The World of Joel

So 99.9% of you have no idea who I am talking about, and that’s Ok. However for anyone who may listen to sports talk radio here in the Los Angeles/Orange County area in the morning then you know the show Roggin and Simers Squared. They have been on KLAC AM 570 a sports radio station for about a year now and it features Fred Roggin a TV Anchor from NBC 4 here in LA. Then there is T.J. Simers a writer at the LA Times, and then his daughter Tracy. The trio has made for some of the most interesting, engaging, and enjoyable radio I have listened to. Being a former talk radio host I have always been drawn to the genre, and from the very beginning have enjoy this show. The trio has discussed in the past only being on the radio for the remainder of the year, however now it seems they are getting replaced early by Dan Patrick the national syndicated show.

Of course business is business, and I understand that from my own first hand experience. However it was a sad first ride into school today to know that my usual morning drive will no longer have my favorite talk show on. Well here is to my iPod jack in my Prius, time to listen to some podcasts!

So I am a gaming editor and I take a very editorial look at any game I review. I should be receiving my copy of Halo 3 later today. I would normally not put out an opinion on a game before a review session, but since I haven’t received the game from Microsoft yet I am just going to say, wow was this game over hyped. I don’t care how great Halo 3 is, I am sure it is fantastic. But I cannot imagine waiting in line at midnight for Halo 3. It is a FPS, we have seen thousands of them, the game has great multiplayer, and I have heard a great conclusion of the storyline. However it has always been a great game to me but never one that deserved to wait over night for.

I have to say that more and more NBC is impressing me with there shows, I say this because Monday night from 8pm-11pm I am going to be watching back to back to back shows (Chuck, Heroes, and Journeyman). I haven’t seen a lineup like that in quite sometime. Having seen both the pilots for Journeyman and Chuck, I have to say that I am now really most excited to check out the Season 2 of Heroes which promises to be a great exciting roller coaster ride again this year. So if you didn’t already know, tune into NBC tonight for a stellar trio of television.

I have to say this past week has taught me something, I am terrible at balancing time when I have a lot of time to work with. This past week I have been out of school, and I have just a multitude of games to review, hardware to review, and TV sites to update, and I have a ton of time to do it. What I find is that with each extra hour I am given I waste 55 minutes of it playing a game I have already reviewed, or just watching TV. Sure I do feel that a break from constant work is good, but I have so much I want to get done before I get back to school next Thursday, but I feel like I want to spend more time sleeping, eating, and playing old games then reviewing my new games, reviewing new hardware, and just getting stuff done. It is that battle that is going on in my head that is just like, one more game, or one more episode of Seinfeld and then I will work. And as you may have noticed my posting habits over the past week have been slacking as well here on the World of Joel! Well hopefully I can get back on top of things before school gets back in session and all heck breaks loose again!

For those of you who don’t know, CBS reality show Kid Nation is premiering this evening. This is an interesting reality show that places 40 kids on there own to create there own town. To tell you how much CBS believes in this show, they are already casting for Kid Nation 2! With that being said you know that I have a Kid Nation blog? Well if you didn’t its KidNationTV.com, please check it out, and expect a review of the first episode up tonight and every episode from this point forward!

I have a review of the first episode up on the website as well, which can be found by clicking here.

As many of you know I just turned 21 last month, and to be honest am just not the world’s biggest drinker. However I have enjoyed a few glasses of wine since reaching the 21 milestone and I must say that I am a fan. So this past weekend I went wine tasting at a local winery down in what we call Canyon Crest. It is a nice little shopping center and the winery is in a little odd ball location. When we got in there was only one other party in there and they showed us how they make the wine, bottle it, and all that kind of good jazz. We got to sample five wines for five bucks, seemed fair to me, I had one white, one red, two fruit, and one dessert. I have to say the red and the white were my favorite (sorry the names are escaping me, I am not a big wine-o yet). Anyways if you haven’t before, go wine tasting, it is a great date, a relaxing environment, and really is a lot of fun.

There is no denying, at one point I did anything to stay away from Apple, I was a PC guy all the way. Then came the iPod’s then the Mac Mini and then the Mac Books and now the iPhone and I am officially hooked. I have to say I was a little disappointed with the quick price drop, but it was pretty expected. However today I was so excited and amazed to find that Apple was giving $100 credit to the Apple Store to anyone who purchased there iPhone before the price drop. To me this couldn’t have been a more pleasant and welcomed surprise for all the earlier adopters of the phone. So I got my $100 credit within three minutes (that is what I call customer service) and bought iWork 08 family pack for Jenn and I for the upcoming school year, and it cost me literally five bucks! What can be better then that? I am just so pleased to find that Apple really is customer focused. Some may say that they did this out of the outcry of the Apple faithfuls, and I agree, but talk about a great mechanic for keeping faithful clients, they just earned so many brownie points in my book I can’t even count them. Great job Apple, another job well done!

It has been such a long time since I have seen a great western, heck I can remember the last good Western I have seen. The genre as a whole has been almost forgotten about with all of the Comic Book characters and fantasy thrill rides over the past five to ten years. However with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale I think any Western fan would be hard pressed to find a more enticing duo for a western as both men carry that sort of grunge around with them. I saw 3:10 to Yuma yesterday after my last final for the summer, it was a sense of celebration to be off of school, and Jenn was nice enough to accompany me to see it. I had heard good things going in, and the movie did not disappointed. I wouldn’t say that 3:10 to Yuma reinvents the western genre, heck it is a remake (never saw the original), but it does make for one engaging and entertaining ride from start to finish. Let’s just say I will be buying the movie on DVD whenever it releases! If you like westerns go see this movie, it is worth it!

So I was surfing the web earlier this morning and I saw this video of the show Carpoolers on ABC that is going to premiere here in a few weeks. I watch this video and it makes me think, could this be something like The Office that is true to life, and just makes fun of it self? I own the domain CarpoolersTV.com, and I have been debating whether or not to sink any time into the show with a blog, or just let it go. The show has such a high probability of flopping but then again could be big! Any thoughts? Also I picked this video because it is actually Jenn and my song, we love it, we love Phil Collins, and we have jammed out to the drum solo on several occasions. Will Carpoolers be a big show? I don’t know, but this is a great promo video!

It is not very often I can sit down and watch an entire 49er football game. I have been a fan since Steve Young joined the team, and I was probably five years old. Unfortunately with a busy schedule, and having to study on countless Sunday’s, watching my 49ers is never an easy task. Plus the networks never seem to pick up there games, and we are stuck watching the terrible Raiders play. However I digress because last night I watched one of the sloppiest football games this first week, at times it was even hard to watch. But when you saw Alex Smith drive the team down the field in a two minute drill and score the game winning touchdown that was shear bliss. I have been a fan of Alex Smith since he came to the team, I saw him live in preseason last year taking on the Chargers and the guy seems to really be comfortable as the leader of the team, and hopefully he can bring us back into the playoffs this year! Now we just need to clean up about every area of the game, work on getting the ball down field, and just stop with the screen passes, thirty in a game (made up the number) is just to many!