Anyway, I decided Twitter may be a better solution for keeping friends and family in the know. You can start following me here:

http://twitter.com/nvillescas

Hopefully, I will keep that much more updated that this blog.

This looks absolutely fantastic! Let me know what you think.

Another new album from one of my favorite bands was released this month. Strike Anywhere just released their latest album titled, Iron Front. First impressions are good, but I have only been able to listen to a few songs so far. It sounds a lot like the previous albums (which is good).

On a side note, I will be seeing these guys in concert on the 24th of October here in Phoenix. I cannot wait to see them again. I just hope I have enough time to listen to their new album and get used to it before seeing them in concert. Anyways, if you are a fan of Strike Anywhere, then check out this album and let me know what you think.

Today Evergreen Terrace released their latest album titled Almost Home. I have been waiting for this album to be released for the past few months. Their MySpace page had a preview of one of their newest songs and it sounded amazing.

Anyways, check out one of their songs below and let me know what you think. This band is fast becoming one of my favorite with each album release.

Today Strung Out released their latest album titled Agents of the Underground. First impressions are good. So far I like this album a lot better than their previous album, Blackhawks Over Los Angeles. Check out one of their songs below and let me know what you think.

Last week I was lucky enough to find and purchase the new Zune HD (ZHD) 16GB. For the past year my wife and I have been fighting over sharing our Zune 8GB, and it was about time we each got our own.

My first impressions with the ZHD are very, very good. Like my previous Zune, the ZHD was beautifully packaged, and I was almost sad to take it out...almost. The height and width lets the device sit nicely in my hand, and the weight makes it feel very solid. It is obviously very thin which allows me to easily stick it in my shirt pocket without noticing it is there.

After the initial battery charge I got to play with the new interface. Again, my first impressions were very, very good. Nvidias graphics chip makes the device very responsive and smooth. A lot of the animations or transitions between screens are very fluid and beautifully rendered on its screen.

If you are looking for a great mp3 player then I would definitely recommend the Zune HD. I will have a full review and more pictures once I have more face time with the device.

So I decided to put together a quick list of games I'm currently interested in playing the most this holiday season. Let me know if I left any out, or your thoughts on the games I have selected.

Farcry 2

This game has been out for a week or two now, and even though it's one of my most anticipated games of this year, I haven't had time to buy it or play it. But I plan to soon!

Left 4 Dead

I will be getting this game when it comes out next week. No matter what. ZOMBIES!!.

Tomb Raider: Underworld

I like the new Tomb Raider games, so shut up. It's OK Lara, I still love you.

Gears of War 2

The first one was damn fun. This one looks damn fun and epic. But, damn it, I need to renew my Xbox Live Gold subscription in order to play online.

And there's my list. Yes, I know about Fallout 3, and no, I don't really care. I never got into the previous games, so I'm not too interested in this one. Sorry. I can't shake the feeling that I'm forgetting another game. Anyways, all I have to do now is stop playing Guild Wars (bitten by the bug again) and maybe I'll have time to start playing these games.

Since I started building my own CMS one of the biggest hurrdles I faced was XML-RPC. You can find lots of information about it here. In short, without implementing XML-RPC my CMS would not be able to do trackbacks, pings, and most importantly use 3rd-party applications to manage stuff on my site.

I've tried in the past to read about XML-RPC, but nothing made sense. There was no simple tutorial about it, or how it works, or how to set it up. That is, until, I found a wonderful SitePoint article here. Not only does the site explain XML-RPC in layman's terms, but it also shows you how to create a client-server environment with PHP.

Since reading that article, I've finally been able to start creating my own XML-RPC scripts. Right now, I'm just using the basic MetaWeBlog API, but will upgrade to a more thorough API like Movable Type in the future. Who knows, I might just create my own way down the road.

On the other side, watching the local news about Arizona's results, has me less than thrilled. Looks like cranky ol' Joe Arpaio will be re-elected as Sheriff, while Fire-and-Brimstone Andrew Thomas will remain County Attorney. I'm not too surprised about this outcome, but was hoping for more change on a more local level.

And it looks like Prop 102 will be passing. The biggest proposition that I was opposed to is predicted to pass. For those who don't know, Prop 102 adds an amendment to the Arizona Constitution that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. It's basically a lame proposition that will enforce the lame religious beliefs of lame religious people who see gay people as the end-all-be-all of family values, and state they cannot get married (even though Arizona already has laws against that).

While it's sad to see my state take a step backwards in acceptance, it was overshadowed by the victory of Barack Obama.