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That’s what they say right? That it takes three weeks to form a habit. Well. It’s been about three weeks since I kind of fell into a new self improvement venture.

I was shopping the day before Christmas at Best Buy and saw a copy of Rocksmith for fairly cheap. Even though I honestly didn’t have all that much interest in the game. I thought it might be fun so I picked it up along with a pretty cheap electric guitar to go along with it. All of this was purely on a whim as I was trying to figure out how to spend a best buy gift card I got for buying a new TV for our bedroom.

Now I’ve played the game a few times, and yeah it’s good fun, and the videos and games can teach some techniques and practice. But for someone who had never touched ‘literally never’ a guitar in his life before playing it has been pretty hard.

That being said I’ve muddled through a little of it. However mostly I’ve been looking reading through an Alfred’s teach yourself book and working through the exercises and watching beginner lessons on YouTube. So I’m happy to report that after three weeks,,, I still suck. Really badly. However. I am still having fun with it. And I’ve definitely gotten a little better after three weeks. I know at the very least that I’m building up the required hand endurance as my finger no longer scream in pain from squishing on steel strings.

I take a little comfort in the knowledge that after three weeks of running nearly two years ago, I was only going about 1.5 miles or so. Learning something new takes time, patience, and practice.

I’ve picked up a few observations as well. There seems to be two schools of learning guitar. There is the classic learn all the notes and strings method (the Alfred’s book I’m slowly working through). There is also the learn a few chords and just string those together. Then memorize a few riffs and these are the places that you put your hands etc. rather than reading notes and playing songs directly from music.

I’m doing a little bit of both. Slowly. For now I’m still having fun with it. I’ve gotten stuck on a song in Rocksmith because it has the unfortunate side affect of not being able to look at your hands since your watching the game screen. I’m sure after a bit I’ll start to be able to feel where my hand is on the fret board, but for now I just can’t do it.

I intend to keep working through the Alfred’s book and I’ll get back to Rocksmith again soon as I get a few more basics down. I think I might actually take a beginner course being offered here in Oxford in March. It is a five week course and might give me some perspective I don’t currently have. But we’ll have to see if I’m still at it in March first.

written by Chris \\ tags: Guitar, Habit, Improvement, Rocksmith, Xbox

Just wanted to drop in a note to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

I took some pictures, Val took some as well. I’ve got mine in right now. I’ll put Val’s in the album later. Here’s the link to the album:

I also managed take some video. Now, I didn’t do any video editing at all. But I cobbled the raw video I took together just trying to get it out fast. So here it is. I apologize for shaky video and stuff, I’ll probably take this down in a couple of weeks.

I ended up getting Valerie an iPod Touch, there are tons of great apps and stuff, and with the home sharing, we only have to buy them once between us. But since her phone is provided by the school, there’s no reason for her to get an iPhone. So hopefully, she’ll enjoy it.

I got an Xbox 360 for Christmas. *strange looks* Yes, I already had an Xbox 360. But unfortunately, it broke on Wednesday Evening, I was playing Fight Night Round 4 on it, and it lost the Red Colorstream, then after a little while longer, it finally gave up the ghost and quick outputting video altogether. I tried the composite cable as well, and it did the same thing. Started looking it up, seems to happen sometimes to people, and the Xbox was way out of warranty.

Unfortunately, though I don’t play too many games on it, it has become a staple in our home mainly for the streaming of Netflix to our HD TV. So it had to be replaced (It didn’t hurt that I still haven’t quite finished Dragon Age and need to do so). Anyway, So, I ended up getting an Xbox Elite. It’s much quieter than the other one, plus it has an HDMI port on it, which will be nice if I ever pick up a cable.

Alright, well, once again. Merry Christmas Everyone!!

written by Chris \\ tags: Christmas, Pictures, Video, Xbox

So, Friday Night and all Day Saturday, I ended up playing with the Windows 7 Media Center. I like it. It made it very easy for me to stream movies to my Xbox.

I had once tried to do this with Windows XP, and never could get it to work. I had some TV Shows and movies that weren’t in formats that would stream over right. Never got around to converting them or whatever.

Windows Media Center fixed all that. Admittedly, I never tried the Windows Vista one. But I’m told it was possible to do the Xbox thing with it too. But it was so cool watching old TV Shows, and Movies on my TV streaming from a Network Hard Drive via my iMac. If only I didn’t have to boot into Windows to do it…

Do you think there is any chance Microsoft will put out a WIndows Media Center for OS X?

Speaking of OS X Spending the last two days using Windows again reminded me of something. I’m glad I don’t use windows all that much.

The Windows Media Center has managed to lock up my Xbox twice. Once requiring that I hold the power button down to actually get it to shut off. Also, I’ve managed to lock up the OS as well, on an installation that is less than a week old which has hardly anything installed on it. The main culprit was an installation of Call of Duty on the computer which was giving me fits. I did manage to actually get it to install after implementing the compatibility mode, but still, it’s worth mentioning. Of note, I haven’t seen a Blue Screen of Death yet. But it’s only been a couple of days, and I’m in that partition fairly infrequently.

written by Chris \\ tags: rant, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Media Center, Xbox

I hate these things. I wish I could just turn the things off, that way nobody would see my “Gamerscore” and I wouldn’t see theirs. I’m not sure what purpose they serve, they’re just there to taunt me. I look at my Gamerscore, it is significantly lower than most of the people in my Friends list. Therefore, I’m somehow inferior, at least in Xbox World.

Also, I’m in that recreation group, which I’m not sure what that does anyway, because the matchmaker frequently pits me against people in the pro or underground categories.

My main problem with the Xbox Live Achievement System is that sometimes, (And I try to avoid this, but it’s definitely hard sometimes), I’ll play games I don’t even want to play. Or in a way I don’t want to play them… just to unlock a freaking achievement. I’m not quite as bad as some people, though. I mean. I won’t go out of my way, and if it turns out to be too hard, or too time consuming, I will usually give up rather quickly rather than persevering. I just don’t care that much. But if they turn out to be easy enough, I’ll give them a shot.

To me, this takes away the whole point of a video game. If you’re doing this, you’re not playing a game because it’s something fun to do, you’re playing a game, because you need to finish something. (Sound familiar? That’s called work).

What do you think?

written by Chris \\ tags: Video Games, Xbox

Our Society as we know it is doomed. There is just way to much rampant stupidity in this world that it cannot continue in this fashion. I have a couple of stories that I would like to share with you today.

USB Cables
We had to replace a printer that went bad at work. So I had a quote for a printer sent to me and we bought a LaserJet P2015. It’s a light duty printer. Most of the heavy stuff goes to our network printers. This one handles some specific labels, and is in a more convenient area for one of the workers.

So It’s the first time at work I’ve bought a printer that was USB only. Up till now they’ve all been parallel port or ethernet printers. Lately they are all pretty much network printers. The last “personal laser” type printer I’ve purchased was like 3 or 4 years ago. So they are due to be dying soon.

Anyway. I had a USB cable quoted to me as well, since I don’t have any of those lying around at work. I knew I would have to get it. The quote for the cable was $3.99. I turned in the Purchase Requisition and waited.

When the printer came in. I didn’t find the cable. I went back and realized that though I had quoted the cable. I forgot to add it to the Purchase Requisition. No problem. I’ll just go and buy a cable at Office Depot. So I grabbed the company card and went.

The cheapest USB Cable that they had was $24.99……… $24.99….. For a USB Cable. A USB Cable. We’re talking about a cable with four wires and a shield in it.

So I left and went to Radio Shack. They had one for $19.99. So I went to Walmart. They had one for $10.97. Which I ended up purchasing cuz I was tired of driving around town. But I’m disappointed. Why don’t they have a ziplock back with a cable in it I could buy for $7.00 or something.

As an aside, as I was leaving. I was going to get a diet coke too. They were $1.25 plus tax in the cooler for a 20 oz bottle. I went to the Vending Machine. Where they are $1.00 even (including the tax) for the same thing.

Buying a Game at Gamestop
A couple of weeks ago I borrowed an Xbox 360 game from a friend. The game was Forza Motorsport 2. I tend to like racing games. And was always a fan of those Gran Turismo games on Playstation and PS2. But since I don’t have those anymore. He let me try this one to see if I liked it. (It came with his Xbox as a pack in- along with Marvel Ultimate Alliance, which I don’t have any interest in).

I enjoyed the game quite a bit. It had the feel of Gran Turismo, and I liked the “career” mode and everything. It was a good game. So I decided I was going to buy a copy.

I wasn’t really in any rush to get it or anything. They were $59.99 in most of the stores, and I was hoping that they would go down in price. I hate paying $60.00 for a video game. I like when they go on clearance at $20. It’s very, very rare I pay for a new game.

Anyway. Last week I was in Gamestop. (Trying to buy a wavebird to use with our Wii so Sarah and I can play Super Monkey Ball and Mario Kart Double Dash). So I went ahead and looked. They had several used copies of Forza Motorsport 2 for only $29.99 each. That was just to good a deal to pass up I usually pass on used copies at stores like Gamestop and EB because they typically charge $54.99 for games that retail at $60. Or $44.99 for games that retail at $50. At those rates I typically feel it’s worth the extra $5 bucks to go ahead and get a new copy.

But $29.99 for a game that’s retailing at $59.99 Well that hits a critical threshold for me allowing me to go ahead and buy a used game. So I decided upon my purchase and took it to the cashier.

She was about to ring me up when she looked at the game and did a double take.

Cashier: You’re buying Forza Motorsport 2?
Me: Yes.
Cashier: For $30
Me: Yes.
Cashier: You know… you can get Forza Motorsport 2 and Marvel Ultimate Alliance for only $20
Me: *inquisitively* Huh? No I didn’t know that.
Cashier: Let me show you.

At this point, she grabbed the game and went to the shelf I was just at. Below the copies of Forza Motorsport 2 were a bunch of copies of Marvel Ultimate Alliance. But if you turned these boxes around to the back. They had the cover of Forza Motorsport 2 on the back of it. In fact. This was the pack-in game which I referred to above. Apparently several people sold their pack in games to Gamestop.

So, thanks to a very nice and observant cashier (Which says something good about society), I got to walk out of the store with Forza Motorsport 2 for $40 dollars less than I had intended to pay for it. Along with another game to pass the time with. (Even though it still doesn’t really interest me.)

Anyway. That’s all I’ve got for now. Till next time.

written by Chris \\ tags: economy, Video Games, weird, Wii, Work, Xbox