Dan Ackerman

Thanks for the mention. I'd also suggest my CNET laptop-reviewing colleague Scott Stein @jetscott and, of course, just plain @cnet.

--Dan Ackerman

Do great minds think alike? Here's a pic I sent around last year the week of the Xbox 360's release -- a cat-to-360 size comparison, using a black Xbox 360 Debug unit.

http://flickr.com/photos/74264671@N00/63811484/

Shame on Next-Gen for leaving Libe Goad, easily the most important mainstream female games journalist on the country, off your list. Libe runs the editorial side of AOL Games, and also writes the games section for Blender, one of the biggest mainstream entertainment mags on newsstands.

She is a regular TV talking head as well, most recently appearing on G4's "Attack of the Show" this week.

Before joining AOL, Libe ran the games section of Sync magazine, was an editor at HappyPuppy.com, ran the games section of Kozmo.com and co-founded the influential girls gaming site GameGal.com (one of PC Magazine's Top 100 sites of 2002).

Wow -- I'm shocked at all the crazy IP theories I'm hearing here today. Not to spend too much time on it, but let's quickly look at the concept that by simply using the "World of Warcraft" name, or discussing details of the game, you're infringing in some way.

Ever read a movie review? Especially a bad one? Could a film's producer stop a newspaper from publishing a bad review by "withdrawing" permission to use the title of the film or publicity shots from it? I think not.

Another great example -- the documentary "Super Size Me." Plenty of use of famous trademarks, both names and images. Legit? You bet.

Hope this helps clear the air a little.

Yikes! Talk about some bad writing. How about this little jem? "However, fans were a little thrown off that the recognizance of the NFL wasn't exactly on hand with the game..."

Maybe game journalism would be taken more seriously if the big game sites hired decent copy editors.

I've played the game and it's actually pretty cool. Not groundbreaking, graphics are kinda weak, but it's more like 'Mafia' than 'GTA,' which is a good thing.

Check out this big feature on the game -- some funny stuff there: http://videogames.aol.com/features/godfather

I had a different bug the other day -- on, I think, mission 4 (the first night mission), my team got stuck in a guard hut and no matter how I tried to recall them or order them to move, they just ran in place. Required a re-start to fix.

For anyone interested in the Thunderbridge Extender and Digitrex networked TV, here's my original story that both the eHomeUpgrade and Engadget links were based on (heck, I even took the photos that appear on both sites).

CES 2006: Extending your Media Center
http://www.cnet.com/4831-11405_1-6415268.html