MYA MCINTOSH BENEFIT COD4 Tournament.

Mya is 5 1/2 year old living with cerebral palsy. She is in need of surgery that will enable her to walk. She is anxious to start Kindergarten cast free! There are only 5 doctors qualified to do her surgery and with the sudden lay-off of Mya’s dad, she needs help to get it done.

Please join us July 22-24 to play COD4 and get Mya the surgery she needs!
For more information visit:
http://myaq.chipin.com/myas-cp-surgery-trip

Registration Fee is $10 per person ($60 per team)
COD4 6×6 best of 3
Prizes will be awarded!

Sign-up at G4O under the EVENTS tab

See Tournament forum for more game info and Rules

Hey guy’s most of y’all know I recently lost my job. On top of this wonderful news I have my two children each with special needs of their own. Well my daughter has an opportunity to have a procedure done that will allow her to walk like most “normal” childrens patterns for about five year. This procedure is only done by five doctors in the world and one of them is about 300 miles away. We have it scheduled for late July, but in all honesty we are going to need some help with lodging, gas and food.

This being said, I have created a ChipIn page to help us with these costs if you are interested then please click the following link: ChipIn

Just to share a little back story on Medicaid, Social Security and WIC (The Food Stamp People)

When we found out Aidan was going to have multiple issues and need nursing on his release we were put in touch to start working on getting him Medicaid through Social Security. When I applied I also spoke with them about my daughter as CP is suppose to be an automatic approval. Not so if you are the working class poor in America.

Over the last year I have made about 40K in base salary with commission. This is too much to get benifits for Mya even though I pay 400-600 a month in therapy and such, cover her under our family insurance at $1200 a month and lose many pennies to deductables and our tax system. I was lucky with Aidan however. Since he was living at the hospital, my salary, retirement and cars where not taken into consideration. He was granted SSI benifits, $30 per month and Medicaid, which if we did not have could not afford to take care of him. He has 6-8 different therapy sessions per week, left the Hospital with a 1.8 million dollar bill and we still have some creditors calling for deductables and such that medicaid didn’t cover because we found out to late to apply in order to cover his first couple of months.

So medicaid is still based on salary, but we are willing to give it away to many people that don’t even pay taxes, as I see it every time I have to visit SSA. I do lose his benefits however in months that have three paychecks, as those months I make too much money. That is two months this year.

On top of this is WIC which provides his formula. When you only have 25% of your small intestine you don’t eat like other kids. His formula costs 8.50 per can and he uses four a day. We are lucky enough that we get to drive to the “nice” part of town, sign our vouchers, sit in a room where no one speaks english, and are the one’s stared at. Heck last time they called numbers and such in Spanish first and when no one stood up, that’s when they looked and saw the white girl in the corner and announced it in english.

All this being said, our medical system is really screwed up. SSA told me the best way to insure my daughter would be for me to give custody to my wife and divorce her. This way they could be covered since she is a stay at home mom, who works harder then most with all of their therapys.

I know their is lots of spelling errors and such, and quite a bit of rambling, but hopefully I have shed a little light on my situation.

If you have quesitons, feel free to ask. I’m willing to answer it all from the inside as the “working” poor in America.

This weeks Retro game is none other then the game that brought this clan into existence and together. Halo 2 is the game of choice this week. As hard as it will be to remove the awesomeness that is Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, or your game of choice, toss in that Halo 2 disc that has been collecting dust. Journey again with Master Chief before he finishes the fight. Let’s get some down and dirty matchmaking without all of the fancy grenades, weapons and equipment. Time to get back to basics!

Join us if you wish, I’m sure there will be plenty of people playing. We will most likely run in some matchmaking games, that is if we can find people still playing out there in the internets. Otherwise, we’ll fire up some old fashioned custom games and make a fun night of it. If you miss the first event on Wednesday 6/18, don’t fret. Retro nights always come in pairs and the next one will be Sunday 6/22.

Master Chief will be expecting you. Don’t make him wait!

As gamers, most of us have been bombarded with talk of Nintendo’s Wii console and its popularity with the casual crowd. We’ve heard about nursing homes using Wii Sports to keep their occupants active, and moms who wait in lines and frantically call game stores in order to score a Wii system. Now Nintendo has taken it even further with Wii Fit, a bundle which includes both the Wii Fit software and the Balance Board, a peripheral that looks a bit like a bathroom scale. The board uses several sensors to detect how a user is distributing their weight, and while it sounds simple, it allows for a variety of different game types and applications. Nintendo is marketing Wii Fit as a fun and easy way to get in shape and lose weight - something that the stereotypical “hardcore gamer” has little or no interest in. Having purchased Wii Fit about two weeks ago, I thought it might be fun and informative to give a quick report on my progress and give some impressions of both the Balance Board and the Wii Fit game itself.

When you start up the game, you’re asked to pick your Mii and input some basic data, such as your height and your age. The board takes an initial measurement of your weight and calculates your BMI (Body Mass Index). It lets you know if you’re underweight, normal, overweight, or obese, and then you can set your goal, either in pounds or BMI, as well as a target date. From this point forward, you can do daily training in four categories (yoga, strength training, aerobic exercise, and balance games) as well as take your daily body test. This test measures your weight and uses two balance exercises to determine how good your posture is and how well you can control your balance. After the test, you’re given your “Wii Fit Age”, which is similar to the “ages” given in Nintendo’s other training games such as Brain Age. You can also view charts of your weight, BMI, and Wii Fit age over the course of weeks or months.

The core of the game is the training exercises. As mentioned earlier, they fall into four categories. The yoga exercises require you to hold various poses while the balance board determines if your form is correct. Strength training involves various exercises such as push-ups and planks, lunges, and tricep extensions. Activities such as step aerobics, boxing training, and a hula hoop game fall into the aerobics category, and balance games (such as ski jumping and a game where you lean left and right to head soccer balls) tend to be light on exertion, focusing more on subtle control over your balance. The game does not feature any sort of pre-determined exercise routines, instead letting the user determine which games to play and for how long.

The game is really good about giving you advice as you do the activities. It can detect when your form is off and when you are leaning too far in one direction or favoring one leg over the other. It also lets you know during weigh-ins that your weight can fluctuate within 2 pounds over the course of a day, and if your weight jumps up suddenly on a particular day, it even lets you pick an explanation (or an excuse) such as having a late-night snack or skipping out on daily exercise.

As for the activities themselves, I found the yoga poses to be surprisingly taxing. They require a lot of focus and target muscles that you may not use very often. The game is pretty good at showing you the proper form and monitoring you as you do the poses, though of course it’s not quite the same as having a live trainer working with you. The strength exercises can also be fairly challenging. Push-ups, planks, and jackknife exercises can be tough for the average gamer who might not be particularly active. The aerobic section includes some of my favorite activities. The hula hoop game is surprising in terms of how much it gets your heart rate going and your stomach muscles burning. Step aerobics and boxing training require you to step on and off the board in rhythm, and the boxing game adds in punching with the Wii Remote and nunchuk. Step aerobics isn’t too taxing, but boxing adds in arm movement and seems to be a little more effective at getting your heart and lungs working. The balance games are a lot of fun, but they don’t really do much for you other than hone your ability to adjust your balance, often very subtly. They seem more suited as a fun diversion between the more serious exercises.

As I mentioned, I’ve had the game for two weeks, and I’ve only missed one or two days over that time period. Some days, I managed to get a good 30 minutes of exercise done, whereas on other days, I only had time for a quick 10-minute workout and a weigh-in. At my initial weigh-in, I had a weight of 165.3 pounds and a BMI of 25.06, which is just past the threshold of normal (25.00) and into overweight. Two weeks later, I’m at 164.9 pounds and a BMI of 24.99. However, at some points over those two weeks, my weight was above my initial weigh-in or below my most recent weigh-in. As for the Balance Board itself, it seems very well made, and for the most part, it’s quite accurate and precise. In some activities, the responses to your movements seem to be a little delayed. It’s most notable when you lean left or right to catch a hoop during the hula hoop game, but once you get acclimated to it, you can account for it and it ceases to be a problem.

So, is the game a comprehensive weight-loss program on its own? In my opinion, not really. Think of it more as a tool that can be part of a fitness program. If you’re serious about weight loss and fitness, you’ll want to supplement your Wii Fit usage with other exercise and, potentially, a change in your diet. What Wii Fit gives you is a fun way to track your progress, along with some activities that can give you a bit of aerobic exercise and more awareness of your posture and balance. In my opinion, Wii Fit is a “gateway drug” into the world of fitness. It gives you enough guidance and fun things to do that it very well might increase your interest in being more active and losing weight. It’s also worth mentioning that the Balance Board is already supported in the recent release We Ski, and it will also be supported by future releases such as Skate It and Prizefighter. In the end, whether Wii Fit is worth your $90 will depend on how much dedication you have to using it on a frequent basis and whether other people in your household will use it. You’ll definitely want to think it over before you buy so that you don’t end up with a nice, shiny Balance Board collecting dust in your closet a month after you buy the game. However, if you’re serious about it, Wii Fit can be a really useful and motivational part of your exercise program.

I’ve only played the game a little bit and can’t remember much about it other than that Brik was much deeper in the game than I.

Anyone care to share some tips for us N00bs you’ll be pwning?

Still looks nifty, though.

Why should you care? It has 2 player co-op (better than no-player co-op) and promises a lot of replayability.

Here’s a video from Microsoft. The first 3-5 minutes are very good. The last 10 are silly fake oops fan fiction crap that is like a bad Lost rip-off.

One man’s quest for more time has led him to some interesting theories. Napoleon, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and Winston Churchill, to name a few, all used a 6 nap per day, each nap at 20 minutes, to increase thier productivity. Does it really work? Read on to find out what this man found out.

MSN Health Article

According to a New York Times article, Hollick was paid roughly $100,000 over 15 months for his voice acting and motion-capture work on GTA IV. He complains of the fact that he will not receive royalties or residuals as he would for work on television programs, films, radio shows or albums.

“The first GTA IV trailer generated something like 40 million hits online, and that’s my voice all over it, and I get nothing,” Hollick said. “If that were a radio spot, I would have. Same thing for the TV ads.”

Contracts between the actors’ union and the entertainment industry make no provision for videogames and the Internet, classifying them as “Electronic Media”.

“Obviously I’m incredibly thankful to Rockstar for the opportunity to be in this game when I was just a nobody, an unknown quantity,” said Hollick. “But it’s tough, when you see Grand Theft Auto IV out there as the biggest thing going right now, when they’re making hundreds of millions of dollars, and we don’t see any of it. I don’t blame Rockstar. I blame our union for not having the agreements in place to protect the creative people who drive the sales of these games.”

I dissagree with Mr. Hollick. GTA IV sold 500 million copies in its first week, true, but if you believe for a second that any of those sales had anything to do with fans of Hollick’s voice then you are sadly mistaken. Aside from the rare chance that his mother bought a few copies. Its the game content that drives the sales of the titles, not the voice over actors. From what I can gather from most gamers out there it could be Michael J Fox doing a poor russian accent playing the role of Niko, as long as they can speed down a crowded sidewalk and mow down innocent pedestrians while listening to the “Intellegent Agenda” on the radio.

“What drives videogames is not Tracy and Hepburn; what drives it is the conception of the creative director,” said a former Hollywood executive who is now an entertainment lawyer, Ezra J. Doner. “The actor whose appearance or voice is used is more analogous to a session musician for a band. The session musicians don’t get residuals on the sales of the CD. They get paid a session fee,” he told the New York Times. “It’s not like the star quality of Tom Cruise that’s getting people to buy that videogame.”

Ryan Johnston, the voice actor who portrayed Irish hood Patrick McReary in Grand Theft Auto IV - at a pay rate of $1,050 a day,(about 50 per cent higher than the general guild-negotiated rate) said he believed it was just a matter of time before actors’ financial participation in games caught up with their popularity.

The difference between payment for traditional entertainment media and electronic media is expected to dominate negotiations between Hollywood and the actors’ guild this summer, with many predicting an actors’ strike to parallel the writers’ strike last year. A writers strike that revolved around many similar issues.

This isn’t video game related, but it’s forum related based on all the music and YouTube posts.  Great video!  Sorry, I can’t embed it - that feature has been disabled