THEtom

It's been a while since I've had a serious illness.   Other than a migraine or two I haven't had anything more than a common cold in several years.  With all of these people getting the flu lately I figured that's what I got, but apparently I caught the OTHER virus that is going around, or so the doctor told me.  Flu or not, this virus really hit me hard about a week ago with a 102 degree fever and some severe chills, followed by a sore throat, deep congestion and a horrible cough that has lasted over a week now.  I do finally feel like I'm starting to come out of it all, and thus I will be back to my daily practicing on Halo.

During this illness period, it was not halo that I was playing.  I didn't feel well enough to take a halo practice seriously, so for the past week it has been ALL CALL OF DUTY BABY!  Haha, but seriously, this new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game is a TON of fun.  If you haven't picked it up yet then you need to make the purchase, for realz.  I never actually played the first Modern Warfare game, as I avoided it to try to focus on halo at the time.  So this game is a whole new experience for me - a very nice experience.  I haven't played a truly great first person shooter other than halo since Shadowrun, and this game surely gives me the same sense of enjoyment that Shadowrun did at the time.  Although I plan on playing less and less of this game as I begin to play more halo again, I do like this game enough to the point where I will be making a gamebattles team with some friends and at least getting in some semi-competitive online matches.  Did I mention the online play for this game is amazing?  I think that's ultimately the best part.  After playing a game like Halo 3 so much online and feeling the terrible lag/choppyness/frame rate issues, it is SUCH a relief to play a good game that also has incredible registration and smoothness online.   That is all for now, I will be posting more blogs shortly on the disappointment that was MLG Anaheim, along with insight to the preparation for and what to look for in FB come MLG Orlando.

I'd like to start off by thanking Mr. P again for inviting me to their summer lan in chicago, and allowing me to have a tag-along (Mantrain). The lan setup was just plain sick. With the diamond of tvs in the center of the basement, surrounding a humungous core of ethernet cables and the largest router I've personally ever seen (over 100 ports? something crazy). The arcade was even better than last time i was there, with the new addition of the 4 piece arcade racing set, along with a few other new machines. The competition was intense - loads of pros and semi pros all getting in some serious hours of serious gaming. The smell of the basement was even more intense sometimes. Mr. P putting up cash prizes for the daily random 4v4 tournaments, out of his pocket (wtf?!). Unfortunately I didn't win any of those cash prizes, as i was stuck with fearitself on my team 2 of the nights and the 3rd night we choked. Thank goodness i don't have to play with that FiS kid anymore.............ha ha ha. All in all it was just an incredible experience. By far the largest attendance of any LAN I've ever been to. There wasn't a whole lot of sleeping going on, and being in the basement the whole time it was hard to keep track of the time or the day even. But it didn't really matter. With so many people there, no matter what kind of sleeping schedule you were on there was always somebody awake to GAME with. Thanks to the SQ guys for having us over. Thanks for the food and drinks(entirely paid for and prepared for us) Mr. and Mrs. P. Thanks for making me drive the whole way home mantrain, while you slept in the back seat. Thanks for letting me have your car for 2 weeks Side. Thanks for getting in 3 hours of sleep in 5 days Side, and not dying. Just let me know when the next LAN is at the babytotz house, cause I'd love to come again. hey totz, thanks Brah.

WARPED TOUR CINCINNATI

Soooo ya where to begin. I still had strongsides car, cause he didn't want to leave the lan so he let me take his car. He ended up buying a flight home. Warped Tour was coming through Cincinnati, right by Strongsides place. So we coordinated a day at warped tour, where i would drive his car down and then he would come back up here afterwards to game at my place. Long story short on that part - i STILL have his car, and hes coming up here in a few days by some other means of travel haha. 
Anyways, Steve from Scary Kids Scaring Kids (www.myspace.com/scarykids) is a huge gamer and nerd, so he invited me out to warped tour again this year.  Amy, Mike, and myself all attended.  The linup of bands was decent this year.  Underoath was back on tour so I got to hang with Grant (their basist) again - hadn't seen him in a while and it was nice to catch up as we're both getting old.  The only bands that I was actually there to listen to were Underoath, Scary Kids, Saosin, and The Devil Wears Prada.  Four of my favorite bands.  It was pretty sweet seeing TDWP and Saosin as I've been a fan for a while but hadn't yet had the chance to see either of them live before.  TDWP was pretty amazing on the big stage with the crazy speakers.  It was all wet out and rainy for a little bit of the time, so other than watching those few bands we just chilled on the Scary Kids bus and played some peggle and geometry wars with Steve and the crew.  Obviously, I got hooked and downloaded both games right when I got home. 

Just like to throw out an open challenge for geometry wars 2.  The Pacifist game variant.  I'm still working on beating Steve's friend's high score of 265 mil, but after a few hours I've already put up an impressive 160 mil score (Steves was 42 mil, and I warned him I was going to smash it as soon as I got home :) ).  THAT IS ALL FOLKS!

Intense Halo practicing has begun.   Go FB!

Ok so after a lot of hard work from somebody's mother (<3), the team final boss lesson site is now finally working. Everything has been tested but I'm sure there will still be some kinks that will be worked out over time, but its time for the website release.

The website is www.teamfinalboss.com

The site is extremely boring right now in terms of content, but it is fully operational in terms of booking lessons and friends list spots.  As of right now only OGRE 2 and OGRE 1 are listed on the website, but the rest of Final Boss's current linup will be added shortly, along with some other lesson instructors later on I'm sure. 

I can't say if OGRE 1 will be giving any lessons soon or not, but I will say that I most likely will only be giving a very small amount at least until after the Columbus MLG event.  However, I am having quite a few friends list spots open up for booking as I type this - so if you're looking to get on my main account friends list be sure to check back very soon/frequently as I'm sure they will fill up and there is only a very limited number of spots.  For those who do not manage to get ahold of a spot on my friends list on my FB OG2 account, I will be creating a new Alternate account in the near future that will have friends list spots available, at a much chaeper price (FB OG2 spots are more expensive due to much smaller limit + main account). 

Thats all on the lessons/friend requests/website for now, I'll be sure to post more as more things are brought to my attention about the site.  As far as Final Boss goes - right now we are still looking for a team to LAN against sometime during the next week leading up to the event.  We really really really want to find a team to LAN wednesday and thursday in Columbus, perhaps even some on Friday before we head over to the venue (only 15 minutes away! come on! somebody contact us if youre able to LAN....carbon? sq? anybody?).  We haven't been getting in a ton of XBL practice due to peoples schedules with school and stuff, but we plan on cramming a lot more halo in in the next week.  I'm not going to make any predictions for our teams placing in Columbus, as I've never been a public self promoter.  But I will say that any team that underestimates us in Columbus we will beat.  Final Boss is SHOWING UP in Columbus, that's for sure.

- tom

Ok so first of all i would just like to say that the weather has been lovely outside lately. Its finally warmed up here in Ohio.....but it really sucks because my AC is broken. I didn't even have a fan in my house so i had to borrow one from my parents. But yeah, trying to sleep comfortably in a house thats 80+ degrees is just awful.

On with the blog! So many people that I know have had the red rings of death and I always made fun of them and explained how my box was indestructable. I've had a first gen xbox360 this whole time and he was goin strong all the way up until 3 days ago :*( . It's like his time had finally come. He didn't even huff or puff or anything when I turned him on before going red rings. He was simply dead as soon as I hit the power button. Such a tragedy, ole' reliable will finally need to be sent off for repairs. Luckily I'm just able to use my girlfriends xbox until it gets back (when i recovered my tag the OG2 is now lowercase, so it looks like FB og2. I think i like it better this way because now there is no confusion with the fake OG2 that has the zero for the O, as you cannot have a lowercase zero...)

Lessons! I actually truelly really honestly planly to do'ly lessonsly very soonly. I will be having somebody else set up/organize my lessons for me (they shall not be named), but they will be simply known as my lessons coordinator. In the near future I believe my whole team will be giving lessons on our nearly completed - website with an automated lesson booking program (courtesy of ogremom's 1337 skills). But for the next few days i plan on giving some "practice" or "test run" lessons, at a lower price, simply set up through xbox live messages/emails. So, if you are interested in getting lessons in the next few days, message me on xbox live and I'll give you an email to contact my coordinator with. Otherwise, if you just want to wait we should have a very easy-to-use system up and running on a website soon!

GO FB!

Final Boss: It's looking like were going to be keeping the same team from Meadowlands for Columbus. We all feel like we've come a long way as a team and we all have what it takes to win, it just didn't happen in Meadowlands. I personally just started playing again after a two week break, and our team should be getting back into some heavy practice for Columbus starting this week.

Meadowlands:  I think i speak on behalf of my whole team when I say that we underplaced.  We know our potential and we know how good we are as a team.  A poor performance on saturday night followed by unlucky/unclutchness on sunday, and we ended up in 5th place.  We lost to both of the teams that placed first and second place.  Not to say we would have beaten Str8 or BtH (who both placed ahead of us without us getting a shot at either of them....brackets), but we just feel like 5th place did not represent how well we were playing on sunday or how well we can do. 

THE Nade:  You all saw it.  I'm cursed.  Victory sucks for walking on it.  And Hysteria's a loser for braining me while Cam was bitching at me haaaaaaa (kidding jacob.)  Just in case you didn't get to see it live,  go check out my VOD vs Triggers down, game 5.  At the end of the game we were winning 46-45, i had sniper, and Victory X had full rockets at their snipe spawn area.  Fearitself calls out a guy L3, so i threw a nade at the L2 ramp from our snipe spawn area, thinking it was a frag to be completely honest.  Turns out, it was a plasma nade, it didn't skip up the ramp but instead stuck on the ramp.  Then out of nowhere (wasnt on my screen when i threw it and should have been flanking with rockets!....) victory goes and jumps up to L2 right onto the plasma.  Betrayal.  Loss of full rockets.  Loss of map positioning.  and to top it off i went up L1 to peek over and try to watch the rockets on the ground, and i get headshotted immediately and lose snipe and the lead.  46-45 them now, they push and win 50-48.  Maybe next event the halo gods wont curse me.  P.S. Victory and I both blame Fear for making the callout.  We were both reacting to the callout.  Had the callout not been made, we would have won.  It's all Fearitselfs fault.

Columbus:  6 years of going to Halo tournaments and theres finally an event in ohio!?!?! No way!  Its going to be crazy.  Expect a lot of FB fans thats for sure ;)

 I wrote this whole blog with my cat pushing his head into the back of my head....

Mantrain still needs a team for Columbus.

OGRE 1 may not be going to the Columbus event.

Be sure to check out the Pro-AM Challenge thats going up soon on the front page.  It features Final Boss members this time :)

GO FB.                                                         

First off id like to say that i think us and SQ are cursed, and are unable to have a LAN where everybody shows up and everything goes as planned.  Last time it was Mackeo that was unable to go  last minute, this time Ace had to come a day late.  A day late doesnt sound too bad, but when the LAN was scheduled to only be 2 days to begin with....haha that sort of crushes half the LANing time.  Anyways, we got a solid 4 series day in  with everybody there on Saturday, 5 series just wasnt gonna happen b/c everybody was too burnt out.  i believe the final LAN game tally was 24-20 in favor of SQ.  These guys are gonna do some damage next year fo' sho'.  Assuming we're able to squeak by the incredibles first round, its gonna be a very intense series if we meet up with SQ round 2 at meadowlands.  Anywho heres the excel of the stats for this very short LAN.

             OGRE 2                      Victory X                   FearItSelf                    Mackeo 

         Kills          Deaths       Kills          Deaths      Kills          Deaths        Kills        Deaths

780	685	712	763	693	747	721	753
	95		-51		-54		-32
	220		183		167		203		hill time
	635		236		397		233		ball time
	22		18		15		15		flag grabs
	5		11		9		2		flag caps
	1125		709		804		606		obj score

            Strongside                      Ace                         Totz                         Flamesword

        Kills          Deaths        Kills         Deaths        Kills         Deaths       Kills           Deaths

780	652	767	712	688	804	709	746
	128		55		-116		-37
	71		210		347		309		hill time
	170		498		419		409		ball time
	12		18		25		20		flag grabs
	1		12		10		4		flag caps
	371		1008		1116		958		obj score

 

 

So as most of you know our newly formed team is Myself, Victory X, Fearitself, and Mackeo.  The off season thus far has been quite a bit stressful, with finding a team and whatnot, but now that all of the dust has settled im pretty pumped for this team and for next year.  I'm just blogging to let you guys know a little more about the Final Boss vs. Status Quo LAN that went down a few weeks ago. 

Firstly i'd like to thank Totz/Joe Fries dad for inviting us over to his lovely house.  It would have been great had Mackeo been able to go.  We could have used the early lan to help adjust to each others playstyles, but we still have plenty of time i suppose.  For those who did not hear, Mackeo was unable to attend the LAN do to personal issues, and we ended up using several players to sub in as our 4th throughout the LAN.

Day one we had ArtOfWar and Rudy subbing in for us, and Day 2 we called up Cloudy Cloud and had him sub.  All three of these guys are great halo players, but even with Cloudy Cloud who is insanely skilled, the LAN was still a disappointment for me at least.  SQ is a very sound team that works together really well.  Without our full linup there, and without having played together hardly at all before this LAN, it honestly felt like we were playing random 4s versus a Team.  I think thats the best way i can describe it.  Anyways, we still did alright at the LAN and it was actually pretty amazing to see how well the SQ guys played together.  They are definitely going to be a contender next year and any team that underestimates them will be in for some trouble. 

Other, non-halo things about the LAN:  Diesel.  i dont think he likes me haha.  This little Chihuahua acted like he was was 100 times bigger than he actually was, and totally just dominated the house.  He let you know when you could or couldnt do something for sure. 

NBA Jam:  Joe Fries and Myself are basically unbeatable.  We only lose when Stockton is shooting a 23 percent.  Some say my Karl Malone is untouchable, even from the player 4 spot (the 4th spot was the hardest to play from).

My air matress:  So the first night i was quick to call the double thick air matress to sleep on.  Everybody was pissed and i was pumped i had a really comfy lookin spacious spot to sleep.  I woke up in the middle of the night with a numb hip, and realized i was touching the floor through the matress.  Apparently there was a hole in it.  I continued to sleep on the deflated thing cause i was too tired to get up, but i was basically sleeping on the floor.  I didn't get much sleep and woke up several more times that night it pretty much sucked.

Photohunt:  I got pretty good pretty quickly.  myself, joe fries, and rudy made the 4th spot on the leaderboard.  and that was when we were waking up in the morning.  Fearitself is not exactly a "photo hunter", if you will.  ill leave it at that.

The Off Roading Segways:  for another time.....i must ride one.....Perhaps a summer LAN, SQ? :)

Thanks again to the SQ guys for having us over to LAN.  Despite not getting the great practice i had hoped,  it was still a good time and was good for hanging out with my new teammates as well.  I hope SQ at least got some solid team improvement out of the LAN.

Ok so i hadnt posted a blog in a while, and i decided since there seem to be a lot of people that enjoy looking at stats (for what theyre worth), id post a little blog to keep all of you updated!

We lanned with LegendZ a few weeks ago, and let me tell you they have the potential to pull an upset in Vegas for sure.  Its hard to say really, but it honestly felt like they werent that great....then out of nowhere they WERE great.  Im not sure if its just the fact that the team is relatively new or they just arent that great at certain gametypes or what.  But i will say that when they catch fire they are definitely able to do some major damage.  Now we didnt play that LAN online so all i have for you on that one is the final game tally being 53-23-1 (a tie on guardian ball) in FB's favor.  Good luck to the legendz guys in vegas, hope you guys pull a few upsets.

We just got done LAN against Instinct, and they are prepared for vegas for sure.  It was easy to tell they were well practiced going into the lan, and they definitely are well practiced coming out of the lan, as im sure they learned at lot just like we did.  The final game tally with that lan was as follows:

Day 1:  10-1 Instinct
Day 2: 23-21 FB
Day 3: 20-18 FB
Total : 49-44 Instinct

We played a total of 8 series, and then an additional 5 games for a total of 93 games.  However, only 75 of the 93 games showed up on the bungie stats (despite being signed into live the whole time, this has happend at at least 2 of our previous lans)

And here are the player stats from the 75 games that i gathered from bungie.net:

               OGRE 2                      OGRE 1                    Strongside               Neighbor
            Kills        Deaths        Kills         Deaths       Kills         Deaths       Kills          Deaths

1205	1176	1206	1128	1256	1225	1436	1202
	29		78		31		234
	708		744		571		574		hill time
	613		244		261		277		ball time
	49		41		26		19		flag grabs
	12		17		12		11		flag caps
	1931		1568		1212		1151		obj score

 

              Walshy                       Roy                       Lunchbox                      Soviet
            Kills       Deaths        Kills         Deaths        Kills         Deaths        Kills         Deaths

948	1278	1276	1218	1142	1316	1355	1306
	-330		58		-174		49
	847		840		750		634		hill time
	320		463		269		231		ball time
	21		24		43		26		flag grabs
	11		11		11		15		flag caps
	1487		1653		1559		1275		obj score

Note: objective score is just something i made up.  makes for a quick view of overall objective work done.  i just add hill time + ball time + ((flag caps + flag grabs) x 10) for all players.

And there you have it.  We're all pretty pumped for Vegas and feel like we've come a long way as a team and as individual players since Mason first joined our team.  For those of you going to Vegas, see ya there!  Go FB.

         -tom



EDIT: Looks like some of the text got shifted when the blog was posted.  Deal with it the blog pages suck and always mess up >_<

check it out! turned out OK :)

http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3453706&n8pe6c=1&brand=expn

Ok so here is the place i will update everybody on the scores and such. We got a pretty darn late start today because Ant once again didnt bring a halo 3 disc and made a bunch of excuses as to why he didnt have it blah blah blah. didnt start playing till around 9 pm, and ran 2 series. once again, i will continue to update this blog, so keep checkin back!

Day 1
6-5 FB
7-4 FB

Day 2
8-3 FB
6-5 FB
8-3 FB
7-4 FB

Day 3
7-4 TC
7-4 FB
6-3 FB

Overall (Final Score)
59-38 FB

The lan has come to an end early.  the third series was unable to be finished due to people getting tired.  I was hoping to get in 4 series last night but oh well.  im updating my fileshare with a few more lan vids.  I think i will have like at least 8 vids up for your viewing pleasure.  we lost the pit flag game sadly, but I have to put it up because i was doing some things (the 2nd one in fileshare). it was fun and another great last minute lan with TC.  I see them placing no lower than 4th all year.  theyre just an awesome team.
 

1.  So im just posting a new blog to let you all know that the FB/TC lan will be commenced in about 24. The guys (most of them anyways) get in today. Hopefully we get in at least 3 series a day, as both of our teams could use as much good practice as possible. We plan on playing most of Sunday, all of Monday, all of Tuesday, all of Wednesday, and then fly out on Thursday for San Diego. I'll be sure to keep you all posted on how the LAN is going.

2.  Gilbert said he really wants to come to SD and has a good chance of making it out, as he has nothing planned for the weekend.  He just has to convince his girl to let him come is what he made it sound like when we talked to him haha.  I know that can be tough sometimes ;).  Hopefully hes able to make it out and support us, that would mean a lot to our team.

3.  I put a bunch of new videos in my fileshare if anybody wants to record them/upload them to the gameroom.  Or you guys can just download them to your box and watch on there, im just lettin you know that i updated my fileshare.

4.  Go FB!

Here it is, hosted on another website. Its rather long and i didn't want it stretching out my blog page, nor could i figure this darn websites coding out (kept messing up on me).

http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/6/9/58531/tom%20HALO%20RESUME.doc


*Edit*
For those who are not interested in skimming through the entire thing, here is a summary.

Career Placings Summary


Main Event
43 national level tournaments
34 main event 1st place finishes out of the 43
8 2nd place main event finishes
1 3rd/4th place main event finish
*only placed outside of top 2 one time
*never placed outside of top 2 in a double elimination tournament
overall win percentage of %79

*EDIT*
To put this into perspective, i felt the need to add this section in here.

Here is a short list of the winningest players in halo that i have never teamed with, and how many main events (for natoinal level tournaments) they have placed 1st in. (im pretty sure these are correct, but i may be missing one somewhere, and i apologize if i forgot).

1. Zyos - 10 main event wins
2. Gandhi - 6 main event wins

3/4.
Shockwave - 5 main event wins
Karma - 5 main event wins

5-7.
Ghostayame - 4 main event wins
Darkman - 4 main event wins
Tsquared - 4 main event wins

8/9.
Shizz - 3 main event wins
Alex - 3 main event wins

ok so i edited this again and i think theyre all correct finally.

____________________________________________________

4v4
40 4v4 national level tournaments attended
31 1st places
8 2nd places
1 3rd place
*only placed outside of top 2 one time
*never placed outside of top 2 in a double elimination tournament
4v4 win percentage of %78

2v2
12 2v2 national level tournaments attended
7 1st place finishes
2 2nd place finishes
3 3rd/4th place finishes
* undefeated with OGRE 1 as partner (5 for 5)
2v2 win percentage of %58

FFA/1v1
39 FFA/1v1 national level tournaments attended
6 1st place finishes
5 2nd place finishes
8 3rd/4th place finishes
6 5th/6th place finishes
13 9th-16th place finishes
1 17th-32nd place finish
*placed out of top 16 one time out of 39
*never placed out of top 32
FFA/1v1 win percentage of %15

Prize Money Earned(Roughly Estimated)
2003 - $5,000
2004 - $15,000
2005 - $35,000
2006 - $50,000
2007 - $55,000

Total Earned: Around $160,000

Total Earned but Never Received: Around $50,000

I would be interested to see some other pros post up something like this.



P.S. Walshy is basically a senior citizen, and ive been around longer than he has!

So this blog is pretty much just an update, but i have quite a bit to say about Mr. Arenas.

First off Gilbert Arenas has renewed our sponsorship contracts for another full year, and i would just like to publicly thank him again for that. It really means a lot to all of FB, as he is basically allowing us to live the way we had all dreamed of. He has made our professional gaming careers a reality. Thank you Gil.

Also, as you all know (or perhaps not, if you didnt go to meadowlands), our full team is now sponsored by Red Bull. We have had a long relationship with the guys (and gal - hi Ellie!) over at Red Bull, and they have finally convinced their company to sponsor all 4 of us for this year. We got a ton of cool gear at Meadowlands along with an "Office" for The Final Boss to do work in, if you know what im sayin' :). I look forward to promoting Red Bull as a company and working with the people who run it (all really cool people).


Now, for a quick little life update. Our team has not practiced since meadowlands, mainly due to the Wizards vs. Cavs NBA playoff series. Dave made it out to all but 1 of the games, my girlfriend and I made it out to 2 of the games, and strongside made it out to one as well. They ended up losing the series in game 6, which i personally think is embarrassing for the cavs, considering the number of injuries that the wizards have currently and have dealt with throughout the season. Anyways, another big thanks goes out to Gilbert for getting us tickets to those games (amazing seats i must add).

Other than the playoff games and the travelling that went along with them, I have mainly just been relaxing since meadowlands and playing anything and everything other than Halo 3, as we have had a pretty long break inbetween tournaments. I've played a bit of Oblivion in my time off, along with some Mario Kart for the Wii. I've also started playing some PSU (phantasy star universe) again, as there was an update and some cool new stuff was added to the game. Then of course there has been GTA IV, which ive played my fair share of. I've gotten to play some of this with Gilbert, who also has been all over this game since it came out. And even just today i popped in my Shadowrun disc, which had been sitting upside down on top of my TV for about a year now, untouched and dusty. It has been a good time to just relax and fulfill my non-halo gaming needs, but the time has just about come to an end. starting tonight and this week, we are going to be back at it in halo 3, practicing as hard as ever for San Diego. Final Boss will be prepared, as always.

So i wrote this blog about 2 months ago, and i thought it got deleted from my computer somehow (couldnt find where i saved it i guess). BUT HERE IT IS! i came across it this morning while looking through my files.

"  

            I have been looking to buy a condo to live in for the past few months. I finally found one about a month ago and finalized everything. My apartment lease is up soon, but I have already begun to move in. My girlfriend, Amy, and I gathered some people to help paint the bedrooms, living room, and basement.  I owe a big thanks to my mom, as she was the only person to come help every day for almost a week straight.  My dad too deserves a thank you, for helping painting and also doing the dirty work and fixing my toilets.  Absolutely disgusting.  Anyways, the basement was our best work. It's two different shades of blue with a thick black stripe all along the center of the walls (Team Final Boss colors baby!). 

            The best addition to the condo are the Bengal kittens. We got two brothers who we named Boss and Banjo. We were originally going to get one, but decided to get siblings instead. It was best for our living situation. Both Amy and I have never had pets before so this is a refreshing change. They are about 14 weeks old now and are probably the most spoiled kitties. They have a 7ft cat tree, a water fountain, a ton of toys, many litter boxes not to mention the best quality cat food.  They’re completely spoiled with all of this cool stuff yet they continue to play with the strings on peoples jackets, drink water out of our cups instead of the fountain, and beg for our food from the table.  Oh well, they’re so damn cute they can get away with it.

 http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb198/randompicsdude/fountain.jpg
My brother Dan sent us a cat water fountain for Xmas

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb198/randompicsdude/CatTree.jpg
The rather large playground

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb198/randompicsdude/Boss.jpg
The cute and cuddly Boss, who is completely spoiled

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb198/randompicsdude/Basement.jpg
My new gaming basement (not fully set up)

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb198/randompicsdude/Banjo.jpgThe rowdy and mischievous Banjo, contemplating what kind of trouble to cause next

"

As i said earlier, this blog is a bit old, but most of you havent read about my new place yet so i figured id still put it up and then touch up on it at the end, which im doing right now.  The place is sweet now and i pretty much have it fully furnished (including my pimp new black leather sectional couch).  The kittens are about 24 weeks old now i believe, and they have grown soooo much as kittens love to do.  they have nearly tripled in size since we got them 3 months ago. 

For more pictures of my new place / the kitties, check out my myspace page and pictures.

www.myspace.com/tomdabomb107

adios!

This is a question that I see pop up a lot. Normally I don't have a great answer for this question as I am very stingy with my money and don't like to waste it. However, very recently I've found myself spending and investing a ton of my money.

Unlike many other pro players on the circuit, I did not spend thousands of dollars at the club in vegas. That's just not me (although it sounded like a blast from all of the stories I've heard haaaaaha). I won't mention any names or anything (cough* Strongside *cough) of people who spent a ridiculously insane amount of money in one night at the clubs, but as for me I am just unable to spend money on stuff like that. Now lately I have been spending a lot more on just stuff that I WANT and don't necessarily need. A new craze of mine has been to buy sweet new shirts and clothing in general. A lot of it is quite expensive as I seem to like the intricate designs from a lot of the not-so-everyday brands. I used to just go to the mall nearby to get my clothes there. Theres a few stores that sell some of the clothing that I like (Affliction brand, for example), but the shirts that are in the stores at the mall are all the common shirts from these brands. Lately i've been buying a bunch of clothing online, so that i'm able to get the less common stuff that other people won't be wearing. For some reason it is just a huge embarrassment to me when I see somebody else wearing a copy of one of my shirts. Elamitewarrior happened to have a shirt on Saturday night in Vegas that I had bought about a month before. Now everytime I see that shirt in my closet I'm just unable to put it on in fright of somebody else wearing that shirt. Damn you Kyle!!!

Aside from slightly more expensive clothing, I treated myself to a Black Friday deal earlier this morning. Wal Mart had an absolutely insane deal on a pretty nice TV and iI just couldn't pass it up. I play halo on regular TVs, as I don't want to play on a widescreen and many of the newer fancy/good picture TVs lag. However, I didn't have a nice TV to watch movies on or play PS3 games on, so I went out and bought a 42 inch LCD HDTV today. It is 1080p with HDMI, everything i wanted. The brand isn't the best of all brands, but it got pretty solid ratings online when I looked it up. It is a Polaroid brand TV, and the normal cost for the 42 inch is usually somewhere between 1,100 and 1,200 dollars. Well, Amy and I got up at 4:30 in the morning to camp out for a half hour at Wal Mart to get one for only $798. Even though we got there a full half hour early, we barely were able to claim the second to last one there. No less than a minute after claimed ours, a couple showed up and claimed the very last one. About one minute after them, a young guy showed up and was told that they were all claimed. So we pretty much got lucky and got there at the last minute or we would have missed out on the huge deal.

Buying 90 dollar T-Shirts and dropping 800 dollars on a new TV really aren't even that much money compared to some of the other stuff I've been doing. As some of you know I've been living in an apartment with my incredible girlfriend, Amy, for almost a full year now. Well, for the first 9 months of that time, I was simply borrowing a car from my parents. Recently, about a month ago, my parents wanted to buy a new vehicle, so they were looking to get rid of an older one. Since they had been very nice and let me borrow it for 9 months free of charge, and since I actually like the car, I went ahead and bought a car off of them. It's nothing special - nothing too flashy anyways. It's a fully loaded 2005 Grand Am. Not too many miles on it, has a nice sound system, everything runs great and it gets some solid gas mileage. It has plenty of room and is pretty much all I need in a car at this point in my life.

Even the car, the tv, and the clothes combined do not compare to what most of my money has been spent on lately. Some of you know this already, but most of you don't. And I don't plan on going into too much detail on the subject as it is somewhat of personal business, but I have been investing a large amount of my money in real estate. Earlier this year I purchased a condo on the Ohio State University campus. I bought it for investment reasons, and I am renting it out to students. Real estate pretty much seems like one of the safest investments that could possibly be made, and I am extremely lucky to be able to start doing this at such a young age. First off, I have the money to do so, which 99 percent of the people my age do not. And secondly, almost equally important is the fact that my Dad has been doing this stuff for over 25 years, and knows exactly what to do. He has been helping me out and helping me manage my property for this past year, which isn't too tough once you know what you're doing. Anyways, I've owned a condo up there for close to a full year now, and just earlier this week I purchased another one in the same building. Both of these are for investment purposes and I don't plan on ever living in them. I won't say how much I paid for them, but I will say that this is in Ohio, so it most likely isn't as much as you are thinking, but it is still a lot of money.

Annnnnd last but not least - the biggest announcement of them all! The 13 month lease on my apartment is coming to an end in a few months here, so I'm finally looking for a place of my own to buy to live in! I still plan on staying in the same area that I'm in now (which is close to where my parents live). Houses in this area, for the most part, are out of my price range. But, at this point in my life, I think I'd rather have a condo anyways. Condos are just so much easier to manage and take care of. One condo specifically caught my eye earlier this week. The location is great, and the price is even better. It is an older building compared to most of the new condos going up in this area, but it has been owned its entire existance by a little old lady, who has kept it in immaculate condition. We went and checked it out earlier this week and i absolutely fell in love with the place. I know you aren't supposed to fall in love with the first place you look at to live in, but this place was perfect! It has everything I was looking for and at a very affordable price. I plan on looking around at more condos in the area just for the sake of comparing, but I have an incredibly strong feeling that I'm going to end up coming back to this place next week and putting on offer on it. Whether I get this place or some other place, I will be making my largest purchase of my life thus far sometime in the next month. This condo will cost me about double of what the other 2 I currently own cost me. It is much larger, sitting at about 1,800 square feet + a 1 car garage. I'm really excited and can't wait to move into and actually OWN the place that I will be living in.

All in all, this blog was an update of my life just as much as it was a description of what I do/have been doing with my money. It is now the off season, and I have been playing a decent amount of halo3, along with getting a good fix of other games that I don't have time for during the season. The current RPG game I just started playing is another one from the Shin Megami Tensei series. I played Nocturne during the last off season, and it was one of the most amazing games I have ever played. I am currently playing Digital Devil Saga, which is very similar to Nocturne, although I don't think it really can compare (even though it is a great game). Amy has been working at GameStop for the past few months. It's very close by and she loves it compared to her previous job at a tanning salon.....She has been living here for almost a full year now and so she is going to start looking into going to school now that she doesn't have to pay out of state tuition. Lets see.....what else.....ummm it's now freezing in Ohio. Winter is finally here. Uhhh, I've been LANing halo 1 a bit lately, and dominating kevin on a regular basis. Vash an the maryland guys are supposed to come up in about 2 weeks I suppose, so I'll have to continue my dominating then. Dan's in Australia again, enjoying the beautiful weather I bet, while I'm freezing my ass off. Mike is incredible at Halo 3. And Dave likes to call my Dad on holidays because he thinks they're tight. That's about all I have. I hadn't blogged in a while so I apologize if this was a bit lengthy!

Thanks for reading and go Final Boss!

Today, I went to go shopping for a couple of CDs. The Scary Kids Scaring Kids self titled album was just released today. Best Buy didn't have one of the cds I wanted. I decided to see if Barnes & Noble might have it in stock. They didn't but Amy and I kept looking around the store. We went to the magazine section and picked up a couple Xbox 360 magazines. In the car ride on the way home, Amy found that one of the magazines I bought had a 6 page feature on MLG and the players within it. The magazine is titled X360 "THE UK's #1 BESTSELLING INDEPENDENT XBOX 360 MAGAZINE". There isn't a date on the magazine, but it's issue 22. Issue 23 is already on sale, so hurry and check it out!

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do this....but just don't tell anybody ;-)

I scanned the entire article, and you can view each of the six pages with the following links:

page 1 - http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r40/FinalBossOG2/X360%20Issue%2022/pg66.jpg 
page 2 - http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r40/FinalBossOG2/X360%20Issue%2022/pg67.jpg
page 3 - http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r40/FinalBossOG2/X360%20Issue%2022/pg68.jpg
page 4 - http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r40/FinalBossOG2/X360%20Issue%2022/pg69.jpg
page 5 - http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r40/FinalBossOG2/X360%20Issue%2022/pg70.jpg
page 6 - http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r40/FinalBossOG2/X360%20Issue%2022/pg71.jpg

I personally thought the article was very well written and in depth.  It was almost written as if the author has been part of the community for a long while.  Enjoy!

Ok so im OFFICIALLY 21 years old, as of today :) I've gotta make this blog entry quick, as i have many people to see, places to go, and partys to party at.  BUT, i would just like to say, that it is only 2:40 pm, and ive already got nearly 150 "happy birthday" comments on my myspace.   I would like to thank each and every person who wished me a happy 21st, but i dont have the time!  So here is my public thanks to all of you.  thank you.

ALSO, I will have a new blog on the way, most likely tomorrow b/c today is my birthday.....but yesterday was the worst day in a long time.  And if anybody else went to the Cleveland, OH Warped Tour yesterday, then they know what im talking about.   Thanks to Grant from Underoath for hooking us up with VIP tickets again.....too bad it just wasn't meant to be a good day.  I will explain all in my next blog, but right now i gotta go get some lunch and play my new Wii game -  "Mario Strikers".  A soccer mario game for the wii!?!?!?! im extremely excited, thank you Amy for the present<3 along with all of the other presents you and everybody else got me.  later gators!

We have just started practicing again. Dan and i were in Florida for 3 days right after dallas for family issues. Dan decided to stay an extra three days after that, so him and Chan could go to disney!!! Hmmm, what else is there.... oh, on the way back from florida, ogre3, my sister, my dad, and i, all got dominated by US Airways. we spent 20 hours traveling back from Orlando, Florida to Columbus, Ohio, and just to sum it up - none of it was weather related problems. soooo dont fly US Airways. Oh, and something i also found to be humorous while at the airport for so long....was the amount of people that were reading the new and last Harry Potter book. I saw nearly 10 people in the airport reading it, and they were all at the very end. My sister kept trying to get me to walk past the people and spoil the ending but....10 dollars doesn't really tempt me to do things the way that it used to.

Now that im finally back, ive started playing both halo2 and shadowrun again. Shadowrun during the day, halo2 during the evening. Walsh and i are the only two that play shadowrun. Strongside doesnt feel like checking it out, and Ogre1's xbox 360 is broken so he hasnt gotten the opportunity to play it yet. Yes, we now have eXt on our team and we plan on playing in Chicago. Im pretty confident in our linup.

Almost our birthday! Dan and I BOTH turn 21 on friday!!! how crazy is that!?!?! both of us turning 21 on the SAME DAY! anyways, walsh and mike should be up here by then, so we're going to spend it with our team, along with other friends. That should be a lot of fun ;)

StrongSide got his wisdom teeth out yesterday. I won't spoil the whole story b/c he might want to blog about it but.....basically he pissed all over himself when he got home (while he was still drugged up). Man, what a loser.

Hmm well, ive been listening to Saosin a ton lately. I've decided that they are easily my favorite band, yet i still have not seen them live. They are playing on tour with Linkin Park (another band i like a lot), buuuuut of course the closest show takes place during MLG Chicago. bummerrrrrrrr

I'm addicted to sudoku puzzles? ya, i think so. I think the official starting time of the addiction took place during those 20 hours traveling home from Orlando. I spent two hours on the hardest sudoku puzzle ive ever done, but i beat it. I spent nearly one hour completely stuck, unable to find the next move. But of course with my stubborn and competative attitude, i couldnt give up. Ogre3 was stuck on the puzzle after just getting the first 2 numbers, so i took over for him and beat it. It took me a while but I beat it, thats all that matters! That's about all I have for today. I plan on blogging every few days now, even if i dont have anything huge to blog about. I'll just post these life update blogs about random things that i found to be interesting.  So stop by more often and check them out!

 P.S. can you BELIEVE that Hermoine dies at the end?!?!?! ....... ;) :-P

For those of you who didn't hear about it - MLG has publicly launched its "gameroom", which is very similar to a youtube type of site, except this is for gaming videos only!

Over the past few days i've uploaded a few exclusive, never before seen Halo 1 gameplay videos that i had on my external drive from this years WinterLAN. There are three videos up, be sure to go over and check them out....along with all of the other cool videos that people are putting up.

http://gameroom.mlgpro.com

After being stuck in Charlotte for a couple more days after the tournament, Amy thought it would be a good idea to get away from everyone and go camping. We looked up different campsites. This one seemed to be the best for beginners. None of us had camped in years or without our parents or experienced people. Lake Hope, it had a nice sound to it.

We woke up early in the morning to leave for the camping site. Amy and I packed everything and we were prepared. We went to pick up Dan and Chantal, but of course, they weren't awake or ready. We ended up spending a couple of hours at my parent's house before departure. Even then, we still had to stop by the nearest grocery store - Kroger never fails. Of course we needed vital things like s'mores ingredients, hot dogs, Jack Link's beef jerky, candy... oh and uh insect repellent and fire starters. Then we were off!

The drive there was long and boring. If you didn't already know, we live in Ohio. Not much to see here. Or so we thought! We had about 20 more minutes before we would be at our destination. I woke up in the car and decided to check out the scenery for the rest of the ride. Everything looked run-down and creepy. It was foreshadowing the rest of our day.

We saw a ton of signs reassuring us that we were going in the right direction. Until Dan took a wrong turn and we passed by a large cemetary with a lot of tiny tombstones, almost Chantal size. Then there was a old sign made out of wood that read "Iron Furnance". Someone asked,"What is that?!" None of us knew until Dan took a turn and saw, well, an iron furnance. It was HUGE. We all joked that it was where we our bodies were to be burned after we were all murdered.

Then finally, we arrived at the registration building. The office was empty, but they had a self-register form. It was just as run-down and creepy as all the other buildings. We filled it out and put all of our names on it, signing up for our deaths. Haha. After picking the campsite we wanted to stay at and paying the fee, we jumped in the car and headed for it.

On our way to the campsite, we passed by many abandoned cars and empty playgrounds. Everyone pretty much had the chills by then. The sun was beginning to go down so we hurried to get there, put up the tent, and get the fire going.

The area seemed quite spacious and interesting. Dan and Chantal decided to check out a trail while I decided to get into the stash of food and munch for a bit. Less than a half an hour had passed and I finally saw them come back from the trail. I was shocked to see an angry look on Dan's face. He went into the tent and came back out with different clothes and a hammer! He mumbled something about an old man and stormed off back into the trail.

I just shook it off being the younger, more attractive, and smarter twin. I was checking out the refreshing atmosphere when I noticed something strange. The lights inside of the nearby bathroom were turning on and off. I picked up a mallet and was ready to go check it out until Amy decided to be a wuss and wouldn't let me leave. If it weren't for her, I would have marched my badass self over there and scoped the place out by myself.

The sun was finally starting to fall behind the trees and disappear for the night. Dan arrived looking very satisified with himself. Amy and I glanced at eachother with a "I don't want to know" look. Well, the fire was roaring but we didn't want to get out our hot dogs and s'mores just yet. Dan remembered there was a playground nearby. I wasn't too sure about it though...

We get to the small playground and find that almost everything is broken and rusted. I wasn't feeling too good at all.

Lake Hope... You Live

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I woke up the next day not remembering anything that happened. I wanted to go home right away. We packed everything up and jumped in the car. As we drove away, the sun was rising and everything looked beautiful again. I was glad to be going home. I don't think I'd want to go to Lake Hope again...