Well, today is my 18th birthday, and my new laptop my parents ordered me for college came at the perfect time. It's a black Dell Inspiron 1525 with a Hi-def sound card, 2 gigs of ram, and Intel Extreme graphics accelerator. Needless to say, I won't be doing a whole lot of gaming because of the limitations of the graphics card, but it's more than adequate for my schoolwork. I'll be attending junior college for basics, and after that... I have no idea. That's why I'm going to a junior college first. I can get my basics out of the way while buying myself two extra years to decide what exactly I want to do with my life.

The laptop is the only thing I'm getting for my birthday, witch is perfectly okay with me. We'll be going out to eat and I think my mom is making a cake, but we're not doing much else. Be sure to wish me a happy birthday!

I've been a regular GS user for over two years and have yet to create a banner for my profile. I'd like an Unreal Tournament 3 banner, but I have no idea how to make it. So that's where you come in. If any of you are willing, I would like someone to make it for me. You can give yourself credit by putting your username on it somewhere if you like. If anyone is willing to do this for me, I would very much appreciate it. Thanks --- shufu7-11

I personally have never like doing my game shopping at Hastings. They've always been more expensive than everyone else and their used games almost never work. But yesterday I found a great deal. My brother wanted to go to get a magazine, so I went adventuring through the used games section at Hastings. They had an entire row about five shelves high full of used Xbox games, and there was a sign at the end of the isle: Buy one get one for 1 cent. I wanted to avoid spending any money, but this was a deal I just couldn't pass up. After some serching, I found Star Wars: KOTOR and Fable. Normally I don't buy two games at once, espcially not at Hastings. But like I said before, this was a deal that I couldn't let slip away. I might have to go in and check their games more often! EDIT: Since most of you probably don't know what Hasting's is, it's a small chain of entertainment stores. They carry books and magazines, cd's, DVD's, used and new games, as well as rental games and movies.