How does this thing work again?

Hmmm... Been almost two years since my last post. Time really flies when life goes to hell. Not really sure where to start, but I hope to be back on a semi-regular basis. More than likely there will be some of the following: - Venting about life in general in a Duckman type of way (Love that cartoon!) - Tales of good or bad dates (Contemplating a separate "Sex in the City" type blog for that) - Random pieces of life that are currently not categorized, and - Gaming, of course. To be continued...

The Money Pit

I have an xbox console that has turned into a money pit. And it's really ticking me off.

To make a short story long, I'll start from the beginning. I bought an original Xbox 360 - console only - off of the web. Knowing the mortality rate of Xbox 360 consoles, I wanted a spare console just in case mine went belly up and had to be sent in for repairs. Paid about $80 for it at the time, freight included (Pay attention - these numbers will mean something later).

A while later, I had a disc drive issue with my original console so I switched to my spare one and decided to keep the other one - which was off warranty - as my new back-up. The console I bought online worked for a few months and then red-ringed on me. Typical. I took it to the local fix-it place where I was dinged almost $120 (with taxes) to get it fixed. Had I known that it was going to come to that, I would have scrapped the thing. What really added fuel to my flame was the fact that no sooner had I sent it in, the arcade console went on sale for $129. I had seriously thought of pulling the console out of the repair place and buying a new one with controller, memory card, and three-year warranty for only a few bucks more. I didn't do it because the repair place would have charged a hefty penalty, so I stuck with the repair. Kinda burned my a$$ when the guy at the repair place handed me my console, my bill, and asked me "Hey, aren't 360s on sale this week?"

I used this console for a couple of months with no problems. Then I bought a slim model and put the repaired console back into storage as a spare. I passed on the other console (with the disc drive issue) and all applicable components. Cost invested in this "spare" console so far: approx. $200. That was a little over a year ago.

This week, I had the itch to get this thing up and running. We had cut back on our TV service at home so I wanted the spare 360 for a media extender. Between movies on the PC and Netflix, I could hook it up and we would still be well entertained for a considerably lower monthly cost. Sounds good to me. Now all I need are all the components to hook up the console.

Upon first glance, piecing it together seemed a little expensive. But my search led me to a kid who had a complete RRoD system that he wanted to sell for $50. Came with the cables, power bar, one wired controller, and a 20 GB hard drive. That was enough to get me up and running. I pounced on the deal and proceeded to start setting things up at home. About 10 minutes into my test run, THE DAMN THING RED RINGED ON ME!!! It had barely been used since it was fixed and it was well beyond the warranty period to have any type of recourse. I still have nothing to show for the approx. $250 total shelled out so far.

But wait - it gets better. Everytime I touch this thing, hardware seems to go on sale. This week, 250 GB slim consoles can be had for the amazing price of $197 plus tax. That would be $50 less than my total investment so far, and it comes with all the goodies and a three year warranty to boot. I just can't catch a break.

I'm cutting my losses with this thing. I'm scrapping this demon console and I'm going to try and re-coup some of my expenses by selling the components piece by piece. I'm considering grabbing a bat and going all "office space" on it. If you've seen the movie then you know what I mean. And if you've ever had a RRoD issue with an Xbox 360, then you know how good it would feel.

The List

I made a pact with myself this summer - "work hard, play hard" I told myself. Well, I'm definitely working hard. In no small part because of "the list".

"The list" is my list of tasks that I wanted to take care of this summer before September when I'm back in school and hockey season starts again. Once those two things happen my free time fills up really fast. The list helps me to stay focused. I've been able to remind myself from time to time of the things that I have accomplished - feels good to cross something off, keeps me motivated - and of the things that I have meant to do but forgot about. Some things were simple but I just kept putting them off. Some things were just about biting the bullet and paying for them to be done. Some things are small goals I've set for myself. Some things are big projects so I'm stretching them out and working on them a little bit at a time with the hopes of finishing them by the end of the summer.

The one over-riding problem with the list is that it's not exhaustive. As I keep thinking about things that I want done, I add them. This means that it never seems to shrink. It almost seems to be a bottomless job jar. A moving target, if you will, as the end never seems to be in sight. We are in a long week-end here, and I spent almost all of today either working at one of my two jobs (see next blog) or working at home. Tomorrow looks bad too. The day after - not much better. So much for a long week-end. Productive? Yes. Relaxing? Not in the least.

My new plan is to stop adding to list and try and catch up with what I have. I keep being reminded of the other half of the promise to myself. Mostly by others, but sometimes by me. I've made a conscious effort to do a few things this summer, but it's not at the level I was hoping for. Maybe I'll add "do something fun" to the list. Then I just might do it.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

This week-end was to be a productive one. I had places to go and people to do. Err... things to do. In particular, things around the house. I had a light bulb to change, a speaker to fix, a minivan to get running again,... The list of things in the job jar was growing. Included in that list was the chore of emptying my old computer. We got a new computer three years ago and we never transferred any of the movies/music/pictures/office documents/etc. over to our new system. In hindsight, this was good because we had a hard drive crash about a year ago that would have wiped it all out. But we wanted to set the old system up for the kids, so it was time to get started.

There were some early pictures of the girls, some pictures of a very pregnant Rhonda, some music that I forgot I had, and a few things that should have been cleaned up years ago. Once anything and everything of any value on the hard drive was transferred over I realized that my job wasn't done. I had about a dozen or so 3.5" Floppy diskettes (Yes, you read that right) with stuff on it that I had to get things off of. Since my old system was the last system that I would probably have with a disk drive in it, I thought it best to do it now and get it done. I seemed to remember saving goofy emails and funny things that I came across in my early years of web surfing. But I soon realized that I had found something more important that. It was my "virtual shoe box".

These diskettes contained memories of the period of my life between my two big relationships, with a little overlapping. What should have taken about 15 minutes to simply transfer took over an hour. Things that were erased from my memory suddenly came flooding back as I poured over the disks one by one. The first disc had pictures of a girl that I had met over the web years ago. Her name was Theresa. She lived in Ohio. She was married with two boys. I had forgotten how cute she was until the pictures surfaced. We never had an online affair or anything like that. We were company for each other. She used to tell me that she and her hubby didn't talk much. We used to chat for hours until one day she just stopped coming online. I never did find out what happened to her.

Then there was April, a full of life, hockey-loving Texas girl that had a huge crush on Boston Bruins forward Joe Thornton (now on San Jose). I found a few pictures of her on a different disc. She was fun to chat with. We lost touch years back and it had been a long time since I had thought of her. I tended to socialize online a lot then, perhaps more so than I do now. Between a full-time job and my MBA studies, I didn't get out much.

I found pictures of the waitresses at the local Hooters washing my car, as a couple of buddies and myself went for their annual charity car wash. My car looked worse after the wash than before it but it didn't matter. We all know it wasn't about the wash itself anyways. I found a picture of the team I played for in the Western Canadian Ball Hockey Championships, the first and only time I played in the tournament. We lost all three games, but fought hard in all of them. I found some of my old MBA coursework. I opened up some of it just to see if I could still follow what I did. Damn. It's been so long that I forgot how good I was. I used to be able to make Excel sing. I'm not sure I could do anyhting that intense now. I thought about some of the good people I had shared that experience with, most of which I've lost touch with years ago.

And I found pictures of Baba, my Mom's mom and the only Grand-parent I ever really knew. The pics were of her on her 90th birthday. She was already pretty blind and her memory was starting to fade, but she always had a smile for us. She had passed away before the girls were born. She had lived a good life. It had been a while since I had thought of her too.

I wasn't prepared for all of the feelings to come back. It caught me by surprise. I started to feel sad about all of the good people that I've lost touch with over the years, as that seemed to be the one common thread. If life is the sum of our relationships, then I think I'm a "C" student at best. I'm not even sure where I'm going with this, how I'm going to end it, or why I wrote it in the first place. I felt compelled, as if writing it might help me to sort things out. Maybe I was just always too busy to keep in touch. Maybe they were too. Maybe in the long run those fleeting relationships didn't mean that much to me. Or them. Maybe. I don't know. I need to think about this one.

Kijiji

I have recently discovered Kijiji, a website where you can post and browse local classified ads for free. I always knew it was there but I've never really used it before. I used to always default to eBay when looking for anything I needed but had trouble finding locally. Like eBay, some things are terribly overpriced, but there are deals to be had if you take the time. I’ve managed to purchase a few under-priced games that were then quickly traded in for a decent profit. I also managed to pick up a wireless network adapter for a song. I also missed out on a couple of items because I didn’t find them in time. The inventory of ads changes constantly, so you have to act fast when the real good deals come along because they don’t last long.

Based on my success in purchasing a few things, I thought I would try my hand at selling. I have a lot of original Xbox games that I put up for sale in an effort to thin out my collection, as well as a few Xbox 360 titles that are collecting dust and have terrible trade-in values. The good part is that the service is free, so there is no cost in using the website. The bad part is that the service is free, so there is no cost in using the website. Free, it seems, is the key for bringing out everyone and their weird requests. Why not? It’s free.

I was contacted regarding a few of the games on the list but as of today, none have ever sold. People have wanted things at ridiculously low prices. Sorry, but I don’t give Black Friday deals. If the request is reasonable, I’ll entertain it. And my games are in way better shape then most of the ones found at the local Gamestop (I'm terribly appauled at how some people treat their belongings, but that's a whole other blog). People have no idea if the games are backwards compatible with Xbox 360. I'm not Wikipedia so do some homework before contacting me, please. People have asked for free games because they can’t afford them for their kids. If I’m not getting a tax receipt for my donation, then the answer is no. Someone wanted a $5 game on my list and asked if I would consider a trade. Seriously? For $5?

I have since pulled my ads from Kijiji because the headaches were not worth the few bucks I could have made. Maybe I’ll just have a garage sale in the spring. Until then I’ll continue to scan the ads from time to time in search of deals. Why not? It’s free.

For the Fallen

November is here once again. That means another Call of Duty game is released and another Remembrance Day is close by. Yeah, it’s a great time to release a game with Xmas only being 5-6 weeks away. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Call of Duty comes out so close to Remembrance Day every year.

To everyone out there who thinks that a career with the armed forces would be a piece of cake because they just got 13 kills and 4 deaths in their last round on Call of Duty, remember this: In real life, there are no respawns. You don’t get to come back – you get buried. You can’t adjust the setting of the war from “realistic” to “easy”. And you most certainly do not get to blame your getting shot on “lag issues”.

On November 11, remember to wear a poppy and take a minute of silence for those who fell to provide us the freedom to live the lives that we do. When they answered the call of duty, the gave a lot more than the $60 that the game cost.

How short is too short?

So, I'm finished Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. What a short game. I have a few challenges to do, but the game itself is finished. I could replay on a harder level or go back and chase some achievements - either or both of which I still might do. But for a single playthrough, IT IS SHORT!!! There's no multi-player or co-op play to extend the experience. I'm feeling a tad disappointed. And ripped off. Not just once, but twice. I bought a copy for myself and the boy. Fortunately, I traded in against them so I didn't feel the direct hit to the pocketbook for two copies... But still.

Games with short campaigns should have a multi-player component to it, like Halo: Reach, or Medal of Honor. Games without multi-player should have wicked campaigns. Mass Effect is a prime example. Or Fallout. Gears of War is the best of both worlds - a challenging campaign with both co-op and multi-player gameplay to really extend the experience. I miss the old Star Wars games - Knights of the Old Republic, the Jedi Knight series - Those games had real substance to them. We should get some free DLC just to make up for the tiny campaign. That will never happen, though. Lucas doesn't give anything away for free. A full price game needs a full price effort put into it.

If you're not a die hard Star Wars fan that must own a copy of it, then rent it. Or wait for it to drop in price. Or wait for it to be rebundled with all of the inevitable DLC which might make it worth the full price. Any way, it's not a $60 game. And with the large selection of new games out this holiday season, it's not like we're short of choices.

The Art of the Deal

It is the onset of the holiday season, when we are bombarded with a proliferation of great gaming goodness. Fallout, Call of Duty, Assassins Creed, The Force Unleashed,... How can we keep up?

Well, we can make choices. Which ones do we want right now? Which ones can we wait for a price drop on? Do I have to give up my Starbucks for Fable? What do we want to see under the tree at Xmas? Decisions, decisions. But what if we don't want to wait? What happens if the spoiled 8-year old in us comes out and wants it all right now? This is where we try to stretch that dollar a little further. It takes a little work, but it can be worth it. I'm talking about the art of the trade-in deal.

Now if we want to get rid of those games collecting dust on the shelf, that's one thing. It's low hanging fruit - easy to pick, not a lot of work. I'm talking about chasing the juicy fruit at the top of the tree. For that, we have to be more creative. I'm talking about the undervalued games with good trade-in values that are floating around out there, just waiting to be exploited.

One example of this occurred earlier this year when Alien vs. Predator came out. EB Games (Gamestop Canada) offered a 50% additional trade-in on games toward the pre-order of AvP. At this particular time they were offering $40 for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance II. On the pre-order, that value increased to $60. Since AvP sold for $60, it was virtually a direct swap. With a little hunting I managed to find a used copy of Marvel II for $36 all in, netting me a cool $30 in savings (including taxes). This was not the first time I saved a few bucks by exploiting trade-in values and it most certainly has not been my last. I have literally saved hundreds of dollars on games by exploiting higher than average trade-in values by purchasing underpriced games. If they're going to give it to us, then darn it, we should take it!!

For some it might not be worth the effort. Sometimes I wonder if I enjoy the challenge of doing it more than I need the financial savings. But it helps, regardless of why I do it. Do you have any stories of trade-in savings? Are you a bargain hunter? How do you make your gaming dollar go further? Let's hear from all you cheapskate gamers out there! Maybe we can all help each other.

I'm out of the closet.

My dirty little secret has been revealed. Rhonda knows about my blog.

It wasn't a secret perse, but she didn't know about it. Now she does. She was surprised.

That is all.

Putting the "Friend" back in your "Friends List"

I'm not always a good friend. I try to be, but then life takes over and I find I lose touch with people, both online and offline. Sometimes I find myself in conversations with friends who are talking about things I didn't know about. I had no idea El Sand Dog had his appendix removed. I've lost track of QJB's operations. I seem to forget the names of kids and spouses of people on my friends list, which is a result of not talking to them for a while. I'm sure that there's plenty more that I can't list here simply because I don't know about it.

Even here locally, I've lost track of friends that I've known since grade school. I'm starting to feel guilty about it. Now, I'm not a Facebook guy, I'm a face-to-face guy. I prefer to talk to someone or email someone directly than read a post on a website as to how they're doing. I'm also a private person by nature and my life is not the business of the general public. Not to mention I'd have to wrestle Rhonda for the PC. I'm sure she'd just as soon call the police and have me arrested for domestic abuse rather than give up "her" computer.

Time is my enemy. Always has been. There's never enough of it for me to do the things that I would like to do. And for some reason, I've had really low energy lately too, which doesn't help. I think I need a multi-vitamin with a Red Bull chaser. And for the first time ever, I'm considering a Facebook account just to consolidate my friends (or the vast majority thereof) and make a concerted effort to know what's going on in their lives on a regular basis. I'm a little anti-facebook because the whole "stalkbook" thing. It earned that nickname for a reason, so I'm still a little uncertain.

In the meantime, I'm going to try and make a better effort to keep in touch with my friends. It's time that the "friend" on your "friends list" makes an appearance again.

The "Community Console"

"She's the community bicycle, baby. Everybody's had a ride." - Austin Powers

A couple of blogs ago, Pengwenn and I were discussing spare consoles and she had mentioned that she might send one to Ghengis as a temporary measure to get him back online until he had the opportunity to get one for himself. I was thinking about kicking in financially for that so that she wouldn't have to bear the whole cost of it. I knew that I had a spare console or two lying around as do some of our other friends. With the high mortality rate of the Xbox 360 and the increasingly long waits to get repaired units back, keeping a spare one these days just makes sense. But it made me start thinking about another idea: The community console.

The concept is simple: Whoever needs it would get it and then they would send it on to the next person when they need it. Beamer and I have been trading games for about 1 1/2 years now, and that has gone well. In our case, it has saved us each some money and it had given us the chance to play games that we might not have otherwise tried if we had to pay big bucks for them. We would be simply extending this idea to the console itself.

Like any new idea, there are plenty issues that would have to be worked out. Who wants to be involved? Who pays for the initial one? If we all chip in, how does the money get collected? Who looks after it? What happens if it breaks down? Do the shipping costs make it prohibitive? The answer to all of these questions is the same: I don't know. We'd have to work it out. But it was just an idea and I thought I'd throw it out there. It works for games. Einstein once said that "If at first an idea does not seem totally absurd, it will never work". How absurd is this? You be the judge.

The "New" Xbox 360: A Review

I had promised a review of the new Xbox 360 when I had it up and running for a couple of weeks, so here it is:

Microsoft claims it is "whisper quiet". That claim is true. You can barely hear it run. The only issue I have is when I play Alan Wake. For some reason, that disc makes a ton of noise when it spins. It's the only one like that.

Data transfer sucks. This is my biggest pet peeve with it. I had previously changed my data over from a 20GB hard drive to a 120GB hard drive and it was easy. The new hard drive came with a data transfer cable that I had kept. I tried to use it but it didn't work because the new hard drive is internal. My 512MB memory card didin't work because they got rid of the ports for it on the new one. I had to buy a flash drive to use to transfer save data. Some of the DLC I just downloaded again. It's a pain in the gluteus maximus, to be sure. If there is an easier way to do it, I don't know about it. If nothing else it forces you to go through your hard drive and clean house of unplayed game data, demos, and videos. I also hear the hard drive is proprietary so you can't just go out and buy a bigger drive and install it yourself. They do cover all their bases, don't they?

The engineers at Microsoft finally figured out that heat rises. The exhaust fan pushes heat out the top (when laid horizontally). Supposedly it runs cooler, but it feels like it runs really hot.

It gets dirty very easy. You can see every spec of dust on it. And the power/disc eject touch buttons are incredibly sensitive. I've accidently ejected discs because I brushed up against it.

The wireless N connection feels just as fast as or faster than my previously wired connection. I had a couple of minor hiccups with connections being dropped (L4D2 on Sunday night) but I know that was on my end and I have to adjust some computer settings. There is a direct correlation between dropping wirelss connections on both my PS3 and my 360 to when my computer decides to go into low energy mode.

Other than that it's still an Xbox 360. All the old controllers and games still work. It's not a game changer by any stretch of the imagination. It just provides the people with what they've been asking for - a more reliable console (time will tell on that one) with a few more features to it. My conclusion: If you've been thinking about upgrading you might find a better way to spend your money - unless your current console is knocking on heaven's door.

Hot Tub Time Machine

OK, this is a non-gaming post. There may be more of these to follow.

As some of you probably know by now, we moved a little over a month ago. Our new house has a hot tub. I've wanted a hot tub for a while now. It feels SOOOOOOOOOO good on my poor aching back. But aside from that, it took me back to the time of leg warmers, cassette tapes and Michael Jackson being black. Yup, my teen-age years: the 80's.

When we were younger, my dad asked us if we would rather have a pool or a cabin. The unanimous answer was a pool. And with it, we had summer fun. Impromptu pool parties when a bunch of us would just stop whatever we were doing and overtake our back yard. I can still see one of my friends jumping off the diving board, turning around and mooning us (much to my mother's dismay) before his bare a$$ hit the water. I can remember making out with a couple of different girls in the pool (not at the same time, mind you). It was definitely good for the love life. Ah, youth. It truly is wasted on the young.

But it also takes me back to the troubles my Dad had. The maintenance on such an item was constant. Trying to keep it clean, making sure the chemical levels were good, making sure it was properly winterized,... When we moved out of that house I'm pretty sure he was relieved that he didn't have to maintain it anymore. This takes me to where I am now. The kid in me came out when I first got it, but the adult in me still has to maintain it. It had been 20 years since we had a pool and I had forgotten about the additional time, money, and effort to keep it running. The hot tub is a little less effort because it is better shielded from the elements than a pool is, but it's still there.

So far, it has been worth it. My back feels pretty good and It's very relaxing. It gives Rhonda and I the chance to spend some quiet time alone with each other and that's not always easy to do. And while it takes me back to my youth in some ways, I don't go directly back in time like they did in the movie. Thank goodness for that, because I don't think I could pull off the mullet today.

Trix may be for kids, but not all video games are.

There seems to be a common misconception out there among many parents these days. That misconception is: Videogames are for kids.

These people, I firmly believe, think this way because they haven't picked up a controller since the days of the Atari 2600. I have noticed on many an occasion that young kids (ie. ages 8-11) seem to be able to get their hands on videogames that are clearly age inappropriate for them. How do they get them? Either by young store clerks who forget that they have to check ID when selling or renting videogames out, or by relatives. Parents mostly, but grandparents, aunts and uncles are to blame here, too.

The Boy (who shall herein be referred to as "The Boy") had a friend just down the street from our old house that was a year older than him. About 4 years ago, he brought Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas over to our house for the two of them to play. Since The Boy is 12 now, do the math. The question is why did his parents give him that game in the first place? Did they want their young son to be exposed to cop killing, drug dealing and prostitution? Or do they fall in to the "Games are for kids" category? I'm not a betting man, but I'd put money on the latter. This is not the only time that I as a parent have had to deal with age inappropriate games. It's hard to maintain rules as a parent when everyone around you seems to not share the same standards.

I think what really irks me about this is that these same people take the time to ensure that kids watch movies and TV shows that are age and subject material appropriate, but seem to ignore those same ratings on video games. We're not jumping over barrels to rescue the girl from the ape anymore. Games have come too far too fast to ignore the labels on the packaging. I may be mocked as being too old to game, but at least I know what's in the game when I hand it over to a 12-year old kid.

Come on parents, wake up and smell the "Hot Coffee". Believe it or not, it's not just a beverage anymore.

Obsession? Compulsion? Disorder? All of the above?

I never have enough time to do the things I really want to do. I have so many video games in the wrapper that I really want to play but never get around to. Yet I continue to buy them. I sometimes refer to the Mel Gibson quote from Conspiracy Theory about why he always buys a copy of The Catcher in the Rye when he sees one. That's kinda how I feel. And for myself, I always buy new. I had a couple of bad "used" experiences. I'm apauled by how some people treat their stuff. Some of the discs and cases in the used section of EB games look like they've been chewed up and spit out by the family dog.

I've been a little better lately about the games I select. I used to love dumpster diving (ie. sorting through the bargain bin) to find the hidden gems at blowout prices to add to the collection. The problem is that I seldom play any of those games. I used to brag about having them in my collection but they never saw the light of day. In the past year, I have re-evaluated my position on my game inventory and I've started weeding some out. Trade-in deals, garage sales, and eBay have helped to thin my collection down by about 10-12 Xbox360 titles.

Not that long ago, I also made the decision to get rid of my original Xbox and my xbox games. Part of it was because Microsoft made the decision to kill the Xbox servers so online play was dead (au revoir, battlefront). Part of it was because I found myself looking forward to the next new 360 title rather than going back to the old favorites. And part of it was because I felt I should try to prove to myself that I do not have a problem. I'm still not convinced.

I had 50 xbox games but I chose to keep 10 only. All are sentimental faves that are backwards compatible, with the exception of one that I've wanted to play forever but have to find the time to do so. The rest have either been sold or are in the process of being sold. As I sorted through them I noticed that this that about a half dozen of them were still in the wrapper, so this behavior had been continuing for some time.

My original Xbox console/controllers/DVD playback kit was sold at a pre-moving garage sale to a couple of kids who looked like they came from a less affluent family and were just happy to have video games, never mind the latest and greatest. While I felt like I wanted to jump them and take my system back as they walked away, I also felt good knowing it was going to people who really appreciated it. I even threw in a free game to get them started.

While I showed some significant self-restraint, I'm still not convinced. I shouldn't have needed self-restraint. This shouldn't have been a decision to agonize over. Hell, as I write this I have 4 games pre-ordered and want to lock-up copies of two more. A few months ago I picked up a couple of PS3 titles because I really wanted them. One hasn't been played yet and one has not been played half as much as I would like. As I flip through the weekly barrage of store ads that come to my house, I see that some of the games that I haven't played yet are now $20-$30 cheaper than when I bought them. Even though I know that games almost always go down in price over time, that still doesn't sit well with me. I'm generally a very patient guy. I could have waited and bought them at a cheaper price, but somehow i just can't do that.

As I think back to my childhood, I started to realize that I've always been like this. Star Wars toys, Atari 2600 games, comic books, hockey cards,... I've ALWAYS had collections and I've ALWAYS been very anal about them. I guess some things never change. Perhaps I shouldn't be too hard on myself.

Now if I could only get my old X-wing fighter back...

The new Xbox PS360

Yup. You read that right. If they put a blu-ray player in it, it would be a PS3.

I bought a new system for myself despite having a perfectly good one at home. Spent $300 on it. Why? Well, there is a method to my madness.

As some of you may know, we moved a couple of weeks ago. As such, the router is no longer located three feet from my game consoles. I strung a LOOOOONG Ethernet cable along the basement floor, but my girls started having a tug-of-war with it. Since one end was connected to my 360 and the other to my router, I decided not to let it go long enough to see which one was stronger. I had to buy a 360 wireless-N adapter. Cost: $100.

The boy's 360 has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. He's been complaining about disc drive errors for a while now, but recently it has started throwing out different combinations of red light/green light errors. This particular console has no warranty on it. Repairing it would be cost prohibitive, so I thought about buying an arcade model to replace it. Cost: $150

I bought it a supermarket with a decent sized electronics department. They had a promotion in their weekly flyer that you would get a gift card if you spent $250 in the store. Luckily, game consoles qualified for that. Card value: $25

So this actually leaves me with a difference of only $25 and I get what I hear is a more reliable console. The boy gets my old one (still with a 1 1/2 year RROD warranty on it) and we all game happily ever after. Now, if I could only find the time to hook it up and transfer the data...

Hijacking of threads for personal gain

QJB should be ashamed of himself. Disgusting. Purely disgusting. :-P