Thought I’d share this video as I find myself defending Vista quite frequently. Other than tech geniuses out there who *might* have valid reasons for their Vista hate, I’ve found that most people who complain about Vista are either stubborn and don’t like change or they’ve just bought into what everyone else has told them (price can be a factor too). Gotta love the internet, it ruins just about everything. Don’t get me wrong, I hate Microsoft too, but Vista is actually quite nice. I think also that people forget that XP didn’t have the same public opinion when it was released as it does now.

Rich assholes are nothing new, they spend frivolously because they can. But when they do something as heinous as these photographs I’m about to show you, there ought to be a law against it.

Ok so a chromed Ferrari isn’t THAT bad, you say?

How about a Porsche covered in over 40 pounds of gold with tacky ornate designs and a general gold bar theme?

Or better yet – what about a Maserati covered in a poorly applied Burberry skin? Yeah, thought you’d see it my way.

If not a law, then a tax. Say every time someone does something terribly unnecessary to a perfectly beautiful luxury or sports car, you let a dirt-poor blogger kick the offending owner in the groin (and I’m going out on a limb to assume that the owners of these cars are male, somehow I think most women have better taste than this). And we’re not talking gaudy rims or garden-variety distasteful paintjobs. We’re talking chromed, gold, or ugly-ass skins. Assholes.

(Geekologie)

This has got to be the coolest video I’ve seen all week. Possibly the coolest rap song I’ve heard too.

Pokemon Combat

(The Internet is Terrible)

from Wikipedia: “Windows Ultimate Extras: The Ultimate edition of Windows Vista provides, via Windows Update, access to some additional features. These are a collection of additional MUI language packs, Texas Hold 'Em (a Poker game), BitLocker and EFS enhancements which allow users to backup their encryption key online in a Digital Locker, and Windows Dreamscene, which enables the use of videos in MPEG and WMV formats as the desktop background. On April 21st 2008, Microsoft launched two more Ultimate Extras; a new Windows sound scheme, and a content pack for Dreamscene.”

After a quick check, it costs $220 to upgrade to Vista Ultimate. Fucking ridiculous right? Just for better backup features, language packs, a poker game and Dreamscene’s video wallpapers? Here is how to get DreamScene running on your Vista Home Premium PC without spending a dime.

IMPORTANT: You must have Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 1 installed.

• First, download this patch file (in RAR format).
• Extract the RAR file using 7zip or WinRAR to a destination folder of your choice.
• Inside the extracted folder, right click Install.bat and choose Run as administrator. Click allow or continue for any naggy UAC prompts.
• A command prompt screen will show up with directions for installation. Follow them.
• After successful installation, restart your computer.
• Right click on your desktop, choose Personalize, then Desktop Background. In Location, choose Windows DreamScene content. That’s it, you’re done (the patch includes one default wallpaper). Note that you can change the positioning of the video (stretch, tile, etc.) just as you would a static wallpaper.
• To delete DreamScene from your computer, just delete C:\Windows\Web\Windows DreamScene and also go into the System32 folder and delete the dreamscene.dll file.

There are some other programs out there that let you use videos for your wallpaper, but I preferred the idea of using DreamScene because it’s something that should have been included with Vista Home Premium in the first place.

As a bonus, I scoured the tubes and have uploaded all of the official (released through Windows Update) DreamScene wallpapers to my SkyDrive as well as some that were included in M$’ technical preview of DreamScene. Save these files to C:\Windows\Web\Windows DreamScene. You can also use ANY .mpg or .wmv file as a desktop background by right-clicking the file and choosing Set as desktop background just as you would a static wallpaper image. You could theoretically have a full-length movie as your wallpaper as long as it is an MPEG or Windows Media Video file.

Please note that using DreamScene will definitely use a LOT of resources (you’re playing a movie file, after all) but when you maximize a window, play a video full-screen or play a game full-screen DreamScene should automatically pause itself to save system resources. To manually pause DreamScene, right-click your desktop and choose Pause DreamScene.

If you’re interested in getting the other features (backup, shadow copy) included in Ultimate by using non-Microsoft programs, visit the How-to Geek’s Turn Vista Home Premium into Ultimate parts one and three. Sorry, no Texas Hold ‘Em for you.

Games for Windows - Live multiplayer features are free, effective today, Microsoft announced at today's GamesFest 2008 conference in Seattle.

The move to free means that achievements, enhanced "trueskill" matchmaking, cross-platform play with the Xbox 360, voice and text chat, friends lists, are all now free to Windows gamers. This change to free is for all Games for Windows LIVE titles, past and future.

Games for Windows Live multiplayer goes free, DirectX 11 unveiled (Kotaku)

This announcement is good. One of the things (besides dropping support a few months after release and requiring Vista to play) that killed Halo 2 Vista last year was making non Xbox-Live members (read: PC gamers) pay for Live to use H2V's dedicated servers (a pseudo matchmaking setup). And then no multiplayer achievements either?! This is a step in the right direction, hope some more people start playing Halo 2 Vista (and Shadowrun).

EDIT: According to some people I gamed with in Halo 2, the dedicated servers have been free for a while but the multiplayer achievements thing is new.

Its worth noting that the physical CD/DVD release of The Slip by Nine Inch Nails is out today. North American copies are numbered and limited, though the vinyl release is not. The DVD contains performances of NIN during rehearsal for the Lights in the Sky tour. You can still download The Slip for free in any format (!) from http://www.nin.com. You can also download mp3s from the DVD portion here. Oddly enough, you can also get The Slip in low quality DRM’d files from iTunes for cash money. Not sure why you’d want to, though. The instrumental album Ghosts I-IV is available here.

This week’s Rock Band DLC will include three tracks by NIN: Last, Burn and Capital G. Previous NIN downloadable tracks for Rock Band include The Perfect Drug, The Collector and March of the Pigs. Makes me almost want to give in and get this game.

*360 screenshot

Capcom recently announced they are bringing Dead Rising to the Wii. The game was an awesome demonstration of what the 360 could do when the game was released 2 years ago, allowing you to go through a shopping mall fighting off hundreds of zombies with ANYTHING in the mall’s stores. Guns, melee weapons, large stuffed animals, toy lightsabers, the list goes on. You can even grab a vehicle in a parking lot, go underneath the mall and run over hordes of zombies.  An interesting gameplay mechanic has you following a 72-hour timeline and stopping any side mission you were doing to go to a major story event. You can also take pictures of zombies, characters and interesting zombie kills for style points.

Apparently the Wii version will not be able to feature as many zombies on screen (because Wii is technologically inferior to PS3 and 360), and will have a reworked save system. Oh but guess what – no photo mode. :( .

Dead Rising was awesome, I still own it. I’d say the best part about the Wii version will be using the Wiimote to kill zombies. I’m jealous now. I can only imagine what it will be like swinging the Wiimote while Frank is swinging a sickle…or driving a lawnmower. or bludgeoning with a mannequin… etc

The Wii version will be called Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop. Genius title.

(Sorry, couldn’t avoid the Johnny Cash quote no matter how hard I tried.)

Yes, dear reader, that is an Xbox 360 controller that appears to have gone through hell. And that would be because it has. You see, a friend of mine (who we will call Bob in this post) suffered a tragedy about a month ago when his house caught fire and burned to the ground. The real tragedy here is that two Xbox 360s were in the house when it happened (rest assured – Bob, his wife and their two dogs made it out safely). The fire department said it was a total loss.

Or was it?

So Bob calls me a few days ago and says “Hey, I finally got my 360s from the house and I’m working on cleaning them now." Cool, I said. “Yeah I actually thought about taking some pictures of them and having you post them on your site." Great idea, I said. So the next day he brought over the 360s over after having thoroughly cleaned the black stuff off of the circuit boards. He told me both of them worked - I was excited for him and amazed that the 360s had gone through a major fire and still managed to work after some cleaning.

The above left demonstrates one of them during boot. The power light stayed steady for a while when I was snapping pictures. The above right picture is of the same Xbox with a side view to show some of the (cleaned) smoke stains. The 360's plastic is tough!

Then came time to photograph the other 360. This one caught a lot more damage - the chassis is even rusted in spots, presumably from the Fire Department's efforts to extinguish the fire:

Badly damaged on the outside, but overall, still usable (and yes, the DVD drive was temporarily disconnected). I then attempted to photograph the 360 while booting to get a "glory shot" of the green lights as it booted.

And then it happened. It powered itself off. Bob turned it back on, and it powered itself off quicker this time. So he hooked the DVD drive back up to it, and now we have the real real tragedy of this story.

Yes, that is the infamous "red ring of death", or RROD (if you're not a 360 user, just google RROD). Microsoft describes it as a "general hardware failure" and it means that you cant play games on the 360 until its repaired. I laughed quite hard at this when it happened, as I was photographing it. Bob laughed with me, though I'm sure it was not the same kind of laugh as me. I suppose I just found it funny that 360s manufactured from 2005 to about late 2007 would have this happen to them (presumably because of a flaw in the heat distribution design), through no fault of the user - and this thing went through hell, was cleaned up, and it RROD's. Not quite heartbreaking to Bob, but I'm sure he wasn't pleased. "Well, now I have parts for the other one if I need them", he said. Indeed.

We joked about ways to give it a photographic funeral (and even talked about taking a baseball bat to it): Put it back in its Corona box that he brought it in (in pieces), pour a beer out on it and say "this is for my homies", or even bury it in the "casket" (prepaid shipping box) that Microsoft sends you when a 360 RROD's under warranty. Ultimately I decided this post will serve as a memorial to our departed friend. At least its brother will soldier on, albeit battle-scarred and weary.

Rest in peace, dear 360, you will be missed. Say HI to Johnny Cash and the Master Chief for us.

It's been a while since we've heard anything meaningful from Zach De La Rocha (though Rage has been playing live together following the breakup of Audioslave). He's done a few collaborations and guest spots since Rage but never managed to produce a substantial piece of work.

He has a new project One Day As A Lion that will release an EP on July 22. I've heard the new song "Wild International" and its pretty fucking good. De La Rocha plays keyboards on the song and the live drumbeat is phat. It's definitely hip-hop (not rock) and the sound of his rhymes no longer sound as repetitive (and like Rage) as they have for him post-Rage. He's still militantly political and ferocious as ever and the punishing beat and distorted keyboard makes this track sound like some fuzzy indie garage rap (the good kind). Nice crazy vocal effects in the bridge.

You can check out One Day As A Lion and their track "Wild International" at their myspace spage.

Looking forward to this EP.

Following Harold Ryan's crushing announcement stating that Bungie had an reveal planned for E3 but their publisher (Microsoft) pulled the plug at the last minute, Microsoft Entertainment VP Don Mattrick popped up in the gaming sites today telling everyone what the announcement was: a new Halo game.

According to MTV, Mattrick said "not to worry and that announcements would be coming and that "Microsoft is working with Bungie on a Halo game." When asked if this was related to Halo Wars or the still-in-development Peter Jackson (Halo Chronicles) collaboration, Mattrick said neither.

Later he told the LA Times (regarding leaving Bungie's game out of Monday's Microsoft press conference and E3) "We had an embarrassment of riches ....... We felt we could do this game more justice with a more dedicated event."

Luke Smith later posted to Bungie's news section:
As upset and frustrated as we know folks are, we hope it's at least a small comfort that our fans know we share their disappointment. A metric ton of man hours went into getting something ready to show and it's disappointing to not be able to share it. But, the upside is that it's all stuff you'll still see further down the road.
As much as fans wanted to believe otherwise, this is in fact, the truth and not a cruel hoax or prank. E3 is winding down and there are no plans to make a surprise announcement later this week.

As a huge fan of Bungie and the Halo series, this whole thing really pissed me off. Not just because all of us were waiting for an announcement and it was cancelled, but more because Microsoft stole Bungie's thunder and spoiled the surprise on top of that. Bungie publicly voices their disappointment with their publisher's last-minute decision, so Microsoft fires back by letting the cat out of the bag....at fucking E3 no less - AND THEN that's all we get. Thanks M$.

Moving on...

I'm kinda excited and disappointed at the idea of another Halo game - Halo 3 really has just about everything you could ask for from the Halo series and Bungie is a great developer that could really shine if they were allowed to do something else. Though as some people have pointed out, Bungie is more than capable of developing more than one (and different games) game a time. Considering the Master Chief was floating derelict in space at the end of Halo 3, let's hope this new Halo game is something different. There were rumors long before Halo 3 was announced that Bungie was working on a project called Forerunner, that was not an FPS. There have also been recent rumors that they might even be working on a tactical third-person shooter (that would explain "certain point of view truths"). Whatever the new game is, I'm excited at the prospect of a new Halo game that's not being farmed out by Microsoft like the disastrous Halo 2 Vista port was.

And Bungie, I found this picture just for you:

(don mattrick) 

KEEP IT CL3AN

So Bungie was planning on revealing something tomorrow, something big (according to the countdown on their front page). They had lots of clues from the "superintendent" on the Bungie forums, they had a mysterious front page for the last few days with a countdown on it, and now this image is on their front page:

Who is Bungie's publisher? Microsoft. Thanks assholes. Seems those plantation owners may have set you free, Bungie, but they're still crackin' that whip. Your fans are looking forward to your announcement, and hopefully the community can light a fire under Microsoft's ass.

Wii & DS

• Animal Crossing: City Folk was announced for the Wii. Will be more the same except there will be a city you can visit with an auction site as well as chat support via a new peripheral for the Wii called "Wii Speak". I wonder how many friend codes you have to enter to be able to chat with someone...lol...Must say I'm always interested when a new Animal Crossing title comes out, it's a unique series and all, but I always get bored after about a month of playing. Just ask my sister...Not sure if this game will be enough to persuade me to get a Wii yet.
• "Motion Plus", an add on for the Wiimote, will provide added functionality to the motion controls as well as more diversity in movement recognition. Wii Sports Resort, a minigame title (duh) will be the first title to incorporate the new functionality.
• Wii Music, previously just a tech demo, will be coming in the near future. Wii Music bucks the trend of competitive rhythm games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band and just lets you play with your Wiimote (lol, sorry about that) - no scoring, no timing, no rhythm and no more overpriced plastic peripherals. It will also make videos of your performances.
• Grand Theft Auto: China Town Wars was announced for the DS. Hope this title is better than the crappy Grand Theft Auto game that came out for the GBA several years ago.

PS3

• LittleBigPlanet will be delayed until October.
• The Sony Greatest Hits collection will retail for $30 per title in North America, and will feature Resistance, Motorstorm, and Warhawk, among others.
• A single sign-in ID for the Playstation Network will be used across PS3, PSP and PC.
• Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty was announced for PSN.
• Home, the second life clone, is still delayed, but is "looking better" than previous iterations and will be "worth the wait."
• Video Rentals will be coming to the PS3. Totally not surprised by this. Xbox Live did it first, and as PS3 has been playing catchup, they've started aping several of the 360's notable non-game features (achievements, for instance). Only fair, I suppose. Microsoft is beating Sony to the punch with their second-life clone. Plus, Sony has a large library of in-house movies that probably will never be available on Marketplace. So this could be a good thing for Sony as we move closer and closer to disc-free media (besides music) being commonplace.
• An 80GB version of the PS3 will retail for $400.
• God of War III announced for PS3. Totally shocked.....NOT.
• A massive action game (shooter) was announced for PS3 that promises play for up to 256 players. As long as the game has dedicated servers, this could prove to be very interesting. I'm wondering if we'll actually see this in my lifetime (here's looking at you, Huxley).

As I predicted, Nintendo didn't really have to show anything big. The Wii will sell regardless, and they're just coasting at this point. In contrast, it really seemed like Sony limped in this year. They really needed a huge announcement for PS3, and it just wasn't there. I don't think video downloads are gonna do it. Considering the recent announcement of FFXIII coming to 360, Sony has a long hard road ahead of them. But who knows. The PSP looked like it was a goner after the DS beat it to a pulp, but it's slowly gaining ground.

As a cigarette smoker, I can't find many beneficial things to talk about when it concerns this nasty habit that I have. I'm slowly killing myself, it's expensive, it's becoming less and less socially acceptable, etc etc...But every once in a while something good comes of it.

Pictured above are Xeos micro speakers (connected to my iPod) that I received in the mail from Kool. I don't smoke Kools, but at one point or another I signed up for cigarette coupons on the internet and Basic & Kool send me coupons. Every once in a while they send me some weird promotional goodie.

Except that the goodies usually suck. I can't remember all of the weird stuff I've received, but they've generally been pretty useless to me. I've gotten a promotional tour sampler CD for whatever tour Kool was sponsoring that year, I've even gotten a few hip-hop DVDs too. And from Basic, yeah I think they sent me this really elaborate box once that had some really elaborate instructions for a DIY birdhouse. lol. Oh and my wife tells me they sent us some salt & pepper shakers too.

So naturally when I opened the box from Kool I thought, "what is this crap they're sending me now?" The box inside the box had a picture of "expandable speakers" and I thought "shit, I'm gonna be pissed if there's just some catalog inside the box."

Lo and behold, an actual set of micro speakers with batteries! For Free! They're neat because they expand to reveal a battery compartment in one speaker and a cable compartment in the other. When not in use, you just stow the cables and put the faces of the speakers together (magnetic) for compact storage. Very cool. As for the sound quality, I'd say it's not great but they were free and I shouldn't really expect professional sound quality from mini-speakers anyway. Suits my needs just fine. I imagine that these were mass produced, didn't sell well (the list price is like $25), and they unloaded them onto Kool for promotional giveaways. I'd been wanting a set of portable speakers for a while, but I really could never justify buying a good set as my iPod doesn't get a lot of use to begin with.

To those who would say, "well they're just giving you stuff so you keep smoking". You don't get it. I'm gonna keep smoking regardless (because its worse than crack), and as I already mentioned they generally send me useless stuff anyway. And those who would say "you could buy yourself a set of better speakers if you quit smoking", I say "I could buy them anyway." lol.

Smoking may be killing me, but at least I've got rockin' set of mini-speakers now!

After scrawling a few notes while watching Microsoft's E3 press conference, here are my highlights:

• Fallout 3, developed by Bethesda, will feature massive DLC (ala Oblivion) exclusive to 360 and Games for Windows.
• Resident Evil 5 will be released March 13, 2009.
• Fable II (what happened to the "2"?), as previously announced, will have jump-in co-op. When demonstrated, it seems that joining a friends game will be a simple affair devoid of game lobbies, invites or having to reload a level. Sounds cool. I always hated having to stop my co-op game of Halo 3 or Gears of War to let someone in and re-start the level when it always made more sense to have just a momentary interruption while waiting for the connection to happen. It was also announced Fable II will be released in October. Can't wait!
• The Gears of War 2 demo was cool and interesting, though I was sorta embarrassed for them when the game seemed to crash and they started the level over. Cliff B. announced there will be a 5-player co-op arcade mode called "Horde" that pits you against waves of Locusts. At the end of the demo, they showed a Brumak (an enemy they couldn't quite fit into the 360 version of GOW but did for the PC version), which apparently was a big surprise or something. I have to say that I really loved the campaign in Gears of War (and hated the multiplayer) and from what I saw the game is really shaping up in the form of new weapons, enemies and of course beautiful graphics. Still thinking I'll rent it, though, only to play the campaign.
• Xbox Live has now added NBC/Universal to the list of digital video providers, as well as partnering with Netflix. Apparently if you have a Netflix account this will add like double the amount of videos the Marketplace already has.
• The New Xbox Experience, or whatever the hell they're calling it. As predicted (leaked), MS announced that in the fall the Xbox 360 dashboard will be completely redesigned (through the "magic of software" they said - I mean, what did they expect? That we thought we'd have to go and buy new 360s just for the redesign). I think EVERYONE wanted this. The dashboard as it is involves a lot of reading to download the content you want or even find a game to play and always seemed rather quaint compared to Sony's PS3 interface. The new interface looks much more pleasing to the eye and seems like it will be easier to find stuff. The only concern I have is that the 360 has enough trouble trying to download small image icons for content half the time (its slow). Have they addressed performance concerns in this area, and have they tested it on older 360s?
• Avatars, also part of the New Xbox Experience (even my fingers think that sounds stupid when I type it). Also as predicted, they're introducing Avatars that you can dress up, hang with your friends, bring into games that support them, and generally do a lot of non-gaming stuff like chatting and picture sharing. Sorta like that Fourth Life game program. Not sure how much this really appeals to me, as being part of the "core enthusiast" set I'd rather just play games and be social than just be social. I mean, fuck, isn't that what going outside is for? lol. Plus I can just see Microsoft making a killing off charging people for articles of clothing to dress up their avatar. I'm guessing they're doing this to court the Wii people that could give a shit less about Gears of War.
• "Live Party" will let you join up with up to 8 friends for chatting, gaming, watching Netflix movies and move around as a group from one experience to another. I have to say this is very cool. It stinks having to talk to a friend in the dashboard, then go into a game and have to invite the other - then if you want to play another game you have send invites all over again. The party idea was first implemented and perfected on Xbox Live with Halo 2 and surprisingly very few games have aped it - this will make the party idea platform-wide. Good going, M$ - step in the right direction.
• Xbox Live Primetime. This one I'm sorta fuzzy on, because they didn't describe in great detail - but from what I gathered XBL will feature game show games partnered with Endemol (creator of all the recent crap game shows that everyone but me seems to love) that allow you to compete for real prizes. The example they gave was 1 vs. 100, where you could be part of the mob (100) or the 1, and that it would be hosted by a live host. So I'm not sure if this means that you'll be able to play this all the time or if you have to just get lucky one night and be in the show. Sounds very cool in a way, but all the questions raised gives me that "please dont fuck it up Microsoft" feeling. Like - what do they do if someone quits (which if you've ever played a game of Halo you'll know why I'm concerned)? Even though I don't necessarily care for crappy ask a question-be dramatic for five minutes-then reveal the answer game shows, this idea actually is really cool and might just be the thing that reels the casual gamers in (cuz I don't think Avatars by itself is gonna do it).
• Xbox Live Arcade....snooze. Geometry Wars 2 and Galaga Legions will hit XBLA next month. Portal: Still Alive (!!) will be coming in the fall and a South Park game will be coming in 09. Portal sounds interesting, but I'm wondering if this is just the same Portal that came with The Orange Box plus a few levels. Don't care I guess, I rented the Orange Box and the only game I liked was Portal (I completed it!) so I'll probably buy it.
• GTA IV's exclusive DLC will be coming "later this year" (my guess is around October).
• Guns N' Roses' first *officially* released song from Chinese Democracy (it's not like 9 high-quality tracks were leaked to the internet last month or anything), "Shackler's Revenge", will be available for Rock Band 2. An interesting thought I read earlier this morning when it was still just a rumor went something like this: "That's it. Rock Band 2 is never coming out!" lol....all DLC and most of the tracks on the first Rock Band disc will be compatible with Rock Band 2. Oh and apparently AC/DC has finally agreed to throw someone a bone, because they're also releasing a song for Rock Band 2.
• Lips, a karaoke game with a special shiney lighted microphone will be coming to the 360. Great, another karaoke game. What makes this one a little different is that you'll be able to use music from your collection from an iPod (they mentioned Zune first, like anyone outside of the media at the press conference really knows what a Zune is!). Apparently the mic lights up all special-like too.
• Guitar Hero World Tour will feature special Metallica and Van Halen releases (this is notable because Metallica, Van Halen and AC/DC have held out a while on jumping the rhythm game bandwagon), because apparently the casual rock crowd still thinks these bands matter. OK, I admit it. It might be cool to play some of Metallica's earlier stuff on Guitar Hero.
• Final Fantasy XIII will be released simultaneously for PS3 and.......Xbox 360!!!. I have to say this is the only news that really surprised me. Sure, Square Enix gave the Xbox FFXI (which doesn't count, because its an MMO and not a "real" part of the series) and has a few titles like Last Remnant and Infinite Undiscovery in development for 360, but I just figured Sony was paying Square big bucks to keep the *real* Final Fantasy on Playstation and I think a lot of other people did too. Totally didn't see this one coming, but when I saw Square's boss onstage at the end of the conference I didn't buy that he was just there to talk about Square's new games (they sure tried to trick people though)...It had to be! 2 down (GTA and FF), 1 to go (Metal Gear Solid). !!!

As I predicted, Microsoft needed to go BIG and they did. While there were no new blockbuster games announced, there certainly were enough other things to be excited about, most notably FFXIII and the new Jimi Xbox Experience.

A couple of things they didn't mention in the press conference but I read on Major Nelson's site:

• When the Xbox gets the redesign in the fall, it will finally support 1440x900 resolution for VGA. Woo-hoo! I can't express how much it frustrated me having to run my 360 at a lower resolution and stretching the screen so it'd look right on my Gateway monitor.
• At the same time, the option will be available to install a game to your HDD for better performance.

Oh and Bungie didn't have any games shown during the 360 press conference, but this image is now gracing their front page (with a countdown):

Something is going on.

Feersum Ennjin is a music project by Paul D'amour, formerly of Tool and Lusk. The only released material from Feersum Ennjin came in the form of a five-song EP, released in 2005. D'amour produced and performed everything but the drums.

This EP is awesome and it sucks it took me so long to discover it. Where Tool is dark and gloomy, Lusk was bright and spacey. Feersum Ennjin is somewhere between the two. One song in particular, Solid Gold, sounds like Lusk. Same crazy effects processing, same big bright choruses. The other tracks are darker and heavier but still have the same effects experimentation as Lusk. You can tell with some of the tracks where Tool's Undertow sound really came from (Paul). All five tracks are great and probably one of the most interesting things to come in the form experimental alternative rock in a long time.

Definitely worth a listen if you're looking for something a little different. Paul D'amour played bass for Tool on Opiate and Undertow (as well as writing some things on Aenima) before doing the Replicants record and eventually Lusk - Free Mars. Such a shame that this guy hasn't been more prolific since he left that other band. Great music. 

After being increasingly harassed by dissatisfied customers (and the Internet) since everybody's 360s started going down in a burning ring of fire, Microsoft finally released the xbox.com-based Xbox 360 Content License Transfer tool last month.

from Xbox.com: "Got a new Xbox 360® console? Great. But maybe you downloaded games or other content from Xbox LIVE® Marketplace onto an older Xbox 360 console, and now you want all that content on your new system. Well, now there's a way to do it. With the license transfer tool, you can transfer the licenses of all your previously downloaded content from your old console to the new one."

Way to sugarcoat it, Microsoft. What it really translates to is "We fucked up with our lousy DRM on your downloadable games. We fucked up even more when your consoles started red-ringing and our lousy support and repair staff failed to transfer the licenses on top of that. Here is a tool so you can be even more inconvenienced by re-licensing stuff you've already bought. Stop whining."

We have two 360s in the house. Three gold accounts. Occasionally we've bought games on one console with the other account or occasionally had a console die (I am on my third, living room is on second). When you move to a new 360, you cannot play the games you have downloaded and purchased unless you are signed into your account on Xbox live. And whereas anyone on the console can play the game, if you've moved to a new 360 only the logged in gamertag can play the game. Meaning, if you want to play ANY game offline, it had to have been purchased on that console. Needless to say, the shitty DRM system sucked (and still sucks) and blew even more when our 360s had to be replaced/repaired. After countless hours with tech support, emails, angry internet posts, I finally gave up on all of it until they released the DRM tool.

I'm happy to say that the 360 DRM Tool works quite well. You just sign in to Xbox.com, start the transfer process and it will show you how many licenses are tied to your account as well as which 360 IDs they are associated with. Once you start the process, Xbox.com will then tell you to sign into your account on the 360 that you want the licenses to be consolidated to. After you do that, the process is done (you have 30 min after it tells you to sign in on your 360). Then comes the real shitty part....

If you've only bought a few games, this is no biggie but if you're like me and you've bought quite a few games and quite a few map packs (Halo 3 for instance), this is a PAIN IN THE ASS. So now that your licenses are transferred on the Xbox.com side of it, you must update your 360 itself with the licenses by RE-DOWNLOADING EVERY PIECE OF CONTENT that was not originally bought on that console (which amounts to re-downloading a small license file if you already have the game on the console). When done, you should be able to play everything offline and anyone playing the console (without an account) should be able to use the content.

Overall, this is a good thing but I'm not gonna say thanks either. The Xbox.com part of the process went smooth, but it literally took me an hour to re-download the licenses on my 360. This is far too much time to have been spent on something Microsoft could have fixed themselves or have been forward-thinking about. Also on the bad side, you can only do this process once every 12 months. Supposedly the repair centers are updating licenses on bricked 360s though, so maybe the problem is sorta solved. Fuck it - Thanks Microsoft. /sarcasm

Xbox 360 License Transfer Tool (Xbox.com)

The 360 gets a price drop today as Microsoft has announced that the 20GB Pro Console will now be priced at $299. However, the 20GB model is being discontinued in favor of a 60GB model. The 60GB Xbox 360 will replace the 20GB and be introduced at $349 (the 20GB's price until today). Neither the 120GB Elite or 512MB Arcade consoles will have any price adjustments.

The 20GB is going to sell well, but once they're gone there will still be the casual gamers that M$ has been trying so desperately to court that still aren't going to pay $349 for a console. Sony did this same thing last year - they're all just getting more and more confusing with the different SKUs. Then lowering the price of something just to get ready for a different SKU? baffling. Lower the price of all the 360 models already, make it competitive with the Wii.

Microsoft Announces 60GB 360, Confirm 20GB Price Cut (Kotaku)

this kid is SMART. crafted Halo 3 weapons out of cardboard and tape. amazing, like someone said he'll probably design something that saves the world one day. the regular weapon models were cool, but did you see the turret and rocket launcher recreations? damn.

YouTube - more halo 3 weapons( read description)
    

The latest weekly update at Bungie.net is now up. A very small update (and predictable tease), not much news and mostly making fun of lacking readers - there was this tidbit:

As a reader, I can only imagine just how frustrating it is to not have any new information just yet. Rest assured, dear vengeful, hypertense reader many things are in motion. Many things. These numerous things include the following:

• Major changes to the Halo 3 Online experience
• Sweet Announcements
• Poignant Clarifications
• Certain-point-of-view Truths
• Things you will love
• Things you will argue about
• Things you will make angry videos about

What could it mean? As long as Microsoft isn't taking over the servers for Halo 3, I'm good. Bungie may be moving on but its their support for Halo that makes it so good. Microsoft would fuck it up.

Bungie Weekly Update, 7/11/08 (Bungie.net)

edit: they said "certain point of view truths", I wonder if that means they're introducing 3rd person view for Halo 3 or if their new game is third person?

I was quite surprised I'd never seen this video, its almost two years old. Title is self-explanatory. Gotta love the Ghostbusters part, almost like it was Sweded. Amazing that this was done using Halo 2. Halo 3 makes stuff like this pretty easy but Halo 2 would take a lot of work. Enjoy the video, mainly for Halo fans. Great production quality and some of the song choices.

YouTube - Halo Music Video Hell