PianoWow

This an update about my XBox 360 dying last month. It fell ill just before I went on vacation, and Microsoft couldn’t mail me the materials to ship it fast enough… so I had to wait until after my vacation to start the repair process. The guy who initially took my repair order messed something up. But instead of calling me back to let me know there was a problem, they waited for me to call them wondering where my empty box was.

Earlier this month, they mailed me an empty box, a prepaid address label, and I mailed the XBox back to them. Two and a half weeks later, I got it back, basically good as new. I didn’t mail my hard drive with it (they didn’t want it), but strangely, I still had to recover my XBox Live tag. After the recovery process, I was back online and playing like the addict I am.

Good to be home again.

I have had the equivalent of the blue screen of death with my XBox several times. Much less now that I’ve had an intercooler, but it still happens. I’m speaking of screen freezes of course. These are quite annoying, but tolerable.

Now, I have a different, more serious problem. The three red lights of death. I need to ship my XBox 360 back to Microsoft, and have the problem repaired. I’m looking at 5 weeks of pain, misery and boredom, while it is being repaired.

I’ve had my XBox for a little over a year now, which makes the original warranty void. However, due to the amount of systems having this problem, they have extended the warranty for this particular issue for two more years.

So I am waiting for the packaging to arrive in the mail. Then, I mail my xbox off to be repaired, free of charge. Whole process is guaranteed not to take longer than 5 weeks. We’ll see about that.

I didn’t think I would do it, but I decided to go ahead and join the Halo 3 cult today. I’ve been a fan of the Halo series ever since right before Halo 2 came out. Red vs. Blue is some of the best fan fiction of any video game. Ever. Halo just has its own culture and feel to it that no other first person shooter has been able to match.

Had I known Halo 3 was as good as it was, I might have bought it on the release date. I watched my neighbor play Halo 3 on his 360 Thursday night, and decided to go ahead and take the plunge today. Basically all my friends online have it, too. So that’s a plus.

It actually kind of creepy to log in to XBox Live and see over 75% of your friends all playing the same game. Like I said, it’s a cult. I got sucked in. Oh well.

First impressions of the game are positive. The co-op multiplayer allows for more people simultaneously than any game I’ve ever seen. That’s a great plus. This game could turn out to be the single most addictive first person shooter I’ve ever played.

I bought my Nintendo DS in a combo pack that included Brain Age 2, and a nice leather case. The DS itself was a nice red and black color that you can’t get unless you buy this combo pack. Given that the price was the same as the normal DS and Brain Age 2, I figured it was like getting the case for free. Plus I liked the look of the red and black color combination.

Brain Age 2 (and its predecessor) is a game built completely off of research by a Japanese doctor interested in brain research. It seems he took measurements on calculation skills and reflexes and recorded the ages of participants. Using this game and the table of performance on activities that give the brain a little workout, he can determine how fit your brain is, and what age your performance on the game indicates.

I think it was beginner’s luck, but the first time I took the brain age quiz, it said 24, which is a little younger than my real age. Ideally, you want a brain age of 20. Since then I’ve had scores ranging from 24-47. One of my friends got a score of 75! I wonder if you can score any worse than that. It keeps track of your performance, and gives you access to data that it records for each activity. Amount you get correct, time taken, etc.

I think of all the games I have, I play this one the most often, just to see how the graph develops over time. My friend has this theory that my brain isn’t getting any younger or more fit, it’s simply that I’m learning how to play the game better. That could be true.

I don’t know how medically sound or accurate the game is, but I enjoy little brain-tingling exercises like this. So it’s fun for me, regardless of whether or not it’s good for me.

Toy is the right word. I went shopping last night to celebrate my raise. I intended to buy a printer, but didn’t find one in my price range that I really liked. From the computer section of Best Buy, I headed to the computer games, and from there to the video games department. I have been reading about the Nintendo DS Lite for a while, and finally decided to buy one.

I bought a nice little combo pack that included Brain Age 2 and a leather carrying case, along with one of my favorite games, Sim City. I spent the whole evening playing with it at a coffee shop last night. When the battery started to run down, I went home, plugged it in, and played some more until I fell asleep. So much fun. I’ll write a review of at least Brain Age 2 soon.