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Tuesday night I finally had some free time and decided to install Vista Ultimate on my Macbook. My Parallels install of XP MCE 2005 is getting full and I needed to reinstall anyways. Well would you know my luck, less that 12 hours after I installed Vista, Apple releases a Vista compatible version of Boot Camp. Thank god its just an updated driver CD and I don’t have to repartition and reinstall.

I just wish Parallel’s supported Vista on a Boot Camp partition so I didn’t have to reboot but the only two things i really need Windows for is to watch Netflix streaming movies and Comic Collector Live. Its only a matter of time for Parallels supports it and I can wait.

Let do alittle experiment.

V for Vendetta HD DVD was in my Netflix queue and went into “Processing” at about 10:30 am today. At about the same time, I was checking out the new Video Marketplace on my 360 and one of the (only) HD movies they offer is V for Vendetta. I rented it from the Marketplace for $6 and it started to download. I tried to cancel my Netflix queue but it was too later as it was already in Processing. So both are on there way. Lets see which one makes it first.

Update 1:
At around 6pm tonight, I was around 7% for the download and V for Vendetta had already shipped from Netflix with an arrival date of 11/24.

Update 2:
Checked my download at 1am and my download has stopped. Not sure how long its been. There is no Active Download nor any movies in my Video section. So I’ve restarted my download.

Update 3:
Download died once again at around 3am last night. Restarted at about 3:45am. Woke up at 11am to find it had stopped again. Restarted right away. Currently at 3%. Download restarted at 0% at the 3am for whatever reason. No mail today due to Thanksgiving holiday.

Update 4:
Came home from Thanksgiving at around 2pm today to find I was logged out of Xbox Live and my download has stopped one again. Restarted download as soon as I logged back in. Download is currently at 8%. Mail came today but no Netflix packs. The race is still on.

Update 5:
Just got home from work at 2:44am and the download is still going. Woohoo! Maybe they are finally fixing the bandwidth issues at MS. File is only 27% tho. Mail should be here in about 8 hours.

…#4 here I come

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.

The September Issue of EGM (issue 207) is reporting that Konami’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is headed to Xbox Live Arcade sometime Q1 of 2007. From what it looks like, it will be a port of the PlayStation version and not the Sega Saturn version. Oh well.

If this is true, this is a system seller for me. Castlevania is my all time favorite series and SOTN is up there next to Rondo of Blood as best game of the series. With titles like Galaga and Street Fighter II for XBLA already, I’m one good title away from going out and buying a Xbox360. Lets just hope that game is Guitar Hero II.

While poking around flickr i came across these screenshots of a beta release of Windows Live Mail Desktop. I’m not sure what Microsoft’s plan is here because this is different from Microsoft Mail that comes with Vista. He has a few more pics up here. Now, I’m about one of the most tech savvy people out there but seriously, Microsoft is really confusing the shit out of me with Live and Vista.