When A Good Day Turns Bad

Just a short little bitch about how my good day yesterday turned into a bad day last night. I won't go over how work went - its a job and had no bearing on the rest of my day.

I stopped at the store on the way home from work and bought some groceries and some fresh steaks. It was a nice evening and I figured a grilled steak would be quite tasty. Then I stopped at my parents to take care of their mail and cat, while they are out of town. I also stole a couple of potatoes so I could make some fresh real mashed potots to go with the steak.

So I got home and relaxed for a little while, then started dinner. I got the potatoes going and then fired up the grill. I seasoned the steak and threw it on the grill and left it to do its magic. I went back inside and did a little quick cleaning up (basically to just kill some time while the steak was cooking). Checked the steak and it was ready for a flip. I love the sizzle that makes when you flip that succulent beef over to a fresh side!! Then I went back in to check the potatoes. Almost finished. My timing was working out to near perfection. By the time i mashed the potatoes and got a drink out of the fridge, the steak would be done to perfection.

I went back out and took the steak of the grill. It looked fantastic and smelled even better. Put the whole meal together, along with a small bowl of applesauce and a beer. The steak was tremendous! Perfectly pink in the middle and done on the outside. Mmmmmmmm not much better end to a day then a grilled steak and a beer!! Oh wait - there is always the television. Surely there is some good movie on or a football game or something . . . . . flip, flip, flip . . . . hmmm, nothing!

No matter, I have several excellent movies up on my computer, I will just go fire that up and enjoy a movie that way. So I went upstairs to fire up the computer. I turned on the DSL modem and router and then hit the button to turn the computer on. Nothing. At first I thought maybe I didn't hit the button all the way. So I hit it again, making sure I actually hit it. Again, nothing. Uh oh - this don't look good. So I began trouble shooting. I basically unplugged everything and tried a different outlet, a different plug in the power strip, disconnecting and reconnecting the power chord - still nothing. CRAPPERS!!!! So then I opened up the case to see if I could see anything glaringly wrong inside. It all looked normal to me.

So I called Devil and asked his help on diagnosing my computer problem. We tried a few things with no success and he diagnosed a dead power supply. Thankfully he has a few spares at his house and said to bring it over this weekend to see if we can bring it back to life. Devil is good like that, fixing broked pcs or just building them from parts.

In the meantime, my good night turned into frustration and anger by not being able to do what I wanted with my computer. Because just what do you do when there is nothing good on TV and your computer is dead?? Thankfully the answer was sitting right on my bedside table.

Merlin and Devil turned me on to a series of books written by George R. R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire. All I will tell you here is that they are amazing novels. I am presently in the middle of Book IV and waiting for Book V to be released. So I layed down on my bed and continued reading til it was time to turn the lights out and call it a day.

I guess in the end, it wasn't such a bad day after all.

My Current Halo Songlist

(I'm still working on it - this is just the beginning. Check back every once and a while for updated listing.)

List is arranged by artist, but all songs are randomized
**All songs are from my extensive live library**

U2

• Vertigo
• Walk On
• Bad
• Love Rescue Me (featuring BB King)

METALLICA

• Ecstasy of Gold/Breadfan
• Master of Puppets
• So What

LED ZEPPELIN

• No Quarter
• The Rain Song
• Dazed and Confused
• Whole Lotta Love (medley)
• Ten Years Gone

IRON MAIDEN

• Brave New World
• Dream of Mirrors
• Hallowed Be Thy Name
• Children of the Damned
• Sanctuary
• Drifter

MUSE

• Space Dementia
• New Born

GENESIS

• Lamb Lies Down on Broadway
• Mamma

COLDPLAY

• Poor Me
• Ladder to the Sun
• Fix You

TOOL

• Stinkfist
• 46&2
• Schism
• Disposition
• Pushit
• Vicarious
• Aenima
• The Patient
• Maynard's Dick

JUDAS PRIEST

• Solar Angels
• Riding on the Wind
• The Bloodstone
• The Sentinel
• Freewheel Burning
• A Touch of Evil

My 360 Does Tricks Too!

I'm sure that the capability has been there for a long time, but I am not as technologically savvy as Merlin and DJ Devil - so I didn't know about it. One day I am sitting at home bored. So I fire up the 360 and go to the Dashboard. I have never really explored the Dashboard, so I took a few moments to see what kind of stuff is in there. There are all kinds of neat little features in the DB. One of them caught my eye - I think it had something to do with shared media (ie pics, music and video).

I tried to connect to it and it gave me an error, but also gave a very nice explanation for what I had to do to connect. I ran upstairs and fired up Windows Media Player and added a few folders to the share section. Then I ran back downstairs and tried to connect again. All of a sudden there was my PC to go look at pictures from. I thought this is the coolest thing since sliced bread! Then I had one of those wondering moments. You know, the ones that are few and far between, but end up being a really good idea?? Yea, I had one of those!

I ran back upstairs and added my movies folder to the share directory of Media Player. Ran back downstairs and was suddenly tired. After a quick breather, I went back into the DB and went to the video section. There was my folder on my portable hard drive! So I browsed through and within minutes, I was watching the Fantastic Four, Rise of the Silver Surfer through my 360, off my PC, on my big screen TV. It was truly a wonderful moment.

So now I can watch movies, view photographs and listen to music off my computer, all from the comfort of my sofa, all thanks to my little friend - XBOX 360.

S-I-X

Speaking of Music...

Since I've talked about the whole Halo Friday Playlist thing, here's what's actually on the playlist in its current form. It's still taking shape as I add stuff to it all the time but this is it as of right now (bands only as there are multiple tracks from each artist. I might list those out later).


40 Below Summer
808 state
Ac Dc
Breaking Benjamin
Caviar
Chevelle
Coheed and Cambria
Death Cab For Cutie
Deftones
Everlast
Expansion Union
Fall Out Boy
Fishbone
Fluke
Front 242
(Hed) p.e.
Helmet
Hybrid
Jimmy's Chicken Shack
Josh Wink
Justice
Korn
Mindless Self Indulgence
Mudvayne
Muse
NIN
A Perfect Circle
Poe
Prodigy
Queens Of The Stone Age
Senser
Silversun Pickups
Snapcase
Staind
System Of A Down
Taproot
My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult
Tool


So if you catch me singing into my headset during the next Halo Friday, I apologize in advance. This is a great bunch of artists to jam to and kick some Spartan ass!

|)3V!|_

I taught my 360 a new trick

Well not really, I just finally tried something that it already knew how to do.

First a few words about my setup...

My Xbox is in my office, not connected to a TV but hooked up via the VGA cable accessory to my 19" LCD monitor. I then have a KVM that lets me switch from my PC to my Xbox with a double-tap of the Scroll Lock key. Very convenient. Since my office is upstairs two walls from our bedroom, I never game with external speakers on. Instead I use a set of Turtle Beach Ear Force X1 headphones.

These things are amazing. The quality of the sound is excellent. All of the game sound plus any voice chat is pumped in to the headphones with separate volume controls for each so that you can fine tune just how much of your friends or the game you want to hear. This allows me to game whenever I want to no matter what the time is, without bothering anyone. I think that you also get to hear more of the nuances of the game sound by having it driven directly into your ears without losing it in the rest of the room. It's awesome for Halo, but has recently become more evident when I recently put in The Orange Box and Gears of War and was blown away by the sound.

Now back to the trick -

I am also Zune owner. When the new generation of Zune's came out, I did my research and took the plunge, opting against the against the Ipod classic. I have to say that overall I am a total Zune convert. I have an older Ipod and have no problems with it or the Apple software. The Zune just did so much more than what the ipod offered. Admittedly the software isn't as smooth as Apple's, but as you work with it you get to know its quirks and it's actually quite capable.

So this past Halo Friday, I connected my Zune to the 360 with the USB sync cable, and on the 360 dashboard flipped over to the media blade. I selected music, and there was Devil's Zune, listed and ready to go with no tweaking or installing needed. There in the interface were all of my playlists and music arranged by artist. I decided to create a playlist on the fly and within a few minutes I had about 70 songs ready to accompany a night of Halo 3 multiplayer mayhem! Some good songs for shooting your friends too - a good mixture of Rock, Techno, Metal, Industrial, all different kinds of blood pumping sounds. Then just hit shuffle, play, and start the game. As soon as the game boots up, there is your music playing in your ears.

Now this brings me back to the main point of my post. I NOW LOVE THIS WAY OF PLAYING MULTIPLAYER. The whole night, while engaged in pitched battles, I was jamming to some of my favorite tunes. I have to say that it really kept me in the game! And, I could still adjust the volume so that I could hear the game sound as well as the chat of my teammates. Finding that balance was really easy with the X1 headphones. And to bring this around full circle and why I explained my setup in the beginning, I think that using the headphones really made the experience what it was. The audio quality of the music right in my ears along with the game's sound effects and the voice chat, was not too much to handle and gave an overall entertainment experience that I wasn't prepared for. In a good way! I loved it! I can't wait 'till the next session so I can fire up the new multiplayer specific playlists that I've created. Mind you, I'm pretty sure this would totally ruin any single player game that you would play, as those are so scripted with content driven music and cutscenes, but in multiplayer where there is no soundtrack or in-game NPC exposition, it is a perfect fit!

I do suggest that you try it sometime, and if you don't have a Zune, I believe it also works with flash drives and can also pull media from other pc's on the network. If you don't play with headphones, but pipe the sound through your TV, I'm not sure that you would benefit from this neat trick, but if you use the hi-def sound from the Xbox or some good 5.1's, I'm willing to bet that it will sound pretty freaking cool.

Let me know if you try this. leave a comment and tell me what you think of the feature. I know that from now on, I'm only playing multiplayer to my own personal soundtrack!

Devil

ZOMG First Post LOLZ KEWL, Halo RulZ!

Welcome guests, to the new Halo Friday Blog - Shout Halo Friday. We have added this new element to HaloFriday.com and you are reading the very first post! We want to make it less of the normal news items you see on the site, and more thoughts about what's going on in our little gaming world.

Anything is on-topic here. While the overall theme is all things Halo, any games are open for discussion as well as what the heck I did today or happened to me while trying to live my life, that I really need to shout about.

I also won't be the only one to contribute. We will have guest posters from the Halo Friday community to entertain and open your minds. Some you will probably find amusing, some may make your eyes bleed with their prose. The point is, you will see our gaming community from a few different angles. If you like what you see, are a gamer, specifically play a lot of Halo 3 - come join us at www.HaloFriday.com for more Halo news and universe updates. Want to just listen to us rant? This is the place! Welcome. Pull up a chair, the drinks are on me, there's a cigar in the humidor, a lovely young lady will be by shortly to take your order...

Enjoy,
Devil