Okay, I'm going to try to keep this short and work as hard as I can to hold my tongue. I just finished watching 2 hours of "Deal or No Deal" with my parents - no one here actually watched the whole thing (father played Brain Age 2; mother slept; and I surfed the Net). This episode sent me over the edge on what kind of capitalist holiday, filled with corporate gluttony, this season has become.

It all began with my disdain for those oportunists who felt like it okay to take advantage of people in the holiday frenzy. Such individuals listed Wiis on Craigslist for far above retail (i.e. $500), and marketed them as including five (5) games - Wii Sports does not count as five games people. This trend continued even onto today.

Some "spirit of giving." People pawned off the hard-to-find console in the vein trying help others out, but only at the expense of %300 markup. I understand the concept of retail itself operates on markups and standards of Capitalism, but construing outrageous price-gauging as helpful practices is simply despicable.

As Wii-hysteria as a base of frustration, we come to tonight. Normally, I can look past all of the commercialization of the Holidays (Christmas), but the show sent me over the edge. The theme, again, was the "spirit of giving." In a time where people around the world are in need, and during a season that highlights the importance of giving to less-than-privileged, here's NBC handing out gifts to the audience, and money to its contestants.

What about those without any means to have Christmas? Why didn't those advertisers give plane tickets or DSs to welfare families or refugees?

Sure, I know it's a bit unpractical in our capitalist culture, but those advertising dollars could have gone to a bit of a better cause.

Perhaps this is more of a self-serving rant, and altruistic ideals can be extensively debated, but honestly, where's the game show handing out to charities or to the needy? I know I'm not helping the cause by just ranting, but it's some sort of outlet for the frustration that is the commercialization of Christmas.

Feel free to disagree, flame or disregard, but I need some sort of crowd to vent to, sorry.

Ironically, with the conclusion of one of the most commercialized holidays, is the coming of even more potentially great games to blow even more money on. While I may just have condemned Corporate America, I can't help but praise it as well.

Screw you economics, money and fair-market Capitalism! Screw, you.

Happy Holidays all.

So it's December 23rd, meaning tomorrow will be Christmas Eve with Christmas following that the next day, of course. Usually the holidays are a time for relaxation and hanging out with your family, but so far this has not been the case.

Last night, I was up until 3:30 AM getting Game-Spectrum's 2007 awards list up. I'm happy to announce that it is up (if you didn't see already). Check it out here and feel free to voice your opinion by leaving a comment. The Game of the Year category was argued over considerably. The Orange Box, BioShock and Call of Duty 4 were all contenders for the award, but ultimately The Orange Box won out because of its incredible value.

Yesterday also marked the wrap up of the Three for Free Giveaway. The winner was Scott Curfman, and he'll receive three free games of his choice from www.sprocketidea.com.

Other than what's going on around GS, nothing very interesting is going on in my life at the moment. Whether or not that's a good thing, I don't know. So, to not bore you any further, I'll keep this post short. Anyways, I hope you all have a merry Christmas or just simply a happy holidays, whatever you're into.

Partially as a test of the blogging system, and partially as an introduction, I thought I'd create myself a little blog entry.

I'm Adam and, apparently, I'm a writer now.

I think for the most part I'll be sticking to writing reviews and the like, but I'll be sure to throw some stuff in the blog when I'm feeling particularly opinionated.

In terms of my background, I'm English and living in England, therefore on a slightly different timezone to the majority of the staff, which I actually think works out nicely. There's overlap so I get to discuss and talk to them, but there are long periods where I get to browse the site as the only Admin online. Lord of the manor style, though obviously I'm still not allowed to really touch anything lest I break the wonderful new site the guys have created.

In terms of what my gaming time is being spent doing right now, I'm dipping back and forth between Halo 3 (Custom Zombies games and Rocket Race) and various games on Xbox Live Arcade. The Arcade is where I'm focusing my writing on, at least for the moment, so I imagine the first content you see from me on the site will be XBLA based for all the Microtransaction spendaholics out there.

I think that about wraps it up. Also, I'm getting Mass Effect for Christmas and not before. If any of you spoil the storyline for me I will personally gut you.

Until next time

- Adam