AV Club's Sawbuck Gamer column lists a bunch of games, mostly freeware, every week complete with a review and some images.  I've checked out a few of them and they've generally been quite fun.  Would be worth checking out.

Sawbuck Gamer

Artemis Fowl Series <- seriously, this is a great book..

I second this.  If you liked Harry Potter then you'll like this series.

When I play racing games I always switch to first person view (the one off the front bumper) because it immerses me as completely as possible in the experience of the game.  The track, the turns, the speed.  All the elements of a racing game feel more tangible to me when I can't see my car, because as soon as I do I guess I start thinking to myself "This is fun, but I'm just racing this digital car around the track, and it takes up all the screen and all my visibility."

I play a lot of racing games and I've noticed that I'm the only one out of any of my friends that does this in any racing game we play, or even random strangers at arcades.  I've never really stood back and thought about it.

That's pretty metal.

http://designreboot.blogspot.com/

I recently found this one in a link from Yahtzee's column, both are pretty decent.

soldat

#capcom

Vent (and PC games) with Drule, LT, Soap, and Corel

And all the GW Meets.

Ok, so I'm pretty much not versed at all in video game article sites, which I'm sure is evident by my links to cracked.com if anything else.  A few of you have mentioned other sites as having much more valuable reading material and writers who have probably spent more of their life both playing and commenting on video games than Mr Wong.

I wouldn't mind reading some of these other sites as I basically get my current gaming information from one place, shacknews.  So if anyone has some suggestions of places to check out, that'd be great.  Preferably written.

Just thought I'd share some articles I've read over the years.  Written by the editor at cracked.com


5 Reasons it's Still Not Cool to Admit You're a Gamer

5 Creepy Ways Video Games are Trying to get you Addicted

5 Things the Gaming Industry Will Never Fix (And Why)

The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey

A Gamer's Manifesto  (This one's my favourite)


He's written some other ones as well.  Most of what he writes feels like pointless complaining and nagging as he states that he doesn't believe the industry is going to change, but I found the things he talks about to be pretty interesting, both the observations and the trends that he points out.  Worth a read when you've got a few minutes.

Saw Iron Man 2 last night with a friend and I didn't like it at all.  Didn't care about any of the characters, who were too one-dimensional, stereotypical, unimaginative, boring, or cheesy for me to care about.  That made all the rest of the scenes in the movie pointless because I didn't care about anything or anyone and I felt that the movie did a good job of putting me in that position.  The only entertaining part was when Samuel Jackson came on screen and told Iron Man to stop being an idiot.  Five minutes later the movie lost me again.  Also the part where Hammer is explaining his weaponry to the military was funny but so different from the rest of the movie that I feel it was written by a someone whose only contribution to the film were those lines. 

This movie was as bad for me as Punisher: War Zone was but going above and beyond that at least I cared about what happened to the Punisher in that movie, but in Iron Man 2 I could have cared less what happened to Tony Stark and relationship with his father and secretary and butler and suit and computer AI and legal assistant, and buddy and the other ten characters this movie tried to make me care about while only succeeding in overloading on its intended goal of being one big ad for the upcoming Avengers movie.

I like this one the best so far, if only because I hope you get a rootkit by clicking on the link.

Yeah, jumping on the Kojima train--Snatcher, a game that's been remade a bunch of times but first came out in 1988 (I believe), very heavily borrows off of Blade Runner.  Almost to the point where it's the same thing.  The setting, premise, characters, literally everything is a direct copy.

I'm not interested in playing Freespace 2.  I've played Freespace before and the combat got boring.  Since that's all that game had going for it I dropped it for something else.

Space Rangers 2, Sword of the Stars, Star Control II, and Earth & Beyond all sound great. 

I'll check them out when I get a chance.  Thanks!

For whatever reason over the last few days I've developed a craving to play some space-themed games.  I looked through my collection of PC games, roms, and everything else but wasn't able to turn up much.  As of right now I'm stuck on dial-up, but I get occasional access to high speed so my chances to check out more games are limited. 

I'm looking for suggestions for games of interest.  Ones that involve spaceships, space exploration, trading, combat (though not necessarily), and a story of some sort.  Two examples I've played I can think of off the top of my head are Solar Winds and Freelancer, and an upcoming game I'll be checking out is Infinite Space.  I'm more concerned with the ability to travel around than I am with the combat aspects.  Something with a galaxy or solar system with planets to visit, trading routes to establish, quests/adventures, etc.  For example, Descent Freespace isn't really what I'm looking for as it's pretty heavily focused on combat.  Even a strategy game or RTS would be fine, too.  Also I'm not very picky about graphics, either.

Also I'm not really picky about what system it's on.  I'll gladly emulate something or play a flash game or browser game, or indie, or dos etc.  My PC doesn't have amazing specs but can run most any game as long as it doesn't require intense graphics.  I'd prefer for the game to be on the DS or PSP if possible as those are the two systems I play the most these days but that's not really a big deal.  NES, Genesis, SNES, PSX, etc are all fine.

Anyways, suggest away or feel free to ask me more specific questions.

Netbooks are good for internet and light-usage, which is mostly what you've described (apart from too many windows open).  One thing to keep in mind that isn't advertised much is that they don't come with an optical drive (except for a small few).  Also the screens are small but not too tiny (think about playing a DS or PSP--those screens are small and yet you can focus on them).  However, once you start going sub 10 inch you might start to notice your screen real estate shrinking.

As for the keyboard almost every netbook has a different one (and a different touchpad too).  Some have keyboards that are 92% the size of a desktop's.  Ultimately it would be best to try the keyboard and touchpad out on a netbook before buying it as they can vary in feel, ergonomics, and quality.  However, with a 92% sized keyboard you'd be able to type just fine.

A good site to check out is www.netbookreviews.net.  They've got a blog system set up and short reviews on a lot of netbooks.  Another good site to check out is http://www.laptopmag.com/l/netbooks.aspx.  They have much more detailed reviews on netbooks as well as some information articles.

There's a new processor that just came out, the Intel Atom N450 (Pine Trail) and pretty much every netbook that's come out recently has it.  It significantly boosts battery life so if that's one of the things you're looking for I'd suggest getting a netbook with a N450.  The battery life on netbooks that use it range from 7-14 hours, depending on the make and size of battery.

Anyways, that should get you started.

Anything with the Nvidia Ion graphics card might suit your desires.  Netbooks have them these days and I would think that laptops do as well.

Coming next year, a newer version with a bigger screen

the max-iPad

Download latest Ubuntu distro.  Burn to disc, boot from disc, choose run linux without installing, locate your files, backup to storage device, reinstall vista, copy over files.

http://www.zophar.net/msx.html

Zophar.net usually has any emulator for windows systems.