An announcement regarding MikeDranger.

I want to apologize to MikeDranger:

Tubby here is apparently straight as an arrow and not a homosexual.

How do I know this?

His new girlfriend put up a video of herself on DailyMotion and wants everybody to know how much she loves her 300 lbs. of man goo and how much she loves her own 300 lbs of woman goo. Here is Tiffany:

Katy Perry

This woman is driving me up the wall. Her horrendous music is played everywhere, she shows up on my PC to constantly taunt me and I have nightmares about her flat ass. She's driving me crazy.

What do people see in this fraud? Why do record companies cater only to teens, tweens, hipsters, homosexuals and wimpy pussified men? What about me? Don't you want my money?

Or is it because you know we're too smart to waste our money on generic music?

I wish she would just go away...and take Max Martin with her.

Time for some Fats Waller.

Brrrrr...

Bar hopping, gambling, dining in fine restaurants, spending time with beautiful women...well, that's over now. It's time to hibernate until late March, when I can do it all over again.

Finished up my PS3 gaming, beat Grand Theft Auto V and sold the console and games. November 15 is coming up and I will be buying my PS4.

Sadly, no Watch Dogs. That was a game I was anticipating for months and now it might not show up until May for all I know. Looks like Knack and a bunch of PSN to start. Maybe it's for the best. Maybe something else I would have missed might hit a chord with me. I can tell you it won't be a shooter so cross out Killzone, Battlefield 4 or Call Of Duty: Ghosts. Probably will be AC4.

So some little studio in Mascouche, Quebec had issues with John Bain? Sadly, when you're an Internet celebrity on YouTube, you have a huge target on your back. This is just a desperate attempt at attention. They should be honored that their game got a "Impressions video" from him.

I haven't bothered to watch any TB reviews as of late, even with the comments hidden. I seem to be the only person on Earth bothered by people who wasted their entire summer watching YouTube videos and going to message boards talking about Glee or some other T.V. show. I feel there's a time and place for everything. O.K., now you can do it.

What kind of person would care what Jenna Marbles, the Whitney Cummings of YouTube, has to say? Is there anybody here who can explain to me why people care about her life?

See, my view is that we are all equal regardless of our station in life. However, more and more people nowadays are willing to worship other humans and that is simply wrong in my eyes. Worship a god, yes. Worship a flesh and blood human being? You'll never see me do that ever. I would rather die than bow down to any human being. All 7 billion of us are equal in my book. Sadly, it's a losing battle with the Beliebers. As Matthew Good said, "First World problems."

By the way, I prefer DailyMotion. Less censorship. Ugly looking site but they rarely take anything down. Why do you think Mark Bussler has it as a back-up? Oh yes, no comments from the typical that caused me to block them at YouTube.

That's it, I guess.

A truce between Ben Dutka and myself.

I talked to Ben Dutka and aired out our differences and turns out we're more similar than we thought we were in regards to our mindsets. I have apologized to Ben for my actions and he has accepted them and admitted he was a little harsh. I admitted to him I have Asperger's Syndrome and anger management issues and he accepted that the flaming I received wasn't warranted as I was making a valid point. My only error was using a generalization towards Americans.

I'm glad I was able to get a perma-ban reversed. I like PSX Extreme as it's always been a good place that serious console video gamers talk Sony and I'm sure more will join in the future since a lot of people have had enough of Microsoft's BS.

I really want to make amends with the NGR Thug Mansion next. I know there are people like Mav, ThuglyDrunk, Xavvi and Crispy4001 who will never forgive me for what I've said about them and would leave NGR if I ever were allowed back. I like their opinions on video gaming and the world; even if they are rough on each other with the name-calling and swearing. I just want to post there and not have to get into insult contests unless they are in jest. I see a lot of myself in these guys. They don't take their message board seriously; it's just a fun place.

I just want to bury the hatchet once and for all with the Thug Mansion and be allowed to post there again. I didn't deserve my access barred for my comments about Ryan Davis. He was rude to me and I can't show any respect to somebody who only cared about his own self-importance. I know many people loved Ryan but he didn't show me the same.

Miley Cyrus

Got to give it up to Miley. She tore the house down Sunday.

A friend told me about her performance and he called it "vile". I grabbed a download from DailyMotion so I could view it whenever I want. Both DailyMotion and YouTube are taking any videos of the whole performance down.

I didn't see anything offensive. I don't know why people are complaining. Yes, maybe she could have thought out her performance better but what's the point? She was looking for publicity.

She looked good in that skimpy outfit. I guess there's a lot of jealous people out there.

Interlude: Sadness

I often wonder why so many men in the 21st century are proud to be weak and cowardly pussies. I grew up believing men were the superior sex. Men ran this world, men were the ones accomplishing our greatest feats, fighting our wars and creating the innovations that made for a better world.

Nowadays, men are scared to death to fight, afraid to talk things over and are simply happy to hang out on message boards with like-minded people and act like total women.

How do these "men" look at themselves in the mirror each morning. Is there no shame in being a cowardly wuss? When was it O.K. to act like this?

That there are people frightened of me is sad. Imagine if I were 6'9 285 lbs and I was looking to pound them into hamburger. I'm an average guy and there are gutless cowards who fear me. It shows how weak-minded, weak-willed and afraid they are. They were cowards as kids, cowards now and cowards forever.

It makes me embarrassed to be a man to see my gender full of stereotypical "girls". The women have more guts, determination and "balls" than we do. They are doing what we used to do while the men are the ones gossiping on lame message boards about trivial shit.

This has to change and fast.

Liberalism.

I want to answer the few angry people who have issues with my comments.

I know many no-life Liberals love spending 18 hours a day online, finding any argument to pick on. Ryan Davis' entire fanbase were made up of Bleeding Heart Liberals. Much like no one here wants to admit they are gay when they accuse somebody of homophobia, people like A.J. Lynn also refuse to admit they are liberals.

You guys are doing a very poor job of hiding your allegiances.

I am aware that many young men are into bromances. They had a online bromance with Ryan Davis. They love hugging men and being affectionate in a non-sexual way, I'm certain the people outraged by me didn't like my imagery. However, there's really no other way to put it. You want me to call it male bonding or bromancing the bro? Just doesn't sound right to me. I'm from the old school. I don't hug men or tell them personal things. That's what women are for. None of my male friends think bromances are cool. None of us are 22, though. I have no desire of hugging 300 lb men who smell like BBQ sauce, either.

I'm not a liberal, nor do I support the liberalism I find online. These people are hypocrites. They will preach how much they support gays, African Americans and affirmative action and then not follow up. I loathe it.

If a life of lying and deceit is what you call honesty, that's sad. I'm honest, at least. Ryan Davis was a jerk, crude and rude and didn't care for you or his own well-being. Just because you think otherwise doesn't make me wrong. It's an opinion.

Nobody here showed any professionalism. You all showed how much you were influenced by this big fat joke. I dare you to tell it to my face that I'm wrong. I won't be afraid to tell it like it is but I know these Internet badasses wouldn't have the guts.

By the way, many of you would be perfect for the NGR Thug Mansion. They need some fresh blood. Go to ngrthugmansion.com and ask if you can join. See for yourself what I tried to tolerate.

Ryan Davis

Heard the news that Ryan Davis, the former Gamespot editor and Giant Bomb co-founder, died over the weekend.

He had recently gotten married and probably was still on his honeymoon at the time. He was 34.

Every video game website out there probably wishes me to show sympathy for his widow and to mourn his death on their news story about him.

I can't.

I felt the guy was a joke as a video game journalist. Nor did I think he was funny. He was just another obnoxious, untalented and morbidly obese man who jerked off to the Microsoft brand. He was the epitome of the so-called video game journalism that makes my hobby come off as a huge joke.

One time on Twitter (when I was experimenting with it), I asked him how he had more followers than FOX and NFL Network analyst Charles Davis and he claimed he had more talent than Charles and added that I was "a nasty piece of shit". Of course, he's not the first rude "video game journalist" I encountered online.

While everybody else who loves to eat/drink/sleep video games masturbates figuratively about how great Ryan Davis was and how he was this great human being, I won't. Seeing all these people weeping for him makes me embarrassed to be a video gamer.

Bottom line: poor journalist, unfunny, obnoxious and not the nice guy that the misguided, weak-minded and ignorant types that represent video gamers today think he was. I mourned for Matt Borne. I mourned for Ray Manzarek. I won't be mourning for Ryan Davis. He's just another human being who died today.

I don't know why so many people worshiped this guy. Just more proof of our rotting civilization and the basement dwellers of the world who will do nothing to reverse it.

Blueprint (Bally-Midway 1982)

Before I begin, I was watching NFL Network to see some footage of the San Francisco 49ers in New Orleans for the Super Bowl when a Dead Space 3 commercial appeared on my screen. This time around, Microsoft were the ones sponsoring the game and they pushed the use of Kinect for voice commands. Afterwards, they said that Xbox 360 could be had for $99! $99!!

Of course, after doing some research I found that it was the $99 "deal" where people can get a 4GB 360 with Kinect for that price and then have to pay for XBL for 24 months at $15. In other words, you would get fleeced when the final tally is added up.

People over the years despise me over my criticism of Microsoft, rightful criticism. I never take shots at Nintendo and Sony, they say. The other two companies have done some dumb things in  their history but one thing they have never done is lie to people about the prices or give cryptic ads that do nothing to explain how "great" the Xbox 360 is.

I can't wait for the ads for the next Xbox console and see how they do as both it and Orbis are pretty much the same. What are they going to say other than overpaying for exclusivity that most times isn't anything special?

I do want to buy a 360 for Forza 4 and Forza Horizon. I can get one for $99 easy. I'll just buy a used one.

Blueprint, a forgotten arcade game from Bally-Midway from 1982, is a game that requires a lot of multi-tasking. You've got to do 4 or 5 things at once. People who are proud of that Platinum trophy in Dark Souls or getting all the achievements in a Call Of Duty game would break their controllers playing this difficult and at-times unfair game.

You are J.J., a smiling, Panama hat wearing man whose girlfriend Daisy is being pursued by California Raisin reject Ollie Ogre at the top of the screen. J.J. must collect the 8 pieces that make up the Blueprint in order to construct the killing machine that will off Ollie.

The player controls J.J. with a joystick and a button which doubles his speed but has a limit when it comes to its use.

The playfield consists of a maze with 10 homes, 8 of which have blueprint pieces and 2 others have bombs. The player goes into a house and if he gets a blueprint piece, he can then place it on it. If he gets a blue bomb, he must quickly go over to the Monster Pit and drop it in. He has to go over the pit vertically to drop it. Also, if you go into a house you've already been in, you will get a red bomb, which explodes even faster.

At times, Ollie will throw these flowerpots that bounce around unpredictably on the playfield until they reach the bottom of the screen and then will walk away to the sides. You can't touch these as they will kill J.J. You can hide inside a house but you better have a blueprint piece on you or you could have a red bomb and no way to defuse it before the flowerpot disappears.

Another enemy is Sneaky Pete, a Fry Guy like enemy who shows up to ruin your blueprint by collapsing it. You must grab him and take him over to the Monster Pit to get rid of him. Then you have to  rebuild your machine, which eats up time as Ollie closes in on doing who knows what to Daisy.

Later on, Fuzzy Wuzzy appears in the maze to keep you from the houses. He moves around erratically and is deadly to J.J.

With all these obstacles, the game gets really frustrating and cheap. You have to remember what houses you've gone into and worry about Sneaky Pete and the flowerpots and how close Ollie is to Daisy. It's a lot of multi-tasking.

Eventually, you will have the blueprint complete. J.J. must then run over to the Start button and then he fires this inaccurate weapon in hopes of hitting Oliie with a projectile. If he does, he gets a bonus and the level ends.

The game features intermissions that might remind people of Pac-Man.

The game has nice graphics and good gameplay with nice little ditties but is just too cheap and difficult. 20000 is a good score.

Home versions were made by CBS, the home division of Bally-Midway. The only version I've played is the Atari 5200 version, which is terrific. It's also a little easier.

If you really want to play a challenging arcade game, Blueprint is it. It never appeared on any compilations so MAME, a 5200 emulator or finding the Atari 2600 or 5200 versions are your options. You'll never look at Dark Souls the same way again.

Aaron B.

I read that his blog and his account has been disappearing and re-appearing the last few days at 1up. It's strange that one of the most popular blogs on the site would be this unstable. A number of people are blaming it on me, as if I could have the power to delete accounts. Of course, I wouldn't blame them for still being angry at anybody trying to disrupt their community.

They do need, if Jeremy Parish is telling the truth that a re-design is coming, to create a separate board for the bloggers so people don't need to publish one sentence blogs.

I owe Aaron an apology, though I think he needs to tone down the need to ask for attention. They know who he is and he's well-liked already. Hope he will return. I'd like to go to Peter Atherton's blog to say so but they would ban any account I have simply because they don't trust me or anyone new.

They really need to fix their site. I simply can't bother to blog there. Maybe comment, but nothing more.

I am sorry, James.

I am very sorry for insulting you and your family. I lost it there and went beyond the bounds of decency. I believe what others said in that you didn't mean to hurt my feelings and it's just your way of dealing with troublemakers on 1up. I was in the wrong, I took it to the extreme in the YouTube video and in print and I realize my behavior is destructive to my mental health and helpful to nobody.

I am not the guy spamming blogs with incendiary comments. I do not know who it is other than he is somebody just copycatting. All I want to do is make peace with the 1up blogging community and be allowed someday to post positive comments there and maybe find some people to play online with on PS3, PC and perhaps the Wii U/Xbox 360 in the future. This impostor "Brighat" wants to keep causing trouble for me and everybody else.

I understand that I need to let bygones be bygones and allow people to make their own choices regardless of my opinions.

I'm sorry, James. I do not wish to be your enemy. We should be on the same side, not at each other's throats.

Now, could you please remove any blogs that have to do with me? I don't want to read about a past I'm not proud of.

Thank you,
Brian Ghattas

James Watkins is still at it.

I paid 1up a visit to see if they had a review for The Cave up and I noticed a blog about "Internet assholes" and sure enough, James Watkins was posting there and mentioned my name, claiming I don't have a "life" (a total lie) and trying to fit in with people 30 years younger than he is.

I think it's pretty sad that we have delusional men like Mr. Watkins online. He thinks people should respect him and his views despite being a toady to 1up administrators. It's bad enough that he is a bully who condones gun violence and justifiable homicide on his front page, it's even worse that people consider this guy "normal", which he clearly is not.

Everybody else at 1up comes off as normal to me but as a mentally ill man, it's not hard for me to identify another in my brethren and I see nothing normal about James Watkins. He was the one that threatened to knock my block off. He was the one who wanted me to come to South Carolina and fight him. The guy is crazy. He acts like a manchild 24/7. He will turn against you for the simplest reasons and refuse to talk it over.

I know that people hate getting old and want to remain young at heart. I'm seeing a woman 15 years younger than me. I'm still playing video games. I have a vivid imagination. However, I know what my birth certificate says and I need to act my age and do so when it's required. Places with strict rules, I follow them. A place with no rules like 1up, why bother? I just adapt to my surroundings.

The Internet is entertainment for me. I don't take it seriously for one minute. Too many people, like James Watkins, see the Internet as serious business. I think the guy needs a vacation from the World Wide Web to get his priorities straight. Then again, without the Internet, he would be the one without a "life".

Think I know who impersonated me.

Thinking about it off and on the last week about who went out on 1up and impersonated me on their site, there's only one person who fits the bill.

James Watkins.

I don't know what the story with this guy is. He certainly doesn't act like your typical 50+ year old man. He's more of a manchild than I could ever be. His writing and demeanor certainly comes off as crude and lacking of maturity.

I've read some of his blogs and they come off as abridged versions of what you can read in Wikipedia. He seems dedicated to protect a dying website like a squatter defending the condemned building he lives in. I don't know why Jeremy Parish or Sam Kennedy would have this guy be the one deciding who can be a part of 1up and who can't.

I feel he legitimately despises me for my views on video gaming; long before I took shots at his family. I don't remember this guy from 2009, he may have used another name. I know a lot of Xbox 360 fanboys over the years have loathed me for telling the truth about MS and their business practices. It doesn't matter to them that I owned 3 Xbox 360s in the past and actually spent $20 on Game Room downloads.

What bothers me about the guy is that he seemingly condones murder, gun play and violence on his 1up page. In the months after Aurora and Sandy Hook, I feel it's politically incorrect to glorify such things since it's a sensitive subject. Even if he's quoting movies or such, it needs to be toned down or removed. I feel he doesn't care about any innocents that were slaughtered in the past. As long as his daughter isn't a victim, there's no harm I guess.

I don't know why 1up would choose him as a moderator for their dying site but I guess if you're going to be deleted, you want to go down swinging.

Then again, moderators choose to live a life obsessed with a site and hoping they can gain power from the administrators so they can have that feeling many people crave. I'm just glad I've never had that need.

Anyway, that's who I think is the impersonator.

Someone at 1up impersonated me.

I read from Blake that somebody pretended to be me and wrote something offensive on someone's 1up blog today.

I understand if people thought it was me breaking my promise; I'm the only troll 1up had at this time, it seems.

I want to tell you that I did not create another troll account to attack anybody today. When I said I was burying the hatchet, I meant it. I told my psychologist that and he noticed today that my behavior was better than it had been in some time. I don't want to get sick from my anger and mental state.

I can understand people not believing me. It's going to take months, years, maybe never to gain some people's trust after 3 years of off-and-on trolling at 1up. I know that and I accept it.

I want to make clear that anybody writing incendiary or offensive comments on your blogs did not come from me. I had a feeling somebody would create a sockpuppet and go around copycatting in order to keep me from ever making good on my promise. The community is not very big and everybody knows everyone else quite well, right down to their posting style.

Somebody clearly wants me to revert to my old form by causing unease among the 1up community because they get off on it.

If you get any derogatory blog comment from someone impersonating me, please send me the offending comment so I can read it.

As I said, I'm very sorry for my actions and I mean it. Again, I don't want to get sick from my mental state and anger. I want to make peace with 1up. My trolling days are over for good, for my sake.

Thank you,
Brian Ghattas

I was told by somebody...

...that for the good of my mental health and to help lower my anger and anxiety, I should be "sucking people off" online, kissing people's butts and agreeing with everything they say 100% of the time. She said that if you can't beat them, join them.

Honestly, I do need to get over 1up's treatment of me. I should be happy that the site has become a shell of itself. Instead, I'm acting as if it's NeoGAF or GameFaqs and is the biggest video game website around.

The people at 1up are not the nicest people around when provoked judging from the angry responses I've received. They don't have any compassion for the mentally ill and make fun of the teeth my dentists say are strong. They don't believe me when the dentists say I'll take them to the grave. I've gone to five dentists and they refused to whiten them, put braces or do anything because they are strong and healthy and will never fall out. I agreed with them and didn't do any cosmetic repair to them but everybody makes fun of them online and it bothers me.

You know, all I did was say the truth about the Xbox 360 and call out Aaron B. for asking for attention. I wasn't saying anything false. Then, the last few months I've been waging this war because the people were rude and unfriendly over me saying it like it is. Someone with mental issues is going to react when people make incendiary comments to me. I'm not normal. I'm a mental case. When people mock me over my mental health and my teeth, it's only adding more fuel to the fire. They are baiting me and they know it,

I know everybody likes going online and getting into flame wars but after hearing about my friend Peter and his seizures the last few days over stress and frustration, I can't do it any more. I don't want to go through what he went through. I'm sick of the fighting, the threats, the insults, the baiting, all of it. It's going to kill me.

Expecting professional behavior from 1up from my act was expecting too much. It's always been one of the more rougher video game sites when it comes to making friends in their community. Someone opinionated can't survive there. I will need to accept it as it is and adjust. Be like everybody else and remain positive 100%. I have to learn that, not just there, but at any other volatile environment.

I'm very sorry for anything I said. You probably won't believe me and I don't blame you. I will have to earn people's trust. After what happened to my friend, I've seen the light. I don't want to fight anybody any more. I just want some people to play video games with on the PS3, PC and maybe the Wii U and 360. I need people to talk with online about video games and the world.

The Brian Ghattas of old is going to be a thing of the past. The new Brian Ghattas is going to be somebody who won't fly off the handle over name-calling, sarcasm or video game fanboyism. The new me will accept people for who they are. No more racial or sexist slurs, no more crude insults and swearing and no more threats of beating them up. I'm going to be positive from now on, even if the old me tries to fight it.

It's time for me to grow up online and act my age, for my sake.

Again, I am truly sorry for my comments and behavior. I want to earn your trust and friendship by doing the right thing for myself and everybody else.

I will be removing all offending blogs and videos and will bury the hatchet with 1up. I want to make peace.

Thank you,
Brian Ghattas