While I do acknowledge his immense contributions to pop music, dance, and culture, I don't consider any perverts or accused child molesters to be great people. He's a legend, yes, but I'm not a big fan of his music, so it's a sad truth that I'll remember him more for being mentally ill than for his musical and cultural legacy. This is just my opinion regarding the person who is universally referred to as the king of pop, and I won't be discussing this subject further.As the title suggests, this blog is not about Michael Jackson, so moving on...
Where has the time gone?
It's been a little more than 4 months since my last blog, the first 2 of which were spent focusing on my spirituality and my academics. The latter 2 were spent finishing up high school for good (graduated this past Tuesday - hooray for me!! 
) and just enjoying the company of my friends and family.
I've thought a lot about "coming back" to Gamespot in terms of my level of activity and blogging and I've been torn on this. During the Great Lent, I "left" Gamespot in order to focus more on my spirituality and scholastics, and even after all the extra time I spent on those two things, I still had some free time left. I began spending that time entertaining myself with things other than Gamespot, such as my friends at school and church, and I very much enjoyed that time.
After Easter came and passed, I no longer had the same desire for Gamespot that I used to, last summer for example. I just preferred to spend more time with my friends in our senior year. I also started working weekends to fund my entertainment outside my house, new games, and gas for my new car, (2007 Civic LX - hooray for me!! ). This job took away the time that I would've likely spent blogging or being on Gamespot, and I didn't want to sacrifice anymore of my time to make room for GS ... so I waited.
That's not to say I had been completely absent as I still did make an effort to post on the forum every now and again, update my PS3 FAQ Thread as needed, and yes, I did keep up with most of my friends' blogs, even though I only commented on a scarce few. I was here for E3 and heard all of the big news, from MGS: Rising (360/PS3) and MGS: Peace Walker (PSP), to the PSP Go (which was leaked), to Project Natal, to FFXIV. I'm looking forward to Uncharted 2, God of War III, the new Metal Gears, and Assassin's Creed 2.
Now that high school is officially over, this past week marked the beginning of what should be the best summer of my life so far. And the best part is ... no ****ing schoolwork during summer ... EVER AGAIN!!! Hooray for me!!
What's changed?
Like I noted earlier, I now have my own car and I've officially graduated high school. Also, in an effort to further better my life, I've started taking my weight and my health seriously. At 5 foot 4 inches tall and 205 pounds, I believe I'm a 35 on the BMI chart, placing me well into the scope of obesity. I've accumulated all this weight after years of literally eating whatever I wanted without worrying about the consequences. I never worried too much about my body image and happily accepted the fat jokes from everyone I knew and even pitched in sometimes. I have a laid back attitude towards such jokes and I've never had any emotional issues regarding my body image.
Although I've always loved playing basketball and football with my friends, the rest of my life****was very inactive as my hobbies besides playing ball included watching TV, playing videogames, surfing the web / GS, and hanging out at a friend's house, all of which are rather sedentary activities. Working at Dunkin' Donuts the past two summers hasn't helped either. 
Now, I'm on a diet - it's not any specific plan - I'm just watching and limiting what I eat and making an effort to exercise more and be more active.
That's part of the reason why I probably won't ever be as active as I once was on GS, as I'm making a conscience effort to choose more active hobbies and make exercise a part of my day-to-day life. Helping me do this is my new 16GB iPod Touch and a Griffin case with armband that I now use when I run on the treadmill. My goal is to reach my target weight of about 150 pounds by summer's end. Hooray for me!!
Gaming News
In gaming related changes, I broke my promise to myself (which was that I wouldn't make any new game purchases until I completed all of my games at least once) and preordered inFamous in order to secure a copy of the Uncharted 2 MP Beta, and also get the Gigawatt blades. As most of you on my PSN friends list already, I love inFamous and have been playing it exclusively since the day I bought it. I completed the hero campaign after about 40 hours, and upon successful completion of the infamous campaign, I will have my first ever Platinum Trophy!!
Not that I'm some trophy enthusiast all-of-a-sudden, but after tracking down all 350 blast shards on my own, I think there's cause for celebration. Hooray for me!! Also, the fact that I'm usually a completionist when it comes to games, a Platinum Trophy really means I'm actually 100% done. I'm thinking of revisiting Uncharted for a Platinum Trophy in anticipation of Uncharted 2, and as insane as it sounds, I'm also gonna try for an R2 Platinum. 
While it sounds like I've completely ignored the Uncharted 2 Beta, I have played it on one occasion. I played a few short rounds of cooperative play and immediately fell in love, as it's quite genius in its execution and its call for teamwork. The rest of my time with it was obviously spent in competitive play, and while it was of high quality, let me just say that I personally didn't enjoy it very much. It was far from bad or broken, but just not my styIe. I won't divulge any further information as I know quite a bit of you purposefully passed on this beta in order to wait until the full game to experience it.
I'm back ... sort of
I'm hesitant to say "I'm back" because I know I will never again be as active as I once was, but I am back in the sense that you should expect to see me: on the forums from time to time, commenting on your blogs every now and again, and posting blogs more often than once every few months. I've also wanted to make some more game reviews for the games that I love and I've even been mulling over an idea on how and when to do my own "Top 10 Games" blog series.
But hey, let me try not to get ahead of myself here and focus on being a little more active first.
Until next time, (which is hopefully shorter than 4 months ), have a great summer. 
- Patrick 