After 2.5 weeks of being 360less, I'm just about fed up. I could probably be content to wait at any other time of the year, but with games like Gears of War and Rainbow Six Vegas out right now, the damn thing couldn't have broken at a worse time.

Well, now I'm done waiting. Weather I get my gift card from the slow 10-15 day people tomorrow or not, I'm going to go buy a new 360. Why (do you ask)? Quite simply, one of my favorite game series is back, and SEEMS to be better then ever (I'll see about that in a couple days!). The game is Rainbow Six: Vegas. Gamespot gave it a 9.1, and that's a good enough score to make me want it as soon as possible.

Although I may be able to play R6V tomorrow, it sure won't be looking as nice as I'd like it to. As much as it pains me to be back in 4:3, I had to take back a second craptastic Samsung HDTV due to picture geometry issues. And this time I'm done with Samsung for good.

Running count of horrible TXS3082s in my area: Circuit City - 4 (two mine, two for sale as open item), Best Buy: 3 (all open item). The TV is officially whacked. Samsung sucks. But I am looking at buying a LG from Best Buy. So I may not be back in SD for long.

Tomorrow is the day. I know tomorrow is the day; the day my Xbox 360 will come. You know why I know it's the day? Because it's the day I wont be able to go buy or play it. But that's ok I guess. As long as I get it.

On Wednesday the TV fixy dudes are FINALLY supposed to come over and adjust my HDTV, so lines which are supposed to be straight, look that way. After my TV and Xbox360 get adjusted, All there is left to do is play some games!

What games (do you ask?). Gears of War, for sure. Maybe Rainbow Six Vegas. The game is getting some great reviews, but I don't know if the game will hold up under my strict Rainbow Six scrutiny. I have to go back and replay Splinter Cell once or twice too (well, the real missions anyway).

As for gaming this week, I finally got to play on LOC Sunday again. Unfortunately, I was forced to come late and had to leave early for work, so I only got about an hour of action in. But an hour was enough for me to realize that I am way the hell out of practice. I also got the opportunity to play some Forza Motorsport with Dwraith this weekend. Thanks for kickin' it old school with me buddy!

Today I finally received a "new" Steel Battalion controller from Giant Octopus. It's in excellent condition (much better then I can ever remember my broken one being in), and works perfectly. Hai Shi Dao, I'm ready to serve my homeland!

I need to thank Giant Octopus for allowing me to get a controller that's in good condition. I couldn't have trusted anyone else. Thank You!

I hoping I can get a new 360 in about a week. My old Xbox 360 is in Texas and was delivered today. It will now take the company "up to ten days" to process it and send me a Best Buy gift card for a new one. I really hope I can get it in a week or so, but we'll see I guess.

Other then tracking the above, I've been playing a little Forza Motorsport. Not much else to say I guess. Video Marketplace looks like it could be pretty cool. I just hope the TV shows are priced better then they are on iTunes. They probably wont be though.

With great new 360 games like Gears of War, Call of Duty 3, and Rainbow Six Vegas coming next week, I'm starting to get annoyed. My 360lessness is beginning to have ill effects. It's a good thing I purchased the fast shipping on my wireless headset a couple days before it died on me. Oh, what would I do without that now :( I have to work all weekend anyway.

In the wake of disaster: A bone dry wallet

After last week's catastrophic events, I had nothing to do but play the xbox. That didn't last long. :) I kept looking to my right hoping to see a new buddy pop on MSN, or check the forum posts at steelbattalion.org only to be disappointed by the black screen. So after only about 12 hours of being computer-less, I purchased a new one. It's nothing special, but it'll get the job done.

Other then two things, installation went really smoothly. First, being the plethora of stupid-azz useless programs pre-installed on my PC, and second being that my computer case was designed by a monkey. Firstly, I had to take off the CPU heat sync and fan to place hard drives, and secondly being that my 300 GB hard drive was too tall to fit in the pre-designated spaces. It was one hell of a tight fit width wise, and it's 1.2 spaces tall. It had no problem fitting in my other case.

Wow!  My luck is awesome!

Lets keep a running tally of broken electronics around me lately.
1. Steel Battalion Controller
2. Xbox 360
3. NEW! PC NEW!

Gee, I am one lucky fellow! 

So I came home today to start my PC up, open up Opera, and Zone Alarm anti-virus tells me it starts a virus scan.  I select to skip the scan because I don't want my computer to be azz slow.  But upon this, the program hangs, my PC monitor flickers off, and my computer just dies!  Now, when I try to start it my C drive continuously makes the initial startup clickly noise and lots of lights flash. My best guess is that the CPU finally cracked under the pressure. 

Stay tuned folks!  When will break next!?!? Will it be my Xbox which has been making funny noises for months?  Will it be my PS2?  Will my surroundsound fry? Will I come to find I lost all the data on my Hard Drives?  Or will my new HDTV become mysteriously broken?   Or maybe, my curse will break this computer before I can even post this blog.  I wouldn't be suprised.

Well, the sh*t finally hit the fan . . . or the DVD drive . . . or something.

Ya, anyway, my 360 is toast. After retaliating by eating my Splinter Cell Double Agent disc, my 360's DVD drive decided it had had enough and made deathly, and very scary noises every time I played a game. I think my 360 was possessed. Thus, there is the end to my 360 gaming for a few weeks. And thus begins my first no-gaming marathon! We are at 9.5 hours and counting! How long before I go insane? How long before I watch the evil known as NETWORK TELEVISION!?!? Or even worse, I could end up using the TELEPHONE!!!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Tough times are ahead

But in all seriousness, this pretty much sucks. I did buy a Best Buy replacement warranty at the time of my purchase, but this'll take 2 to 3 weeks to get back to me. I'm going to try to scam some fools as some retail store so I can keep my hard drive and arcade games at least.

Sorry for the neglect this blog has been subjected to lately. Work, school, and SCDA have kept me tied up for a while. Not to mention that I'm lazy. To catch you up on what's been happening around here: I got an HDTV (SlimFit CRT) which has some geometry issues to be worked out yet, SCDA's multiplayer is awesome, SCDA's single player is OK, but not great, and (as mentioned earlier), my 360 jacked my SCDA disc. Yes, I've finally moved into the HD era. But high resolution and an awesome looking picture does come at a cost. I can no longer video capture from the 360. But heck, it's downright worth it!

9.75 hours and counting. This is going to be a long and painful 3 weeks. Track my 360's moans and groans as it travels across the country on it's long and painful journey here.

Because I haven't updated the blog nearly enough lately, I have alot to say this go-around. Bare with me please.

First up: The Splinter Cell: Double Agent Online demo. Initially, I didn't have much fun in the demo. It felt Identical to SCCT's multiplayer verses mode (1st person view mercenaries vs. 3rd person spies) which I never could get into. But after fooling around with it some more, and "hacking" the demo allowing me to play with friends, I had a ton of fun. What makes this mode different from SCCT's mode is that you can play against Bots for the mercenaries which makes it a ton more fun. This mode is meant to spoon feed you into the actual verses multiplayer. And let me tell you, It's does a good job. When I tried to play in the past, I got my ass kicked so fast I didn't have a chance to learn any of the games' mechanics, but now I'm beginning to really enjoy it.

If nothing else, the bots provide some targets to have alot of fun with. And on the higher difficulty setting, they are really incredibly good (almost unrealistically good).

Here is some video of the madness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXLf7ndc6UI

I'm still at a loss for which version I should get when it comes out later this week. I might just go with the 360 version because I had so much fun in the demo (that gameplay mode won't be available in the Xbox version), but I'm itching for some coop action, and I'd really like to see how the Spy vs Spy mode is. I think I'll only decide once I see reviews.

Also coming out this week is Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception for the PSP. I really hope this game sucks, or I'll have to get a PSP to play it. We'll see I guess.

Also released this weekend was the Phantasy Star Universe demo. I didn't get much of a chance to play it because most of the time the servers were full, but I had a bit of fun with what I was able to play. I'm not the biggest fan of RPGs, but I had some good fun with friends. I didn't take any video, but here's a screenshot of Gimper and I (Xeandor).

In other news, Gamespot After Hours was pretty cool. I got to sneer at Rainbow Six: Vegas (God I hope that game is good, but I can't help but watch it fail from what they're showing at this point), check out some Bioshock, and alot of other entertaining crap. I was, however, disappointed in the music at the show. The opener (Midnight Brown) totally blew away MC Chris. MC Chris should have opened for Midnight Brown! Get it right next year!

Between school and work, I've been pretty busy this week. Hence, I haven't had much time for games. And maybe with no Steel Battalion on the menu it's just fitting. The most gameing news I have is that I picked up a 2nd wireless 360what about this one? controller from Circuit City as they were on sale for $40 ($50 is the normal price).

For me, Gamespot After Hours is the most exciting thing in the near future. We'll have to see how the new live setup works out. I could be kind of cool, but I suspect it'll probably be lame. For those who aren't familiar with the new setup I'm talking about, you will have 5 feeds to choose from. The traditional "main stage," the HomerCam, Gameplay, Confession, and Robocam will be the options to choose from. More info on that here.

That's all I have to say. It's a boring/busy week.

A while back (when I still had hopes and dreams), my Steel Battalion controller pedal broke. Well, this weekend, I finally got it fixed and played quite a few good games earlier today. That's JB weld reinforced with aluminum. My dad had to cut a little notch out of the pedal base to get it in, but it seems to be holding up really well so far.

However, the fact that my pedals were fixed must have made the Steel Battalion gods REALLY angry! Because now, my left block is malfunctioning. I was playing when shifting into 4th started causing my VT's gearbox to slam into reverse! I opened it up and found this: It appears as though electrodes on the gear lever have made grooves in the copper plating causing my gears to go all wacky. I altered the position of the plate slightly so the electrode would no longer line up with the grooves, but upon testing it out, not only did it not solve the problem, the position of my rotation lever and sight change stick were permanently stuck to the right. And I did absolutly nothing to either of those parts. Nothing at all. I think my circuitry is just done.

So, again, I say goodbye Steel Battalion. It might be a while before I can find another controller, but I'll get one eventually. I will not leave the best game ever like this!