Geeky Sweet!

O.K., growing up as a kid in the 60’s, I had all kinds of toy guns. That was back in the hay-day of Mattel. I had 45-Colts, 38 Snub Nose, Johnny Seven machine guns… you name it.

I went as far as to have a plaque above my bed with hooks on it and all of the guns displayed with honor. Then I had some other geek stuff too. Depending on your age, you might remember Man from Uncle attaché case, the 007 James Bond attaché case, with exploding notepad, shoulder stock for the handgun. Secret Sam schtuff!

Man from U.N.C.L.E. (above)

Contents of 007 Attaché Case

I loved that stuff. I can still smell the Greenie Stick-em Caps going off, followed by the small wisp of smoke.

Well enter ADULT GEEK!

If I had these night vision goggles as a kid, our night time war games would have been so kick-ass! I would still prefer to play outside with my Mattel guns and this night vision goggles instead of playing on Xbox.

Modern Warfare 2 Prestige Edition.

Enjoy!

Xbox NXE Dashboard Beta Preview – What’s New?

Well I’ve been testing the new Xbox dashboard for a few days before they release it officially August 11th, 2009. One of the things I was most disappointed in had nothing to do with the beta software at all… but with the lack of an official forum for us to post questions etc. via the Xbox.com website.

Anyway to get to the point. This was a minor release in my opinion. I think they are doing these releases for upcoming dashboard improvements in sections or “waves.”

This wave was mostly Netflix enhancements. Ones that we’ve been waiting for for a long time. Let me list some improvements here:

• The ability to select from Netflix library right on your Xbox! No need to go to your desktop or laptop to browse movies, select then go back to your Xbox to view.
• Netflix “categories” are now carried over from their website e.g., Comedy, Drama, Suspense, etc.
• A Netflix “Movie” party. Haven’t figured this one out yet, but seems simple enough. You just watch a movie with your friends, maybe chat or text while watching. Rate movies for your friends too I believe.

Avatars are getting new clothes and props. But… they’ll cost ya’! There are different themes for some of the games, like pirate clothing, Halo clothing. Props like a huge Q-Tip cleaner, go figure? A Warthog R/C car from Halo, water spray bottle, and more.

I think the additional clothing and props are going to go over bigger than people expect. You have a lot of big tough guys who say… “I ain’t buyin’ no clothing…” But when you then tie in the option of winning clothing and props from your video games as achievements… that’s a different story.

Imagine this scenario, you are playing EA Madden 10. You’ve just kicked serious ass as the Seattle Seahawks five times in a row in online play. You get a free Seattle Seahawks Jersey! How many macho guys wouldn’t want to sport their favorite team? Win a division and get a Seattle Seahawks helmet! See what I mean. This is going to be bigger and more popular than people expect I think.

This update, none of the biggies we were hoping for yet such as, Facebook, Twitter, and Last.FM. They’ll probably make it in the next release.

Lastly Xbox has rating system just like Netflix for your games. So for me PGR4 gets a big 5-Star rating while a game that kick my ass halfway through like Dead Space might get a 2-Star rating.

As always, you can download games from Xbox, but what is different is you will be able to delete the games (hard drive space limited?) to make room for new games, then download that old game again. Pretty slick.

Let me know what else YOU find… ciao for now, Banks

Xbox & Addiction

A confession.

I didn’t realize I had an Xbox addiction until… until I had to send my Xbox in for repairs. For about a week, I kept getting “Open Tray… Close Tray” alerts when popping in a DVD to play. Then I’d get an occasional, “Clean Disc,” alert.

Finally did a bit of Google-ing to find out I had an issue with the DVD drive.

So I followed all of the Microsoft Knowledgebase steps to help determine if it really was the DVD drive and not the PC or HDD portion of the console.

I went online and entered in all of my information concerning the issue. Was granted a service ticket, and issued a UPS label to send the unit in.

Did that… sent the unit in on May 11th. I will be getting a refurb back on May 27th. Not a bad turn around… but DAMN! I do miss my Xbox!

Feel like a kid waiting for Christmas day to arrive. The addiction is bad folks… a well aged adult poised in front of the computer following UPS tracking damn near religiously. On the 27th I expect to be pacing in front of my windows waiting for UPS man to show up. “What can Brown do for you?” Bring me my damn Xbox! That’s what Brown can do for me! Stupid, absolutely ridiculous!

A grown man reduced to childish behavior.

Well at least for two weeks I have gotten some good housework done, some reading of books I intended to finish, and some outdoor time.

I need to look into becoming a beta tester. :-)

Testing Windows Live Writer…

Well… this is pretty cool right-off-the-bat! Because I am noticing all of my fonts are WISYWYG. Colors are as they appear online, built in spell checker.

I think I can get use to this and may very well ending up actually spending some time on content. Wouldn't that be a marvel idea for a blog?!

Just for grins and giggles, I’m going to add a picture here:
This Alexander’s Grand Theft Auto IV Elite Console he got for doing such a bang up job as Asset Manager for Microsoft Xbox division.

You can get to Xbox.com by clicking here.

OK… I’m SOLD! This is one helluva FREE app! Once you have published, you can go back in and edit. AWESOME! You can also get different plugins as well, I have one for Twitter installed. So after I publish, it asks me if I would like to post to Twitter with a link to the blog. This is better than sliced bread, I shit thee not!

If you have a Blog space on the internet and you are not using this free tool… your loss!