Archive for February, 2004

I had the pleasure of playing a couple of rounds of Links 2004 with Jeff Sandquist last night. He seems like a really great guy and he actually knows what “Screech” is. How could I not like the guy after that?

I also realized that he was the guy that had the really cool mural done for his wife. I remember reading that story a couple of months ago and thinking how incredibly cool that was.

I am really looking forward to getting the golf tourney on the go and meeting some more new people. As someone living in a fairly remote location, I don’t really get to go to many “geek dinners”. Although arguably every meal Shane and I have together could be called that. It’s nice to get any chance to talk tech / geek stuff with some like minded people in a live conversation once in a while…all while playing one of my favorite games to boot.

Anyhow I’m “PunchingBoot” on Live if anyone else wants to go for a round in the meantime.

This post from Carl Franklin couldn’t be more on the money in my opinion. I have found the domineering window issue to be a major annoyance in the past and present.

While I haven’t published my credit card number to the world yet, I have experienced a few “Phew! That was close” moments jumping between financial reports, proposals, IM conversations and secure forms at the same time. Yah I know the perfect user isn’t supposed to do multiple tasks like that at once but reality often dictates otherwise.

Jeff Sandquist is doing something that I have wanted to do for a while by setting up an XSN Sports Group for Geeks that play Links 2004. Great idea. I’d love to have a few rounds with some fellow geeks and shoot the breeze. Geeks and virtual golf! Does life get any better?

Shane and I ordered an iPod this week. Figured it’s time to put our Nomad Jukebox to pasture and get something a little smaller that had better driver support. Ah heck we did it because they are just plain cooler. We purchased the 20gb since the price point on that one was the sweetest and it came with a few extra accessories.

I purchased the jukebox about 3 years ago I guess. I know I had it when I was still in University because I remember it being great for getting me through some long and boring bus rides. However I always found it a pain to get a good version of the drivers and software without having a tonne of other junk installed on my pc. Plus the adapter for the car stereo is pretty bulky for the long road trips.

So now we need to get an iTrip adapter. The only problem is that I can’t find either one on the Canadian site. I notice they have them on the American site and link to griffintechnology.com so I guess we may as well get it directly from there.

Not as though it really matters where we order it from anyhow since our iPod is coming from China through the US. Yup that’s right China! Not that I really care but it struck me strange when I went to check the tracking number and it said that it was leaving “Shanghai CN”. When we ordered stuff from Apple before it usually came from a warehouse in the States somewhere so I was expected to see TN or CA on the tracking slip.

The latest installment of Bungie’s Weekly Update is on Teamxbox.com this week.

Apparently some people are putting up some fake update’s in an attempt to grab traffic – Frankie reminds readers that if it isn’t linked from Bungie.net it probably isn’t the real deal.

I guess I’m not the only one thrilled with the changes in Infopath. All week I have been talking with either people at work or elsewhere that are totally pumped about the new functionality included in the “preview”. As well, I’ve noticed that every morning when I check out my search folder in Outlook that I have configured for Infopath there are usually like 10 new posts of people talking about it.

Peter at Tabula PC seems pretty thrilled with the new Infopath and has included some screenshots of how the ink support works. I was also very pleased when I loaded a form up for the first time on my Tablet and I noticed that I had more options for filling out forms via the Tablet.

As well, the improvements for tying directly to Sharepoint lists and working with secondary datasources are tremendous. Working with data sources and expression boxes before was kinda weak. However now I have been able to turn some kinda OK forms into some pretty sweet pieces of work. All without the help of a developer. Not bad for a business geek.

I can now feel more comfortable recommending solutions to clients that include Infopath, whereas before I had some negative feelings about the depth of some the features. I think now that Infopath is much closer to being the app that it was intended to be.

After much waiting, it looks as if the highly anticipated Ninja Gaiden for Xbox will be shipped by next week.

From Worthplaying.com

Tecmo officially announced today that the ship date for its eagerly anticipated new action title, Ninja Gaiden, for the Xbox will be Tuesday, March 2, 2004. Gaining an incredible amount of buzz since it was first shown on the E3 floor in 2002, the powerhouse title will ship out to retailers across the country in mass quantities, arriving on store shelves throughout the first week of March.

“Tecmo’s focus while developing Ninja Gaiden was to create the best action game ever and with the game only a week away from launch I am proud to say that we have succeeded in this goal,” John Inada, Tecmo’s General Marketing Manager, said. “Ninja Gaiden will set a new standard in the action genre and we guarantee it was well worth the wait.”

Boasting 100% action, Ninja Gaiden will allow the player to unleash their inner ninja with smooth game play, speedy battle sequences, and a variety of advanced acrobatic ninja moves from running and flipping off walls to hanging and swinging on rails. The player will also have a variety of primary and secondary weapons at their disposal that when used in a combination, create advanced weapon attacks such as damaging wall-based assaults and all-powerful ultimate attacks. Xbox? Live Compatibility, a host of challenging levels and visually exquisite environments are just a few more reasons why Ninja Gaiden plans to raise the bar in the action gaming genre.

About Ninja Gaiden

One of Tecmo’s most treasured franchises will be given new life this March when a whole new action-packed Ninja Gaiden hits store shelves?with a vengeance. The player takes on the role of the powerful and mysterious ninja, Ryu Hayabusa, who seeks revenge after his clan is massacred by the Vigoor Empire.

Realistically violent battle sequences and acrobatic ninja moves restore Ninja Gaiden to its rightful place in the action/adventure hall of fame. Tecmo’s revered development team, Team Ninja, has created a unique new Xbox? Live Compatible feature within Ninja Gaiden. The Master Ninja Tournament, a new feature developed specifically for the game, will allow players to participate in a nationwide competition. Here, they will test their honed ninja skills and find out who is the top Ninja Gaiden player in the country. Participants in the tournament will compete in downloadable trial missions only made available through Xbox Live. Top ranked players will win special prizes and also be included in the Ninja Gaiden Hall of Fame. Tecmo will continue to reveal more details regarding the rules and prizes in weeks to come.

Ninja Gaiden is scheduled to launch onto store shelves early March with a suggested retail price of $49.99 and an ESRB rating of Mature. Gamers can pre-order Ninja Gaiden at Tecmo’s website (http://www.tecmoinc.com). For additional information on the game, visit the official Ninja Gaiden website (www.ninjagaidengame.com)

I am really looking forward to checking this game out…along with ALOT of other people.

This may be an interesting development in the ongoing discussions on whether or not a hard drive will be included in the next Xbox.

M-Systems Enters Into Agreement with Microsoft to Develop Removable Flash Memory Units

M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Ltd. (Nasdaq: FLSH), the developer of the Smart DiskOnKey? platform, has entered into a technology development agreement with Microsoft Corporation. Under the agreement, M-Systems will develop customized memory units for future Xbox? products and services.

“Although Microsoft is not obligated to purchase any memory units under the agreement, we believe that this agreement could represent a significant opportunity for M-Systems,” said Dov Moran, president and CEO of M-Systems.

More information available here on News.com. Is this a confirmation on whether or not Xbox Next will have a hard drive? No of course not, but what it does confirm is that the market is very hungry for details on the next console and M-Systems are definitely turning some heads fast.

Dylan Greene has posted some really cool pics of his recent visit to Disney World!!! Oh I mean Microsoft’s Campus in Redmond…

Pfft way cooler than Disney in my opinion. Of course I haven’t been to either but given a choice I would take Redmond any day. Being childless makes that an easier decision I guess. Plus it’s closer to the Coffee Capital of North America.

Jim Edelen makes a couple of good points regarding Blogs as Conversations, a concept recently touched on by the Blog King himself. In particular, he brings up an issue that I myself have struggled with in the past. When a person comments on my weblog (although sadly this doesn’t happen very often *Sniff*), I usually like to respond to their comment. I want to have conversations with the people that take the time to reply to something I have said. I want to get to know the people that visit my site. However, I wonder sometimes if I should be emailing them or reply on my weblog.

Often quite frankly I do both.

Why email? Well because I want that person to know that I have replied to what they said and appreciate their comments. I don’t want to be so bold as to assume they will return to my site to see if I have responded. Also it’s my way of opening the door for further communication.

Why post? Well I post so that others can see a response and maybe that might encourage them to join in on the conversation. If not hopefully I might answer a question they may have had.

But the bottom line is, that I like Jim, do not know what the best way to improve blogs as conversations is. I do believe that they are an excellent tool in starting conversations and building relationships because I have been lucky enough to have experienced both first hand. Hopefully as more and more tools are developed and expanded, I am confident that we will find a way to deal with the information overload issue better. For now I guess we will just have to get by with less than perfect methods to facilitate these conversations.

Want to read a story on the real shift that is taking place in the gaming market these days?

No?
OK then crawl back in your hole.

Yes?
Check out this piece at Xbox365!!

The Good News is that Shane surprised me while he was out on Friday and picked me up a few things, one of which was an Advanced AV Pack for my Xbox.

The Bad News is that it wasn’t at all what I needed.

The Good News is that it was for hooking up to a HDTV TV, which is something we wanted to get anyways.

The Bad News is that after looking around I couldn’t find an Xbox accessory that did what I needed. (Which was to output simultaneously to more than one device)

The Good News is that I DID find a bunch of $2 connectors at Wal-Mart that did the trick perfectly.

The Bad News is that now you will be forced to watch more of my lameass gaming movies. Muhahahahaha.

The greatest news is that I will stop posting this good news / bad news stuff now that I have gotten it out of my system.

Aside from the Infopath good news, I also got this gem in my inbox earlier today:

We appreciate your interest in the Lineage II closed beta test and would like to extend an invitation for you to participate at this time.

I haven’t been in a game beta since Asheron’s Call 2 so I’m interested in seeing what it’s like and providing a little feedback whenever I can (I love any chance I get to do that).

The Infopath SP-1 Preview is available for download. How sweet is that news?? I am currently working on designing a solution that utilizes InfoPath, Sharepoint and Web Services to enhance our sales team workflow. So I was hoping that I could get my hands on the service pack as soon as possible since I already knew I could take advantage of some of the new features that were leaked/released a while ago.

I have loved InfoPath since I first played with it during the Office System 2003 Beta. However I was always disappointed at some of the things I found that were missing. The release of the reasonably feature rich service pack helps me believe that there is a lot more to come for InfoPath and while it’s potential has yet to be truly tapped…it will be.

InfoPath & Sharepoint are tools that are ideal for individuals like myself that are obsessed about efficient processes and information sharing. I am now empowered to create the sites, forms, lists, and workflows that I would typically require a developer to implement.

Given that we are a development company, there are certainly lots of developers around. However taking one off client work for an “internal improvement” project requires a signed photo from Porky the Pig after his first Trans-Atlantic flight – so often I found myself having to make due with certain inefficiencies because there was no easy way around them.

These days I can do pretty much all the work myself and break off little pieces to the development team as required. This seems to work best for everyone and progress tends to take place at a much more rapid rate – this keeps me very happy.

Some of the New Features Include:

? More control choices, including Master/Detail, File Attachment, Recursive Section, and Choice, as well as custom-authored controls..

? Better schema support, including built-in support for schema changes.

? Printing improvements, including page breaks, margins and print settings.

? Improved e-mail deployment of sandboxed solutions and auto-updating of trusted solutions.

? Better management and categorization of solutions.

? Tablet PC support improvements.

? Increased support for rules and roles for declarative business logic.

? Enhanced XPath expression support, including calculations without writing script.

? Additional data adaptors for email and SharePoint Products and Technologies lists.

? Better support for custom migration plug-ins.

? Enhanced Object Model (OM), including OnSave event, offline state, submit, and digital signatures.

? Improved support for secondary data sources.

? Additional support for business logic written in managed code (requires a separate download).

? Enhanced OM for external automation and windowless mode for application-level calls.

? Better support for ADO datasets and diffgrams to round-trip data changes.

? Additional support for complex scripts, such as right-to-left and South Asian languages.

? Enhanced support for digital signatures, including partial signatures, non-repudiation, co-signing, and counter-signing.

? Improved stability and performance, including auto-save and data recovery.

Update:

Holy Moly!! I am giggling like a 12 year old girl here at this new functionality. At least 5 major pains I had with Infopath in the past week have been resolved and I haven’t even begun to tap into the new functionality. This is direct proof that the folks at Microsoft are listening to what their customers need. Amazing!!

I can now do pretty much everything myself based on the built in functionality of Infopath. This is a big deal since I was just getting ready to hand a couple of pieces off to the development team and now I can just steamroll on ahead to get this done faster. Plus as a result, our developers can focus on more important things that require their specific skill sets and expertise.

Maybe now I won’t have to bug the heck outta Lauraj when I get stuck on something either. Although I am eternally grateful to her for the endless news and updates on the tools I love. Not to mention, her very kind offer to help me with any problems I run into. Very very cool!!

Been a slow blogging weekend. I am trying to make some progress on some personal projects as well as spend some time with the family. In the meantime I suggest you pop over to 343GS for the latest Halo Weekly Update

Looks like Damon has a boatload of new screenshots to share. Damon puts a lot of work into his site and always has some pretty fresh info on upcoming games and releases. Great stuff buddy! Keep up the good work.

I love contests where you get to pretend that you have the supreme power. Adam Field sent me the link in an email – Thanks Adam! What a great opportunity to have your voice heard!! So get off your butts and get those ideas sent in.

If you ever wanted to make a significant impact on the gaming industry but didn’t think you had anyone’s attention – here is your chance. Otherwise you could always send the fine folks at Microsoft a video of you singing “She Bangs”.

Now this is pretty darn cool!

If you live in the UK, Ireland, UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, or Finland, you can win part of ?330,000 in prizes by simply being logged into Xbox Live between March 1 – and March 14, 2004.

It couldn’t be easier – for a chance to win, all gamers need to do is play any game on the Xbox Live service between 00.01hrs CET on Monday 1st March and 24.00hrs CET Saturday 14th March. Each day, between 1 and 14 March, 36 Gamertags will be chosen randomly from the Xbox Live service. The daily star prize is a cheque for ?1,000 (?675 GBP). Thirty five runners up each day will each win a stylish black and green Xbox courier bag – containing ten Xbox Live games including Project Gotham Racing 2 and Topspin, an Xbox Controller ‘S’ plus a limited edition Xbox T-shirt, for a combined prize value of ?650 (?440 GBP) per bag.

Winning Gamertags will be posted regularly on Xbox.com throughout the two week period and winners will also be notified by e-mail. Terms and conditions of the giveaway can be found at the following URL www.xbox.com/en-gb/live/live-giveaway.htm

So how do you qualify? Check out what you need to do at Xbox.com

One thing I have been meaning to do for a while is hook my Xbox up to my pc to capture some video so that I could start posting some of my own video clips with the reviews for my new site that I am putting together.

So last night I felt like taking a break from work for a bit and unhooked the Xbox from its usual home in our entertainment center and hooked it up in our office. I have an ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder card so I can hook the Xbox up directly to my pc. Works pretty sweet except I really need to swing by Futureshop and pick up an AV Expansion Pack so that I can output from the Xbox to my pc AND a TV. (Never really thought it through until now I guess) Right now I am recording and watching a tiny little window while I play. Very performance inhibiting but funny to watch.

From the small amount of playing around I did last night I have to say that Windows Movie Maker is awesome for video newbies like me. Shane usually uses Adobe Premiere but even he admits that WMM is pretty sweet. I still have lots to learn but the fact that I could even throw something together after playing with it for 30-45 minutes is pretty amazing. Anyways if you are up for a laugh you can check out my l33t boarding skillz here (150 kbps) or here (340 kbps).

It’s actually pretty cheesy, boring and repetitive since A) I was more interested in capturing video than playing. B) The darn window was like 2 inches big and C) I was throwing all kinds of junk in there just to figure out how stuff worked. But it’s all good since this can be the mark by which I will grade my progress from here on in.

OK I really cracked up reading this post from Chris Sells on why one should probably hide the fact that they are a geek.

Favorite Quotes:

Since it became obvious very early to me that geeks of the #2 sort find it nearly impossible to get girls, I learned in college to hide my geekness in mixed company (mostly : ). For example, I absolutely have to have a cell phone small enough for my front pocket because the Batman utility belt look just doesn’t say “breed with me.”

and

Plus, I’m SICK AND TIRED of fixing people’s printers. My own bloody printer doesn’t even work, and I sure as hell don’t want to spend my time fixing *yours*.

Not to mention the highly effective use of expressions like “Erblm… Futzm”. I dunno maybe the personal relevance is too high but this post really struck me as funny.

Chris Anderson pointed to a great post on The Ten Rules of Performance. I find it very cool that it originates from 7 years ago and is still a great read. It just goes to show that the fundamentals on good practices don’t always change as fast as the technology they are applied to.

A couple of excerpts:

“If you?re serious about performance, you must start thinking about it when you begin designing your code and can only stop thinking about it when the final golden bits have been sent to manufacturing. In between, you must never, ever stop testing, analyzing and working on the performance of your code. Slowness is insidious ? it will sneak into your product while you?re not looking. The price of speed is eternal vigilance.”

and

“Also, don?t fall in love with your code. Most programmers take a justifiable pride in the code that they write and even more pride in the overall design of the code. However, this means that many times when you point out to them that their intellectually beautiful design causes horrendous performance problems and that several changes are going to be needed, they tend not to take it very well. ?How can we mar the elegance and undeniable usability of this design?? they ask, horrified, adding that perhaps you should look elsewhere for your performance gains. Don?t fall into this trap. A design that is beautiful but slow is like a Ferrari with the engine of a Yugo ? sure, it looks great, but you certainly can?t take it very far. Truly elegant designs are beautiful and fast.”

Gamespot has an interview posted with Alex Ward from Criterion about some of the development progress taking place on Burnout 3, a racing game expected to be released in September. You can also check out some cool shots here.

“So in Burnout 3, it’s not about racing through traffic anymore. It’s about fighting through the traffic. It’s a lowdown dirty race to the finish line, and you’ll be rewarded in both boost and points for ramming your opponents off the road. So the race is not so much about taking a beautiful racing line, but it’s more like a bareknuckle fistfight. We knew this is what people would be doing all the time online, so we thought we may as well get everyone ready for that in the offline game. You have to take first place and win by any means necessary. Pushing, shoving, ramming, shunting. In most other games that would be bad. In Burnout 3, we want you to do that. You’ll have to just to survive.”

Ever notice that you can type a very direct and to the point email to someone at your office requesting their opinion on something very specific, and it can take up to 2 weeks to get a response? Yet 10 minutes later you can send them a meeting request and you receive notification almost immediately that they have accepted it?

Many of us suffer from information overload when it comes to our inboxes as we receive literally hundreds of messages a day. Sometimes hitting reply and typing out a two sentence reply is just too much for someone to do so they make a terrible mistake of closing the message thinking that they will come back to it later in the day. Then as the day progresses, more and more messages pile up and your simple request becomes buried.

Don?t grumble! You didn?t make it easy enough for them to respond so in part it is just as much your fault as theirs.

Try using voting buttons instead. It?s not the exact reason they are there but it may help you out in getting a quick and direct answer. In case you don?t know what I am talking about, they are a feature in Outlook (2003 and XP at least) that allow you to include the same buttons that are used in accepting meeting requests or tasks. When you create a new message, click the ?Options? button on the toolbar.

Under Voting and Tracking Options, there is a check box for ?Use Voting Buttons?. Outlook has some standard ones there that you may use. However you can also customize them if you like by clicking inside the box and editing one of the default entries.

Then just type up the rest of your message, and click send. Note that I also think that it?s helpful if you bold certain key elements in your message to make it easier for the recipient to scan through to get the main points.

When your recipient receives the email, they can use the buttons to respond or click reply.

If they choose not to respond now, you may either want to consider alternate approaches to how you write your messages or possibly hiring goons that go shake down your recipient to increase response times.

If your current mail client doesn?t support voting buttons, you may want to consider writing a very long winded email to your boss or technology investor stating the benefits of upgrading to a better system (I can help with the content if you like) and that if they did, you might be able to make it easier for them to respond to your messages in a more convenient manner. Feel free to link to my brilliant post if you must.

Want to know a little more about what is going on these days at Bungie as we all wait eagerly for Halo 2? Have a read of Frankie’s Bungie Weekly Update on rampancy.net. Very cool read. I love opportunites like this to learn a little more about what is going on behind the scenes.

Eidos Interactive (Publisher) and IO Software (Developer) have launched the official website for the game Hitman Contracts

From xboxgamers.com:

The stylish site will act as the indispensable guide to the highly anticipated Hitman: Contracts as well as providing advice for all aspiring assassins.

The site includes regularly updated game info, images, wallpapers, trailers, ‘fly-throughs’ of the game’s locations, competitions and quotes from ‘The Psychology of the Assassin’. Fans will be able to air their views in the forum and those who register on the site will receive regular newsletters and exclusive content. Discover the chilling new weapons of choice that make Agent 47 tick, and enter a competition to identify a weapon based on its sound effect. Winners will receive an exclusive Hitman: Contracts watch so they know when it is time to kill and time to chill.

Hitman: Contracts explores the dark psychology of killing for a living and promises to be the most disturbing episode in the series. The game delivers more action-packed and suspense-filled missions with a greater variety of ways to make the perfect kill. An increased arsenal of firearms, close combat weapons and new ‘take-down’ moves will be at your disposal allowing you to perform a wide range of brutal ‘hits’. Developed by Io Interactive, Hitman: Contracts will be available for PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC in April 2004.

Very sleek design – You need to work a little to get your content (look for the symbols). Looking forward to this game which is coming in April as I have enjoyed playing Hitman 2 on the Xbox a lot.

Finally got around to adding a new Atom feed to my weblog. It seems to work alright/better than my current RSS feed. If you want to subscribe / switch, the feed is available here.

Shane (my boyfriend) recently won a design contest held at one of the Colleges here in NL. Very cool! His redesign is pretty sweet looking and I was going to post it with this entry…but then I realized they probably wouldn’t want it exposed yet until they are ready to launch. Since they are handing him over $2K for the deal…I feel I must respect their wishes.

./me ponders what kind of cool present he will buy her with his winnings. Just kidding!!

As you can see from looking at their existing site, a redesign is definitely in order. He also recently did some slick designs for a couple of personal projects that I am working on. I will release more detail on that stuff once I get off my butt and launch ‘em. Hmm I guess I should be buying HIM a cool present…

Thank you for using NETFILE

Your tax return has been successfully received. Please keep this confirmation number for your records.

Two returns done and filed in about 30 minutes. Yah gotta love it!! Loaded the data files from last year…plugged in new info…uploaded new files to Mr. Taxman…printed confirmation pages…burned cd with new data files…file 2003 folder away in cabinet…DONE and DONE.

Now if they could only make going to the dentist this painless!!!

I hope I can play hockey this good when I am 43. Oh wait nevermind, I suck at hockey (except on the Xbox). Ok maybe I would just be content to finally see Mess play sometime before he retires.

Tablet PC Buzz.com – Have a great article on this neat little program from Einstein Technologies. It lets you use ink for creating appointments, tasks or contacts. I have been wanting to do this for a while so I am going to definitely check it out.

TabletPCBuzz gives it a 3 out of 5. That’s good enough for me to check it out.

Bud Light – Making Faces

Man! What a riot we have had using this little app on the Bud Light site. It’s nice to make people say the things that you always wanted them to say.

I love viral marketing schemes so here is my contribution / plug for this one from Bud Light.

Oh and if you would like to see an example just click here.

I was gonna use a picture of Bill saying how I taught him everything he knows and that he loves my weblog but I figured that would just be wrong.

Curt Rosengren has a great post onstaying motivated at your job.

I remember being very intrigued by his title “Passion Catalyst” a few months ago when I first saw it listed on another blog. Now that I have been reading his weblog for a while I think I have a better respect for what that means. Great great great blog!

Now all I need is a motivation partner Maybe our dog, Zhiva, will be up for the job. Great listener but kinda lacks in the perspective department.

Possible Xbox Live Update Coming Soon

From Connectedhomemag.com…

Various Xbox enthusiast sites are reporting that Microsoft will soon ship an update to the Xbox Live online game service that adds key communications features, such as the ability to send and receive voice and text messages to foes and teammates during games. And later, the company will reportedly add a voicemail feature. To foster a better community around Xbox Live, Microsoft will also improve support for clans–teams of gamers who compete together–by adding clan-tracking statistics. Xbox Live 3.0 will reportedly debut this spring.

I think the clan and team tracking support will be an awesome addition. From my experience with MMORPG games such as Asheron’s Call – this is a great community building feature. I’m interested to see how it will be planned out.

Apparently Arnold got a hair cut today…

BEFORE

AFTER (and apparently not too impressed about the whole deal)

I.T. Vibe has posted a pretty good interview with Stephen McGill, from the Xbox team.

I hope when I launch my new Xbox site over the next week or so that I can find a cool Xbox employee that might honour me with an interview. *cough* hint *cough*

Go to Google and type “miserable failure” and click the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. Pretty funny.

I’m just glad my pic didn’t come up.

Pretty cool pic of Aaron getting his wings this past summer.

He says this was the happiest day of his life…pfft I always figured that was the day he realized he had me for a big sis. Chump!

Student vs Xbox for ?10,000 prize This is pretty sweet. It beats doing homework any day of the week I am sure. I love regional events like this. I think they do a lot for creating massive hype.

*/me ponders if she could pass for a UK student.*

Probably not…too much damn Irish in me. Now if they ever offered a fast talking, rum drinking, project gotham racing tourney…I’m there!!

Of all the different articles I have read today on the supposed leaked specs for Xbox 2 – this one was the better one. It gives the details originally outlined in the Mercury News article with a little bit of a reminder to not believe everything you read.

Hard drive or no hard drive – I am sure that the new design will not have any limitations when it comes to online play or content download. Xbox Live! is already leading the way in that respect – I have no fears that next version will be anything but awesome!!

Speaking of multiplayer, I stumbled across this site in my travels. This guy has a few ladders and forums running that may be of interest to some. I am thinking about checking out the Links 2004 and PGR2 ladders myself.

Happy Birthday to my big bro (32nd) and his awesome little boy (2nd)!!! You guys are the greatest and I had a terrific time spending the day with you. Thanks for all the fun and laughs this weekend. It was a very “Wiggly Paaaarrty!!!!