BurntPhotons

I got my Xbox 360 back from Microsoft last Thursday. I would have noted it sooner but I've just been busy with Christmas shopping and working. It feels like as I get older I get busier. Maybe it is just that I get slower.

Anyway, the system came back and it is working fine. A card for 1 month free of Xbox Live gold was included along with a survey. So far it seems to be working just fine. I've played Half Life 2 from The Orange Box and played some videos with it. All seems to be good.

So I received the box to ship the Xbox 360 back to Microsoft on Thursday. I called about the Xbox last Wednesday so it took 8 days for a box to get to me which really isn't that bad considering that last Thursday was Thanksgiving.

I wasn't surprised by how long it took to get the packaging to me. Thanksgiving in the US usually means a four day weekend. I was more surprised by what was inside the box.

Besides the packaging and mailer was a long piece of three inch wide tape to reseal the box, a short questionnaire and instructions on how to prepare the box. The tape was unexpected. The instructions were expected but are printed on some really heavy paper and therefore was probably more expensive to print than the cheaper paper used for the questionnaire. And I wasn't expecting the instructions to be so detailed or in color.

The survey was a little unexpected espesically since it asked me to describe what the problem was with the Xbox 360 as well as fill in the serial number, both of which should have be known already since I made the call, but maybe it is a standard box for repairs and helps out in the process.

I went to the UPS store on Friday morning and waited in line behind an older woman who remarked how cheap it would be to send her package overnight via UPS instead of the post office. I don't know about you but I don't consider the 60 dollar quote cheap. She decided to just ship it by ground though because, "Good Heavens the gift inside doesn't even cost that much."

The funny thing was as soon as the UPS guy turned to help me out he remarked, "Returning an Xbox 360, huh?" I realized then that maybe Microsoft really does have a severe problem with the machine when the UPS guy recognizes the plain looking box. Maybe he saw the prepaid address, but I don't think so.

I asked for a receipt as the packaging instructions say, but was told that even though Microsoft puts that on their instructions UPS doesn't give out receipts. He asked if I had written down the tracking number which I had.

Before my red ring of death experience I wondered if all the press I've heard about the Xbox 360 having problems was being blown out of proportion as I've heard many people who haven't had problems and others who had. Having a machine die within the first year and having numerous problems with games just stopping in the middle of play because it can't read the disk.

Hey Microsoft, a game should die gracefully if that is the problem. You shouldn't lose all of of you game time up to that point. In addition, when I pull out the disc there isn't a scratch or smudge on them when I see this problem. I wonder if the machine was just getting too hot and the disc warping too much at high spin speeds to be readable. But I'm rambling now.

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. It is a time to reflect on the things we should appreciate more; a time to be thankful for our friends, family and health; and a time to realize where we could be and what we could not have. It is a time to appreciate the food we have and the benefits we have as Americans.

I'm of course thankful for the friends and family I have, and my job is pretty good too. I appreciate the freedom we have in this country and the chance to do pretty much whatever we want to do when we want to do it. I'm thankful for all those things that pretty much everyone is thankful for, but this year I am thankful for something which may seem a bit weird.

You see, I bought a small luxury item last December - an Xbox 360. It is a great media and gaming device and allows me to watch all sorts of videos on my television as well as playing some really wicked games. (I highly recommend Gears of War and The Orange Box.)

Matter of fact I sat down to play Half Life 2 (from The Orange Box) this past Tuesday night and the Xbox 360 decided to die.

The Red Ring of Death, as it is known, is when three of four lights around the power button turn red when trying to turn on the Xbox 360. It is a sign of a colossal catastrophe, a diabolic dilemma and a nagging nuisance from which the machine shall never return (without sending it for repair).

I'm okay with it though. Is it a pain, but my warranty expires next month, so I appreciate it dying now. If the Xbox 360 is going to fail I would rather it fail before the warranty expired. (Although, I have to admit that Microsoft does cover the Red Ring of Death for 3 years from the date of purchase, so I would have appreciated it dying a couple years from now instead of now. I'm just saying.)

Anyway, I called Xbox support and after two rings of the phone and three computer assisted questions later I was speaking to a real live person within four minutes of dialing the phone. A slurred talking technical facilitator with a dreary voice like he had just rolled out of bed ready to facilitate the repair process answered the phone.

After being asked to turn the machine on twice and a check to see what color the light was on the power supply, he had me all juiced up to receive a shipping box from Microsoft so I can send off the machine to its overlords for correction. I was thankful for his added threatening note that if I tampered with the machine, they would know and would just return the dead machine. "Do you understand and agree to this," he asked.

I replied, "Yes!" while feeling like I should add "oh most high repair facilitator guy."

The slurred talking technical facilitator was very helpful almost to the point of being painful. He double checked my address, triple checked my problem, and quadruple checked that I wrote down my reference number making sure to tell me I needed to write it down in three part harmony with color 8 by 10 photographs and descriptions on each side.

The process was relatively painless, but I found it comical and yet helpful that during the call he kept repeating back the steps we had taken to that point. His last check was something like, "So just to make sure we are clear. You called about a problem with your xbox 360. We went through the steps of checking on the health of the xbox 360. We then checked the power supply to make sure it was working correctly. We went over your current address, telephone number and email address. We discussed the repair process where a postal box will be shipped to you, and you will then have 30 days to ship the machine in the box back to us. I've given you your reference number to be saved and written down and referenced with the postal box. We have discussed that if you messed with the box in any way that your warranty would be null and void. We have check your address again and discussed the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Is this process correct? Do you have any questions?"

Helpful to a point of almost being hurtful, but I'm thankful for the process being painless and not having to wait on hold. I'm thankful for warranties on products and thankful for those corporations who understand their users don't want to be on the phone for an hour trying to get an item repaired under warranty (or out of warranty for that matter either). I'm thankful for repair technicians who are overly helpful and a bit comical too.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Wow! A whole month without a single post or photograph. I kept meaning to write or put up a photograph or video, but it never seemed to get done.

I guess that is what happens when you rely on yourself to do it all and don't set plans in motion to do anything. I did do something over the past month, or I should say I started late last month and have continued to try to implement it.

I've been removing clutter.

When I think of my place I'm reminded of that junk drawer I remember having as a kid. I never wanted to get rid of a broken toy or part of a toy because I might find it useful somehow even if it was just to take it apart for curiosity's sake. That drawer has blossomed and taken over my email, my computer and my apartment. It's invaded every corner of my place and my life. Even my photography bag has tons of stuff in it that I think might be useful on at least one assignment this year.

Ask anyone of my friends and they will probably tell you I'm a pack rat or that I need a maid service. Both are probably true but my mess mostly comes from believing even the most useless thing has usefulness. My apartment has always been a disaster zone where you'll find half finished projects, broken items waiting to be re-purposed, and a bunch of stuff I think I can eventually sell on ebay.

My inspiration has come from a couple websites I've read for a year or so. The most inspirational is Merlin Mann's website 43 Folders where he regularly touts a Getting Things Done (GTD) mentality. It is a system to do exactly what it says - get stuff done. Another is a website called Unclutterer. It's name should pretty much tell you it's aim. Both of these sites along with others I've stumbled across in the past year or so have been feeding this idea to clean up.

I just got tired of seeing stuff physically and digitally pile up around me, so I've gone on an uncluttering frenzy. I started with my email. I was tired of seeing 300 or so unread messages sitting in my inbox without any reason for keeping them besides thinking there might be useful someday.

To start off slow, the first thing I did was unsubscribe myself from a bunch of useless advertising I didn't need infesting my brain. I put off that stack of unread email for a while, but I eventually hit my inbox with a GTD attitude by deleting anything I didn't need, transferring information that should be kept, and acting on messages that had collected digital dust. I can honestly say I have no unread mail in the inbox now and plan to keep it that way.

Although I have to admit I hung on to some stuff I don't probably need like geek.com advertisement for the joy of nourishing my geek desire for new geek gadgets. And I'll need to re-attack my email once I've settled my mind whether I need some back logs of emails newsletters and family correspondences. I'm leaning to the not needing side but still wanting to archive it.

I've trimmed my email down quite a bit. My next step is to get rid of my old email addresses I've hung on to. My spam to real email ratio has to be something like 50 spam messages to ever good piece of email. I know it isn't a high ratio compared to what some people get, but I find it a bit ridiculous Besides that I have like 8 or 9 email accounts that my computer checks. I think I can weed a few out and that will hopefully unclutter my email more.

One of the things I did today felt the best so far. I got rid of the paper I was saving for recycling. I did recycle it, but it was a huge eye sore in my apartment I walked past for months without doing anything about it. I need to find a better way to remove it on a regular basis and hide it better in the apartment.

The biggest change in the apartment today was taking an old computer chair out to the garbage. It was practically useless, but I kept thinking I could fix it up or find a use for it. An hour or so after I put it out there, it was gone. Someone else decided it was something they could clutter their place with.

Thankfully it is gone because I was honestly starting to think I should have kept it. I started thinking I might have been able to make a rolling foot stool or a simple seat. I know that was a poor thinking, because it would just be another half finished project sitting around the place. I never would have gotten around to doing anything with it just like I didn't get around to doing anything with it for the past three months.

Old habits are hard to break, but starting to clean up clutter has reintroduced me to an old friend who was buried by the clutter. A friend I call satisfaction. It feels good to get stuff I've been meaning to do done. I still have a way to go, but I'm on a mission.

(Insert obvious Blues Brother's movie quote here.)

I got back late Sunday from vacation. I went camping in Tennessee and saw some old friends for a couple days too. It was a great time. I'll have to write more about it when I can.

Currently I'm in the process of moving... not my home but the site. I'm moving to new servers so I'm hoping everything goes ok. I had been with IX Webhosting for two years and wasn't overly thrilled with their service. Nothing horrible, but they just didn't give me the level of control I wanted. So I'm off to switching to a new server. Hopefully all will be fine in a few days.

There may be some outage during that time.

I love the song Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton almost as much as his song First of May. Someone has turned Code Monkey into a video and it rocks too!

This is really freaking cool. Check out this video
.

Is it real or a trick in post processing?

Update 07/10/07: Evidentally the video is gone because the reference to the video does not appear to be working.

Updat 8/9/07: Oh the heck with it. I'm deleting the freakin' cool video that is now gone. Tubearoo stinks.

So do you know TED?

As their about page states:

"TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader."

"The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes)."

It is a really cool event. (Or at least appears that way from back here in Ohio.)

They get some big-named presenters like Jane Goodall, Bono, President Bill Clinton, Jeff Bezos, and James Nachtwey to talk on all subjects they care about or champion such as technology, AIDS, and global warming. In addition TED answers the wishes of some of the presenters ever year.

TED offers some of their presentations online to view from their site. I happened to stumble across them a long time ago and am slowly making my way through some of their video content. I just stumbled across this presentation from the My Extra Life blog which linked to a YouTube presentation by one of the presenters talking about a a photosynth demo.

Check it out... and all the other video's at TED.com.

EDITED 8-9-2007: Fixed the links to TED.com. Evidentially I suck at html.

I've known about this game for a couple months and should have passed it on earlier. If you have a spare hour or two free for an addictive game go try out Desktop Tower Defense.

But I warn you, you may wish you had never seen it.

The object of the game is to destroy all of the enemies before they can cross the screen. Each level gets harder, and you can upgrade your weapons. But it takes some logic and some practice in learning how to defeat it.

If you need help or want some ideas to borrow from then check out the high scores page. When you click on a name you can see their layout for their defense and get some great ideas.

Quick! Go play and waste an hour or five hours of your life. It is Sunday after all, and you are suppose to be relaxing today, aren't you?

It was the bottom of the sixth inning with 2 outs and runners on second and third. The batter digs in and slaps the ball into right center field over the second baseman and in front of the outfielders. A run scores and the game ends.

We lose 10-0 under the mercy rule. Our worst softball game of the season.

I was up to bat twice in the game, and hit a pop fly the first time up and then made a single the second time.

I'm looking forward to our first win. Maybe next week. We are 0-5.

Someone has to be in the basement. I'm thinking a light green might look good on the walls down here. Maybe we should put up some art too.