Last night, we had a nice send-off dinner with our 1C Company friends. Back to Russia they go. Over the past week, we've had four social outings/dinner occasions, and we've been eating out WAY too much. Luckily, the weather has been great, and will be for at least the next week, so we have no excuse to not go running and do some working out. Maybe we can shave off a few pounds ....

Today is lazy day. All our errands have been done, so apart from the aforementioned workout, we'll be lounging around the house, watching some movies, and catching up on the 24, Burn Notice and a few other things.

Today is also the 66th anniversary of D-Day.

It's the final countdown! It's the last week before E3, last-minute appointments (in our case, 80% of them) are being set up, and final preparations (in our case, first preparations) are being made to take the trip to Los Angeles and mentally ready ourselves for a week of gamers' body odor.

This weekend, we'll hang out with our friends from 1C, drink vodka leftovers, maybe see a movie, watch some DVR shows and catch up on sleep so that we're well-rested for the gaming madness.

Last night, we went to the annual 1C Company press event at the Russian consulate. Being on Russian soil is a rather unique experience, but we also got to see quite a few of new 1C games, such as the recently announced Off-Road Drive, but also titles that have been in development for ages, such as Rig'n'Roll (we've seen it at E3 since 2005 or so?), Captain Blood (Yes, it is finally coming out!) expansions for King's Bounty and Men of War, sequels like Death to Spies 3, and a few other titles.

Apart from the loads of vodka and Russian cuisine, there was a "spy hunt" contest. You had to find a real CIA spy among the crowd who was masquerading as a journalist. We won and took home the grand prize, two ATI HD 5870 graphics cards, PC game pads, and a gaming mouse.

Not a bad evening, I'd say ....

One press event down, one more to go this week. Tonight 1C Company will show off its upcoming titles at the Russian Consulate, and that's always a good event.

Monday's CrimeCraft content update caused some server instabilities over the past couple of days, but all is working smoothly again. One of my attentive gang members noticed that there should be two new maps coming up, according to a map/server list.

I've started watching Justified, with Timothy Olyphant, known for Deadwood and Hitman: The Movie. So far, it is quite decent, but nothing too spectacular. Good thing I like his acting style.

Well, there is no denying that E3 is upon us. Various publishers are sending out out their lineups, which we'll be able to see for ourselves in a couple of weeks. There will probably be a slew of new announcements made prior to the show, so we'll have some new titles to look forward to and maybe Rockstar will even answer my prayers by bringing Red Dead Redemption to the PC.

TV-wise, we finished the first season of V and the unfortunate series finale of FlashForward. Maybe tomorrow, we'll have a sit-down with Jack Bauer and wrap up the final season of 24.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. It was nice and sunny with a light breeze — perfect BBQ weather. We went over to our friends' place for lunch, but we spent so much time there that it was dinner time again, but we were still stuffed and had peach cobbler a la mode instead.

This week will be another busy one, with an Activision event tomorrow for Transformers: War for Cybertron. The day after, 1C Company is having its annual gamers day, and Friday is a beer fest with some friends.

Can't ... Eat ... Anymore ....

So today is Memorial Day weekend, formerly known as Decoration Day, where we commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in military service. Most businesses are closed in the UK due to a bank holiday, so suffice it to say that things will be rather slow today. We will update as things roll in, though.

We have a BBQ to attend later in the day, and we're already looking forward to it. The in-laws are gone, the house is nice and quiet, and after cleaning up, we may even watch some shows on the DVR.

Yesterday was a bit of a boring day. The in-laws were out and about, and I was working and playing CrimeCraft, so not too much interesting was going on.

Nothing but sad news actually: Gary Coleman passed away, as well as Dennis Hopper, star of Apocalypse Now, Easy Rider and a slew of other hits. Hopper, 74, had been battling prostate cancer for a while, and pictures of recent public appearances had him looking like he already had one leg in the grave.

Memorial Day weekend, formerly known as Decoration Day, commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in the military service. It's also our excuse to troll The History Channel or A&E looking for war movies that we've seen a dozen times before.

Since we've already seen Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the only other movie opening this weekend is Sex and the City 2, but we'll pass on that. However, on Monday, some friends were wise enough to invite us to their BBQ, so I'm already looking forward to that. Cold beer and some steak — sounds like a plan to me!

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend, so things might be a bit slow until Tuesday, depending on who is observing the holiday. We're having the in-laws over for a few days, so we need to clean up our office a bit. The father-in-law tends have the notion of seeing shiny things and thinking they are up for grabs. Weird ....

I think my gaming rig has been overheating ever since I bought the Geforce 250. My screen randomly freezes, turns  black and then comes back after a few seconds, sometimes a few times in a row. My standard case was not meant for all the power supply cables, so airflow is probably non-existent. I bought a new, and bigger, case last weekend, so maybe I'll tinker around with that in the next few days and see if we can get it assembled and working again.

We got swept away to a secret press event last night, although it wasn't hard to figure out we'd be seeing Killzone 3. Stay tuned for some hands-on impressions, interviews and new assets. Plenty to look forward to ...

As for the "Prince of Persia" movie screening on Tuesday night, it's the best video game movie so far. That might sound like a backhanded compliment, but it's not. The film had really high production value, lots of action, and a few references to the video game series (though we also saw some crossover with Assassin's Creed). The creative and complicated fight sequences were good and changed things up to keep you guessing. There's an overly long sequence near the end that kills the flow of the movie, but overall, we liked it and would recommend it.

Our blank E3 schedule has been made, and now it's time to fill it up with dozens of appointments Let the scheduling nightmare begin!

Last night, we saw a special screening of the Prince of Persia movie. We aren't allowed to talk about it until tomorrow, and although we're not in the habit of reviewing movies, we'll go into a little more detail in tomorrow's MOTD.

Microsoft is cleaning house with J Allard and Robbie Bach leaving and/or retiring. I just hope that the people who replace them will focus more on PC gaming than what we've seen in recent years. Bring Gears of War and Halo to the PC simultaneously, not a year or two after the fact, when everybody has already moved on. I'm just saying ....

Well, that didn't go as planned.

Snooze fest!

We had friends over to watch the series finale of Lost, and while it's been a good six seasons, we have no idea what just happened. Questions were answered, but equally as many new questions have presented themselves. Guess it's open to interpretation so people can form their own conclusions and make of it what they want. I personally don't like these kinds of endings. So many other shows get canceled and you are left hanging without resolution, and these guys had six years to wrap it all up, and they didn't.

We also went to see Date Night, which was surprisingly good and quite funny in a more sarcastic/adult way. Tomorrow, we're going to go see Prince of Persia, so hopefully that won't be a disappointment like most game movie adaptations.

Yesterday was a sunny, nice and relaxing day. We ran some errands, watched "Kitchen Nightmares" and a few episodes of the "V" remake. We went out to Best Buy and bought a new case for my gaming computer since the old one has so much stuff and cables inside that the graphics card is overheating, as well as a netbook for Adam so he can get back to conducting interviews (his laptop died). Quite the productive day...

With the warm weather approaching, that also means summer concerts tours are being announced, and boy, have we got a few lined up. Over the next few months, we are going to see Iron Maiden, the Scorpions farewell tour, Queensryche, Slash and Danzig. \m/

We have quite a few things to do this weekend! We've made a list of all the errands we need to run and chores that need to be done. Apart from trying to the catch up on DVR programs (we watched NCIS, Chuck, Bones and Stargate Universe), we have some E3 prep to do and a ton of household stuff.

If the good weather keeps up, maybe we'll even squeeze in a run. I've lost about 25 pounds since last year and ideally I'd like to shave off a few more, but at the very least keep it steady. Last weekend's trip to Häagen Dazs and double-header BBQ meals sure didn't help in that area. I still feel bloated.

Happy Friday!

We're really looking forward to the weekend and doing nothing! Our DVR is slowly filling up, nearing 80%, so we really need to dig in and make a dent. If we could only stay awake and not fall asleep on our cozy couch.

It seems Kevin Costner is getting the last laugh after the "Waterworld" movie fiasco, although the movie didn't do too badly overall. In the movie, Costner's character was working on a machine to purify ocean water. In real life, Costner used millions of his own money and worked with his scientist brother to develop ships that use "Ocean Therapy" to remove oil from ocean water. Now BP is testing six prototypes in hopes of cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Earlier today we got a chance to play Crackdown 2, so be on the lookout for our impressions next week when the embargo lifts. Is it good, better, or worse than the original? We'll tell you all about it in a few days...

We also got advanced tickets to go see the Prince of Persia movie earlier next week, and since we were planning on seeing it anyhow, free passes are greatly appreciated (thanks Disney). We'll give you a quick rundown of the movie when we've get the green light to do so.

Apart from that, we watched the season finale of Castle and Bones, as well as the latest episode of Lost.

Red Dead Redemption came out yesterday, and we got our review copies (as well as a swanky t-shirt, dice, soap and a pack of cards). I'm still holding out hope for a PC version, so I'm not going to touch the PS3/X360 copies we received and let others dig into those. Come on, Rockstar!

There are a few events happening this week. Some coverage you'll see later today, others next week, and some closer to E3 apparently. We got our travel and accommodations booked, so that is taken care of. We're almost set to invade Los Angeles for a week of gaming madness ....

It's about time to stop procrastinating and start making out E3 schedule/appointment/hotel accommodations. I'm quite sure I mentioned it before, but I really dread the run-up to E3, the planning of it all, never looking forward to it.

We watched earlier episodes of The Pacific, some NCIS, new House, and planned on watching 9, but a bottle of wine surfaced and snooze fest ensued.