I'm 33 years old, married to gorgeous wife, and have a beautiful baby daughter. I'm a member of GeezerGamers.com, a community of "mature" (yeah, right) gamers.
I was appointed as an Xbox Live Ambassador by Trixie.
I beta tested Shadowrun for the Xbox 360.
I was selected in the first round of the "Rule of Three" to be a beta tester for the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta. The H3 beta was very nice.

• 11Sep 07

  HDMI and the Red Rings of Death

  Haven't had as much time for gaming since my daughter was born. Not that I'm uber-responsible or anything - my wife just has to do everything in the damn TV room nowadays.

  I bought a 360 Elite a few weeks ago, and I must say that it rocks. The differences in the graphics between the component HD and the HDMI connection are subtle but dramatic. Once I hooked it up, I had to recalibrate my video. After that it was amazing. With the component HD, I had noticed that faces in Oblivion and most objects in Perfect Dark Zero were too shiny. The HDMI drastically reduced this effect and has made the skin tones look realistic for once. The same goes for enemies in Gears of War. In dark areas, the enemies had a bit of a glowing outline on them. It's still there with the HDMI, but it's dramatically reduced. Halo 3 is going to kick all kinds of ass.

  On a sad note, my original launch 360 bit the big one night before last. I had moved it to the bedroom so that my wife could play Hexic 2 while she fed the baby. I had to stand it vertically to to make room for it in the stereo cabinet andafter a lifetime of sitting horizontally, it did not like that. I got the three red ring segments of death. I just hope my Elite holds out until way after Halo 3. I really need to call Xbox support so they can send a coffin for the old girl, and get the show on the road. That way, if there is a problem with the Elite later, I'll have a backup.

  For posterity, here are the details of my original 360:

  I picked it up on launch day after spending all night in line at Best Buy (very cold that night - bbrrrrr.) There were a few Premium systems, but they were snapped up pretty quickly. I was the last person in line to get a 360 Coreand the guy in front of me bought the very last hard drive. After going home, I called Game Crazy up the road and found out that they had one hard drive left, so I went over and bought it.My 360 Core always lay horizontal and was hooked up to a Monster brand surge protector. When I moved it to the bedroom, it was standing vertically and hooked up to a cheapo power strip in a very dusty stereo cabinet. I really need to gut the entire entertainment center in the bedroom and replace the TV, stereo and DVD player. It's pretty bad in there. I hate to get rid of functioning electronics, but I think it's about time.

  • Posted Sep 11, 2007 7:47 am GMT
  • Category: General
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• 19Mar 07

  Best Buy Pre-Order of Halo 3: Legendary Edition

  Well, I caved in and pre-ordered the Halo 3: Legendary Edition last Friday.
  Bestbuy.com had it listed for $99.99. Also, for pre-ordering Halo 3 from them, they gave me an Xbox Marketplace Points Card with 1600 points on it for $4.99 (instead of $19.99). With tax & next-day shipping, it only comes out to $124.45. I picked up the point card in-store that day, so that the Next Day Delivery is only going to cost $9.99 - before I changed the card to in-store pickup, the Next Day delivery was $26!!!
  
  So I'm "saving" $45 with the combined $30 discount off the price of H3 and the $15 discount off the price of the Marketplace Points Card. Ordinarily, I wouldn't give a rat's a$$ about Marketplace points, but I plan on downloading Oblivion's expansion pack, Shivering Isles, this month, so Best Buy saved me almost half of what I was going to spend anyway. Pretty cool! If I can only convince the wife how cool it is...
  
  I guess this weekend, BestBuy raised the price of the Legendary edition to $130.00. My pre-order is still listed under the $99.99 price - I hope that they honor the price under which I reserved my copy when it comes down to the release date! It's the only real reason that I ordered it from them...
  
  • Posted Mar 19, 2007 9:36 am GMT
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• 6Mar 07

  Daddy Deus

  I'm going to be somebody's daddy!!! My daughter will be born in June/July and I can't wait. I was on a road trip with my wife the other day and while I was dozing, I dreamt I was holding my daughter while we both took naps. It was a good dream.
  
  It's scary to think I'm going to be responsible for the raising of another human being. I hope she turns out OK and not like these little sociopathic morons I see on these forums and meet on Xbox Live. What did these kid's parents do wrong and what can I do to avoid making the same mistakes? It bothers me, but only time will tell. In the mean time, I'll keep dreaming of a pudgy, little drool monster who needs her diapers changed.
  
  • Posted Mar 6, 2007 8:20 am GMT
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