even slept in a bit, but that all came back to bite me in the behind.

Nevertheless, I played some Vindictus and Stronghold Kingdoms, which is amazingly engaging for a slow-paced game. There's quite a bit to do and keep track of (it's in open beta, so sign up). After a short break due to World Series baseball, TV season has started again, so we watched The Good Wife, NCIS, Stargate Universe and Sons Of Anarchy.

This weekend, we're having our carpet cleaned, so in between working, I'll be moving furniture and equipment. Joy!

Last night, we hung out with the fine folks over at EA for their 2010 Showcase. Lots of new and upcoming games on display, and we went hands-on with quite a few — some of which are not even announced yet. Most of it is under embargo until a later date, but keep an eye out. We'll have coverage up soon enough.

Today is Veterans/Remembrance Day, so we're not quite sure how much activity there will be news-wise, but we'll be around to give you the latest coverage.

I've played a bit of Black Ops, and while I'm not blown away yet, I am glad that it centers around one person and chronicles his life as a special ops operator ... so far, anyhow.

Keep an eye out later today for the first trailer from Rockstar's L.A. Noire! I doubt it will reveal much — maybe just a few teasers and mostly cinematics — but who knows? Maybe it will be all in-game footage and have a release date. We'll know in a few hours, but I'm actually curious and looking forward to checking it out.

I'm currently downloading Call of Duty: Black Ops off Steam. I'm first going to check out the single-player mode, and I'm hoping that the story is somewhat compelling. My main issue with modern warfare titles is that you don't stick with one character or a group of people who you can follow through the game. Hopping from character to character doesn't really pull me in or make me care for my persona. By the time you connect, he either dies or you move to another soldier from another branch, country or theater of war.

Last night we went to another concert, KT Tunstall. Not my usual fare, but it's a small price to pay for dragging my better half to all my concerts like Metallica, Five Finger Death Punch, Iron Maiden, Lamb of God and the like. And it wasn't actually too bad ....

On our way back from the concert hall, we passed by GameStop with people lining up around the block for the midnight launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops. (They're probably at home and playing away by now.)

For the past few days, I've been playing Stronghold Kingdoms, and it's pretty good. It's nowhere near as fast-paced as the actual RTS titles in the franchise, but it's a persistent world with chores/production to be set. Depending on your subscription model (free-to-play or paying), your minions carry out your orders while you are offline.

The weekend has flown by, and we didn't even do all that much.

Yesterday, we took another trip to the local museum to see if we could score tickets to the Pixar exhibit, and armed with the knowledge that admission usually sells out during the first hour, we got there bright and early. Celebrating 25 years of Pixar, the exhibit was awesome and very informative in terms of the company's background and the movies created since its inception. One of the little tidbits I was unaware of was that Pixar sprouted from LucasArts' Computer Division Graphics Group in 1979. Lots of sketches, drawings, storyboards and amazing character molds were on display, with a lot of the artwork so amazing that I'd rather have it hanging in my living room than paintings from some of the most renowned artists of the millennium.

Yesterday we spent some time messing around with the Kinect and a few of the launch titles. Hooking it up was quite easy, calibration a piece of cake, voice commands work fine, and it even recognized movement in a dimly lit room.

While Kinect Sports was quite fun to play, especially with two teams competing against each other, Dance Central was hilarious, and we established early on that Adam would be voted off in the first round of So You Think You Can Dance.

Prior to our escapades, we saw Red, a funny action movie with Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parkerand Morgan Freeman. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out. It was good stuff.

Looks like yesterday's 100+ updates on my freshly installed gaming computer was not the end of it, as today two updates triggered the SP1, a subsequent 47 more patches, followed by numerous reboots, which in turn resulted in a 500 MB SP2. Maybe I'll be done in a couple of days. Who knows what's next?

In the midst of all the updating, there was very little time to play Vindictus (I finally started an alt playing as the new Evie mage character), but more time to watch TV. As if we did not have enough to keep track of, we added Blue Bloods (new cop series with Donnie Wahlberg and Tom Selleck), as well as The Walking Dead (zombies!). Apart from a few episodes of the aforementioned shows, we also checked out the latest Fringe, Hawaii Five-0, Sons Of Anarchy and Weeds.