Consoles are just dust in the wind
I twittered about this but I realized I wanted to write something more permanent in my blog. Saturday Xbox 360 #3 died - froze playing Assasin's Creed and then Red Ring of Deathed when I restarted it. Some more messing around Saturday established it was throughly borked - if I could get it to turn on at all it would lock up within five minutes or so.
Monday I called and spent a bit over 20 minutes dealing with their customer support before they agreed it was under warranty for Red Ring of Death. (Stupid stuff like plugging the console straight into the wall, as well as getting them to read their own computer system.)
The sucky thing is that GTA IV comes out in three weeks. I hope they get me a replacement before thing. Xbox #1 was nine days turnaround, Xbox #2 was 18. I'm hoping the trend isn't linear or I'll have to sit around for three or four days after GTA IV comes out.
Also, after having not watched a HD-DVD in months of course Netflix sent me a HD-DVD today (sigh). Gotta send that back now.
I wish this generation wasn't a choice between sucky, cheaply made hardware (the 360) and sucky, cheaply made online functions (the PS3).
I twittered about this but I realized I wanted to write something more permanent in my blog. Saturday Xbox 360 #3 died - froze playing Assasin's Creed and then Red Ring of Deathed when I restarted it. Some more messing around Saturday established it was throughly borked - if I could get it to turn on at all it would lock up within five minutes or so.
Monday I called and spent a bit over 20 minutes dealing with their customer support before they agreed it was under warranty for Red Ring of Death. (Stupid stuff like plugging the console straight into the wall, as well as getting them to read their own computer system.)
The sucky thing is that GTA IV comes out in three weeks. I hope they get me a replacement before thing. Xbox #1 was nine days turnaround, Xbox #2 was 18. I'm hoping the trend isn't linear or I'll have to sit around for three or four days after GTA IV comes out.
Also, after having not watched a HD-DVD in months of course Netflix sent me a HD-DVD today (sigh). Gotta send that back now.
I wish this generation wasn't a choice between sucky, cheaply made hardware (the 360) and sucky, cheaply made online functions (the PS3).
Monday I called and spent a bit over 20 minutes dealing with their customer support before they agreed it was under warranty for Red Ring of Death. (Stupid stuff like plugging the console straight into the wall, as well as getting them to read their own computer system.)
The sucky thing is that GTA IV comes out in three weeks. I hope they get me a replacement before thing. Xbox #1 was nine days turnaround, Xbox #2 was 18. I'm hoping the trend isn't linear or I'll have to sit around for three or four days after GTA IV comes out.
Also, after having not watched a HD-DVD in months of course Netflix sent me a HD-DVD today (sigh). Gotta send that back now.
I wish this generation wasn't a choice between sucky, cheaply made hardware (the 360) and sucky, cheaply made online functions (the PS3).
Hey lookit!
I took some photos of something other than A ) my cats, B ) our yard flowers, or C ) some room of the house we recently painted. I was out at Capitola yesterday with some friends and took a few shots at the beach.
I took some photos of something other than A ) my cats, B ) our yard flowers, or C ) some room of the house we recently painted. I was out at Capitola yesterday with some friends and took a few shots at the beach.
I can't decide if this is cool or scary
This is my Twitter account, seen as a "cloud". It's undeniably cool to see somebody else's account that way. At first I thought "well that's cool", but then I began to see the patterns in my Twitter nattering. day - finally - finished - new - sigh - time - today - trying - waiting - work (eyebrow and shoulder muscles begin to twitch uncontrollably). I dont' know if I care for this after all :-P Evidently my Twitter-self has a lot of temporal concerns.
This is my Twitter account, seen as a "cloud". It's undeniably cool to see somebody else's account that way. At first I thought "well that's cool", but then I began to see the patterns in my Twitter nattering. day - finally - finished - new - sigh - time - today - trying - waiting - work (eyebrow and shoulder muscles begin to twitch uncontrollably). I dont' know if I care for this after all :-P Evidently my Twitter-self has a lot of temporal concerns.
Slaughterhouse-Five
I mentioned in my post on Catch-22 that I had purchased Slaughterhouse-Five. I'd never read any Kurt Vonnegut before and enough people who I respect mention liking his books that I figured I'd try this one. It wasn't really an intentional desire to go on an anti-war book kick and to the extent that it happened accidentally it was probably a bad thing. I didn't really want to read anti-war books regardless of how good they were.
This book, much to nobody's surprise, is a real downer. I guess that shouldn't really be a strike against a book but it turns out that I really get irritated when my reading material is depressing. I know, I know, it's ridiculous to buy an anti-war book and then complain about depressing subject matter. I understand the logic but it doesn't change the fact that I didn't enjoy reading Slaughterhouse-Five.
There are other problems I have with the book. It's often classified as science fiction, I guess because of the whole business about Billy Pilgrim (the main character) being "unstuck in time" and visiting aliens. On the other hand, the book implies fairly strongly that this is all in his head because he's suffered brain damage. Is it science fiction if the only science fictional elements are in the head of an established mental case? More importantly the whole thing centers around Billy Pilgrim believing that there is no such thing as free will. As a result, he doesn't really bother to do anything throughout the novel. He lives through the Dresden firebombing in WWII, and goes on to have a life but there's no real conflict here.
So at the end what do we have? A haphazard jumbling of the life events of a WWII soldier (plus the weird stuff about an alien abduction). There's not much to draw from it, other than the fact that humans can suck and the Dresden firebombing was pretty frightful. I'm willing to accept those two assertions at face value and save myself reading close to 300 pages of elaborations.
It's really hard for me to sign on for another Vonnegut book after this. Maybe I'd like his other stuff more, but I can tell you that if I bought another book it would go into the vast pile of books-to-read and likely never come out. I guess if somebody gave me a specific "oh you'd like X much better" I'd look at it.
The good news is that this and Catch-22 were the only books in the "To-Review" pile that I didn't like. Hopefully I'll move through the remainder a little faster now that I've broken past the depressing duo.
I mentioned in my post on Catch-22 that I had purchased Slaughterhouse-Five. I'd never read any Kurt Vonnegut before and enough people who I respect mention liking his books that I figured I'd try this one. It wasn't really an intentional desire to go on an anti-war book kick and to the extent that it happened accidentally it was probably a bad thing. I didn't really want to read anti-war books regardless of how good they were.
This book, much to nobody's surprise, is a real downer. I guess that shouldn't really be a strike against a book but it turns out that I really get irritated when my reading material is depressing. I know, I know, it's ridiculous to buy an anti-war book and then complain about depressing subject matter. I understand the logic but it doesn't change the fact that I didn't enjoy reading Slaughterhouse-Five.
There are other problems I have with the book. It's often classified as science fiction, I guess because of the whole business about Billy Pilgrim (the main character) being "unstuck in time" and visiting aliens. On the other hand, the book implies fairly strongly that this is all in his head because he's suffered brain damage. Is it science fiction if the only science fictional elements are in the head of an established mental case? More importantly the whole thing centers around Billy Pilgrim believing that there is no such thing as free will. As a result, he doesn't really bother to do anything throughout the novel. He lives through the Dresden firebombing in WWII, and goes on to have a life but there's no real conflict here.
So at the end what do we have? A haphazard jumbling of the life events of a WWII soldier (plus the weird stuff about an alien abduction). There's not much to draw from it, other than the fact that humans can suck and the Dresden firebombing was pretty frightful. I'm willing to accept those two assertions at face value and save myself reading close to 300 pages of elaborations.
It's really hard for me to sign on for another Vonnegut book after this. Maybe I'd like his other stuff more, but I can tell you that if I bought another book it would go into the vast pile of books-to-read and likely never come out. I guess if somebody gave me a specific "oh you'd like X much better" I'd look at it.
The good news is that this and Catch-22 were the only books in the "To-Review" pile that I didn't like. Hopefully I'll move through the remainder a little faster now that I've broken past the depressing duo.
This book, much to nobody's surprise, is a real downer. I guess that shouldn't really be a strike against a book but it turns out that I really get irritated when my reading material is depressing. I know, I know, it's ridiculous to buy an anti-war book and then complain about depressing subject matter. I understand the logic but it doesn't change the fact that I didn't enjoy reading Slaughterhouse-Five.
There are other problems I have with the book. It's often classified as science fiction, I guess because of the whole business about Billy Pilgrim (the main character) being "unstuck in time" and visiting aliens. On the other hand, the book implies fairly strongly that this is all in his head because he's suffered brain damage. Is it science fiction if the only science fictional elements are in the head of an established mental case? More importantly the whole thing centers around Billy Pilgrim believing that there is no such thing as free will. As a result, he doesn't really bother to do anything throughout the novel. He lives through the Dresden firebombing in WWII, and goes on to have a life but there's no real conflict here.
So at the end what do we have? A haphazard jumbling of the life events of a WWII soldier (plus the weird stuff about an alien abduction). There's not much to draw from it, other than the fact that humans can suck and the Dresden firebombing was pretty frightful. I'm willing to accept those two assertions at face value and save myself reading close to 300 pages of elaborations.
It's really hard for me to sign on for another Vonnegut book after this. Maybe I'd like his other stuff more, but I can tell you that if I bought another book it would go into the vast pile of books-to-read and likely never come out. I guess if somebody gave me a specific "oh you'd like X much better" I'd look at it.
The good news is that this and Catch-22 were the only books in the "To-Review" pile that I didn't like. Hopefully I'll move through the remainder a little faster now that I've broken past the depressing duo.
Battlestar is back
So Battlestar Galactica returns for season four tonight. Now, I think BSG jumped the shark towards the end of season two, and that the season two finale was a travesty. As evidence I'll offer that they spent most of season three meticulously undoing everything that had happened in the finale, and the rest of the time was spent on new stupid stuff.
At any rate, the last season starts tonight and heck, what else am I gonna watch? Lost is on hiatus anyway. Here's a fantastic 8:18 recap video if you need some refreshing on what the frak is going on.
Has anybody seen anything official on the speculation that this season will be split into two halves due to the writers strike? And when do we get to call bullshit on that? If 10 episodes air in 2008 and 10 more air in 2009, that's two 10 episode seasons damnit. A four-six week "hiatus" I'll accept. If it's longer than that then it's two seasons.
So Battlestar Galactica returns for season four tonight. Now, I think BSG jumped the shark towards the end of season two, and that the season two finale was a travesty. As evidence I'll offer that they spent most of season three meticulously undoing everything that had happened in the finale, and the rest of the time was spent on new stupid stuff.
At any rate, the last season starts tonight and heck, what else am I gonna watch? Lost is on hiatus anyway. Here's a fantastic 8:18 recap video if you need some refreshing on what the frak is going on.
Has anybody seen anything official on the speculation that this season will be split into two halves due to the writers strike? And when do we get to call bullshit on that? If 10 episodes air in 2008 and 10 more air in 2009, that's two 10 episode seasons damnit. A four-six week "hiatus" I'll accept. If it's longer than that then it's two seasons.
At any rate, the last season starts tonight and heck, what else am I gonna watch? Lost is on hiatus anyway. Here's a fantastic 8:18 recap video if you need some refreshing on what the frak is going on.
Has anybody seen anything official on the speculation that this season will be split into two halves due to the writers strike? And when do we get to call bullshit on that? If 10 episodes air in 2008 and 10 more air in 2009, that's two 10 episode seasons damnit. A four-six week "hiatus" I'll accept. If it's longer than that then it's two seasons.