Looking at a calendar, you may notice that the NFL regular season still hasn't kicked off (17 days and counting). This means for football junkies like myself, there's just over two weeks until the start of the greatest time of year since Daffy Duck declared duck season and got himself shot in the face. Apart from my two fantasy leagues, one of which drafted last night and the other which drafts next week, the only thing I can do to fill the time between now and sweet, sweet football is play the hell out of Madden NFL 11. I'm finished with the Eagles first season (11-5, lost to the Saints in the NFC title game), so I think I'll start a new season setting the skill level one degree higher. I should also check out some of this year's Madden Moments, as that's always a good way to kill some time.

I've also been playing a fair amount of Dead Space recently. When Visceral announced the sequel, I decided to pop the first game back in to see if it was as good as I remember. It is. It so is. Right now I'm working on trying to get all of the weapons and suits with full power node upgrades. I'm pretty sure that my current playthrough constitutes my sixth time through the Ishimura (maybe the seventh), and the fact that I now know what's coming on every level has done very little to detract from my enjoyment of the game. I just wish I didn't have to wait until January for the sequel.

Of course I'll be spending a fair amount of time with my iPhone games, namely Words with Friends and Angry Birds. If you're an iPhone/iPad owner, and you still haven't purchased Angry Birds, you need to get that game right now. It's only 99 cents, and I've been playing it on-and-off for close to three weeks, and I still haven't unlocked all of the levels. It is hands-down, penny-for-penny, the best gaming investment I've ever made.

Other than that, nothing is really jumping out at me this week. I have some interest in playing Mafia II, but I think I'll wait for it to hit the used shelves (or possibly GameFly that bad boy) as sixty bucks seems too pricey to me for a game I'm not 100% convinced about.