Ok… it’s not like, a life changing event, but it’s still worth looking forward too.

Halo 3 Recon (Previously Halo 3: Keep it Clean) is coming to Xbox next Fall. Next seems so much further away now that the announcement has been made.

It looks like it features a new hero, and takes place on Earth during events leading up to Halo 3 — only from a different perspective.

Let’s finish the fight… again?

I know what you’re thinking: “Why, it’s awfully early for someone like you to put so much distance between yourself and your old home!”

Please, rest assured that I can adjust to this life changing event.

But really, I have moved, and so far things are going great at the new place. Nearly is everything is moved in, and it doesn’t feel that different from living at home. Oh, and my drive to campus is less than 5 minutes now.

I’ll be here for at least the next year as I continue my college experience (or lack thereof), and polish my blogs like Tutorial9. I’ve taken a  bit of time to rest since the move, and will be back to working my usual 9,000 hour weeks by Monday.

Speaking of Tutorial9, we’ve really been expanding from our typical Photoshop Tutorials as of late. Quite a bit of focus has gone to our brand new Web Development Tutorials category, where we share ways to improve websites and blogs. Also, Fredrik has almost completed his “School of Photography” series that will cover everything from Photography Basics to advanced articles for folks who want to take their photography career to the next level.

But that’s not all I’ve been working on recently. I recently built a premium Wordpress theme called “Simple Please” which has been selling well over on ThemeForest.net. I have a few other themes in the works that will likely find their way there soon.

Aside from all that, AM GAMERS is also slowly coming along, with some of our new network sites nearly complete. Actually, one of those sites features an incredible new Wordpress theme that will soon be making it’s debut on Theme Forest. Needless to say, it’s always interesting balancing my design work with my gaming work.

And that folks, is all you get from me today. Not gonna tackle economic issues in this post. Have had quite enough of that, thank-you-very-much.

The “Conservative” McCain has chosen Alaska Gov. Palin as his running mate. What’s interesting, is that she has less than 2 years of experience in office…

What are Obama supporters saying about it?

She has no experience.

This is all ironic for a few reasons:

1. One of the “Republicans” primary arguments about Obama was that he had no experience. No experience in foreign policy, as a military leader, as a candidate-that-could-effectively-lead-our-country. Some Obama supporters responded: “Let’s take a new approach and not elect a “Military Leader“, “TAKE A CHANCE“, “We need political novices in control“, “…his unsubstantial experience alone should be no bar to his appeal to voters or to his likely success were he to be elected president…“, etc. Now some Obama supporters are turning around and using their defense as an argument against Palin?
2. “Republicans” attacked Obama saying that he had no experience, and now they’re happy with a VP with… no experience.
3. And then there’s Faux News who have suddenly rebranded “no experience” with “new twist“.

My point isn’t to pick on either candidate more than the other. I’m not voting for either. This isn’t an attack on anyone (not even the folks I singled out above).

The point I’m trying to make is that this is a name game, and nothing more. Not enough folks are really taking a reasonable approach to electing our leaders anymore. No matter who wins Superbowl Election 56, we’re all gonna lose.

It’s sad to see that our nation is satisfied with lesser of two evils.

No time to chat right now folks. Been busy!

If you’d like to see the contest, there are a few nice prizes you can win! All you need to do is leave a comment on the post! While you’re there, you may want to subscribe to the feed, since PhotoshopStar is constantly pumping out great new articles.

Ah, and here are the contest sponsors if you’re interested:

• Blog Perfume and WebAppers (Blubs theme)
• PSD2HTML.com (free coding)
• The University Kid (one-year dA subscription)
• Daily Blog Tips (e-books)
• India Photoblog (GameWallpapers subscription)
• OIOpublisher (CGWallpapers subscription)
• Prizes that aren’t accounted for are donated by PhotoshopStar

Found this on Coldplay.com today. They’ve also got the real video for Violet Hill if you’re interested. Their new album should hit stores around mid June. Those of you who are so inclined should have no trouble finding an additional track to listen to called “Viva la Vida” floating around, although I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the sound in that song (which is the first time I think I’ve ever said such a thing about Coldplay).

I’m sure the new album is going to be great, I’m just used to all of their music being something that can be played just as well live. “Viva la Vida” is too… dare I say poppy?

After doing some troubleshooting of my own, I took the issue to the Dell Community Support Forums where we decided I either have a motherboard failure, or power supply failure (Power Supply is an NPS-650AB D for reference). This diagnostic saved me $40 later when Dell tried to sell me some time consuming diagnostic of there own which involved them sending someone to my house to tell me what their users would tell me for free.

To make up for the savings, they did a really nice job of ripping me off with that $290 price tag on a replacement motherboard. That’s right: $290. You’d think they’re selling me some new High End Memory or a Processor for that ridiculous amount.

Anyways, just a word of advice to you XPS 600 owners: Buy the warranty if yours is about to expire. I was only able to find 3 or 4 other cases of this problem, ALL of which happened in the past 2 months.

I smell crappy hardware.

There is also a new area towards the bottom of the site where you can check out what web-based projects I’m currently working on.  I’ve got quite a bit of work ahead of me this year, and your continued support is always appreciated.

My main focus on Camp Sonic is of course Sonic Unleashed, a title scheduled for release on 4 different consoles this holiday season,  and I spend most of my time over there writing about speculation on the game, or reporting facts as SEGA reveals them.  We’re not talking politics or anything wordly, but in geek culture, this is pretty rich content.

I’d like to get to the point where we simply are considered the authority source on Sonic Unleashed, and perhaps even start covering other areas of the blue hedgehog’s universe.  I’ve covered at least 2 other games that I’m a huge fan of, and both have done pretty well in specific areas, but becoming THE place to go is something I’m still striving to accomplish.

Anyways, that’s enough self-pluggage for the day, so I’ll let you get back to things worth your time, and leave the rest of my gloating for later.

Speaker 1: “i want to see an obama paul debate”

Speaker 2: “it would be more like a “lesson”, and Ron would be teaching”

Speaker 3: “.. come on.. be fair.. Obama could school Paul on style. Paul isn’t a great speaker.. I know because I’ve seen him speak to a crowd (twice in SC).”"

Speaker 4: “So… you’re saying Obama is more qualified to be Miss America or something.”

It’d be more funny if it weren’t true, I think. Unfortunately, we live in a time where appearance is exponentially more important than reason, sense, honesty… or the Constitution.

Yeah, that old paper sitting in the back room. Anyone read it recently? What was it we stand stood for again?