Some of my photos from the Lost Planet Release Party in San Francisco were recently featured in the e-zine Science Fiction/San Francisco issue #38. That issue is now available for free download.

[Direct Link to PDF]

After striking out last night trying to score a copy of WoW: Burning Crusade, I stumbled into Walmart at around 2pm this afternoon and walked out with a copy hassle-free. (side note, they had PS3′s in stock but no Wii’s). Got home, installed 4 disc and about 14 updates, then made a new Blood Elf on Bleeding Hollow. After 20mins of going through names that were already taken, Xan was born. I decided to make a Warlock instead of the standard issue Paladin. I really haven’t made a magic user yet and with Mana Tap, Warlock seemed prime.

Got to level 6 tonight just running around doing all the starter quests. Ton of people in the Blood Elf starting town but the servers seemed stable with no noticeable lag. I picked up all my spells and learned my first summon then called it quits for today. I’m definitely not hardcore about WoW as most others are. I play when I can and but maybe Burning Crusade will get me a little more involved.

I’m going to jump on now and do some more quests and maybe let my Imp, Volrot, go apeshit on some stuff. He’s like a spider-monkey on meth. I love it.

Went down to my local Gamestop tonight for the WoW Burning Crusade midnight launch. I didn’t have the game pre-ordered so I was just hoping to get lucky and they would have a few extra copies. No such luck. It wasn’t all for nothing. I meet up with a friend and we BS’d while waiting in line.

I have some pictures of the event up on Flickr.

I’m still kinda on the fence if I want to pick up the expansion as I really don’t play WoW that much. If i could have gotten it tonight, I would have but now I may just wait for the price to drop and pick it up or I just might cancel my account all together.

I absolutely love this case. The quality is exceptional as to be expected from Waterfield Designs. The case itself holds the DS Lite itself, 3 games and an extra stylus. In addition it had a zippered pouch in the back that can hold addition games, headphones, lint free rag, cash, even my iPod nano fits without it being too tight. I really couldn’t ask for more in a case. The case its a little pricey at $39 but its well worth it

I’ve posted a ton of pictures on Flickr if you’d like to see more of it.

January – started using Mac OS X

February – built dedicated computer to run Mac OS X on

March – Starting using iTunes to manager my media

April – stopped using Bloglines, switched from Exchange to Google Mail and Google Calendar, bought a Jimi wallet

May – switched Layout, Skype is free for the rest of the year, started a new job, Macbook’s released, went to grand opening of Apple 5th Ave store, bought my Macbook

June – joined valleyshwag, MC360 released for XBMC, bought a Nintendo DS Lite, canceled my Final Fantasy XI account after 3 years

July – switched to Flock, Macbook got hit with discoloration, started running using the Nike+iPod kit, Macbook Random Reboots started

August – switched from del.icio.us to Shadows, started using OpenDNS, got hard to find Trauma Center and Phoenix Wright for the DS, new mc chris and Evanescence albums, bought the Timbuk2 blogger bag

September – started new full-time job, fall TV season starts, bought a Xbox360 after Guitar Hero 2 is announced with new controller, canceled my Myspace account

October – got tickets for macworld 2007, Xbox360 troubles, 300 trailer, Macbook RSS fixed, bought my first Blackberry, my Xbox360 has its own blog

November – interviewed for MacNewsWorld, Gears of War, Guitar Hero II and Elite Beat Agents all released on same day, turned 28, XBL Video Marketplace released, subscribed to Netflix and Gamefly, bought an HD DVD

December – Geekdrome dead, started reading comics again, finally found out what all the hype about Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars and Greys Anatomy was all about

Wow. What a week for games. I picked of Gears of War and Elite Beat Agents yesterday, been playing Guitar Hero II and waiting on my 360′s HD DVD drive.

Monday night I grabbed some Guinness and rocked out with my cock out all night on Guitar Hero II for PS2. I didn’t buy GH2 for PS2 cuz I don’t have a PS2 anymore and I’m waiting for the 360 version. But my roommate has it and thats all i need. I just about finished it on medium but stopped after Hanger 18 because my hand was cramping from playing so much. I have yet to play Co-op but I will soon enough. The game is awesome but my only grip is that the song selection isn’t as fun to play as the first one. The first one had some more modern songs on it and GH2 doesn’t at all. I think the newest song is Monkey Wrench by The Foo Fighters. I would have liked to see some more current hits like in the original. Other than that I’m hooked.

The big news this week is Gears of War for the 360. Now, I never got caught up in the hype of this game for the past year. I didn’t even know it was 3rd person until about a week ago. I ended pre-ordering the Collectors Edition from Gamestop just based on what I’ve been hearing in the past month or so. Picked it up yesterday and played from about 4pm to about 4am completing almost the entire game. I was having a bitch of a time on the final boss so I called it a night. Got up today and must have died 60 times to the end boss before finally beating him and the game. The game is awesome. Not sure if its the best game I’ve ever played but its good, really good. I can’t remember the last time I spent any more than 2 hours in a row on one game and I just sat through 12 hours of this. I’ve never had this much fun dying in a game before.

I also got Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS. With all day and night playing GoW, didn’t really spend time with it. I popped it in right before I went to sleep just to check it out. Its kinda like a Phoenix Wright+Space Channel 5+Dance Dance Revolution mashup. I got by the first song and it was really fun. I’ll try to play alittle more tonight if i can.

I had Friday off so I decided it would be a good time to pack up my xbox and say goodbye. Gamestop was offering a $80 trade-in that i couldn’t pass up. So i removed my modchip and installed the original hard drive and off I went to Gamestop to buy a new Xbox 360. When i get to Gamestop I go through my trade-in and some other accessories I had and pick up a new 360 Premium and a used copy of Dead Rising.

I get home that night and unpack everything, hook everything up and start setting up my Xbox. Made a gamertag, linked it to my live.com account, even purchased a 3 month Gold membership. After setting everything up I threw in Dead Rising and played for a good 30 minutes getting past all the intro movies and whatnot. Next I downloaded some game demos and some Xbox Live Demos. I didn’t want to mess around too much because my girlfriend was staying with me so figured it would be a good time to check out the DVD playback. Popped in the classic Better off Dead and watched that with her before going to bed that night.

Get up the next day and I was going to watch a movie through Front Row only to find out that it keeps crashing when I select certain movie files(thats another blog post altogether). So instead of messing around I remembered you can stream xvid/divx using the 360s Media Center extender. I have a copy of Media Center running in parallels so I figured it would only be a matter of setting up some software. I start up my Xbxo 360 and press the Green Button on my Media Center remote(which btw works great with the 360) so I could get the URL to download the software. While I’m downloading the software from Microsoft, i hear my fan in the 360 getting loader then finally die as the 360 turned off. I look over and see a half Red ring of death. Great. I turn it off and try to turn it on. Same thing. Unplugged everything, reseated cables, took the hard drive off. Nothing worked. *sigh* Back to Gamestop.

Packed up everything and back off to Gamestop. Returned it for a new one with no problem. Actually the girl who rung me up started telling me her own horror stories. Since I returned it on my way to work, I had to wait until that night to hook up the new one. After work I started to unpack the new one and I noticed something looks wrong. I take it out of the plastic and see the USB door is pushed in. Then i notice its jut not pushed it but the case is cracked right below it. WTF. Back in the box it goes ready for another trip to Gamestop tomorrow.

Its now Sunday and I’m on my way back to pickup my 3rd Xbox 360 in 3 days. This time I get the guy who rung me up the first time. I tell him about the cracked case and he checks it out and proceeds to get me my 3rd 360 from the back. This time I leave and go directly home to drop it off then i head to work. After work I again start unpacking making sure I go over this baby with it was a fuckin’ CSI investigation. Everything looks good. Hook everything up once again and power up. The splash screen takes alittle longer than normal. Uh oh. Then it happens. SYSTEM ERROR E67. You have GOT to be kidding me.

At this point I’m no longer pissed because its just that funny. I was about to pack it back up but decided to check online first to see what the E76 message was. Found a page on Xbox Scene that listed all know error codes and what they mean. Apparently E67 is a hard drive problem. Unplugged the Hard drive and it booted up fine. Replugged in the hard drive and it booted again.

Its now Tuesday and I haven’t had any other problems yet tho I’m watching this thing like a hawk. I have 3 more days to return it and after that its back to Microsoft. I’ll keep you posted.

With yesterdays official announcement of Guitar Hero II coming to the Xbox 360 with a new controller, it pretty much decided I was going to be getting a Xbox 360. Since GH2 isn’t going to be released until next year, I was just going to wait until after the holidays to pick one up. Well lo an’ behold, sitting in my inbox today was a email from Gamestop saying they are currently running a promotion that will give you $80 trade in for your Xbox towards a Xbox 360. $319.99 for a Xbox 360 Premium. And on top of it they are give a $10 credit for trading in 3 games and I just happen to have 3 DS games I was going to trade in. Woohoo. So I should be picking up a Xbox 360 Premium for under $299.

The announcements of the HD DVD for $199 and the Marvel MMO pretty much solidified it for me. I’ll be picking it up tomorrow if I get paid, if not its going to have to wait until next weekend. I play on picking up Dead Rising as it seems like the only game worth playing for the 360 right now.

I’m going to miss my Xbox and XBMC but I’m going to take out my chip and HDD and maybe pickup another down the road if the Apple iTV disappoints. I just wish Microsoft would just enable streaming mpeg4 video. No one gives a shit about Media Center!! I mean people might if it was more like XBMC but its not and probably never will be.

While your drooling over the newly confirmed songs for Guitar Hero II, brush up on your Guitar Hero skills using one of these Wireless controllers from Guitar Mania.

The exciting new Freedom V wireless guitar controller offers a 100 foot radius of Auto- Sense 2.4GHz wireless connectivity for up to 800 hours of play on one battery pack (4 AA batteries not included). It includes a patent-pending recessed Start button, which prevents players from accidentally pausing the game, and a finely tuned, highly responsive chrome Super Whammy System whammy bar, which incorporates a heavy gauge coil spring for extreme durability. Players love the feather-touch sensitivity of the buttery fret buttons on the fast-action neck, and its Smart Bidirectional Accelerator sensor allows players to simply “Tilt Upwards” the controller to enter the Star Power bonus mode of the game-instead of having to play the controller while raising the guitar vertically. The Rocking Rhythm strum bar has been tuned for a tighter feel and a more precise response, and all Guitar Mania controllers are made of environmentally friendly materials, which have passed the stringent RoHS standard set forth by the European Union.

The latest issue of EGM features Guitar Hero II on the cover and includes an 8 page cover story. Some of the most interesting info is a list of 24 confirmed songs and some bands that wont be making it to this cut. Don’t look forward to bands like U2, Quiet Riot and Led Zepplin this time around. But you can look forward to these tracks:

• Nirvana – Heart-Shaped Box
• Primus – John the Fisherman
• Stone Temple Pilots – Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart
• Anthrax – Madhouse
• Motley Crue – Shout at the Devil
• The Police – Message in the Bottle
• The Pretenders – Tattooed Love Boys
• Cheap Trick – Surrender
• Spinal Tap – Tonight I’m Going to Rock You Tonight
• Heart – Crazy for You
• Allman Brothers Band – Jessica
• Lynyrd Skynyrd – Freebird
• Avenged Sevenfold – Beast and the Harlot
• Dick Dale – Misirlou
• Lamb of God – Laid to Rest
• Alice in Chains – Them Bones
• Reverend Horton Heat – Psychobily Freakout
• Black Sabbath – War Pigs
• Kiss – Strutter
• Butthole Surfer – Who Was in My Bed Last Night?
• Van Halen – You Really Got Me
• Guns N’ Roses – Sweet Child O’ Mine
• The Rolling Stones – Can’t You Hear Me Knocking
• Rush – YYZ

That leaves 16 unannounced tracks. 2 of those are almost certainly “Hanger 18″ by Megadeth and “Last Child” by Aerosmith as video airplay of those tracks have already made there way to the internet.