Archived News starting from 04-11-2010 and earlier
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Immensely satisfied with myself over the triumph that was replacing rear drum brakes on my truck yesterday, I decided to
repeat the magic by swapping a lower control arm and changing brakes and oil on my Cougar. The success of all three allowed me to title the weekend "kickass car maintenance weekend" and leaves only a fuel filter change for a rainy day. Lisa was, of course, beside herself with joy after hearing of all the mechanical accomplishments I had made and brought the cat to share in the celebration, who promptly
pissed all over her in excitement. Robbie was
especially excited after seeing the cat piss, but more interested in burning the old control arm and brake pads in his newly created metal vaporizing fire. After Lisa finished calling all her friends and bragging about what an awesome mechanic I am we burned some oil and called it a night.
With the local Eloi population approaching dangerous levels, our resident Morlock
invited us over for a BBQ to discuss the situation. Distracted by the "Imagine If" board game, the burgers were cooked and served before we got around to discussing possible solutions. Determined our neighborhood would not devolve back into random Morlock attacks, I suggested we start brainstorming selection criteria to which the Morlocks smiled and assured me the problem was solved and that I had helped. Baffled but full of Mountain Dew, I followed the Morlock as he attempted to start a fire; to which I threw my uncollected yard waste on, smothering it beyond any hope of burning. The night was completed by a few rounds of Rock Band and iPhone controlled Rovio action.
The day has finally come. The update that I was
told to get excited about installed to my Xbox 360 this morning. The ecstasy I get from new features was at the same level as always, but this time it ended very flaccid. Curious how the newly accepted solid state media would stack up against the hard drive and DVD ROM, I did some load comparisons between a few games. As you can see, the prize contender didn't even put up a fight, in some cases actually loading slower than the DVD ROM drive. While I'm not complaining about free storage, a 228x speed USB drive should be able to beat a 5400 RPM drive handily. The Xbox 360 USB bus must have horrific overhead.
| Game (load time in seconds) | USB | DVD | HDD |
| Bioshock 2 | 40.1 | 39.5 | 26.6 |
| Borderlands | 16.8 | 20.5 | 15.3 |
| Battlefield BC2 SP | 50.9 | 28.1 | 24.6 |
| Battlefield BC2 MP | 27.3 | 28.1 | 22.5 |
After a visit to see Cleveland Jesus, I decided to take a day to
recuperate. Recuperation began with a 3 hour picnic in the park where Lisa gradually reduced questions and complaints to one of the lowest levels I've ever seen. After the picnic, I began tearing apart the drum brakes on my Ranger only to discover the driver side had completely disintegrated due to a locked adjuster and lots of rust. Lisa, meanwhile, cut up the remainder of my
chainsaw rage after she learned the alternative was assisting with the brake job. Satisfied I had absorbed enough sun, we finished the night with "
The Men Who Stare at Goats" which was not as good as the book (of course).
With the
downgrade of this server still jabbing me in the kidney, all it took was
this deal for another unnecessary processor upgrade. I now have a proper
Athlon 64 X2 dual core serving up these pages while the lowly
Sempron is finally out of its misery. That puts the new
system specs up to par for the immense demand in traffic this server regularly experiences with the 3 daily visitors.
After 48 hours of playtime, I have finally
completed Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Unbelievably, I continue to play despite having milked every point out of it. Every time I login to Xbox there is at least one other addict ready to knife some snipers with me. Not sure how much longer it will last, but it's definitely got me hooked.
A viewing of the new
Hubble Imax film with Lisa, the
Senator and
Ron was followed by a trip to Microcenter for some nerd consumption. Chief among them a 16GB USB drive that Xbox
told me to buy. A fill up at the exotic Steak & Shake fueled my rage against the tree that drops crap on my driveway and motivated my Neighbor and I to speak redneck and chainsaw it down. To compensate for the murder of an innocent tree, the Kelleys arrived to observe 15 minutes of
earth hour before Lisa complained her heating pad didn't work without electricity, ending the observance. A viewing of
The Fourth Kind reminded us Aliens will kill us all in the end, absolving any guilt that accrued.
Friday night began with an
early birthday party for
Stavos at Benihana where chopsticks and napkins transformed into comedy routines. After dinner, a game of Apples to Apples at the Morlocks completed the night while the Morlock dog slobbered all over my crotch, proving what good taste he has in crotches. Not satisfied with one night of the Senator, the Kelleys returned Sunday for some Asian sweatshop nail work and Sweet Baby Rays BBQ. We also spent some time at the Morlocks wiring up his next generation CAT6 network while his dog re-moistened my crotch.
It's come to my attention that my
achievements are not detailed enough to convey the awesomeness that I regularly bring to
Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Fortunately
detailed stats are now available to break down just how awesome I really am. Now there's no question you should pick me first when forming a squad. Also get
Tigerbomb so he can revive me.
My trip to
SXSW with Schwartz and Whineyho concluded today. Our adventures included
in-flight arcade games,
Chevy Volt,
solar recharge stations and
this. The best talk was "
Gmail: Behind the Scenes" with "
AI: 2010" a close second. The best party by far was the Xbox 360 meet up which included free Salt Lick BBQ, but more importantly I touched
MajorNelson (inappropriately). Two other parties had open bars (free beer) with the last one providing a night of drunken hilarity including public urination. Aside from the lack of sleep and 9:30am sessions a fun time was had by all.
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