I’ve seen Amazon advertise their Trade-In program a few times, and I’m trying it out!

First, I grew tired of MAG, and I’d rather play MW2 with friends, so I’m selling it to max out my value while it’s still pretty new. But feeling lazy and not wanting to bother with Ebay, I decided to check out Amazon’s trade-in program.

It’s run by a third party, but it’s super easy to do. You search for the game you want to trade-in, if they want it, it shows a price. Since I was going to send one game, I figured I’d look around and find other games I never play and see what I can get for them. Turns out I’ve got 26 games I never play…so might as well trade them in!

Once they give you a price, and a free shipping label, you have seven days to send them in. The only iffy thing I see is that if the items are damaged or not what you were supposed to send, they won’t send it back. For videogames they say:

For video games and movies, this includes the correct disc(s), manual, cover art, bundled accessories, UPC, and case.

I have all original packaging and manuals though, so I’m not worried about that.

Total I’m getting $170 for all of it. Everything from Zelda: Twilight Princess on Wii (booooring!), to Rogue Leader on the GameCube (hey, $1.75 is better than nothing!). I could probably get more on Ebay, but the hassle of running 26 auctions, many of which probably would get me nothing (seriously, who wants Rogue Leader from 2001?), and it just made more sense to get a nice chunk of change with practically zero effort.

Once I get my Amazon gift cards I’ll comment to let you know how the process went. They also take trade-ins for dvds and textbooks too.

I’m on a video game kick for sure…and the new addiction is Modern Warfare 2. Everyone was talking about it, so I had to see what the hype was about…and let me tell you, the hype is legit.

So far I’ve really only played online, but that’s the main reason I bought it. I thought Uncharted 2 online would be cool…but I’ve come to realize 3rd person multiplayer isn’t my thing. Mod Warfare 2 however, has an amazingly robust multiplayer system. Not only are there a  ton of different modes, but there are all sorts of weapons, equipment, and attachments to customize. And to keep you coming back, only a few things are unlocked at first. You have to keep leveling up to get access to better weapons. This makes it tough for people starting out, but you can still kill people as a lvl 1 player, so it’s far from frustrating.

Another cool aspect to the whole customization thing are perks and challenges. By getting a certain number of kills with a weapon you can unlock new sights for guns or maybe a silencer. Perks are attributes like unlimited sprinting, and these too can be leveled up and unlocked.

I just wish more people had PS3 so I could play with them.

For about the last year and a half I’ve been watching the Sunday Comics for good FoxTrot comics to put up in my classroom. Little did I know Bill Amend has been making them since 1988! Holy cow I have a lot of catching up to do!

Apparently there are “treasury” books full of the comics, so I might have to start collecting those. I love that they’re nerdy, about math, computers, video games, and all things geek.

As I was browsing through some older ones, this one caught my eye.

Our summer keeps on trucking along. We’re slowly getting things done on our bathroom. Our tile guy should be able to start in the next week or two, and in the meantime we’ve been deciding on a vanity and counter top. Today we ordered the counter top from Lowe’s. We went with a quartz counter top, mainly because we like the way it looks a lot more than granite. From what I’ve read, it also holds up as good or better, but doesn’t need to be sealed every year. Ordering it was really easy too. They’ve got a page with all the different options from how long it should be, how deep, where you want the sink centered, what side splashes you need, what kind of sink, and the edge of the counter top. Here’s the color we went with:

The tile we picked is a pretty neutral tan color with some dark gray glass, so that will match, and we also wanted something to go with a white cabinet. We think we’re getting this style, but in a 48″ version.

The bigger size should basically look the same, but with 4 drawers on each side. They also sell some nice mirrors that match.

When we’re not looking at bathroom stuff I’m still trying to beat FF7. I’m now on disc 3 and only have my big battle with Sephiroth left. I haven’t gone all the way to him to see if I can beat him, but I’m going back and getting any materia I missed and leveling up. There’s some pretty awesome stuff you can only get by doing some chocobo racing and breeding, so I think I might take the time to get all that before I beat on Sephiroth. When I’m not playing that, it’s fun to jump on Battlefield 1943 for a few rounds.

I love video games, but it’s more accurate to say I love baseball games. I bought a PS3 just for a baseball game, and the first pictures from the new version have been released.

I used to play other games like Starcraft, Counter-strike, Warcraft, and various platformers, but the only thing that holds my interest now are baseball games. It’s all I need.

Stacie got a gift card to Best Buy for her birthday, so we’ve been looking for a good video game for her to get. We decided on Zack and Wiki for the Wii. It’s basically a point and click adventure game kinda like the old Monkey Island games. I’d been pushing her to try out Mario Galaxy, but the videos and more intense control scheme didn’t excite her as much. Zack and Wiki is a very easy game to control, but is difficult enough to challenge an adult. Last night I headed over to the local store to get it, and so far she really likes it! Mario Galaxy does look like a lot of fun, but I’m still playing my baseball game on PS3, and I still love it. So much fun.

An update on the dog…last you heard we had left our bedroom door open, and everything was magical, but it didn’t last. What I think happened was the dog thought we weren’t really leaving, because we always shut the doors upstairs when we do, but after a few weeks she realized we were still leaving for long periods of time. She went back to her anxious pooping and peeing in the house behaviors. Tired of it all, I went to the pet store and bought a crate. She’s slept in it every night since, and things have improved a great deal. As we prepare for the baby too, it will be nice not having the dog run around and go crazy every time we wake up.

Speaking of the baby, we’ve got about a week and a half until we find out what it is. My kids have been asking me, and every time I tell them we’re having a human. They look at me strange for a moment until they finally get the joke. We both want a boy and girl at some point, and the order isn’t particularly important to us. I would say that Stacie really wants a girl, and I lean slightly in that direction. Ultimately I’ll love the baby no matter what it is, so putting too much hope in one sex or the other means I could potentially be disappointed in what we get, and I don’t want to be disappointed in the baby.

Dennis Prager was talking the other day about spirituality versus religion. I was going to try and explain what he said, but then I found you can download the whole half hour discussion! This is the first time I’ve looked into a podcast of any kind, and I plan on downloading and listening to a lot. No commercials, you can listen again…it’s great stuff. Visit this link, and go down to H3: Ultimate Issues Hour: Is Spirituality Enough? You can click listen now and hear this great discussion. If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, fast forward to about 20 mins when he talks to Kent. Very good stuff.