I had a really bad evening last night. I went to my local Supercuts for a trim and had to wait over an hour before someone was available. If that wasn't bad enough, I had to listen to the greatest hits of Air Supply while I waited. And I was starving, having put off a snack earlier and figuring that I wouldn't have to wait long. By the time I was done, I'd heard every crappy AS song ever written, missed two TV shows I wanted to see, and still had to go to the grocery store and pick up dinner. I was in a completely foul mood for most of the evening, and only cheered up after I watched a "Simpsons" episode on DVD (the one where Mr. Burns runs for governor.) That made me feel much better.

The expansion pack for Empire Earth is out as of yesterday. For $30, I don't think I can go wrong with this one, especially since I bought the original game with a gift certificate from my employer. Battlefield 1942 is also out, but I'm restraining myself from spending money on it. I loved the demo, and honestly can't wait to try out the full game, but I'm wary of playing online with all the "smacktards" who like to shoot their own teammates for fun. That kind of garbage made the demo a waste of time on some servers, and sent me back to playing the computer in Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds faster than you could say "I have a bad feeling about this." One review of the full game suggested that in a few weeks the idiots who goof off like this may have moved on to other games, and that there would be further patches that will improve gameplay, fix bugs, etc. So I'll hold off another week or two and see what happens.

Over the past year, I've realized that I've outgrown my old habit of choosing only one game to play online for months. I spent most of 1997 playing Quake, 1998 and 1999 playing Quake II, and 2000 was all about Quake III and Unreal Tournament. I played Tribes 2 all last summer, but lost interest in any kind of gaming for a few weeks after September 11. Once things settled down again, I couldn't quite find the right game. Since last fall I've been all over the RTS games I've already mentioned, and while Jedi Knight II's online play was fun, I'm getting tired of the usual capture the flag and deathmatch modes in all games. The demo of UT2003 is available now, and while it looks cool and includes an excellent new game mode called "Bombing Run" (a football-like game), it's just more of the same FPS action I've played almost to death. BF1942 is really just another version of CTF (capture and hold) but it does have driveable vehicles and flyable airplanes. But the RTS games require a bit more thought, so I've spent more time with those lately. Maybe this is one of those signs that I'm maturing.