My experience with the Xbox 360

About two weeks ago I received an Xbox 360 for my birthday from my wife. She did a lot of research and got a really good deal on a refurbished machine with an extra controller and a copy of Halo 3. Now, I know that 360s are notoriously unreliable and one might immediately assume getting a refurbished machine is a bad idea, but the reduced cost and the supposed elimination of the red-ring-of-death problem (that’s what they refurbish) made it seem like a good idea.

Once opened I immediately activated Xbox live and went to a store to pick up a game with the 25$ gift card that some friends had given me. I expected to get Gears of War or Crackdown because they’ve been out for a year–I was wrong. The used version of each was pushing 50$ which I found astonishing. It turns out that triple-A 360 titles are holding their value as much as triple-A Nintendo titles (go try to find a used copy of Smash Bros or Mario Kart). The only good game that I could afford was Dead Rising by Capcom. I think it was a launch title and it was still 30$ so I had to pay a little. I’d never played the game before but I know it reviewed well and I trust Capcom with zombies. The game turned out to be great (lawn mower + zombies = awesome), I had a fellow eightandfiver over and we played passing the controller. We also played a little halo but the game isn’t that good to watch and my wife was playing with us and wasn’t a big Halo fan. We actually ended the night playing Super Mario 3 that was just made available on the virtual console–score one for the Wii.

Within the next week I had gotten Bioshock and Orange Box through game fly. I also had Gears of War briefly but there were too many new games to play before I went through the catalog. I sent it back and got Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles (another good Capcom game, this time for the wii, also with zombies). I also managed to throw down a reservation for Rock Band that involved trading in an assload of games to get to the $160 and the last 360 reservation available at the GameStop I shop at.

Bioshock was great, although with Orange Box I had trouble committing to it, I’m sure the significant other and I will get around to it at some point. I put a lot of time into portal and even started replaying Half-Life 2. Damn these are great games. I had trouble playing team fortress 2 because all my multi-player time was going to Halo 3 (also a great game). I really felt like I had in the heyday of the PS2 when we had just tons of great stuff all at the same time (GTA, SSX, Burnout, Katamari…). I was in heaven—and it was during a game of portal just after I got the weighted companion cube that my 360 froze for the first time.

I restarted and started to play Half-Life 2 and got pretty far when it froze again (thank god for tons of auto saves). This time when I restarted the 360 it was flashing red. It was the standard red-ring-of-death that a refurbished Xbox isn’t supposed to get. I know this because the towel trick worked. The problem lies in some solders that fail to connect. The towel trick involves wrapping the console in a towel to deliberately overheat it so the solder expands and connects again. A temporary fix at best.

The real downer was that the next day I got to pick up Rock Band and then leave the house and spend thanksgiving in North Carolina (where I had a marvelous time). I got back on Sunday ready to try the 360 again, with the towel trick if need be, to finally get to try out the killer rock band drums… I couldn’t get past the title screen.

I managed to get a hold of the company that refurbished it and get a return authorization. They were really responsive and allowed me to keep the hard drive and all other accessories. The system is currently in transit to them, they’ve assured me they have a quick turnaround time and that they’ll mail off another system within a day of receiving mine.

I hope I get it soon. I’m afraid my weighted companion cube is going to miss me.

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Purple and Brown

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Since, Pakistan gained independence in August of 1947 it has been under political turmoil. As a result its Army has emerged as a very strong force in the country. Either because of the strong army or the complacent politicians a true Pakistani democracy has never been well established. In the last sixty years of independence none of the parties elected to rule have completed a single term. No doubt we have some of the most corrupt politicians, they come into government, do corruption, after a coup occurs they go into self imposed exile and then are brought back again claiming “democracy saviors”. So, right now I am not supporting any one… but I must ask myself: Which country doesn’t have corrupt politicians? It does not mean that there should be Martial Law imposed, dictatorship is not a solution. One of the primary reasons of not having strong democratic institution in Pakistan is lack of free judicial system , democracy is based on strong and fair Justice System but unfortunately, it has been under political influence since creation of Pakistan. This was first time in the history of Pakistan that Judiciary was trying to be independent, fair and courageous enough to question the government especially a dictator on its illegal decisions but Musharraf wont let this happen because he would have to answer to general public. That was one of the reasons he previously (March, 2007) suspended Chief Justice of Pakistan due to corruption charges. The Chief Justice is not corrupt, all he did was ask the government to produce those people which are held by Intelligence agencies without any charges due to so called “War on Terror” and Musharraf did not like that. Due to strong country wide protests, Chief Justice was reinstated.

Now the current crisis started when Musharraf wanted to be elected as President from current pro-government Parliament but at the same time stay as Chief of Army Staff, for that he brought major amendments in Election commission charter to be eligible to run election. He wanted to hold all the powers before the next year elections. His election win was challenged by the opposition parties in the Supreme Court, its decision was due and there was good chance that it would have been against him. So, before it was about to happen, he declared the State of Emergency (Martial Law) and constitution was suspended.

Most of the critics, including myself believe that Musharraf with the help of intelligence agencies has been engineering the circumstances inside Pakistan to gain support from West for staying in power (fighting the war on terror). Western allies would think, if Musharraf is not there as head of that country, it will collapse. It’s the country that has nuclear weapons etc etc. All of this he’s done to prolong his dictatorship and to gain Western support. Now the US also has major concerns over its declining popularity worldwide and supporting Musharraf isn’t going to help. At one end of world we are fighting a war to remove a dictator and at the other we support a dictator. Recently, Pakistan’s most corrupt former Prime Minister (Benazir Bhutto) was brought back from self-imposed exile to make a power sharing deal with a dictator. All the corruption charges were dropped against her; she owed billions of dollars to public due to her corruption while she was in power. Musharraf admitted that US played important role in that deal.

Please don’t think that I am blaming west for Pakistan problems but our (US) foreign policy’s double standards play a major role and most of the time we are kept in dark. It’s Pakistani people’s own fault because if you don’t want to change then no one else can change you.

Currently, following are the highlights after Martial Law was imposed:

Constitution has been suspended

Freedom of movement restricted

Private TV channels taken off air

Suspects can be denied access to lawyers

Supreme Court Chief justice plus many other judges are being sacked and are under House arrest

Lawyers and political activists are being arrested

Basic human rights are suspended

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“All Day” Adrian Peterson Featured on ESPN.com

ESPN has started allowing embedded video links to be hosted at ESPN.com. Check out what they have to say about Minnesota Vikings rookie sensation Adrian Peterson.

I was at the game last Sunday when Adrian Peterson broke the single-game NFL rushing record. It was awesome!

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