Afternoon people! Back to work with not a lot planned so here's to a good week...

After talking about changing my car last week; I think my car must've realised that I'm no longer happy driving it. On Saturday night on my way back from tennis my exhaust broke which I was hoping would be a minor fix or at best a cheap part! Unfortunately not as it cost me 87 pounds to get fixed! Probably 20 quid for the part and another 70 for the damn labour fee! They've given me a three year warranty on the exhaust but I don't plan to have the car anywhere near that long!

This was a really quiet weekend for me as I didn't have a lot to do. Saturday morning I took my dad to get his new car which is really nice and didn't help my patience levels as it made me want a new one even more! Before the summer season started I had gotten out of playing tennis on a Saturday night as the standard was awful and it was a long way to go for bad tennis. Plus there's this one girl there who's pretty much taken to stalking me and although I should feel flattered, she's only 15! I went back and played about a fortnight ago as they were short and it was slightly better but still not good enough. I told them I'd let them know about this week and I never said anything but apparently my name was already down! I reluctantly went and thankfully she wasn't there but there weren't any good players there either. Luckily I've got lots of Sunday matches until Christmas so I told them that I won't be able to make it until next year! Yesterday I stayed at home all day for the first time in a long while and probably the last as well! It was nice just to have a day doing nothing but I wouldn't want that too often.

In gaming, I completed Dead Space over the weekend which turned out to be a truly awesome game. The final few levels were really good as I wasn't confined to a particular weapon and was able to tackle the game how I liked. I wasn't so keen on having to bring along the 'marker' in the final mission as it seemed to just be slowing the game down. The end boss battle was a bit underwhelming as it was pretty easy compared to the couple before. The boss battles weren't as bad as they can be in some games as they didn't take anything extra special to bring down. It was basically just a bigger version of the game's basic enemies. I didn't bother spending hours trying to complete the mini games as they only give generic rewards and are only worth a few achievement points. Talking of achievements I finished my first play through with a fairly respectable 705 GS.

The game's story is also excellent and fits the setting of the game really well. It manages to tell the whole story without any real cutscenes, just the odd stationary conversation to break up all the video and audio links. The game's difficulty is just about right as well. It's not too hard and ammo isn't so scarce like it is in Resi 5 so the game is more enjoyable. I shall now have another run through of the game as it's so good. There aren't many games that I'll play a second time round but this is definitely one of them. I shall aim for the 'One Gun' and 'Maxed Out' achievements which should be more than possible on a second play.

On tv.com, I spent all of yesterday updating my currently airing shows which I've admittedly neglected for a while. I'm so out of the loop about what does and doesn't work when submitting that I found it really hard to get things done.

As for TV, I've watched:

Sanctuary 'End of Nights: Part 2'. Now that was much, much better! Plenty of action, a solid storyline and it didn't feel held back by a low budget. If the rest of the season carries on like this then I can forgive the first episode as just setting the scene for the second part.
The Vampire Diaries 'Lost Girls'. Surprising like the above show this was another success for me. They're finally starting to embrace the fact that they are living 'breathing' vampires and they are actually quite exciting rather than dull teen jocks!
Melrose Place 'Shoreline'. Still not living up to any of The CW's other dramas and apart from the main couple of cast members the rest seem to only be there to put up their quota of attractive people and have no real personality at all.
Heroes 'Acceptance'. Well the much hyped girl on girl kiss was pretty underwhelming and if they were using those few seconds to boost ratings then they shouldn't have made such a big deal of it! Hopefully now that Hiro and Peter are in the same place, Peter will finally get a good storyline. If he can get Hiro's teleportation power then he can get rid of that stupid 'sound as colour' one he just inherited.
FlashForward 'Black Swan'. I'm not really sure what that was all about. I'm still unsure what all the hype is about! As with last season's most hyped show Fringe I'm obviously just not into the most popular shows!
The Mentalist 'Red Menace'. This season just seems to be copying off of every similar show going. Psych has already poked fun at it saying that it's almost a carbon copy and with this week's episode demonstrating Jane's ability to read facial expressions is taken straight from Lie To Me. The show pulls it off well but it's one of the least original shows on the air at the minute.
Glee 'Throwdown'. Excellent as is now standard for this show. Until now I didn't realise how old the cast was until I looked them up on wikipedia. I don't really understand why they cast people that are so old! Luckily they pull it off well and I'd never have noticed just by looking at them.
30 Rock 'Season 4'. Not as good as some of the other episodes but not too bad. Tracy going out and trying to prove he's normal was a particular highlight!
Two and a Half Men 'Laxative Tester, Horse Inseminator'. I thought the opening and closing of the episode were so funny. Seeing Alan in his underwear is enough to make anyone laugh without him saying anything!
Psych 'Season 4 episode 1-9'. Another great season so far and I managed to catch up in perfect time to watch the Fall finale. The last episode wasn't so good to begin with but definitely got better by the end. I wish Abigail was in a few more episodes but I suppose she messes up the show's dynamic if she's in too many.

Good - Sanctuary 'End of Nights: Part 2', The Vampire Diaries 'Lost Girls', Glee 'Throwdown', Two and a Half Men 'Laxative Tester, Horse Inseminator', Castle 'Fool Me Once', Criminal Minds 'Hopeless'.

Indifferent - 30 Rock 'Season 4', Fringe 'Dream Logic', 90210 'Model Behavior', FlashForward 'Black Swan', The Big Bang Theory 'The Pirate Solution', How I Met Your Mother 'Return of the Shirt', Parks and Recreation 'Sister City'.

Bad - Melrose Place 'Shoreline', Heroes 'Acceptance', The Mentalist 'Red Menace'.

My album for the day is Reality Killed The Video Star by Robbie Williams.

My shuffle song for the day is 'Killing Loneliness' by Him.

My thing to ponder for today is: Why is it when you get from here to there, you're still here and not there?