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Where were you on Sunday February 28th, 2010, when the PS Network crashed, leaving millions of gamers in the dark?

I tried to log on for C420 clan night. “Error code: 8001050F - Hardware failure. Cannot update Firmware or connect to Internet.” I wondered what the rest of C420 was doing.

Nubi has an X-Box, so all he probably had to do was flip two switches & start playing GALO.

The Canadian Connection of Tiregod, BrokeNCyde, & Texducofdeath were busy watching the closing ceremonies of the Canadian version of the Olympics. They knew that no one would pay any attention to Canada for quite some time. So they were busy soaking up that final moment in the spotlight.

Cold, IOU1, Drizz, Tangent, SWR, Lespaul, & Bear all hopped in their cars and decided to go meet for a drink. Cold suggested the Kafka Wine Shop in the Lakeview East section of Chicago. We’ll see who makes it back in time for clan night on Tuesday & who will still be there …

I looked at my living room table. What else was there to do? There was that book I’d been reading, ‘The Sherlock Holmes Collection’. I was only about 50 pages away from finishing it. I’d been really excited about getting to the end … but maybe if I keep pressing O-X-X over & over & over again on my PS3 controller I’ll be able to sign in eventually! I mean what if the network goes back up & I miss it because I’m reading?

I hacked my controller for about 20 more minutes & went to bed.

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OK, I feel the need to explain myself with regards to this blog. This blog is for entertainment purposes only. I am not a professional writer. I am just a guy who has a sense of humor that sometimes goes too far. I tend to go off on a tangent when I get an idea & take things too far sometimes.

There’s a lot of great Canadians in the clan and Canada is a great place to live. It’s also a great place to make fun of. It’s been done in movies, comedy, & literature for years. The USA is also a great place to live … & a great place to make fun of. Particularly New York, where I live. One has to be able to laugh at oneself.

So if anything in this blog offends you, like I mean really offends you, well then I really am sorry. I’m not out to do that. Only to make you smile. Sometimes my idea of what is funny doesn’t translate into actually being funny. I get that.

So with that in mind I will tone it down & keep it tasteful.

What did we learn from watching the Opening Ceremonies in Vancouver on Friday night?

Canada is a vast land. There is more land than the United States, even though the per capita is much less. The distance from the west coast of Canada to the east coast of Canada is greater than the distance from New York to Paris.

TRANSLATION IN AMERICAN: Canadians are either too lazy to build more houses, too impotent to breed more kids, or both.

Canada has a rich history of Native Indians occupying their lands. Current Canadians respect the Native Americans & their culture. They live in peace together.

TRANSLATION IN AMERICAN: Canadians are pussies who like to share and dance around in circles around totem poles, which makes for a really boring show.

Wayne Gretzky is the most famous & revered Canadian of all time. Donald Sutherland helped carry the flag into the arena.

TRANSLATION IN AMERICAN: We couldn't book Celine Dion because she wanted too much money.

Canadians are proud of the fact that the Ceremonies came in under budget, which is very rare as Olympics go. Most cities go over. But Canadian politicians & government actually keep their promises.

TRANSLATION IN AMERICAN: What is a promise?

Canadians' national past-time is hockey. The men's hockey team is the odds-on favorite to win the gold medal. The men's hockey gold-medal match is scheduled as the final event of the entire winter Olympics. Anything less than the gold at home will be a huge disappointment. The entire nation will be holding their Molsons on the edge of their seat during that event.

TRANSLATION IN AMERICAN: Get ready to be disappointed because the Miracle on Ice II is coming!

This is not a blog about MAG. This is not an attempt to recruit C420 members to come play MAG – even though I would love it if you did! (Rumor has it that AnubisIIGoW is picking up his copy this weekend.)

This is a blog about Zipper & the absolutely amazing job they did producing MAG. Zipper has knocked it out of the park. I cannot believe how much better the gameplay & interfaces of MAG are than the Slant 6 version of SOCOM. There is no comparison.

I never played SOCOM 1 or 2 from Zipper, but I’ve heard they were great. Obviously they created a huge following. I’m not going to whine about Slant 6 but I am going to compare.

Now, I know that SOCOM requires a different lobby system than MAG does. In MAG you cannot join a lobby & set up your opponents, switch sides, & play against your friends. You can only join a group of 8 friends and play with those 8 as teammates. Your opponents are always chosen for you.

Nonetheless, I hope & pray that Zipper can take what they’ve done with MAG & apply it to the next SOCOM (which they are already working on).

Imagine pressing a button on any of the menus (community, armory, friends list, stats, extras) and not having to wait for between 1 & 5 seconds while it pauses to load. The screen loads instantly!

Imagine being able to go into any home screen menu while you are still in the game lobby. You never have to ‘leave’ your party & you can still talk to them while you are playing with your other stuff.

Imagine playing 16 versus 16 on large maps (or even up to 256 in this case) with NO LAG. You never get shot after you’ve already killed someone. You never see people jumping around. Wow what a concept!

All Zipper needs to do is apply their top-notch technology & programming to the SOCOM concept. Personally I hope they scrap the existing lobby system that is in Confrontation, which is straight off the short bus. Australasia, I never want to see you again!

Instead just used the MAG basic concept & expand! Perhaps make the party system be able to hold 32 players instead of 8. Then make it closed mike. Then add an option for ‘closed’ (unranked) or ‘open’ (ranked) game type. Then launch! That’s it! The party leader selects the game type & the party is off!

Come on Zipper, I know you can do it  

Yes, it's a movie. A really funny movie about our dangerous neighbor to the North. But isn't there a little truth in every joke - no matter how sarcastic?

Wake up & smell the bacon people - we really do need to invade Canada. There are many, many problems facing our great country today. The acquisition of Canada's people, lands, resources, & funds can solve them all - at a mere fraction of what we are spending now! Let me outline the basics:

Canada has a large supply of oil & electricity. How would you like your gas to cost $1.50 a gallon, or have your electric bill cut in half permanently? All we have to do is send our boys over there, enslave the Canadians, put them to work in the oil fields & electric plants, and just take the finished products back to the USA.

What's that? You're against slavery you say? Well, as far as I know slavery was abolished in the USA - not Canada. I don't even think that Canada has a constitution. Any country that has no constitution should be enslaved.

Canadian banks are so well managed that they were actually, for the most part, not affected by the recent turmoil in the US banking industry. Our national debt is at an all time high. We have a lot of shit to pay for, like the war on terror and the bailout, etc. etc. etc. Solution - just take over the Canadian banks. Take all their money, collateral, reserves, gold, whatever the fuck they have and distribute their entire national wealth among US citizens.

Prisons in the USA overcrowded? No problem! We don't need them anymore. Send every prisoner to the northernmost part of Canada you can find & drop them there without a coat.

Canadian defense forces (all 3 of them) won't stand a chance against our military. This won't be a war. This won't even be a battle. There will be zero casualties, unless of course 1 of the 3 mounties opens their mouths.

What do we have to lose? World approval? We lost that already. Seriously now, our former president Bush & current president Obama have it all wrong. They really just don't understand how imperialism works. If you want to do a job, you have to do it right. If you want to be imperialist, if you want the USA to invade & take over other countries, you don't start with far away countries with guerrilla defense forces. You start with the local, easy ones that won't put up a fight first! Then you grow, expand, and take over the next easiest one. It's just like RISK or being a school bully. No one else in the world would blink twice if we acquired Canada tomorrow.

What about Canadians living in the US? Well we can finally get rid of them!

Now I know we have some great Canadian members of C420, so I did not forget you! You guys, your immediate families, & close friends would be exempt & granted automatic US citizenship. Distant cousins will be working the oil fields though, sorry!

Clark Kent, Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne … you know who they are. They’re “Super Heroes” – men who live amazing double lives, saving the planet in their spare time when they’re not at their regular jobs.

Reality check people – you’re not one of those guys. You don’t need 2, 3, or 8 identities on the Playstation Network.

Now, let me come clean: I do have 2 PSN IDs. Originally I was Zeppelin444. I always wanted to be 420 but it was taken when I started on the PSN. Then, when I started playing SOCOM: Confrontation, I created Zeppelin_420. The old Z444 name became dormant. Now, it’s used sparingly – only twice actually, to check out the other factions.

I’ve heard that the Italian faction has a cool gun, & I wondered if I should become more active with Z444, join the Italian faction, and be available to play on two C420 ladders. I know that some other C420 guys are already doing the double roster thing &/or want to.

Here’s the deal – don’t do it! Of course you can create as many IDs as you want to – I really don’t care about that. But when it comes to C420, you should just use one name. Bottom line: it’s too damn confusing! It slows down everyone else’s XMB by adding more & more friends names to our list. It slows down everyone else’s SOCOM friends list screen, which is already slow as shit.

I hereby pledge to use only 1 name within C420 and not send any requests to join multiple factions or have 2 names on your lists. I hope that the rest of us do the same. If I really get the itch to join Italy or Dutch or whatever, I’ll just switch the same name I have now.

Or I’ll just team-kill COLD and steal his gun at the beginning of every round.