Category Archives: links

111 Days of Xbox 360

I’ve been an extremely late adopter to the Xbox 360 and 111 days later I can tell you I’m impressed.

I got my Xbox on a whim on eBay for a whopping $40 with literally nothing–no hard drive,  no power cords, no a/v cables et cetera. It took me a couple days to find the 12.1amps power adapter to fit the “Jasper” Xbox I had obtained.

I went to an electronic parts store, bought the power adapter and picked up the original composite cables. I looked up the serial # and found it had a warranty till January 2013 and wasn’t banned. I was overjoyed. I had originally planned to purchase an Xbox at the time of the release of  ”Splinter Cell: Conviction” and the bundle it came with back in April 2010.

 

Then I decided to wait to see if  Ubisoft ported it to the PS3 at a later date. However they didn’t and I argued one game for one console…eh… –but for $40 why not?

I already had “Splinter Cell: Conviction” Collector’s Edition.

 

 

I was fortunate though I had purchased the game via OnLive and had been playing it for a year on the service having logged 137 hours on Splinter Cell. The quality for OnLive games varies on one’s bandwidth and other variables as well however the picture displayed is surprisingly very good. I am not to fond of the keyboard controls–at least for this game and opted to buy a wired Xbox 360 controller to play via OnLive. (I think Microsoft should acquire OnLive and implement it’s infrastructure to the console. They can afterwards polish it up. The subscription playpack would be paid for by Xbox live and the on demand games would truly be on-demand playable within seconds.)

So when I obtained the Xbox 360 I had a controller and one game.

After acquiring it I decided I would play solely the exclusives on the System and that I did. Previously I had desired to Play Fable II and Fable III  having seen the adverts to it…same thing for the Gears of War trilogy–soon to be four.

I have played the Xbox more in 3 months than I have the PS3 in a whole year.

Games I’ve Recently Played:

The multiplayer match-ups, the xbox party features and UI aesthetics have  left me repentant as to why I had not purchased one sooner.

My only gripes would be load times are longer (at least you don’t have the mandatory install thing like PS3)–the pop up/in graphics, the occasional hiccup freezes and how loud the Xbox is in general.

Although these things I have easily accustomed at the beginning were annoying.

Also the achievements make playing video games, games in and of themselves. Yes, PS3 has trophies but they are not as evident or spotlighted.

I am happy to say that in these few short months the Xbox has become my console of choice and I’m looking forward to playing some of the upcoming titles:

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Music Industry Wants $75 Trillion

This just proved once again that I was right four years ago.

The music industry is insane. No one should listen to them.

They want anywhere in the range of $400 billion to $75 trillion

But Washington, D.C. has. So has Barack Obama–especially him.

His Copyright Czar  (oh, so illegal I may add) running around along with Homeland Security and ICE shutting down and seizing domains left and right.

Even explaining  why Google hasn’t been seized.

All in the name of copyright. All because of the MPAA and RIAA.

Madonn.

Mars is Green?

So I haven’t written anything in almost a year.

Now Mars is Green?

Yeah.  Mars is Green and dmotion is The Green Face.

Almost six years ago I was just dmotion: Investigating, and Then Commanding–now: Mars is Green: Sage Oversight is Renaissance.

It’s taken me almost six years to decide on a domain name and actually go ahead with it. (Among other things.)

The name–the statement: Mars is Green is what this is.

Mars–in Roman mythology (Ares in Greek) is the God of War and an agricultural guardian. Both which require oversight–sage oversight.

Green is associated with rebirth–renaissance…

This is my rebirth per se…

My rekindling of this site.

(Also Spike Spiegel is from Mars. I like Mars. I like green and I like stuff being green. Had to make it work.)

The Pirate Bay

From one day to the next it goes from being aganist the grain to mainstream…

Oh, PirateBay that I used to know where art thou?


Skype Unlimited…with Asterisk

I’ve had Skype Unlimited US and Canada for about 7 months now.

I’ve had it understood that unlimited means without limit: not limited; unrestricted; unconfined, boundless; infinite.

Apparently when Unlimited calls is marked with an Asterisk it means 10,000 minutes per month due to a fair usage policy:

that’s 167 hours.

You see the advertised “unlimited calls*” and you think–you believe it won’t have a limit.

Yet there is a limit. That limit is 10,000 minutes/167 hours…

What the freak Skype?!

What now? Those unlimited plans they brought out for cell phones are they also unlimited calls with asterisk too?

Are they limited to 167 hours/10,000 minutes as well?

Why advertise something–label something as unlimited when it’s 10,000 minutes?

Deceptive marketing is what this is.

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Chinese Democracy

Funny how I came to stumble on the news about “Chinese Democracy

My wife casually read the headline off Drudge:

“…blogger leaks…Guns N’ Roses album…um”

I in shock–disbelief as I was eating a sandwich replied, “Say what? Album leaked–Guns N’ Roses…you serious? Where?”

In spite that their last album came out when I was six years old, I knew who Guns N’ Roses were and I knew who Axl Rose was.

This was in a time when I was enthralled with Mozart and Beethoven, with Classic literature…also my early beginnings of love for Pop Culture.

I always thought William’s: ‘Axl’ name was rather curious. I remember back in 1998 having some screen names and an email with Axl in it as I did find it curious. I also remember insisting on people calling me Axl as a play on what my name abbreviated in English is. (If you’re smart you’ll figure it out…maybe)

Years later I still knew that the album was anticipated–and I remember the 2002 MTV Music Video Awards performance by them and the disappointment that followed thereafter.

So it’s surprising to see that the album is finished…and not so surprising that it has been leaked.

Notwithstanding the point was made:

“…the more that Axl and Geffen jerked around trying to figure out how to release this finally finished album that we’ve all been waiting over 13 years for, the greater the chances would be that it would slip out of a pressing plant or office somewhere and wind up in the hands of some asshole with a blog.”

Well, all I can say is…”Welcome to The Jungle”–that is the internet:

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Viva La Vida Live

Since having gotten this song stuck in my head since I saw the Apple advert for it, I’ve wanted to see it performed live–or rather recorded live.

I’ve seen the MTV VMA’s performance. In which I am not sure whether it’s the recording, the microphone, or just Plain Chris Martin whom sounds slightly squeak-ish and nervous sounding at three parts of the song. It gets better but it doesn’t offset the those noticeable squeaks of the voice.

The performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live seems to suffer the same voice blemish afore mentioned, yet it’s a bit of a more lively performance as opposed to the MTV VMAs.

The one that’s on the money is the one done in Amsterdam (oh joy!) at the Paradiso. I believe that this is due to the fact that the it’s an old church and that the album was recorded inside various churches. Thus rendering the sound akin to that on the album:

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