bedeviled mojo slop

Apparently I am so hardcore at Guitar Hero that I broke the X-plorer Controller Strum Switch as shown hm'yah.

\m/

That little metal clip above the spring should be attached to a plate that then makes contact with another plate to indicate a strum. There is one switch for the up strum and one switch for the down strum. Rather than spend another $60 on a new controller, I'm going to try my hand at a little hardware hackery to repair this broken controller. GuitarHeroParts.com to the rescue! And wouldn't it be my luck that they have replacement Strummer Switches.

It should mostly be a matter of unsoldering the old switches and soldering in the new switches ... mostly.

Tomorrow the A/V in the house is being upgraded. Highlights:

• 6 zone/6 source audio system
• In-wall keypads with display for two-way feedback with compatible sources
• iPod dock with full metadata compatibility to the keypads
  
• HDTVs (yes, plural)
• HDMI receiver and cabling
  
• Wireless audio

I had to do it so that I could finally enjoy Dead Rising. Well, not really ... but that's a fringe benefit I guess.

My XBox 360 died. Again.

Died while I was playing "Through The Fire and The Flames". Again.

Deja vu?

That song unleashes a curse from the depths of Hell when it's going to be beat in a big way. I don't know how I would've done this time around. My current best is around 176k.

I wish I was making this up.

UPDATE:I turned the console off and then on again and it works.

^_^

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8 out of 10 if I had to give this game a rating.

58 out of 58 songs completed on Expert in roughly 3 sessions.

The only song that gave me a run for my money was "Green Grass and High Tides".

*yawn*

I'm sure this game is good in the multi-player "band" experience, but I just kind of breezed through it in the solo tour. Oh well.

My biggest issue with the game is with the timing. I'm sure it's my playing, but in GGaHT, there's a small section where the notes are really, really close together. In Guitar Hero, you usually just strum as quick as possible and you get most (if not all) of the notes and it's sort of a chance to build up your rock meter "juice". Not so in this game. You can witness what I'm talking about in this video at around 7:04 - 7:10. Apparently this is a 5* run through of the song and even they don't manage to get their multiplier going in this section.

At least with "Through The Fire and Flames" the song kicks your ass the entire 8 minutes. In GGaHT, you usually get it handed to you around 8 minutes into the song. 8 MINUTES!!1! And then it sort of doesn't let up for the next 2 minutes.

Whatever, I'm done with that mess now.

Where is my middle finger emoticon? I need it right now. For that song.

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I finished Mass Effect last week. If you want me to cut to the chase and give you a rating, well then I'd give it a solid 8.5/10. There is a lot to this game if you want to explore all the optional assignments that augment the story from the main game missions. I think I played through about a third of the optional assignments.

A big gripe with this game was missions that used the Mako vehicle, which you used in a couple of parts in the main game missions, but used mostly in the optional assignments. I saw it mainly as a way to get from point A to point B quicker and as a place of refuge on planets where you couldn't hang out on the surface too long because you'd die from the atmosphere. It spawned a hatred I had not felt since the driving the Warthog vehicle in the Halo series.

If you're really into RPGs, I think you'll like all the ways in which you can customize your character and weapons. For me, I turned on auto-leveling and I was done with that mess. I just couldn't be bothered.

I haven't bothered to search the Internets for any gripes from other players around two plot elements:

• Rachni: Hmmmmmmmmmm, The Flood from the Halo series much?
• Reapers: Machines who want to turn organics into slaves? The Matrix? *sigh*

That being said, I'm more looking forward to the sequels to this game than say Assassin's Creed. *shudder*

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See Angry-Fly.com's, Getting MySQL Preference Pane To Work In Leopard.

The article helped immensely now that I'm running Leopard.

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The temporary loss of my XBox 360 has led me to contemplate one thing that has always puzzled me about how people have their machine. Why do people stand their XBox 360's upright and not have them lying flat?

The XBox 360 doesn't have a slot loading drive like the Nintendo Wii or your MacBook Pro. It has a tray that opens and closes.

Why, I mean ... why would you stand it upright?

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A moment of silence please ...

... thank you.

My XBox 360 finally fell victim to the Red Ring of Death. I knew when I bought the XBox 360 and took pictures inside that it didn't have the new heatsink or whatever. Each day I had with the XBox 360 was a little gift. And so now, the XBox 360 will have to be sent back to be repaired by MSFT.

As it happens, I was in the middle of shredding Through The Fire and the Flames on Hard. I was getting about 83% of the way through the song before epic FAIL! and this time through, when the XBox 360 RRoD'd, I think I was pretty on. I'm convinced the machine at that point became self-aware, knew I would finally best TTFaTF, and executed its self-destruct sequence.

Either that or crappy hardware

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I got my 3rd purchased Wii in the mail today thanks to Wii Alerts.

Back in April, I actually bought 2 Wiis. I kept one for myself and sold one to a buddy in California.

Cut to the week before Christmas of 2007 and I decide that because my sister wants a Wii, that she shall have a Wii. And thanks to Wii Alerts, she'll have a Wii. If you haven't come across this service, the basic jist is that they'll txt message your cell phone when an online retailer has a Wii or Wii bundle available. I was lucky enough to score the Wii from Amazon.com.

I can only attest to this service by the fact that it worked for me and 2 colleagues. It's at least another avenue to explore than going to eBay and getting ripped off.

So, if you've used this service and you got your Wii or you already have a Wii, well then ... Merry Chwiistmas

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I had started Psychonauts before Assassin's Creed. At first I found the game annoying. The music annoyed me. All of the dialog cut-scenes annoyed me. And then I played and beat Assassin's Creed and came back to this game. It was like a breath of fresh air. I suddenly enjoyed it all.

It's really astounding how much they threw into this one game. The boss battles, the collectibles, the various psychic powers, etc. Assassin's Creed had a bunch of flags. I want to give Assassin's Creed the finger right now. Anyhoo ... Psychonauts is a hard to find title just like Ico (another excellent game BTW). But, spend the $12 and you won't be disappointed.

My one gripe with this game was they sort of ratcheted up the difficulty at the end of the game to some weird level. Don't get me started on the meat circus.

I'd give the game and 8.5/10.

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*yawn*

It's not that I breezed through Assassin's Creed, but the game only took me maybe 3 nights to play through it all. I was quite disappointed. Early buzz was high for this game. But, I wholly concur with the New York Times review of the game.

This is all pretty fun, but by the time you have assassinated your first victim you have experienced almost everything there is of the game. After that it is simply a matter of going to a city, climbing towers, fighting guards, assassinating someone, escaping, and then doing it all over again. The game is never bad, but repetition makes it less and less good.

And yes, I used Eagle Vision to peep all the writing around the room after the credits. And yes, I know it's a planned trilogy. It's an OK start, but honestly, this game could've been much better.

I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10. I don't know if I could go 8 out of 10. Repetition made this game utterly boring.

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I want video game companies to start offering a "Pay It Forward" option wherein you buy into a series of games even before the 2nd or 3rd or Xth release is available. You'd get all the games in the series ... eventually ... and it'd be less than buying them each individually. And the video game companies would have extra cash upfront.

Looking back at games I've gone through ... I've played through the Ratchet & Clank series, both God of War games, almost all of the Katamari Damacy spawn (Beautiful Katamari comes out tomorrow), 2 out of 3 of the Halo series, and others. My point is, I already know that games like Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed are planned trilogies and they've both gotten really good early reviews. And, given my past history with games in a series, once I buy into one, I'm going to buy into the rest.

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A few weeks ago I started in on the Halo series. I guess I took my time with Halo and beat it within a week. I just finished Halo 2 in about 9 or 10 hours. I'll start in on Halo 3, but after tomorrow, it's all about Beautiful Katamari.

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Ctrl+Alt+Del comic.

Penny Arcade comic.

I now own an XBox 360 and the following games:

• Guitar Hero 2
• Dead Rising
• BioShock

My nerd quotient has simply skyrocketed.

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