McWilliams’ World

One of my Xbox 360 wireless controllers has some sticky buttons (oh the joys of having kids). I’ve been meaning to find some tools to open it up and clean it. I ran out to Menards to find a torx set and found a multi-fold-up set but were too big AND I come to find out that it uses security torx screws. Grrr!

So I do some digging on the web and although I can find tools and bits, in general they aren’t going to fit down those stupid narrow holes on the controller.

Further searching lead me to DecalGirl.com who had the exact tool needed for the job. The sell skins for just about anything, Xbox 360, Guitar Hero guitars, Nintendo DS, etc… plus controller shells. I was real tempted to order some guitar skins but had to hold off. I’m sure my boys would love to get some DS skins.

So I fired off an order for the tool; $7 with shipping and now I wait.

So if you need to open that controller or skin our iPod, Zune, or Xbox head over to DecalGirl.com. I’m glad I did.

Man this sucks… My computer died on Friday. The screen would just go black. A reboot usually got it back up, but at some point it stopped booting. No beeps, no nothing.

Thinking it was my video card, I ran around trying to find an AGP based video card. Landing at a local PC shop I plopped down $70 and ran home to slap it in.  Nothing. I got the same results. The box turns on, the fans whir up but that’s it. Bubkis. I tried everything; re-seat the CPU, pull the memory, un hook everything… nothing.

My only thought was that it was either the motherboard or CPU. Digging around NewEgg.com, I discover that if I upgrade either one… I’m screwed. I’d need new memory, video card, etc… No point in blowing $300 for a band-aid.

I’ve built my own computer for nearly 15 years. I’ve never purchased a retail system. I’ve sold them and even had a very small custom PC business. It’s not that I didn’t like retail systems… I just liked getting my hands dirty. I like custom building stuff. But this time, I think the state of the industry caught up to me. It’s fine if you just need to swap out a component but when you’re dealing with the motherboard or processor, that’s major.

So I broke down and found a fairly decent Dell. We don’t game on it (that’s why we have 2 Xbox 360’s), but mainly web, email, music, video - pretty standard stuff). I splurged on a 22″ Widescreen Samsung LCD monitor (just like I did for my Mom when she bought her’s recently); something I was going to buy anyways once I got my $2000 in gift cards (whenever that  happens). I compared a few other configurations and this was probably the best of both worlds. I ended up blowing about $760.

So about a week or so I’ll have a band spanking new system. Money that I really didn’t want to spend - but life works like that… here’s hoping my tax return is hefty.

Our schedules at home have been hectic lately so we’ve missed watching our favorite shows that we DVR.  After a while the shows start piling up and the available recording space starts to dwindle. So much so that our DVR (Time Warner) starts acting funny like dropping scheduled recordings - not fun. So I found a deal on a 250gb external SATA hard drive over on Buy.com for about $70 after rebates. I plugged it in and after some initial fooling around, the system recognized the drive, formated it and it was working in minutes. We went from nearly 95% full to about 27%. A fairly comfy cushion.

Received our two Zunes this morning yesterday via FedEx that I bought off of Woot.com for $99/each - a smmmmmmmmokin’ good deal if you ask me. Let me tell you, I shared the same enthusiasm as everyone else that got in on the deal. Everyone was clamoring to get tracking info and counting down till the units arrived.

Ours arrived in perfect condition - if the refurbished sticker or refurbished notice wasn’t on the box, you’d never know these weren’t new. Absolutely flawless.

I spend most of the day ripping A LOT of my Cd’s that I haven’t got around to dumping. I still used my trusty old Quintessential Player to rip - It just works nice. I’m also going through and cleaning up all the ID tags on my music so they’re recognized better in the Zune software. Again Quintessential Player helps out by using GraceNote to find the track information and apply it en mass.

I’m sooo stoked I got these Zunes! They rock!

A week ago I purchased the last few items to finalize my new drum kit; a 3 pack of cymbals, 4 new mesh heads, and a kick patch (protects the kick head from the incessant pounding).

I bought the 3 pack of cymbals cause it looked like a deal - because usually when you buy multiple items in a pack vs. separately you get a price break. So, I threw them in my cart, added the other items and submitted my order.

For kicks I went back a day or two later just to see if I did get a good deal and find out that I ended up spending about $20 MORE for the same 3 cymbals if I had purchased them individually. WTH?!

So I fired off an email to Midwest Percussion and asked what the difference was. Am I getting cables? Cymbal springs? What is it about this 3 pack that makes it $20 more? Apparently nothing since they credited my account the difference - for a future purchase.

At least they recognized the goofiness of the pricing.

I mentioned before how I’ve been looking at buying an electronic drum kit. I managed to score a good deal on a used kit off eBay for $875. It’s a Pintech mesh kit with a Roland TD-6 module. Since the kit didn’t have any triggered cymbals, I had to purchase some. I managed to score 4 off an ebay auction and ordered a ride cymbal from my buds at Midwest Percussion. The kit should be arriving Tuesday the 25th. Between Halo 3 and my new Kit, what am I going to do with myself.

I can’t wait to get playing again.

I just scooped a deal over at Dell.com on Zunes. They’re running $70 off select models + an additional 10% if you use PayPal checkout + free 3-5 day shipping. With tax it came to around $104. A pretty sweet deal.

I’ve been meaning to get Zune for both Tracy and I. I may have one coming from club.live and have a free one in process at CheckoutPath.com (however, I believe it’ll just be a check).

Thinking about it, I should have just bought two right away, but I don’t have the freebie-cash to cover two at the moment. The rest will come in the next month or so.

But for the time being… a Zune’s on the way!

[UPDATE: 8.14.07]

Looks like Dell canceled my order (it was a glitch in their ordering process). Well it was worth a try. Still can bank on at least one of the other two coming from my other sources.

If you’re in the market for books or whatever, Buy.com has a pretty good deal going on; During checkout you’ll see an offer for a free magazine subscription valued at $10 with orders over $15. If you don’t want the mag, you can print off a rebate form and get the value in a rebate. Couple that with $10 off if you use Google Checkout, you just erased $20 off your order. Plus using FatWallet.com’s Now! bookmarklet, I also should get a 1% kick back on my total order as well.

I’ve been getting back into reading lately, finishing The Christ Clone Trilogy (I’ll give it a 4 out of 5). I’ve really been wanting to get back to my favorite author Terry Brooks whom I discovered while in high school picking up The Sword of Shannara. I was hooked ever since. Although I have a few of his books laying around yet unread, I wanted to pick up his The Word & the Void Series. Plus a new Shannara series beginning with Armageddon’s Children. Actually this is a tie-in between Shannara and The Word & the Void. Should be interesting.

[updated: updated links to Shanarra and Word and Void series]