So I left off last time on my small mission on getting a Gibson ES 137 and a Marshall half stack amp. Over one month ago, I got an Epiphone Les Paul Standard with a cherry sunburst color. I also got a digital Line 6 Spider III amp with a whole bunch of possible settings ranging from a clean, acoustic sound to an insane, death metal distortion.

I've been working on music more than making any time for other things. I also have been hunting down a job since May and finally found one, so I'm trying to make some money too. Due to that, I've only been able to rent games to save on money.

I rented Soul Calibur IV and I must say that it has one of the greatest and smoothest gameplay experiences I've seen in a fighting game. The details are wonderful, the controls are very accurate, and the character creation holds a nice variety of possibilities from color schemes to voice pitch.

School starts in about two weeks out here, so I have to hold on to most of my money and I probably won't have much time for games either. I also want to spend more time with my boyfriend before he leaves for college in October. I'll try to keep things more active for my account here, as well.

I've been so busy with stuff. I'm in the middle of filling out an application for a part-time job at some haberdasher near my house, and I'm collecting a bunch of money from eBay sales and crap. All for the good cause of one thing...

I want... no... I NEED the Gibson ES 137 Blue Burst. Now at $1799.99 USD, this beauty of a guitar is all I can think about. I'm getting help from a friend and my parents to make enough money to get it, and perhaps a nice Marshall Half-Stack amp to go along with it. I don't exactly have enough time to play video games, sadly, but I will try to update with a few more reviews soon and try to check up on everything here at GameSpot whenever I get the chance.

Wish me luck, $1,800 isn't gonna be easy!

Recently, I've experienced a scratching on my Gears of War game disc. It plays up until the last chapter of Act 2 on any mode. Then I get a message that states that the game disc is unreadable. I am able to get this fixed for free though, so there is no problem.

A friend of mine has had his TimeShift game scratched by his console as well, and this issue has also occurred as shown by GameSpot's news report on the lawsuit claimed by Jorge Brouwer ( http://www.gamespot.com/news/6174043.html?tag=result;title;1 ). I later found out that the problem can often occur if your Xbox 360 is picked up from its location and moved to another location while a game disc is remained inserted. This may cause the mechanics of the disc readers within the system to have unwanted contact, scratching the disc. It is best to either take the game out of the system before moving it or to move your console on its side, right side facing up, without bumping the console up and down even by accident.