Chris Drumgoole

I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived at work yesterday, Monday, to see many more sites accessible, and the speed to go with them.  iTunes purchases are actually downloading (although not at peak speed), NetVibes works!  YouTube works!  CNN works!  But flickr still doesn’t.

The internet at my home still sucks.  So I can’t connect to XBox Live to download an update for my console so Media Center Extender functionality will work.  Ahem.  Why does life have to be difficult?

Speaking of XBox - bought a few more games over the weekend.  Including Table Tennis.  Pretty neat!  Strange the makers of Grand Theft Auto made Table Tennis.

I will be going to Shanghai this weekend to meet up with a good friend from the U.S., Derek.  Just a quick trip, Saturday morning to Sunday evening.  Should be fun.

Yesterday marked a complete shift in my idealogical thinking.

I used to have the opinion that console game systems were worthless.  “Just buy a really good computer and play games on that!” I would say.  Heck, I prefer the Mouse + Keyboard combination over a controller any way.

I used to play console systems.  I had an NES, an SNES, then switched to computer gaming, then got an original XBOX for Christmas in 2001, I think.  Or was it 2002?  Any way, that was pretty cool, although it was essentially an Intel-based PC with an nVidia graphics card.  Then I decided, when I sold the XBOX and moved to China, never again!

But, That is all changed, now.

With my almost-obsession with the “connected home”, my plan was to have a good desktop (not purchased yet) to become the keeper of my media.  Photos, music, tv shows, movies, etc.  (Of course I would still buy DVDs, I am talking about downloaded media).  Then I would have a “Media Extender” which would … “extend” my media from the PC to the TV.  What to get, I asked?  the Apple TV, when it comes out?  Man, $300 is a chunk of money for that…  A Media Extender from Netgear or Linksys or other 3rd party?  Possibly…  But then I ran across the XBOX 360.

The X360 will act as a Media Extender with a Media Center 2005 PC or a Vista PC.  AND, it plays games!  AND, its only slightly more than the $300 the Apple TV costs (and that guy doesn’t play games).

So, I bought an XBOX 360 yesterday.  And a bunch of games to go with it.

3 words: Pretty damn cool.

I especially like Need for Speed: Carbon and Rainbow Six: Vegas.

I won’t be able to test the Media Extender capabilities for a few months until i buy my new PC - am waiting for Vista to come out.

Something I don’t like about the X360 is the fact that I have to pay money to play multiplayer games online.  That sucks.  BUT, the international-access internet in China sucks monkey balls, so I suppose I’ll be playing solo for the time being.

Ok, so the flickr feed at the top is not working. So I didn’t fix it.

And the Plazes thingy is kind of gay.

Enough of that. So, for those of you who didn’t know (*cough* Matt…) the international Internet access from China (and much of Asia) has been utter crap-o-lah.

The “Great Dec-06 Earthquake of Taiwan” might ring a bell. No? I guess non-asian residents don’t care. But surely, you’ve notices a reduction in your spam emails since then, right? If you’re lazy, the dang earthquake severed several underwater cables. Of course cross-continent normal IDD phone service and most leased line access has been restored since the earthquake, but, they have SLAs, right? The public internet doesn’t so, we’re left with the brute of the force, so to speak. And now more earthquakes (smaller) are hampering the cable repairs.
Any way, it’s been crap. My iTunes purchases won’t download. digg.com won’t load. netvibes.com won’t load. cnn.com is crazy slow. Yet, Google sites are perfectly fine (which is good, as I use GMail). Yahoo! also seems to have major issues.

Lucky for me, I was in Tokyo with Mel when ti happened, so we didn’t have to deal with the immediate results, which I am told, left people with near-zero access. (As an aside: Internet access, yeah, pretty much outside of China, rocks.)
Any way, now it looks end of January. Let’s hope they can get it done. I have a $2 Rose Bowl game to watch that hasn’t downloaded yet from iTunes.

Well, I am ranting. Quick update:

1. I still plan to upload my Tokyo photos. Bare with me please. (See above)
2. Melanie will be moving to India for a 5-6 month stint on Monday. I plan to buy a game console to keep me busy while she’s away.
3. That’s it… Life is a treat.