HALO, The New Apartment, and Sports

Ok so apparently I suck at HALO. I've never really played the game with the exception of a few times spread apart over months and years at a time. Well now since there's three XBOXers living in the new apartment (as opposed to just myself previous to the move) I'm gonna have lots of times to get my ass kicked. My two roomies were HALOers before when they lived on campus at UCSB and they did the whole XBOX live thing and all that. Now although they haven't played in a while, they still know the game. I definitely don't, and I've been proving that all week. But I'm improving! And that's saying something, right??........

Aside from that, the new apartment rocks. The living room is a decent size, my bedroom's a decent size, and it's cool being able to live with these guys, as the three of us have kind of been the best of friends over the last couple years, and living together is pretty fun. The area's quieter than my other place, which is a definite plus because I was living in brand new apartments JAMMED into the slums of Santa Barbara, so my place was awesome but the surrounding noise of the hudlums sucked. Our new place is tucked way back, so it's a nice change for me. And there's also tennis courts right down the street. Hey look, another thing I suck at.

I've never played tennis before, but I think it's something I should get into and it's probably something I can get really good at. I think that I have a pretty natural sense of sports, although some who know me as a poker player and nothing else would beg to differ. I enjoy playing sports, but I've been a casino rat for so long that I'm kind of coming into my athletic self. So although I've never played tennis before I went out and bought a brand new Prince TT Ultralite. Being that I've never played before, I could've bought a $20 racquet, but I'll be damned if I have to learn how to play a game with less than moderate equipment (as you can see my problems in money management). Although I'm having some problems controlling the ball, I'm feelin pretty good on the court and think I can pick up the game pretty quickly.

If there were some decent basketball courts close by that would rock, and I definitely need to get back on the golf course sooooooon. I haven't been to the range in forever, and it hurts inside. I've never really found time to get good at golf, but perhaps it's coming in the near future. I should get a new set of clubs first though...

On to something that I'm decent at: volleyball. Down here in SB there's a lot of beach, and with a lot of beach there's a lot of beach volleyball courts. My parents play beach volleyball and have been playing for a few years regularly, and they've been preaching the joys of the game to me and trying to get me to play for a long time now, but they haven't succeeded. Recently though, my parents decided to move across the country to New York, and what a time for me to branch out into sports again. It sucks because I would've definitely loved to have played with them since they're pretty good players and they play hard, and good competition is what makes playing sports and games fun to me. But nevertheless I've been improving over the weeks and feel like playing against better players so I can get my skill level higher. Lovin the game.

And in more sports news football is back!! Yes ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of year once again that Sundays are no longer open in my schedule. The NFL is wonderful and time spent without it is time in the dark as far as I'm concerned. The Eagles have a pretty new team as far as the team's makeup goes, and while losing a great LB in Mark Simeanou, I'm definitely glad they were able to get Donte' Stallworth for the trade, as the Eagles are in dire need of a superstar receiver if they're gonna get back to the Superbowl any time soon. Last season was a huge disappointment after so many years of dominating the NFC East, yes that's right, DOMINATING :) But however new and young the team is, they sure showed their capabilities in the first game of the season. Sheppard got injured on the first play of the game, but Roderick Hood should be quite an acceptable sub for Sheppard's serious injury, the guy's got some game in him. And although the first game was against the Texans, I can think of quite a few teams in the past two years that fall far below Houston. Nonetheless it's gonna take a little more to beat the Giants than it did the Texans, and the Eagles are game. Here we come NFC, watch out now.

Here's lookin to more sports played and more sports watched.