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Retro gaming goodness

2009-09-20T16:38:00.000-07:00

The classic gaming room is coming together. We are still working on cable and power management, but this is a great start, and everything works, all original hardware:

Be sure to click the picture to go to flickr as there are explanatory notes for all that you see here.

Xbox 360 is back

2009-07-07T23:29:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note that my Xbox has been returned, exactly two weeks after I sent it off. I briefly updated my previous post on the red-ring warranty service.

Circuit City brand back in business

2009-07-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

When I received an email this morning from Circuit City promoting a new laptop deal, I scrutinized it for signs of phishing. When I then separately (without clicking on any links within the email) visited circuitcity.com, the web site appeared very much as it did prior to Circuit City's bankruptcy.

Apparently another company, Systemax, Inc., has bought the Circuit City brand, trademarks and assets and has re-opened circuitcity.com. It appears they will be offering products for sale only online and not in brick and mortar stores.

According to Bloomberg:

Systemax Inc. is a direct marketer of private label and brand name personal computers and related supplies, as well as industrial products, through branded websites and direct mail catalogs. The Company offers its own brand of Systemax built-to-order personal computers, including desktops and servers. Systemax operates in North America and in Europe.

I guess this is a bit of old news as ZDNet blogged about it on June 12. Apparently Systemax also runs TigerDirect.com and also acquired CompUSA. It will take some time before I'd feel comfortable ordering from the new circuitcity.com, mainly because I don't know much about Systemax and there are many more familiar alternatives, but I wish them luck.

SiriusXM - The Loft

2009-06-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

One of my newly-discovered favorites on SiriusXM is The Loft, channel 29. It plays a very interesting mix of music, which I like when I really want something different. On a recent drive into work, I heard the following artists:

Randy Newman
Duncan Sheik
The Temptations
Ben Harper and Relentless 7
Coldplay
Rolling Stones
Muddy Waters
Wilco
Bobbie Gentry
Jill Sobule (song: "Where is Bobbie Gentry?")

15 years and 168,743 miles...

2009-06-27T11:55:00.000-07:00

and we're still going strong in 2009.

Yep, this is me in 1994 with my newly-leased truck:

My truck has probably provided the most utility of anything I've ever owned. Innumerable moves, both my own and others, a trip halfway across the country to Minneapolis and back, transport of a stranded motorcycle, commuting to work, and I believe my brother Brian used it to move an engine block once.

Xbox 360 RRoD #1

2009-06-18T22:22:00.001-07:00

Xbox 360 RRoD
Originally uploaded by arukasa

[UPDATE - Xbox returned! See below]

I am now a member of the club, I guess.

My Xbox 360 finally gave in yesterday. It had been freezing more and more frequently with distortion and pixellation on the screen, and finally after taking the hard drive off and turning the unit on, I saw the three quadrants lit up and blinking indicating ... death.

Unfortunately last night Xbox.com's support page was virtually inaccessible it was so slow, so I have been doubly frustrated at not even being able to print out a shipping label to send my box back. It is still loading like molasses tonight...

Well, it lasted one year, nine months (I bought it just prior to the Halo 3 launch). That's pretty sad considering my original Xbox, PS2 and GameCube still work fine. At least it's still under the 3 year RRoD warranty.

Don't get me wrong, I love my 360 and think it offers the best online console gaming experience currently. I'll have it repaired and play again, it's just frustrating.

FYI, my box was manufactured 7/19/2007, has a Zephyr mobo and chipset (with supposedly improved heatsink) and HDMI port.

UPDATE: My Xbox arrived on July 6, 2009, exactly two weeks from the day I shipped it off. Not a bad turnaround time. This new box is a replacement and not a repair of my old box. It shows a "service date" of June 28, 2009. From some searches online, this appears to mean it is a repaired/refurbished machine, just not my original box. I set it up and everything seems to be working ok, so it looks like I'm back in business.

Stern on Letterman next Monday, June 8, 2009

2009-06-04T23:06:00.000-07:00

Howard announced on the show this morning that he will be on Letterman next Monday, so be sure to set your VCRs or DVRs. He's always entertaining.

One insider bit of info if you don't listen to the Stern show -- watch for Howard to ask Dave whether Dave will have Jay Leno on the show now that Leno is not really a competitor anymore.

The new Star Trek

2009-05-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

What a terrific movie! I went to see it with a couple of friends, one was a Trek fan like me, the other more of a general sci-fi fan, and we all loved it. Knowing the characters from watching several of the tv series and the movies added some subtlety to learning about the genesis of the main characters and their relationships, but one certainly would not have to be a hard core Trek fan to enjoy the movie.

I am still digesting what may be my favorite part of the movie, but I loved learning about Captain Pike and how he came to appear as he did in the original Star Trek series on tv.

When the Germans attacked Pearl Harbor

2009-03-07T22:17:00.000-08:00

Tonight was all about relaxing and taking in a few of the gospels of comedy movies. The first was "Life of Brian" by Monty Python, which, all by itself is enough to feed a large portion of modern comedy culture. 1979? Is it really that old? If you haven't seen this one, get yourself a sense of humor, especially about Chrisitianity, and take a look. The lighter side of stonings and crucifixions has never been funnier.

And whatever you do, if approached, join the People's Front of Judea, not the Judean People's Front or the Judean Popular People's Front -- don't be a splitter!

The second gospel tonight was "Animal House." Good lord, 1978, really? The mother of all college/fraternity/misadventure movies, this one never gets old. Besides Mr. John Belushi in his breakout role, and John Vernon as Dean Wormer, this movie can't be beaten. Simply classic in all respects. If you don't know what it means to be on "double secret probation," you have missed something and need to see this movie.

One of the coolest product loyalty promotions ever

2009-03-01T18:30:00.000-08:00

I am now a lifetime leaseholder of a plot of land near the Laphroaig distillery:

As a "friend of Laphroaig" and lifetime leaseholder, I am entitled to payment of an annual ground rent of one dram of Laphroaig, payable in person at the distillery. I've had long-term plans to visit Scotland as it is part of my family's heritage, and this is one more incentive and a great reason to include Laphroaig in my planned distillery tour.

All I did to become entitled to this great benefit and handsome certificate is register on Laphroaig's web site using the code I received along with a bottle of Scotch I recently bought. It did not cost me a single cent to have Laphroaig send me, via airmail from Great Britain (really, Scotland!) the above personalized certificate.

I'm looking forward to my trip.

Rock Band 2 triple cymbal expansion kit

2009-02-22T10:10:00.000-08:00

This might be the greatest gaming accessory ever invented. I liked playing the drums on the Rock Band games before, but this takes it to the next level. It's still not exactly like actually playing drums (which I cannot, by the way), but the position and different levels of these cymbals contributes greatly to the illusion.

This adds a high-hat, ride and crash cymbal to the kit which not only make it more fun to play, it's actually easier and more intuitive. They are connected in such a way that each cymbal corresponds to one of the drum pads, so you effectively have two ways to successfully hit a beat during play. In addition, hitting the cymbal will produce the corresponding sound of a cymbal as opposed to the sound of a tom, so you also have a bit more control and can choose the sound produced for a particular beat. I understand there is a double cymbal expansion kit also, but you don't want that one -- you need the triple, trust me.

The build quality is solid, and I have not noticed any dropped "hits" during gameplay. I played my first virtual gig a few nights ago as the drummer and held my own on medium difficulty, so I am quite pleased.

Everything is alright

2009-02-22T09:17:00.000-08:00

I went to the "Songs for Presidents" show last night here in Sacramento. It was quite an event, with a collection of four or five Sacramento bands and a number of musicians from several other bands sharing the stage to play 27 songs from the "Of Great And Mortal Men" album.

I had seen a previous show at the "Of Great And Mortal Men" album release party last September, but it was at a smaller venue. Last night the band was in its full glory, with accordion, violin, saxophone, clarinet and flute filling the large stage at Marilyn's on K.

It was a great show, with passionate (and sometimes humorous) performances by all. The emcee for the night was David Watts Barton, Managing Editor of sacramentopress.com. He provided a bit of background on each President before that President's song for those of us who were less than familiar with their Presidential history. He kept it funny and interesting, and even sang a few songs, too.

The night ended with the group's song for Obama, "Someone to Wake," composed after the release of the album and available as a free download at the link to NPR above. It was a rousing and hopeful rendition, with most of the musicians onstage, extending the final chorus of "Everything is alright" to an appreciative crowd.

The band played at Obama's inauguration, and I understand will be performing at the South-by-Southwest event in Austin, Texas this March.

I don't think there are further Sacramento dates in the near future, but keep your eyes open and if you can catch this band, do it.

Rock Band 2 Endless Setlist completed

2009-01-25T21:59:00.000-08:00

My other achievement over the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, in a literal and Xbox 360 sense, was completing the Rock Band 2 "Endless Setlist." This is fairly insane, as it involves playing all 84 songs contained in the game in one gigantic set with no breaks. It took my friend Shawn and I over six hours to complete. Admittedly, we completed it on "medium" difficulty (and five-starred every song, thankyouverymuch), but given the difficulty of many of the later songs in the setlist and the exhaustion point approached at the 6 hour mark, we could not have done it any other way.

We earned two achievements for completing this task:

1) The Bladder of Steel Award (no pausing and no fails on any song); and
2) Vinyl Artist (completion on "medium" difficulty as opposed to earning "Gold" for completing it on "hard" or "Platinum" on "expert" difficulty)

So, I present to you, proof:

Scalzi and Kowal in San Francisco

2009-01-25T21:28:00.000-08:00

I'm late to the party with this post, but I had a great time over the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend in San Francisco. I kicked it off Friday night by attending a reading by John Scalzi and Mary Robinette Kowal at Borderlands Books. The place was packed:

It was an orderly crowd, but everyone was enthusiastic and the laughs flowed freely. Each author read short fiction pieces that were good, but it was when they interacted with each other that the magic happened. It was obvious they were having fun, and consequently all of us had fun. The final "science fiction comedy improv" topped off the evening to great applause.

If you're interested, a fan recorded the entire event and it is available online.

A few more pics:

Nice Monster EP release party

2009-01-11T16:25:00.000-08:00

I saw a great show last night at one of my favorite spots here in town, the Fox & Goose. My friend Chad's band, Nice Monster, had an EP release party there. From the band's page on Grayscale Records, the music is described as "Melodic Math Rock." I'm not quite sure what that means, but I like the music. It's a nice mix of acoustic guitar, bass, drums and keyboards with just the right amount of Stratocaster.

Separated at birth?

2008-12-22T08:53:00.000-08:00

This is fantastic. This is my brother Brian holding Artie Lange's book, Too Fat to Fish.

Early walk

2008-11-29T18:37:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed the fog this morning:

Bright future for Xbox 360

2008-11-16T21:15:00.000-08:00

The Xbox 360 leads the console hardware race with an installed base of 22 million as of September 2008 that should reach 25 million sometime this month.

In addition to leading the hardware race, the Xbox 360 leads the way in third-party game sales, meaning that, aside from Microsoft-published first-party titles, more games are sold for the Xbox 360 than third-party titles for Nintendo's Wii or Sony's Playstation 3. This is important because it shows publishers of third-party games which console will provide the greatest return on their game development dollar.

An article in today's ars technica has great graphs that show this obvious advantage over the course of this year to-date. The number of third-party games in the top 10 for sales numbers each month over the past 10 months for the Xbox 360 exceeds the number of games in the top 10 for the Wii by over 6 times and the PS3 by over 2 times.

With the recent price cuts for the Xbox 360 bringing the base model to the magic $199 price point, the sales trends are sure to continue, with more non-gaming consumers willing to buy.

The release of Microsoft's "New Xbox Experience" this week on November 19 should help to broaden the appeal of the Xbox 360 beyond regular gamers. This update to the dashboard interface will have happy avatars, more community features and games, and the integration of Netflix downloaded movies, bringing the Xbox 360 much closer to the general-purpose set-top box that will appeal to media content companies as well as more general media consumers, not just gamers.

Artie Lange on Conan tonight, NPR's Fresh Air today, 11/11

2008-11-11T09:14:00.000-08:00

I neglected to mention Artie's appearance on Letterman last Friday mainly to preserve the gravitas of my posts on the week's election events, but also because Gears of War 2 released on Friday and, after picking it up on the way home from work I immediately began playing it and forgot all about posting on my blog.

Tonight Artie will be appearing on Conan, so be sure to catch or record it if you're interested.

*UPDATE* I forgot that Artie was also interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air. I caught the tail end of the interview just now. He is promoting his new book, Too Fat To Fish, and recounts some of the stories from his life. The interviewer, Terry Gross, is always thoroughly prepared for her interviews, and with Artie you can see that she is also a fan. The full interview is online here after 3p EST.

Hope begins to return

2008-11-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

A few quotes, one I read and one I heard today, have softened my anger about the passing of proposition 8. The first is one I read on John Scalzi's blog today, speaking of a long and difficult struggle:

"Re: Proposition 8 and the other anti-same-sex marriages initiatives on the ballots, which passed in their respective states: I am disappointed, of course. I had hoped voters, particularly in California, would have had better moral sense. But as I mentioned to someone else earlier today, the struggle against bigotry is long and difficult, and the fact of the matter is we’re in the middle of this particular struggle, and it will take years to see it through, as has every struggle against bigotry here in the US. I’m willing to invest the time."

This will indeed be a long struggle. It will take time, and judging from the demonstrations and actions I have read about and seen today that large groups of Californians are taking part in to protest proposition 8's passage, I have no doubt we as citizens will endure the struggle and eventually prevail.

The second is a quote I heard on tonight's News Hour with Jim Lehrer, said by an individual who was interviewed on the street about what the election of Barack Obama means to him. The imagery just struck me:

"Rosa sat so Martin could walk; Martin walked so Obama could run."

Hope.

I don't know if we can

2008-11-05T07:04:00.000-08:00

I am sad and dismayed this morning to see that the majority of voters in California appear to have chosen to incorporate discrimination and bigotry into the state's constitution with the passage of proposition 8 (Wikipedia entry). At this moment the results are not official, but with 95% of precincts reporting, proposition 8 is passing with 52% approval.

If it ultimately passes, proposition 8 will cast a dark, ugly shadow across the positive change embodied in Barack Obama. How is it that a state which voted for such fundamental change with Barack Obama can also embrace fear and ignorance to regress to the days of 19th century anti-miscegenation laws?

Those who think they are "protecting marriage" by supporting proposition 8 have done quite the opposite. Discrimination and bigotry against a minority group in our society undermines that society and its institutions, of which marriage is one. If passed, proposition 8 will turn the institution of marriage into a tool of "straight supremacy," something proposition 8 supporters can point to and say "marriage is ours" and that gays and lesbians are not equal under the law.

This is a terrible message to send to children and young people.

The contradiction inherent in electing a black president while simultaneously choosing to enact law to discriminate against a minority group is mind-blowing.

Polling place update

2008-11-04T08:52:00.000-08:00

I arrived at my polling place about ten minutes before seven, and waited in line behind maybe seven or eight people. Once the polling place opened I was able to finish voting by about 7:15.

By the time I finished the line was out the door and on the sidewalk, maybe 40 people. It's going to be a busy day, people, but get out there and vote!

Please vote

2008-11-03T22:10:00.000-08:00

Please, everyone, remember to vote tomorrow.

Get up early, take time off of work, come home late, but whatever you do, please vote.

Scalzi's "Hate Mail" in the wild

2008-10-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

I spent a wonderful few days in Monterey for a friend's wedding last weekend and took along John Scalzi's "Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded" as I had recently received it in the mail and wanted to get a good start. This is the first time I took it out:

I found a German/Italian cafe, and while I sipped a weissbier and enjoyed the beautiful weather, I started to read. I've followed John's blog, Whatever, for a number of years and he always has something insightful, poignant, thoughtful or funny to say, sometimes all three (edit: four!) at the same time (explore his site a bit, you'll find one). This book is a collection of selected pieces from his blog from the last ten years. Some I have read before, but most I have not, and it's nice to have them in a portable, printed format for easy transport.

The reading that day didn't last very long, however, because while Scalzi's book is good, some things just take priority:

Gamers can be engaged politically

2008-09-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

Last month, Microsoft announced a partnership with Rock the Vote, a group which works to engage young people with the political process. This partnership enables Xbox Live subscribers to have voter registration materials sent to them by making a request right from the Dashboard, and provides content from both political parties to allow gamers to become more informed about a candidate or issue. I watched Barack Obama's acceptance speech from the Democratic National Convention and have downloaded John McCain's acceptance speech from the Republican National Convention.

I spotted a story on Edge Online announcing that 100,000 Xbox Live users had participated in an unofficial presidential poll on Xbox Live where users could express their preference for a candidate by downloading the candidate's corresponding gamer picture.

From the above story:

"According to Microsoft, the sample of 100,000 voters was larger than the combined samples from individual Gallup, NBC and CNN polls."

and

"The company said that more than 55,000 voter registration forms were downloaded through Xbox Live and Xbox.com during the first two weeks of the program, and that videos from the recent Democratic and Republican conventions were downloaded nearly 25,000 times."

Those are impressive numbers.

Admittedly, not all Xbox Live subscribers are of legal age to vote, and not all who participated in this poll will go out and actually vote, but the majority of gamers are over 18 and if nothing else, this partnership will raise gamers' awareness and hopefully their level of knowledge about the political process.

If candidates and others want young people to vote and be interested in the process, becoming informed needs to be easy and can't be blocked by barriers to entry like poring through lengthy newspaper diatribes or suffering through the "talking heads" on every news network.

This is politics on demand, and gamers don't even have to let go of their controllers.