McWilliams’ World

Where the hell have I been?! I’ve neglected my blog for nearly a month. Thing have been crazy busy and I just haven’t had the gumption to put my fingers on the keyboard and bang out a post.

So what’s been up?

As mentioned before, I had to buy a new computer system and bought a pretty nice Dell system. It’s my first retail system. Prior - I built all my systems. This time the cost vs. value of building a system finally caught up to me. I’m no longer keeping track of the computer component market so for me to up an replace a motherboard, CPU and memory would be too time consuming. I just want something that works, comes from the same place and is covered by a warranty.

I getting to love Vista - although I hear Service Pack 1 (due in March) should improve on some of the underpinnings. One annoyance I have is that my mouse is very imprecise. The pointer never quite activates a button as you think it should. I’m not sure if it’s my mouse or what - I’ll have to swap it out and see if that makes a difference - but it sure is annoying.

I totally love my Samsung 22" Windscreen monitor. Looks great and takes up 1/10th of the space my old CRT 19" monitor did - not to mention weighs a ton less too!

Freebies: The wait continues

I haven’t done too much in the way of freebies. I’m still waiting of a combined $2000 in gift cards that I completed between Aug - Sept ‘07. They should be shipping soon I hear.

I recently received 4000 Xbox Live Points from YourFree360Games.com. I downloaded a ton of Rock Band tracks and some other stuff. Came in real handy. Not in the mood at the moment to jump back into a freebie blitz but maybe mid year.

Drum Kit is Rockin’

My electronic drum kit is rockin’ now that I replaced a part of the hi-hat controller. Pintec uses a "foam chunk" to activate the hi-hat trigger and since I bought the kit used, the original chunk just gave out; it was cracked and no longer activating the trigger. So I ordered a new one from Pintec and it works great now. I also have been having a blast customizing my kits. It seems like every time I sit down to jam I end up tweaking something; finding the perfect kick and snare, experimenting with settings, etc… My bud and former band make, Brian, has some tunes he wants to track so we’ll be able to digitally record on my PC and have all kinds of fun. My sister also may have me do some drumming for her songs she’s working on.

Crackdown has my attention

I’ve been playing Crackdown just about every time I sit down and play Xbox. It’s just an extremely fun game. Great explosions, tons of action, huge explosions and the amount of freedom and activities your given make this a must-have in my book. I picked it up used from GameStop over Christmas vacation for under $20 and haven’t put it down yet. Anyone want to do some co-op?

Speaking of Xbox

My wife asked me why I’m not playing on-line. I responded, "Because I don’t like playing with idiots." It’s true. I can’t stand all the smack talk and especially being target practice for the 15yr olds that have nothing better to do than sit and play for 12hr a day. It’s a bit intimidating. The sad thing is I have a ton of great multi-player games such as GRAW (1 & 2), Halo 3, COD (2, 3, 4), Rainbow Six: Vegas, Gears, and they just sit there. I’d really like to do some co-op or play multi-player with some buds but time is always an issue. So if you see me online (gt: Captain Betty) shoot me an invite if you promise to let me win.

Photos Added

I uploaded a fresh batch of images on my Flickr account.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 2:14 pm and is filed under Whatever, Xbox Related. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.