New Gaming Digs!
That table seriously sucked. Every time the 360's drive spun it sounded like the entire table was going to fall apart.
$50 at Office Depot later :
Also got me some wireless Sennheiser headphones - liking those alot - only $60 at CC!
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Mrs JRo getting her game on!
08/18/07
Mrs JRo getting her game on!
Mrs JRo getting her game on!
Apologies for the really bad blog whoring today, but this just couldn't be helped.
My wife is really not a gamer so when she picks up the controller, I reach for the camera.
She just picked up an x4 in Burnout : Takedown after about 15 times of missing it in a row :
Ya gotta love it! :)
Follow Up to Strange Night Post
08/18/07
Follow Up to Strange Night Post
Follow Up to Strange Night Post
Original Blog Post : http://blog.2old2play.com/Permalink/1265/14144
I finally took some pictures of these trees that went down : all of this happened within 2 miles of my house and there were at least 2 dozen sites that looked just like this :
that last one I could hit with a rock from my house.
scary, scary stuff.
Tivo - I Love You, I Hate You
08/18/07
Tivo - I Love You, I Hate You
Tivo is the eighth (or are we up to nine now?) wonder of the world as far as I'm concerned. It turned traditional media on its ear and changed the way consumers demand content forever. I think we are far better off with the options available today. In recent years, Tivo has attempted to expand its reach beyond just being a DVR to the internet and the home computer. Some of this is truly awesome, some of it is incredibly bad.
Truly Awesome :
The ability to transfer any TV show or movie I want on to my computer and keep it forever. I have about 75 episodes of Seinfeld recorded in the last 6 weeks and my collection grows ever fuller by the day. Scheduling shows from the internet is also a really awesome tool. I'll be at work one day and realize, "OH NOES! I forgot to record teh Bears game!" Internet Explorer, sign in, record Bears game, rock on. Watching Photo shows and listening to music through the Tivo is pretty cool although after doing those together on the 360, it's a little hard to be satisfied with one or the other. Last but not least, the skip button - mother of pearl, that is one sweet button.
Incredibly Bad :
Basically trying to get any kind of video content not recorded by the tuner is a frigging nightmare. Tivo Desktop allows you to playback shows that you have recorded and transferred to your computer back to your Tivo, but it's not exactly streaming it. First of all, your PC has to re-transcode the show back to the Tivo's native format (so near as I can tell the Tivo box itself does no translation of any kind) and then as it transcodes, it sends over the file to the Tivo, making the transfer crazy slow. When that's all done you can watch yer show. Yuck. Next up in the line of colossal failures is Amazon Unbox. Here's why this tool will never EVER work : You have to have enough room on your Tivo to download the movie first of all. Then you have to have basically nothing scheduled to record for the next 24 hours or Amazon won't transfer the movie. The Unbox service has to know that there will still be space for the video up to 24 hours later, which is something the Tivo should do automatically, and should not have to be done by me manually.
So content aggregator/creator - thumbs up! Streaming media box - you suck!
Tivo - I Love You, I Hate You
Tivo is the eighth (or are we up to nine now?) wonder of the world as far as I'm concerned. It turned traditional media on its ear and changed the way consumers demand content forever. I think we are far better off with the options available today. In recent years, Tivo has attempted to expand its reach beyond just being a DVR to the internet and the home computer. Some of this is truly awesome, some of it is incredibly bad.
Truly Awesome :
The ability to transfer any TV show or movie I want on to my computer and keep it forever. I have about 75 episodes of Seinfeld recorded in the last 6 weeks and my collection grows ever fuller by the day. Scheduling shows from the internet is also a really awesome tool. I'll be at work one day and realize, "OH NOES! I forgot to record teh Bears game!" Internet Explorer, sign in, record Bears game, rock on. Watching Photo shows and listening to music through the Tivo is pretty cool although after doing those together on the 360, it's a little hard to be satisfied with one or the other. Last but not least, the skip button - mother of pearl, that is one sweet button.
Incredibly Bad :
Basically trying to get any kind of video content not recorded by the tuner is a frigging nightmare. Tivo Desktop allows you to playback shows that you have recorded and transferred to your computer back to your Tivo, but it's not exactly streaming it. First of all, your PC has to re-transcode the show back to the Tivo's native format (so near as I can tell the Tivo box itself does no translation of any kind) and then as it transcodes, it sends over the file to the Tivo, making the transfer crazy slow. When that's all done you can watch yer show. Yuck. Next up in the line of colossal failures is Amazon Unbox. Here's why this tool will never EVER work : You have to have enough room on your Tivo to download the movie first of all. Then you have to have basically nothing scheduled to record for the next 24 hours or Amazon won't transfer the movie. The Unbox service has to know that there will still be space for the video up to 24 hours later, which is something the Tivo should do automatically, and should not have to be done by me manually.
So content aggregator/creator - thumbs up! Streaming media box - you suck!
Music Blog : One Hit Wonders
08/17/07
Music Blog : One Hit Wonders
Previously on Music Blog : The All Time Masters - http://blog.2old2play.com/Permalink/1265/13690
The One Hit Wonders is about as tough as it gets. You see, there are - by my count - almost 1,400 out of 4,660 songs that qualify as "one hit wonders", or an artist or group that only has a single song that makes it to the Top 100 and then is never heard from again (at least not on the Top 100). I wish I could do the "No" Hit Wonders because there are some absolutely mind boggling names on the list, Led Zeppelin not the least of them.
The ground rules - for this list I focused on the top 11 (don't ask why 11) for any given year between 1970 and 1999. That alone filters the list down to 65 from 1,400. Unfortunately, duets and misspellings will count as one hit wonders, sometimes incorrectly. The list also thinks that major debuts in 1999 ended there (I'm looking at you, Christina Aguilera, and perhaps we all would have been better off if that had been the case) I've done my best to filter those out.
The 1970's
1971 - 06 - Raiders - Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee Reservation)
1971 - 11 - Janis Joplin - Me And Bobby McGee
1972 - 05 - Sammy Davis Jr - Candy Man
1972 - 09 - Melanie - Brand New Key
1972 - 10 - Wayne Newton - Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast
1973 - 06 - Kris Kristofferson - Why Me
1973 - 11 - Vicki Lawrence - The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia
1974 - 02 - Terry Jacks - Seasons In The Sun
1974 - 07 - MFSB - TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)
1976 - 05 - Wild Cherry - Play That Funky Music
1976 - 10 - Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band - A Fifth Of Beethoven
1977 - 03 - Emotions - Best Of My Love
1977 - 05 - Hot - Angel in Your Arms
1977 - 07 - Thelma Houston - Don't Leave Me This Way
1977 - 09 - Alan O'Day - Undercover Angel
1977 - 10 - Mary MacGregor - Torn Between Two Lovers
1978 - 03 - Debby Boone - You Light Up My Life
1978 - 05 - Exile - Kiss You All Over
1978 - 09 - A Taste of Honey - Boogie Oogie Oogie
1979 - 01 - The Knack - My Sharona
1979 - 05 - Peaches And Herb - Reunited
1979 - 09 - Anita Ward - Ring My Bell
My favorite from that list would have to be My Sharona.
The 1980's
1980 - 05 - Captain & Tenille - Do That To Me One More Time
1980 - 08 - Lipps, Inc - Funkytown
1981 - 11 - Joey Scarbury - Greatest American Hero
1982 - 11 - Soft Cell - Tainted Love
1983 - 09 - Michael Sembello - Maniac
1984 - 11 - John Waite - Missing You
1985 - 05 - Chaka Khan - I Feel For You
1985 - 10 - A-Ha - Take On Me
1986 - 03 - Klymaxx - I Miss You
1986 - 07 - Eddie Murphy - Party All the Time
1987 - 03 - Gregory Abbott - Shake You Down
1987 - 06 - Robbie Nevil - C'est La Vie
Wow, so many great songs in that list, but I have to go with Maniac by Michael Sembello.
The 1990's
1990 - 03 - Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U
1991 - 05 - Timmy T - One More Try
1991 - 06 - EMF - Unbelievable
1992 - 02 - Sir Mix-A-Lot - Baby Got Back
1992 - 03 - Kriss Kross - Jump
1993 - 09 - Wreckx-N-Effect - Rump Shaker
1993 - 10 - Snow - Informer
1994 - 06 - Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories - Stay
1995 - 11 - Dionne Farris - I Know
1996 - 04 - The Tony Rich Project - Nobody Knows
1996 - 11 - Quad City DJ's - Come On Ride The Train
1997 - 08 - Mark Morrison - Return Of The Mack
1999 - 06 - Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me
My personal favorite would have to be Return of the Mack by Mark Morrison, which is a little ironic when you think about - the song title is "Return of the Mack". Well how could he return to some place he'd never been (and would never go again)?
I have to say my all time favorite one hit wonder that didn't actually make this list is Kiss The Rain by Billie Myers from 1998. It might be horribly trite and formulaic but it still gives me chills every time I listen to it.
Not sure what I'll do for my next music blog. I'm thinking about diving into individual years to see where certain artists just take over the music charts for a period of time.
Music Blog : One Hit Wonders
Previously on Music Blog : The All Time Masters - http://blog.2old2play.com/Permalink/1265/13690
The One Hit Wonders is about as tough as it gets. You see, there are - by my count - almost 1,400 out of 4,660 songs that qualify as "one hit wonders", or an artist or group that only has a single song that makes it to the Top 100 and then is never heard from again (at least not on the Top 100). I wish I could do the "No" Hit Wonders because there are some absolutely mind boggling names on the list, Led Zeppelin not the least of them.
The ground rules - for this list I focused on the top 11 (don't ask why 11) for any given year between 1970 and 1999. That alone filters the list down to 65 from 1,400. Unfortunately, duets and misspellings will count as one hit wonders, sometimes incorrectly. The list also thinks that major debuts in 1999 ended there (I'm looking at you, Christina Aguilera, and perhaps we all would have been better off if that had been the case) I've done my best to filter those out.
The 1970's
1971 - 06 - Raiders - Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee Reservation)
1971 - 11 - Janis Joplin - Me And Bobby McGee
1972 - 05 - Sammy Davis Jr - Candy Man
1972 - 09 - Melanie - Brand New Key
1972 - 10 - Wayne Newton - Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast
1973 - 06 - Kris Kristofferson - Why Me
1973 - 11 - Vicki Lawrence - The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia
1974 - 02 - Terry Jacks - Seasons In The Sun
1974 - 07 - MFSB - TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)
1976 - 05 - Wild Cherry - Play That Funky Music
1976 - 10 - Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band - A Fifth Of Beethoven
1977 - 03 - Emotions - Best Of My Love
1977 - 05 - Hot - Angel in Your Arms
1977 - 07 - Thelma Houston - Don't Leave Me This Way
1977 - 09 - Alan O'Day - Undercover Angel
1977 - 10 - Mary MacGregor - Torn Between Two Lovers
1978 - 03 - Debby Boone - You Light Up My Life
1978 - 05 - Exile - Kiss You All Over
1978 - 09 - A Taste of Honey - Boogie Oogie Oogie
1979 - 01 - The Knack - My Sharona
1979 - 05 - Peaches And Herb - Reunited
1979 - 09 - Anita Ward - Ring My Bell
My favorite from that list would have to be My Sharona.
The 1980's
1980 - 05 - Captain & Tenille - Do That To Me One More Time
1980 - 08 - Lipps, Inc - Funkytown
1981 - 11 - Joey Scarbury - Greatest American Hero
1982 - 11 - Soft Cell - Tainted Love
1983 - 09 - Michael Sembello - Maniac
1984 - 11 - John Waite - Missing You
1985 - 05 - Chaka Khan - I Feel For You
1985 - 10 - A-Ha - Take On Me
1986 - 03 - Klymaxx - I Miss You
1986 - 07 - Eddie Murphy - Party All the Time
1987 - 03 - Gregory Abbott - Shake You Down
1987 - 06 - Robbie Nevil - C'est La Vie
Wow, so many great songs in that list, but I have to go with Maniac by Michael Sembello.
The 1990's
1990 - 03 - Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U
1991 - 05 - Timmy T - One More Try
1991 - 06 - EMF - Unbelievable
1992 - 02 - Sir Mix-A-Lot - Baby Got Back
1992 - 03 - Kriss Kross - Jump
1993 - 09 - Wreckx-N-Effect - Rump Shaker
1993 - 10 - Snow - Informer
1994 - 06 - Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories - Stay
1995 - 11 - Dionne Farris - I Know
1996 - 04 - The Tony Rich Project - Nobody Knows
1996 - 11 - Quad City DJ's - Come On Ride The Train
1997 - 08 - Mark Morrison - Return Of The Mack
1999 - 06 - Sixpence None The Richer - Kiss Me
My personal favorite would have to be Return of the Mack by Mark Morrison, which is a little ironic when you think about - the song title is "Return of the Mack". Well how could he return to some place he'd never been (and would never go again)?
I have to say my all time favorite one hit wonder that didn't actually make this list is Kiss The Rain by Billie Myers from 1998. It might be horribly trite and formulaic but it still gives me chills every time I listen to it.
Not sure what I'll do for my next music blog. I'm thinking about diving into individual years to see where certain artists just take over the music charts for a period of time.
Strange Night
08/16/07
Strange Night
So last night I logged onto Gears of War with the Family - we had decided on the forums last night that it would be good to have a "Family" night on Gears. (Family being OMM, wife, kids, dog, etc optional) We all played like super noobs, with the exception of Gaius who was bustin' people up with his whiptacular pistol action grip. On one game, I was coming at him at a dead run, raised my arm to bury my frag into his skull and in the time it took me to raise my arm, he turned 90 degrees and fired a perfect shotgun blast right into my chest. Ouch.
So here's where it gets strange. I put the kids to bed, leaving my teammates to fight 3 on 4 for 10 minutes, and then I pour myself a glass of milk and sit down to finish the gaming (had a nice kill to finish off a 3on1 upon coming back). Now something was not tasting right with this milk but every once in a while our dishwasher doesn't rinse all that good so I kept drinking figuring it was just some residual odor on the cup. But the more I drank, the more I realized the milk was going sour, so I asked my wife to go return it (she had bought it that day) because that's the same milk the kids drink.
Just about the time she leaves, what had looked like a distant thunderstorm absolutely opens up a can on our block. Hail, Rain, Lightning Strikes by the bucketload, and crazy high winds. My wife got back with no (major) problems with a new gallon of milk and just as I duck my head into the kitchen to see if she's okay, a huge lightning flash occurs and our power flickers. I look at my 360 in horror as it is flashing 3 red lights. Oh noes!
It is just storming cats, dogs, cattle and sheep outside - sounds like nails hitting the roof. My wife and I go upstairs to check on our kids, figuring they've got to be freaking out. Nope, they're fast asleep. It rained so hard that water started seeping in underneath our front door. Zoiks! I run over to my laptop and flash a message to Big0ne telling him why I dropped out of the game. Power flickers again. Enough is enough. I shut down both of my laptops - don't want to lose those.
Now, here's the really weird part.
I wake up this morning and aside from the fact that we have no cable, internet or phone, everything is fine. Kids slept through it, 360 boots up just fine, no issues with either laptop, sump pump is running like a champ, no major tree damage in our backyard. But half a mile north of us looks like a tornado hit. Trees down everywhere - big fat ones. Even trees leaning across houses.
And I thought to myself - Thank You God for putting a little bubble over our house.
Strange Night
So last night I logged onto Gears of War with the Family - we had decided on the forums last night that it would be good to have a "Family" night on Gears. (Family being OMM, wife, kids, dog, etc optional) We all played like super noobs, with the exception of Gaius who was bustin' people up with his whiptacular pistol action grip. On one game, I was coming at him at a dead run, raised my arm to bury my frag into his skull and in the time it took me to raise my arm, he turned 90 degrees and fired a perfect shotgun blast right into my chest. Ouch.
So here's where it gets strange. I put the kids to bed, leaving my teammates to fight 3 on 4 for 10 minutes, and then I pour myself a glass of milk and sit down to finish the gaming (had a nice kill to finish off a 3on1 upon coming back). Now something was not tasting right with this milk but every once in a while our dishwasher doesn't rinse all that good so I kept drinking figuring it was just some residual odor on the cup. But the more I drank, the more I realized the milk was going sour, so I asked my wife to go return it (she had bought it that day) because that's the same milk the kids drink.
Just about the time she leaves, what had looked like a distant thunderstorm absolutely opens up a can on our block. Hail, Rain, Lightning Strikes by the bucketload, and crazy high winds. My wife got back with no (major) problems with a new gallon of milk and just as I duck my head into the kitchen to see if she's okay, a huge lightning flash occurs and our power flickers. I look at my 360 in horror as it is flashing 3 red lights. Oh noes!
It is just storming cats, dogs, cattle and sheep outside - sounds like nails hitting the roof. My wife and I go upstairs to check on our kids, figuring they've got to be freaking out. Nope, they're fast asleep. It rained so hard that water started seeping in underneath our front door. Zoiks! I run over to my laptop and flash a message to Big0ne telling him why I dropped out of the game. Power flickers again. Enough is enough. I shut down both of my laptops - don't want to lose those.
Now, here's the really weird part.
I wake up this morning and aside from the fact that we have no cable, internet or phone, everything is fine. Kids slept through it, 360 boots up just fine, no issues with either laptop, sump pump is running like a champ, no major tree damage in our backyard. But half a mile north of us looks like a tornado hit. Trees down everywhere - big fat ones. Even trees leaning across houses.
And I thought to myself - Thank You God for putting a little bubble over our house.
The Non-Gamer Spouse
08/15/07
The Non-Gamer Spouse
How many of you have spouses that won't touch video games with a ten foot pole?
I had one of those, but I think I'm breaking her down. For the last two nights, she has booted up Burnout : Takedown to play some Crash mode. She finished the game back in early 2004, but she's playing it again for nostalgia I guess. Anyways, she was having a really rough time with one of the early maps where you have to T-Bone the gas truck and then somehow make it across to block the traffic going the other way.
Well, she just couldn't get to $295k to get the gold, so I asked her to give me the controller. At first, she gave me a look of total disgust and then she finally handed it over. I promptly made two runs where I completely missed the gas truck and ended up with less than $100k. I handed her the controller back and went to bed.
Talk about embarassing.
The Non-Gamer Spouse
How many of you have spouses that won't touch video games with a ten foot pole?
I had one of those, but I think I'm breaking her down. For the last two nights, she has booted up Burnout : Takedown to play some Crash mode. She finished the game back in early 2004, but she's playing it again for nostalgia I guess. Anyways, she was having a really rough time with one of the early maps where you have to T-Bone the gas truck and then somehow make it across to block the traffic going the other way.
Well, she just couldn't get to $295k to get the gold, so I asked her to give me the controller. At first, she gave me a look of total disgust and then she finally handed it over. I promptly made two runs where I completely missed the gas truck and ended up with less than $100k. I handed her the controller back and went to bed.
Talk about embarassing.
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