Archived News starting from 11-22-2013 and earlier
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Hard to believe it's been
over 6 years since my achievement obsession began, and now 8 years to the day since the Xbox 360 launched, a new
generation begins. After watching a few minutes of the "Launch Party" on my Xbox 360, I made my way to the Best Buy who had my midnight launch Xbox One. I was ushered into the store like a celebrity while the
non pre-order people waited in the cold rain. My Amazon and Microsoft Store Xbox Ones no doubt on delivery trucks as I paid for my new baby. John the procrastinator, unable to secure an Xbox One anywhere else,
asked me to hold a place for him in the peasant line. In an act of true friendship, I stood in the loser line with a pre-order slip in my pocket until he arrived to take my place. After securing my baby,
I made sure to stop by and show John and all the freezing wet people in line my Day One Xbox One before speeding off. The Taco Bell workers who served me the fuel to keep me going all night saw my baby
buckled in and knew what was up. They approved of my procurement, and wished me luck getting the update and getting online.
When I arrived home, I quickly unboxed and plugged it in, tossing the Day One controller into a box for later eBaying. After syncing my existing controller it was time to start up and experience the 1.5GB day one patch.
The patch turned out to be a measly 512MB, so I'm guessing my Xbox was one of the last to leave the factory.
I barely finished my first taco before the patch was done, less than the advertised 15 minutes, and it was time to configure my cable box / projector / receiver. I was surprised it found 2/3, with only my receiver being left uncontrolled by the Kinect IR. Next up was buying and installing Battlefield 4, which only took two tacos to complete. While it installed, I also popped in the Need for Speed Rivals game and let that install. I spent the rest of the night importing my BF4 profile from X360 and working the single player campaign while fighting the new party system. I can see Microsoft decided to
make every feature an app, the downside of which is clunky at best party/friends/achievement integration. Hopefully
these are addressed first, but overall not bad for launch-day functionality. I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure I passed out around 4:00am because old.
The
three part South Park epic about the console wars began today, perfectly timed between the lauch of the PS4 and Xbox One. Sadly I have not watched "Game of Thrones" so I've been told I'm missing a good portion of the references. Despite my lack of throne gaming, the first one was pretty enjoyable and spoke to my inner fanboy.

While I prepare my body for the upcoming Xbox One launch, I decided it was time to finish out my Xbox 360 version of Battlefield 4.
The
final achievement popped tonight after an epic
boosting session with Ty, Wyndsock and Billszoverdu. I'm sure I'll be back to finish off the DLC achievements, but for now I'm 100% complete.

Having completed all the
achievements I care to in Call of Duty: Ghosts, I decided to take the very last of my Xbox 360 accessories to Gamestop to trade in. On arrival, I was informed the $10 upgrade only applied if I purchased the game FROM GAMESTOP. Distraught, I spied an Xbox One controller on the shelf and opted to trade in my crap for that instead. I'm now the proud owner of an
Xbox One controller with no console to use it on. It doesn't even have PC drivers yet, so it's essentially a $60 paperweight till Friday. After confirming the $10 upgrade conspiracy extended to my local Microsoft Store as well, I finally learned Amazon doesn't give a crap where you got the game from. I'm now short just the Xbox One console and my digital copy of BF4 to keep me warm at night, while my Call of Duty upgrade is destined for a quick cheevo raping followed by an eBay auction.
Today was leaf cleanup day, or at least my attempt at it. Lila assisted by giggling every time I aimed the leaf blower in her direction, and wandering off occasionally to give me worried parent heart attacks.
Eventually she bored of my work, and asked to ride my motorcycle. Technically she said "Lilas motorcycle" which I interpreted to mean she wanted to go for
one last ride before storing it for the winter.
As I have written about in the past, and continue to freely admit here, I took her on a trip down to the end of my street and back as she repeated "go fast."
Being as how Lisa never reads any of these updates (or anyone at all for that matter) I fear no reprisals. Oh yeah, my
Xbox One shipped today as well, so that was nice.
With so many babies popping out lately, I thought it was high time to have a fucking baby party. Sadly, none of these babies could show up on the same day, so it wound up being more
of two baby gatherings instead of a party. On the plus side, I bought way too much meat and cheeses so I could handily eat myself out of the depression from the whole debacle.
In both gatherings, Lucy alternated between sleep and crying, while Lila promptly became hyper and over emotional alternating between joy and tantrums.
This worked to confuse and distract the other babies and kept the chaos relatively controlled. I'd like to say I trained my daughters to perform the extremes, but in my heart I know
it's genetics.

Lisa awoke this morning with the unwavering desire to visit
Bronners. Since it didn't involve sitting in front of the TV all day, I was all for it.
As it was Lila and Lucys first visit, I made sure to take everything slow so they could fully soak in the madness that is a store dedicated to Christmas. Lila had no problem gawking at
everything for the better part of an hour, and surprisingly only touched a few things. I credit the shock of the experience overriding her toddler need to destroy.
Way back in April 2012, I stole Lisas phone upgrade to get my hands on the Lumia 900.
Apparently 19 months is the eligibility length for a new device, because my
1520 lust just got a dose of
pre-order medicine.
I'm also saving $30/month now with the contract renewal which I won't be complaining about either. After confirming several times Lisa has no desire for a more modern phone, I stole her upgrade yet again
and plan to ultimately eBay it yet again to finance the slightly smaller
Lumia 929.
I justify this technolust with the knowledge that the monthly phone bill has device subsidy built-in, and by not upgrading a device when eligible I'm simply giving free money to AT&T.
The chance to play with an absurdly large 6" phone is just a side benefit I'm forced to endure while maximizing my savings.
After deciding an 8 hour round trip to Chicago for the
area one tour was outside of my fanboy dedication level, I was pleased to hear
previews at Microsoft stores for the Xbox One was now a thing. After deciding I would bring Lila with me tomorrow with no carpool,
I immediately changed my mind and coerced TomTom to go with me after work today. Expecting a huge crowd, I raced through I-75 traffic and arrived to find nobody. The Xbox One was wide open for me to violate freely.
After taking all the obligatory
photos, I sat down to actually play Killer Instinct and Forza 5. While Killer Instinct was the typical button smasher fighter
I was expecting, Forza had a surprise use for the trigger rumblers. I knew immediately when I lost traction due to acceleration or braking because the rumble kicked in and almost forced me to back off. Combine the trigger rumblers, lighter
weight and better feel and I can fully get on board with the new Xbox One controller. The graphics were somewhat disappointing, but for now I'll attribute it to the lower quality TV it looked to be connected to
and the beta state of the Xbox One. TWO MORE WEEKS!

The combination of Lisa going to Pennsylvania for the weekend, and a
double xp bonus from my Gamestop pre-order were the only
ingredients needed for a 32 hour Battlefield 4 blowout. Aside from a short break cleaning my server room and finding
buried treasure, every waking
minute was spent playing the game or taking care of fluid input/output needs. I even took the precaution of doing jumping jacks between rounds to avoid the dreaded
deep vein thrombosis. At the end of the ordeal, I was having trouble sleeping from the feeling of motion but had
ranked up to level 40. My list of verified issues continue to grow.
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