The fifth Gym Badge is obtained back in Petalburg, from none other than my own father. The path to Norman is an interesting one; you fight his subordinate trainers room by room rather than the usual one-room labyrinth. Each room gives you a hint as to what you'll be facing... the Defense Room, the Speed Room, etc. Since the game doesn't penalize you for skipping out between battles to heal up (in fact, it's encouraged), I took my time and ended up beating all of the sub-trainers.

I beat Norman on my first attempt, but it was a hairy battle. Norman fields two Slakoths and one Vigoroth, and it ended up down to a one-on-one. His last Slakoth vs. my Sableye. My Sableye truly earned her right to a nickname for outlasting the Slakoth... I would not have made it through had she not paralyzed the damn thing with Secret Power, buying me a couple free attacks.

Last weekend I went on a DVD rampage, which is highly unusual since I rarely buy that sort of stuff. When I emptied out the bags onto the table - Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Pokemon 4Ever, Red Dwarf Series 1, and a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode - it struck me that I was looking at a pretty accurate DVD selection of my life to date. An autobiography told through entertainment media.

When my family bought our first VCR (circa 1986), I would obsessively tape everything. Mom still has most of those tapes... crappy off-air dubs of Pee Wee's Playhouse, the X-Men cartoon, the Spitting Image specials, Liquid Television, Brisco County Jr. In those days, we had to operate under the assumption that Program X would never be seen again. So you had to act while you could, and stock up on VHS tape.

Gym Leader #6 - Winona of Fortree City -was another tough battle. It took five attempts before I could beat her, and I have to totally blame myself. You see, I tend to become fiercely loyal to my party members... meaning that I rarely switch them out. For the majority of the game now, I've been keeping four pokemon always in the party, with two rotator positions depending on if I'm purposely training up a type or if I need a particular HM. So I knowingly entered the Winona battle with Grovyle at a type disadvantage, and Tentacool and Gringo not much better. After a couple defeats it becomes a matter of honor, and I feel like I have to find a way to beat the enemy and have the "weak" ones walk off with a couple experience points.

I panicked.

I had intended to wait until a black GBA SP was released in the US, but right now there's no ETA on that. So I picked up a platinum one this weekend. I'm sure the black one will come out eventually, as a Toys R Us exclusive or something... but I can't live my life waiting for Maybes and Sometimes and Toys R Us Exclusives.

And it is amazing. No more positioning the lamp. No more holding the GBA up to catch the headlights of the car behind you. No more wacky tilting and tumbling even when not playing Kirby's Tilt 'n Tumble. Fans take note: this counts as my seventh Game Boy in twelve years... 2 original, 1 pocket, 2 color, 1 advance, 1 SP.

I don't think I've ever mentioned it, but I did go to college. Elizabethtown College. I've never mentioned it because I don't really care much about it. I know lots of folks come out of their four year degrees with alma mater sweatshirts, mascot beanies, logo license plates and an unswerving dedication that they attended The Best College Ever, but that just ain't me.

Rhonda and I still get the Department of Communications' Alumni Newsletter (she also went to Etown) and even though I hate it, I do read it. Rhon always flips directly to the Alumni Update section, where they tommy gun a list of alumni in new jobs, addresses and/or relationships. Tellingly, it's always the same names.

Well, those fools of Team Aqua did it. Their leader roused Kyogre from its centuries of sleep and turned the continent into a watery mess. Team Magma showed up to rub Aqua's noses in it, and then everybody left. I took advantage of the confusion to make another run through my berry fields.

I've probably been spending much too much time harvesting berries. I follow the path from Mauville to Lilycove, visiting each berry patch on the way. Back and forth I go, watering the growing saplings and picking the berries from the matured plants. You can tell from the drastic time increase netween Diary entries 7 and 8 (13 hours) just how much time I've lost doing these berry runs.

Marvel's new Rawhide Kid miniseries has some of the best covers going, the interiors feature the always-beautiful art of John Severin, and a terrific concept: a gay cowboy hero in the wild west. I'd like it better if it played it straight (pun) instead of for comedy, but it's still been a great read.

The Kid himself has been floating in the fringes of Marvel Comics for decades (he wasn't always gay)... and was even featured as a tough, grimy, no-nonsense hero in Marvel's recent Apache Skies western miniseries. Although that version was obviously modernized for today's action movie audience - long hair, trenchcoat, stubble - this version of the Kid could easily run side-by-side with his adventures in the 1950s, thanks to Severin's impeccably classical style. He really is the perfect artist for this sort of thing.

A NASCAR fan faces up to a year in prison for flooding Fox Entertainment with more than a half-million e-mails because he was angry the network aired a Boston Red Sox game instead of an auto race.

Michael Melo of Billerica has agreed to plead guilty to a federal misdemeanor charge of damage to a protected computer system, his attorney said Wednesday. Melo designed a program that repeatedly sent the same six e-mails to Fox Entertainment Group Inc. in Los Angeles over a few days in late April and early May 2001. (entire story)

I never once balked at "Celda." For those of you unfamiliar with this epithet, "Celda" was the insulting nickname the l33t gaming crowd gave to Zelda: Wind Waker upon seeing the first few screen shots. I can almost hear the fat comic book guy in the background bemoaning it as the "Worst Zelda ever!" (That title, I understand, goes to the CD-i Zelda game which apparently three people played. I'd argue #2 was the worst one, having not touched the obselete CD-i console since it came out in the early 80's). Yes, Zelda (Link too, actually) is cel shaded, meaning he's largely� actually, I have no idea what cel shading entails. He looks a bit cartoony, if that's any help. And, because all the other Zelda games apparently have been super realistic, you can see why this would be an issue.

Ok, actually, no you can't. It's a video game. It's never been realistic. Link went from an 8 bit clump of blocks to a high polygon number figure, now he's kind of a cartoony sprite. I'd say he's doing alright for himself. The aesthetics of whether or not the new Link will be like the new Coke I leave to forum trolls. I think it's great that one of the most famous video game characters got himself a new look. And the game he's looking shiny and new in kicks butt.

Wallace had my number, so I took some time off to level up my Sceptile. I pushed him from level 38 to level 45, and his newfound power plus grass-over-water type superiorty made quick work of Wallace. After such a showing - several one hit kills - my Sceptile earned a nickname: Knifejaw. (Inspired by Animal Crossing.)

So that left me with 8 Gym Badges, the Waterfall HM for Golduck, and vague directions towards Victory Road. Hoenn's Victory Road is an annoying cave labyrinth. Something about caves drives me nuts. I can take overground hedge mazes, but all these underground caves bother me. Perhaps it's the constant attacks from feral Golbats.

You're going to be surprised at the variety.

Because next Saturday you're going to your local comic book store for Free Comic Book Day. I know, you tend to look at the comic store the same way you look at the skater store... with a kind of dismissive glare. But walk inside and thumb through some comics. Odds are you'll find something better than whatever you were planning on watching on tv that night.

April really is a kind of anticipatory month in Animal Crossing. When May hits, we'll be able to find a new assortment of bugs and fish, including the eagerly awaited frog. By mid-summer, I will finally have reached the capability to have caught a complete set of both categories, if not the actual ability. On the fish side, I have yet to find a goldfish... but the missing fauna that really bothers me is the bee. The only way to catch a bee is by shaking one out of a tree and netting it before the bee swarm stings you. I have plenty of stings to show for it, but no bees.

Two new rare items were available in April: the Tree Model and the Pink Tree Model, prizes for Nature Day and the Cherry Blossom Festival, respectively. Between myself and NESJoe, I have two of each, and they will be stored on Dred Island with the rest of my model collection. Thanks to some eCards, I have two more of the Station Models, bringing my total to four (of fifteen.) That's great for my catalog, but not so great for my cramped island model shack. It's a good thing June never peeks in there.

I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. I'm juggling too many games at once... and there's the everpresent danger of a game or two falling off the agenda. And I compounded the problem by picking up the GameCube version of Splinter Cell last week. I still haven't booted it up yet.

I'm looking forward to the GBA connectivity, and I'm sure to tell you what I think of that when I get around to it. As I recall, all anybody could talk about in the Xbox version was the amazing lighting effects, which always struck me as grasping for straws. The bottom line is that stealth games appeal to me on a very basic level, mainly because I enjoy the switcheroo of actually stopping and planning out the kill path.