Star Wars Trilogy DVD

So I got the Star Wars Trilogy DVD the other day and so far I've only been able to watch the first movie. It might just be my imagination, but the movie "looks" great. Gone are the faint boxes around the Tie Fighters. Everything has been cleaned up and sounds fantastic.

Watching the movie...I could only think...wow, what was George thinking when he did Phantom and Clones. Here's some of the differences I caught between the old movies and new movies.

1) The actors. Star Wars was perfectly cast. Mark Hamill, by no means a very good actor, had this great boyish, adventure-ish enthusiasm about him. Han Solo...Harrison Ford, nuf said. And Carry Fisher as the strong-headed princess is perfect. The actors in the new movies lack these traits.

2) CGI madness. The sets, models, and stuff like that in the early movies looked...well...real. Everything in the later movies is CGI and we're all used to it. No wow factor.

3) Plot. From the moment Darth Vader walks into the rebel ship, you get this sense that this dude is one bad mother fucker. The tone the early movies is of good vs evil. The later movies is about love and hate. Blech.

4) Jar jar binks...

5) Big stuff. Star Wars had the death star. Empire had imperial walkers. Phantom had a "pod" race...yipiie! Clones had a cool Jedi fight scene at the end but somehow lack "biggness" to it. Dunno...

That said, I'm looking forward to Revenge of the Sith next May. George promises that it'll be a very dark movie.

More Xbox Surgery

A few weeks ago I successfully replaced the DVD drive that was giving some read disc errors. I decided this past weekend to do a bit more hacking. I bought through the Internet one of those mod chips. No, no, I don't plan on pirating any games. But here's why I did it. With the hack I'll be able to store all my xbox games on the hard drive without having to reach for the DVD itself.

Anyway, installing the mod chip was a bit of a pain but was able to do it in about 2 hours. There were a few tricky parts to deal with. First, there was a "pinheader" that I needed to install. Basically this pinheader has about 12 pins that go into the motherboard. The first major problem I ran into was that the holes that the pinheader goes into were filled. Since I have the original 1.0 xbox, these holes were filled. Later versions of the xbox had these holes open. Though painstaking, I removed the solder from the holes with a soldering iron. After that I was able to install the pinheader.

After that I had to solder three cables to the back of the motherboard. There was one point that was extremely difficult to do but I was finally able to get it. After that I install the mod chip onto the pinheader and closed up the xbox. On the first try, the xbox wouldn't boot properly. I thought, oh, oh, I just fried my xbox. But after reading a bit on the Internet, I figured I forgot to solder something. Opened up the xbox again and this time soldered the back of the pinhead. This did the trick.

So now I was presented with a flash screen. Oh, brother, I have to flash the mod chip? After some more reading on the Internet, I found the flashing software. Burned it onto a DVD and put it in the xbox. According to the instructions, the flash program will detect the DVD and start flashing the thing. But nothing would happen. I tried several DVDs and CD's, but nothing. So I pulled out my old DVD drive and bang, the DVD with the flash worked.

Ok, so I have this thing flashed. Now what? More reading. Ok, now I need to install a dashboard. A dashboard is kind of like a menu where you can run games from your hard drive, copy games from DVD to the hard drive, ftp from your PC to your xbox and back, and more. So after lots more reading, I found some software that will let you do everything. Install the dashboard, install a new hard drive, flash the xbox, etc, etc. So, I installed the dashboard. FTP'ed to the xbox. Copied all my saved games to the PC. Then I installed an 80 gig hard drive into the xbox and copied back my saved games. Then I copied my copy of NHL 2K5 to the hard drive. All is good now.

The other things I want to do on the xbox is replace the fans inside as they are ultra loud. Since I have a 1.0 xbox, there's two fans inside instead of one in 1.1 and up. I've already orderd a headsink and new fan.

I really enjoy hacking and stuff. I mainly do it for fun. In the past I've added bigger hard drives to my tivos. I've also replaced all fans in my Dual 800 Mac and my Dell. My office is now very quiet :)

In closing I'd like to say that I don't in anyway condone pirating. Hacking my xbox is just a hobby for me and while I know it is illegal and all to hack your xbox, I'm di it because I have a 2 year old who destroys my bought xbox dvds.

Snow!

It snowed for the first time today here in Calgary. Not a surprise but damn, winter is coming. We've had a lousy summer...way too many cold days and too much rain.

Looking forward to getting the Star Wars Trilogy DVD, which goes on sale tomorrow. I'm planning on watching it with Noél. He's just 2 1/2 but seems intruiged with space, fighting, and oh yeah, girls with funny hairdos.

Oh Shit

Noél, who is is almost 2 1/2 years old, has picked up a bad habit from mom. He's now constantly saying "oh shit" or just "shit". And he doesn't say it just once in a while, it's his new favorite word. Shit, shit, shit. The things kids pick up from their parents! At least he's not saying the "F" word yet.

Hustled At SuperStore

The other day I was hustled at SuperStore. What's SuperStore, you ask? It's kinda like the Canadian version of Costco but they tend concentrate more on food stuffs. I hate going to SuperStore because it's always packed, especially on weekends. The most fucked up thing about SuperStore is that you have to pay for your plastic bags and have to bag everything yourself. But the prices are good.

Anyway, getting back to the hustle. So I took my son, got him out of the car seat, and began looking for a cart. As I'm approaching the carts, a man who already has a cart comes up to me and asks if I'd like to have his. I said sure since Noél was eager to get into the cart. The carts have these anti-theft devices on them where you have to put in a coin into a slot on the cart in order to get the cart. So I asked the guy how much it was and he said $2. It was the first time I had been to SuperStore and didn't know how much the carts took. At other stores such as Safeway, they only required a quarter.

Anyway, it seemed odd to be me that it would be so much but I gave him the $2 Canadian coin anyway. So Noél and I did our business at the store. When I went to return the cart tol get my $2 back, I noticed it was only a buck. I was hustled for a dollar.

What kind of sorry ass society do we live in where someone hustles another person for a buck using a shopping cart. I mean, I've been duped before by crooks, but a middle-aged well-off man? Is that what is has come down to? Grr...

The Sims 2 Addiction

A few days ago I got my hands on The Sims 2 for the PC. If you're a fan of the original, you'll want to check it out. Unlike the original, your sims in the sequel have a lot more personality and have specific life goals. Graphically the game is just gorgeous. You can zoom in all the way and check out really interesting detail.

I started my first family just two days ago and here's what's happened so far. Lisa and Alex Kennedy moved into a $13,000 house (you start out with $20,000). Alex got a job as a political campaigner and quickly moved up the ranks to Lobbyist. Lisa got a few jobs here and there but would get fired all the time so I decided they needed to adopt a baby. A few phone calls later and they got a black baby girl named Candine. After a while Candine grew up to be a teenager

One day Alex came home from work with the flu. The next day, Alex woke up and dropped dead. Lisa was broken up for a day or two, then got romantically involved with the next door neighbor, a black man named Darren. Lisa asked Darren to move in. Then she proposed to him and they got married. Darren had a teenager, now the same age as Candine.

The house was too small for four people so they moved into a new, bigger house (when Lisa married Darren, he brought with him $60,000) with a pool and four bedrooms. At this point Candine has matured to adulthood and gotten a job. Lisa is a bit older now though Darren and her have no problems getting it on. Dirk is still in school and is going steady with a girl.

So that's it for my first family. I'm not sure how long I'll be at it with The Sims 2 since I got bored of The Sims pretty quickly. But the sequel seems to have a lot more depth so I might be at it for a while. We'll see.

NHL Lockout

This week the NHL lockout is expected to begin. My feelings...yay! You know, I love hockey and all but I'm kinda glad this lockout is going to happen. Here's why. In the last few years the players' salaries have skyrocketed faster than in any other sport. In fact, NHL players enjoy the best revenue sharing out of all pro sports in the U.S. The average salary has tripled in the last few years from 500,00 to 1.5 million. According to an independent study, NHL teams lost nearly 250 million last year. Of that, only something like 11 teams made money.

So the big issue at hand seems to be the salary cap. The owners want it, the players don't.

IMHO not having salary caps in pro sports is a bad thing. Take a look at the NBA and the NFL, both of which have salary caps. Thanks to the cap, the overall competitivness in these two sports is at an all-time high. During the last decade, 3 teams have dominated winning the Stanley Cup: Detroit, New Jersey, and Colorodo. Why? They're big spenders. They go after the big free agents or trade for top players before the trading deadline. Money is no object, winning the Cup is all that matters.

My team, the Chicago Blackhawks, haven't won a cup since 1961, the current longest streak in the NHL. And my guess is they never will. The owner is about the biggest tight wad you'll ever see and he just refuses to lose money by spending more than they take in. If there was a salary cap in place, teams like Chicago might have a chance in the future.

So let them go on strike. Hell, let them go on strike for a year. Dissolve the NHL and form a new league with a salary cap. Soon enough those mediorce 10 goal scoring multi-millionaires will fold.

Reconnecting

Yesterday I called one of my old friends who I hadn't talked or written to in over 8 years. When I lived in Venezuela in the early 80's she was a good friend of mine and we stayed in touch even after she moved to Argentina and I moved back to the U.S. I also visited her in 1988 because my parents were working in that part of the world.

But as luck would have it, I lost her address and was never able to get in touch with her. I finally found her dad's address and phone number by looking through an Argentinian online phone book. A couple of calls later I was in touch with her and we spoke for a good 20 minutes.

Reconnecting with old friends and loved ones is a cool thing. I've often wondered where some of my other childhood friends are and how they're doing. Sometimes you just need to put your life on hold and pick up the phone.

PowerBook 101

I'm a huge PowerBook fan, so much so that I've given up on using desktops. I do all my work on the PB. In all, I'm on my PowerBook about 8-10 hours a day. I've been using PB's for so long, I've come up with some tips for those in the market for a PB.

1) Size: Size is very important. If you are like me and usually stay at home then consider a PB 17 inch. But if you travel a ton, my advice is to go with either a 12 or 15 inch.

2) RAM: Don't buy RAM from Apple, the charge way too much. Go to dealram.com and get the cheapest ram you can find. If you're a power user, get 1 Gig of RAM. If you're a lite user, you can get away with 512 MB.

3) AppleCare: Before the year is up, GET APPLECARE. It will more than pay for itself. In every PowerBook I've had something has gone wrong. The last PowerBook I had, the original PowerBook 17 inch, had numerous problems with it including a dead battery, corrosion on the palm rests, a faulty DVD drive, the latch to close the PowerBook was broken, both fans grinded, and the paint on the letter A was missing. It cost Apple over $1300 to fix it :)

4) Caring: PowerBooks are fragile. Take good care of them or else you will lose your investment when it comes time to sell it. Whenever you travel, use a sleeve to protect it and carry it in a sturdy and durable laptop backpack or case. Do not leave the PowerBook at any time on the floor. If you put it on the floor, put it under the bed or sofa. I had a friend who woke up one moring and step right onto his PB breaking the screen.

5) Other Tips: Don't ever slam shut the PowerBook, you will break the latch. The end tip of the power cord is horribly designed and will break if you bend the cord a lot. The battery on the PowerBook will eventually lose steam and won't last very long. Try to convice Apple to replace it.

Congrats to Jean-Luc

A special congrats go out to IMG's Jean-Luc Dinsdale on the birth of his son, Noah. He was born at 4:51 AM Thursday. Ok, the easy part is over! Now come the feedings every 2-3 hours, lots of crying, etc. I remember the first two weeks in my son's life...wow, talk about sleep deprivation!

XBOX Surgery

About a year ago my PlayStation 2's DVD drive pooped out on me. And a few weeks ago I started noticing that my xbox's dvd drive was starting to give me problems too. Every once in a while I'd get the dreaded "This disc is damaged or dirty" message in the middle of a game.

So I went onto eBay and searched for a DVD replacement. I found a Samsung DVD drive for about $60. Installing it was pretty easy though I had to cut some plastic parts out of the inside of the XBOX. All in all it was pretty easy and the DVD is running great. The best part of it is that games load much faster with the new DVD drive.

I've also decided to hack my XBOX so that it accepts back-ups. I'm sick and tired of putting in games I've bought that don't run because of a little scratch here and there. This way I will still have a back-up.

Moving To Blogger

I've decided to move my blog from TypePad to Blogger, mainly because it's a free service and I like the look and feel of Blogger more. It also allows me to have it hosted on my own server so I can upload pictures and what not.

I Know What I Did This Summer!

So I'm finally back to the blog, after what, 8 months? I have finally sat down, sucking on a few freezees, to finally post something...

Here's some of the things I've done over the summer:

- Cleaned the fish tank. Emptied it completely, cleaned the hell out of it, and put in some new gravel as I was sick of the old one. The new gravel is blue, a lot prettier than the white I had in there before. The four fish that had remained alive seem to be enjoying "clear blue water" now instead of that ugly green shit. I've also bought about 15 new fish though a few have died but it is to be expected since it's practically a new tank.

- Dave Matthews Band Concert. Went to go see DMB in Toronto. We had 6th row tickets and had a great time. The only disappointing thing was not hearing some of my favorite songs (two step in particular).

- Built the deck. We had someone build us our deck. Though the summer here in Calgary has sucked and rained a ton and we haven't been able to enjoy it much. Still, it's done though :)

- Went to B.C. The Mrs, kids, and I head out to beautiful British Columbia for a weekend at the Fairmont Hot Springs (see picture). Noél had a whale of a time in the hot springs pool. Overall great trip.

- Chicago. Got in a trip to Chicago. Mom and Dad came up from Nashville to visit. Took in a Cubs game with my old Bungie boss Alex Seropian. Ate a lot :)

That's about it. Hopefully next time this year we'll be in Turkey. Over and out.