Knuckles Dawson
The Canadian who is so much more than his Gamerscore. But, since you're here: 681 days.
« September 2006 | Main | November 2006 »
October 31, 2006
Costumes, Community, Carnage, Calgary, Chaos and Candy. Oh My!
Costumes
After work I biked to The Party Bazaar just down the street to see if I could find something to wear today. After some searching and checking out some candy for my eyes, I spyed a costume called "The Well Hung Man", which is basically a suicide by hanging thing, as well as a delicious pun. I guess one could argue that I need no costume in this case, but that's just stereotypical of a guy to stroke his own ego. Heh. Moving on. The package was open, so I asked the guy at the counter if that's normal. It's not. And the noose and rope for tying the wrists was gone. It was their last one. They had a spare noose, though, but no wrist rope, so I got it for $35 off, but the noose was $20, so whatever. I picked up some fake blood for slit wrists, as well. On top of that, there's a Home Depot not to far for my wrist rope. So I trekked over there with a tight fit for my aforementioned backpack, as while it wasn't going anywhere, my recent acquisition was poking out of the top and it was rather heavy.At Home Depot, a cool twenty-something guy named Johann hooked me up with 3' of rope for like, $1.01, after tax. So I grabbed a bite at Harvey's, after I had them put the rope on the grill for a few seconds to singe it together, as Johann couldn't get the heat cutter to work. The nylon melted a bit, but another quick cut and it'll look really good. One Double Hamburger Combo later and I was off back home. It was suddenly exceptionally cold outside, and I had a big hill to pedal up that I wasn't quite exuberant about. While taking a shortcut, I came across a taxi-minivan, and was thinking, "Screw this, I'll just take the taxi." And so I did, and $6.25 later I was home and STILL under the list price for the costume.
Here's the unique spin for my costume, rather than the supplied shirt, I'll be wearing this one:
Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair
So, I'll be a suicidal tech support employee who couldn't handle the imbecility on the other line. And while I don't work with Tech support, I do occasionally have to deal with clients who know just enough to be dangerous. Anyway, I'll post pics of me in full costume tomorrow or Thursday.
Community
I plopped in some UNO, and was subjected to a Hentai movie (it's wikipedia, but has a thumbnail that may be NSFW), thanks, NEG. You're lucky you're on my friends list and a cool cat. I caught up with Ninjafish, and in true KD Style™, talked without breathing for 5 minutes straight in private chat for a bit. He appears to be kinda starstruck by the whole experience. And he's absolutely right, I did have to go to go talk to Bastelyon in video chat. And what did he have to say? Well, something so TOTALLY AWESOME that I can't even talk about it. Yet. When I get the green light, I'll post up a storm. Or something.What I can talk about is what's not going to happen. Way back in September, when Bastelyon and I first Private and Video chatted, we talked about throwing a party on November 22nd for my completing a year's streak, and stuff. As time went on though, it was obvious that the Xbox Team was going to be very busy with all the holiday hub-bub and the attendees wouldn't be as spectacular as originally planned. The subject-that-can-not-be-mentioned easily makes up for it, especially since it's before the 22nd, and Tony and I were bouncing off some other dates that could be worth throwing a party for.
Carnage
After my exciting chat with Bastelyon, I saw that K4rn4ge was online, you may have heard of him before, I think he had a high score in game where you wage war against geometric shapes but the name escapes me. I think it's called "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down". Anyway, I wanted to talk to him about what just happened. He said he was just about to pop in Saints Row since there was a supposed Software Update for the multiplayer and if I got it we should play. So I throw it in, and we hop in a room and chat about this site and my clan's Gears of War division. He may come on board as another member of the KD Entourage, and put in his two cents on whatever he feels like.So we did some co-op and he and I worked together to unlock an achievement, which was a lot of fun (the playing co-op, the achievement was icing on the proverbial cake). After that we played Frogger to get the Co-Op Brilliance achievement, which we did with no problem, and we had an interesting side affect, when he completed Level 5 and the game ended, I got that achievement as well, which was cool, I guess, but I wanted to do it myself since I only made it to the end of Level 4 that game. Oh well, still fun times though.
Calgary
GeekesS and I proceeded to video chat into the night, talking about PAX '07, helping her find her cell by calling it while she rummaged through the room. Anytime I got her voicemail I'd leave a message like "I'm watching you!" in a stalker-esque voice, or "I think you're hotter than Rosie O'Donnell", since her Halloween costume this year is Betty Rubble, whom I was able to guess by only seeing the wig. We shot the breeze till a little past midnight, where she went to bed, and I went to download Ultimate MK3, and get an 8 G achievement before the update at 2 AM, as a precaution should anything go awry. There's a category that still doesn't have any posts associated with it, I'll let you do math.Chaos
This morning I got up and downloaded the update, as soon as the console reboot. There was a collision between a fan and feces (read: baby mice, for you Donnie Darko buffs). The screen was blinking in and out, and the image was white, over exposed and grainy. Not good. The best way to describe it would be if I were a spy in nightvision in SC:DA multiplayer, and I got hit with a flashbang (that actually blinded spies). In a slight panic, I switched the HD/AV cable to TV, which worked, then I browsed around, and switched back to HDTV. It came up really good. Gave me a brief scare, though. It also shows why I'll always get an achievement before any Dash Updates or Server Maintenance, if possible. You never know how a system wide patch is going to do to your console. Especially since mine is still the original Xbox 360 I got at launch, with little to no hiccups, aside from games known to freeze. This may have been an issue with the TV handling the system's reboot.Candy
My current obsession when it comes to treats would be Läkerol Cassis Pastilles. The Cassis would imply that they are Blackcurrant flavoured, and they are addictive and so tasty. IKEA has them in stock, and you get a discount if you buy them by the 24 pack.Oh My!
Trivia about IKEA and me. When I was a really little I went to South Korea and stayed with my grandparents, while my Mom, Dad and sister went to Thailand (where my dad was born). The reason why I'm very caucasian is that my grandparents were Missionaries, and my dad was born while they were on the job just outside of Bangkok. In any case, South Korea was definitely in my vocabulary when I was 3 and 4 because of my grandparents working there, so I always called IKEA I-Korea. I guess since 1998 that would be spelled iKoreaOctober 30, 2006
Sit and listen, sit and listen.
Damn. Splinter Cell: Double Agent is a beautiful, beautiful game. As you can see, I've been playing it a bunch. The single player is great, and the looks stunning on my 56" Samsung DLP HDTV, and sounds beautiful on my JVC 500 Watt 5.1 Surround Sound System.
This past weekend has been a focus on the Online component, in particular, the Co-op Challenges. I started playing them Friday night, with friend and squadmate, II Armag3dd0n II. Having owned the previous three games, my hacking and neck-breaking skill shone through in mere minutes and I felt right at home. Even though the "accessibility" is just another way of saying "watered down for the EveryGamer", I had fun, and it felt like the other spies vs. mercs in previous games. The upside, is that for Co-op, I ran into a bunch of people who were very capable in keeping up with me and my strategies. As long as they could talk, knew the route/plan, and could follow orders/directions, we were able to nab Gold in a few tries.
Speaking of which, I got all Golds---except for one. Mission 12. Which is a 1 star difficulty Double Agent mission. 1-11 and 13-18 have Gold. Mission 12 doesn't even have a medal. Why, you ask? In true KD fashion I've set myself up with 3 achievements that I can grab at any time. Pathetic, I know, but at least I'm looking ahead.
While helping HOLLATIP 2, whom I came across by chance on the opposing team in Saints Row matchmaking, get some of the EXPERT achievemnts for SP:DA, I got a message from my good buddy French Frye. You might remember him as "Anonymous/jerry/Onion Fart", and all I have to say is very well played, bro. He asked if I was playing with Major Nelson, whom he had on his Friends List (lucky bastard). Then said "nvm" as the Maj had gone offline, I suppose. I take this cue as a reminder to send him a random friend request. It went through! I quickly sent him a voice mail saying "Hey, I'd really appreciate if you accepted this, as I got through by luck, but if not, that's perfectly fine. Catch ya later." I then send a message to French Frye thanking him for putting the thought in my head, especially since he has campaigned to Major on a weekly basis on my behalf to send me an FR. I even tried to coax him into taking himself off to make a spot for me. Despite my hardest bargaining, he wouldn't budge, and rightfully so. Thankfully, it all worked out ahead of schedule, as I expected to nab him by November 22nd, 2006. The reasoning behind that, though, I'll go into detail a little later.
While we're on about Major Nelson and I, here's a picture of us at PAX '06 before we did the interview.
The Dreamcast shirt cost me $50 CDN. The Backpack with built in speakers is a SoundKase SoundSak Sonic Full Audio Backpack, which cost me over $200 CDN after shipping and brokerage fees were tagged onto that. It was well received at the convention, and I would supply music in exchange for skipping ahead in lines.
LUMINES LIVE! is also a lot of fun. It's also cheaper than the retail version for PSP, much prettier than any other version, has 5.1 sound effects and music, and is just as addictive so I'm not exactly equating the price point and add-on packs as forced anal copulation. I just think that this may be the first step towards digital distribution of retail-esque content, and as such was not put in its own category of title, but put into Live Arcade. which it's kinda not. It's half Retail, Half Arcade. Eh, we'll see how this affects future titles and their price/distribution/classification. Bottom Line, though: I really, really like LL!. My first foray into Lumines was the cell phone version, which I was really good at, being able to max out the score (999.999) without too much effort, just time. LL! is a lot more difficult, and rightfully so, plus it's score doesn't have a foreseeable maximum. I'll keep plugging away at it, though.
I Grabbed some long overdue achievements on Table Tennis and The Outfit with Jester on Saturday, and we'll try to get more Outfit in there as time goes along. Although we were having some trouble getting some of the online achievements in Outfit, and I'll have to do some research on the required parameters. Oh well.
In real life I hit "Richmond Sushi" on Saturday, which is an all-you-can-eat sushi place in---*drum roll*---Richmond, BC. It was decked out in a Halloween theme, all the employees were in costume (dracula, zombies, little bo peep, frankenstein, etc.), and there was even a fog machine at the entrance. Now, I can eat sushi, which to say, put it in my mouth, chew, and swallow. It's an acquired taste, one that I haven't gotten too used to yet. But they had plenty on the menu that didn't involve raw fish and seaweed. Like, for example, some cooked chicken shish kabob, that I had like, 6 skewers of. It was delicious. At the very least, I left somewhat full. Ask iEyeCaptain, he's seen me first hand eat basket after basket of "Red Robin's Bottomless Fries™". I, like my father before me, have hollow legs.
The Las Vegas Season 4 Premiere was really good on Friday, especially in HD, and I saw Domino earlier in the week, which was over-the-top awesome. Also in HD.
So, what'd you think of the Gears of War TV/Film trailer. I thought it was beautiful. And I find it kinda funny that I posted about Donnie Darko back in September, which features Gary Jules' rendition of the Tears for Fears song, Mad World. I find it kinda sad that I didn't bother to mention the song and its hold on me since my initial viewings of both the Theatrical and Director's cut. Either way, I feel the song fits the trailer amazingly, just as it did the movie. I find it hard to tell you that I've been listening to the song on repeat for the vast majority of writing this entry. I find it hard to take some continuity errors, so I'll point the following out:
• When Marcus is running past the window and the enemy gets out of crouch position, he (the Locust) just appears, without moving into frame from the bottom.
• In the infested room, the final shot of the stochastic fire on the spidery baddie, the legs (particularly the ones on the right), have the eyes of the other enemies shine through it.
Then again, I just have an eye for picking those kinda things up, given my history in filming, editing, etc.
Damn, that's a lot of reading I threw at you guys. Sorry, just had to play catch-up with what's been going on.
This past weekend has been a focus on the Online component, in particular, the Co-op Challenges. I started playing them Friday night, with friend and squadmate, II Armag3dd0n II. Having owned the previous three games, my hacking and neck-breaking skill shone through in mere minutes and I felt right at home. Even though the "accessibility" is just another way of saying "watered down for the EveryGamer", I had fun, and it felt like the other spies vs. mercs in previous games. The upside, is that for Co-op, I ran into a bunch of people who were very capable in keeping up with me and my strategies. As long as they could talk, knew the route/plan, and could follow orders/directions, we were able to nab Gold in a few tries.
Speaking of which, I got all Golds---except for one. Mission 12. Which is a 1 star difficulty Double Agent mission. 1-11 and 13-18 have Gold. Mission 12 doesn't even have a medal. Why, you ask? In true KD fashion I've set myself up with 3 achievements that I can grab at any time. Pathetic, I know, but at least I'm looking ahead.
While helping HOLLATIP 2, whom I came across by chance on the opposing team in Saints Row matchmaking, get some of the EXPERT achievemnts for SP:DA, I got a message from my good buddy French Frye. You might remember him as "Anonymous/jerry/Onion Fart", and all I have to say is very well played, bro. He asked if I was playing with Major Nelson, whom he had on his Friends List (lucky bastard). Then said "nvm" as the Maj had gone offline, I suppose. I take this cue as a reminder to send him a random friend request. It went through! I quickly sent him a voice mail saying "Hey, I'd really appreciate if you accepted this, as I got through by luck, but if not, that's perfectly fine. Catch ya later." I then send a message to French Frye thanking him for putting the thought in my head, especially since he has campaigned to Major on a weekly basis on my behalf to send me an FR. I even tried to coax him into taking himself off to make a spot for me. Despite my hardest bargaining, he wouldn't budge, and rightfully so. Thankfully, it all worked out ahead of schedule, as I expected to nab him by November 22nd, 2006. The reasoning behind that, though, I'll go into detail a little later.
While we're on about Major Nelson and I, here's a picture of us at PAX '06 before we did the interview.
The Dreamcast shirt cost me $50 CDN. The Backpack with built in speakers is a SoundKase SoundSak Sonic Full Audio Backpack, which cost me over $200 CDN after shipping and brokerage fees were tagged onto that. It was well received at the convention, and I would supply music in exchange for skipping ahead in lines.
LUMINES LIVE! is also a lot of fun. It's also cheaper than the retail version for PSP, much prettier than any other version, has 5.1 sound effects and music, and is just as addictive so I'm not exactly equating the price point and add-on packs as forced anal copulation. I just think that this may be the first step towards digital distribution of retail-esque content, and as such was not put in its own category of title, but put into Live Arcade. which it's kinda not. It's half Retail, Half Arcade. Eh, we'll see how this affects future titles and their price/distribution/classification. Bottom Line, though: I really, really like LL!. My first foray into Lumines was the cell phone version, which I was really good at, being able to max out the score (999.999) without too much effort, just time. LL! is a lot more difficult, and rightfully so, plus it's score doesn't have a foreseeable maximum. I'll keep plugging away at it, though.
I Grabbed some long overdue achievements on Table Tennis and The Outfit with Jester on Saturday, and we'll try to get more Outfit in there as time goes along. Although we were having some trouble getting some of the online achievements in Outfit, and I'll have to do some research on the required parameters. Oh well.
In real life I hit "Richmond Sushi" on Saturday, which is an all-you-can-eat sushi place in---*drum roll*---Richmond, BC. It was decked out in a Halloween theme, all the employees were in costume (dracula, zombies, little bo peep, frankenstein, etc.), and there was even a fog machine at the entrance. Now, I can eat sushi, which to say, put it in my mouth, chew, and swallow. It's an acquired taste, one that I haven't gotten too used to yet. But they had plenty on the menu that didn't involve raw fish and seaweed. Like, for example, some cooked chicken shish kabob, that I had like, 6 skewers of. It was delicious. At the very least, I left somewhat full. Ask iEyeCaptain, he's seen me first hand eat basket after basket of "Red Robin's Bottomless Fries™". I, like my father before me, have hollow legs.
The Las Vegas Season 4 Premiere was really good on Friday, especially in HD, and I saw Domino earlier in the week, which was over-the-top awesome. Also in HD.
So, what'd you think of the Gears of War TV/Film trailer. I thought it was beautiful. And I find it kinda funny that I posted about Donnie Darko back in September, which features Gary Jules' rendition of the Tears for Fears song, Mad World. I find it kinda sad that I didn't bother to mention the song and its hold on me since my initial viewings of both the Theatrical and Director's cut. Either way, I feel the song fits the trailer amazingly, just as it did the movie. I find it hard to tell you that I've been listening to the song on repeat for the vast majority of writing this entry. I find it hard to take some continuity errors, so I'll point the following out:
• When Marcus is running past the window and the enemy gets out of crouch position, he (the Locust) just appears, without moving into frame from the bottom.
• In the infested room, the final shot of the stochastic fire on the spidery baddie, the legs (particularly the ones on the right), have the eyes of the other enemies shine through it.
Then again, I just have an eye for picking those kinda things up, given my history in filming, editing, etc.
Damn, that's a lot of reading I threw at you guys. Sorry, just had to play catch-up with what's been going on.
October 27, 2006
A Lesson in Math. •Updated Oct 30th, 1:45 PM•
"Rob Zombie", of Halifax, Nova Scotia made an interesting point: "How can you maintain your streak if you are offline for 24 hours?"
Easy: I have (almost) 48 hours to play with. Huh? Well, let's simplify that. Let's say one morning I get up and play some Lumines before work, and get an achievement. For the sake of argument, we'll put that at 6:00 AM. After work, I'm really busy with real life and don't get online at all that evening. The next day, I get up go to work, come home and get on after I eat, at 6:00 PM get online and play some Lego Star Wars and get an achievement. That's 36 hours. And yet, I still have played each day and not even pushed the envelope.
If I get an achievement at 12:00:01 AM one morning, and 11:59:59 PM the next day, that's 47 hours, 59 minutes, and 58 seconds apart, and still being on both days. I have no intention of cutting it that close, but have used a similar technique to free up my weekend for trips snowboarding and such.
Hopefully that clears up any confusion, and maybe, God forbid, somebody learned something.
Update:
Later on the morning of the 27th, Rob Zombie returned to say that "A day is comprised of 24 hours, not 48 hours. You are teh wrongz0rz." A scant five minutes later, he posts saying "Nevermind, I get what you're saying now." I guess he figured out that in order to have a consecutive streak, you need to string one day after another. At any point in either day, I need to get an achievement, up to ~48 hours apart from eachother, if I want to push it. "Hello teacher, tell me what's my lesson", indeed. (I just had to use another Mad World quote.)
Easy: I have (almost) 48 hours to play with. Huh? Well, let's simplify that. Let's say one morning I get up and play some Lumines before work, and get an achievement. For the sake of argument, we'll put that at 6:00 AM. After work, I'm really busy with real life and don't get online at all that evening. The next day, I get up go to work, come home and get on after I eat, at 6:00 PM get online and play some Lego Star Wars and get an achievement. That's 36 hours. And yet, I still have played each day and not even pushed the envelope.
If I get an achievement at 12:00:01 AM one morning, and 11:59:59 PM the next day, that's 47 hours, 59 minutes, and 58 seconds apart, and still being on both days. I have no intention of cutting it that close, but have used a similar technique to free up my weekend for trips snowboarding and such.
Hopefully that clears up any confusion, and maybe, God forbid, somebody learned something.
Update:
Later on the morning of the 27th, Rob Zombie returned to say that "A day is comprised of 24 hours, not 48 hours. You are teh wrongz0rz." A scant five minutes later, he posts saying "Nevermind, I get what you're saying now." I guess he figured out that in order to have a consecutive streak, you need to string one day after another. At any point in either day, I need to get an achievement, up to ~48 hours apart from eachother, if I want to push it. "Hello teacher, tell me what's my lesson", indeed. (I just had to use another Mad World quote.)
October 26, 2006
Achievement Streak Calendar
So, allegedly, I've unlocked an Achievement everyday since November 22nd. The only way for people to verify this is by either looking on my Xbox 360, or comparing achievements on Xbox.com. Well, now I'm offering a chronologically organized alternative for those of you curious of my achievement history. Keeping up with the theme for naming conventions here at KD.com, I give you:
The KD Endeavour! Cataloguing the last (as of this writing) 338 days of achievements, what games I got them in, what they were and how much Gamerscore they were worth. Also, if you click the listing, it will pop-up with a that information as well as a link to the Achievement Comparison page for that game, so you can verify it for yourself.
The only thing one must consider, is that xbox.com is timezone sensitive, and seeing as I'm currently on PST/PDT, any achievement I get after 9:00 PM will show up as 12:00 AM for someone on the East Coast, for example. Changing your xbox.com timezone settings may be a workaround for this.
Since that section is now public, I can also inform you that the "kd endeavour" blade to the right, there, is now activated. Likewise, the "knucklesdawson.com" and "kd expressionists" blades are active on the left side of the kd endeavour page.
Hopefully this will satisfy DeathTube enough so that he can lay off the false accusations. Same goes for "Onion Fart/Jerry" (IP: 67.23.57.10), who is more than welcome to identify himself further, aside from the fact he's from Harrisonburg, Virginia. "The friendly city", indeed. Well, only 40,467 of them are. This one isn't.
The KD Endeavour! Cataloguing the last (as of this writing) 338 days of achievements, what games I got them in, what they were and how much Gamerscore they were worth. Also, if you click the listing, it will pop-up with a that information as well as a link to the Achievement Comparison page for that game, so you can verify it for yourself.
The only thing one must consider, is that xbox.com is timezone sensitive, and seeing as I'm currently on PST/PDT, any achievement I get after 9:00 PM will show up as 12:00 AM for someone on the East Coast, for example. Changing your xbox.com timezone settings may be a workaround for this.
Since that section is now public, I can also inform you that the "kd endeavour" blade to the right, there, is now activated. Likewise, the "knucklesdawson.com" and "kd expressionists" blades are active on the left side of the kd endeavour page.
Hopefully this will satisfy DeathTube enough so that he can lay off the false accusations. Same goes for "Onion Fart/Jerry" (IP: 67.23.57.10), who is more than welcome to identify himself further, aside from the fact he's from Harrisonburg, Virginia. "The friendly city", indeed. Well, only 40,467 of them are. This one isn't.
October 19, 2006
APKGodfather - "Capo Di Tutti Capi"
Greetings Fellow Internet Bottom Dwellers,
Welcome to KnucklesDawson.com, the soon to be authority on everything Xbox! We're glad you've taken some time out of your "precious" schedule to check in with the foremost authorities on everything worth anything.
A quick introduction if I may (for the uninitiated), as the name implies I'm the acting boss of the notorious northern sector of the APK, the sole Northeastern trapped in the proverbial "Wild Wild West" of the Southeastern United States. I was lucky enough to find a fellow Northeastern sympathizer living in the south APK (APKJester), and together we've collaborated to bring our modern-day version of "La Cosa Nostra" to the yokalis landscape of suburban Orlando.
Insert Knuckles Dawson, an intellectual "Northwesterner" with an insatiable hunger for everything Xbox and Xbox 360, and you have quite possibly the most celebrated association of inter-hemispherical power the North American continent has ever seen.
I'm looking forward to providing you Internet heathens with the hardcore discussion and rousing conversation you're clamoring for. Please keep your riotous antics to a minimum and watch as KD Enterprises single-handedly reshapes the Internet as you know it.
-APKGodfather "Boss of Bosses"
A Member Of: The Northeasterners, Team Neaour, and Knuckles Dawson Enterprises
October 17, 2006
Surviving the Server Maintenance
Major Nelson warned us, thrice, in fact, about the scheduled Server Maintenance today. When I first read about it, I wasn't too concerned, as most were only 12-18 hours long. I would just get my achievement late in the evening, or shortly after that day had started (I seem to recall previous ones starting at 2:00 AM PST). This one, as the screenshot above would suggest, was different. 24 hours?! That puts me in a precarious position with regards to unlocking an achievement on Oct 17th.
So, yesterday I shoot Sir Larry an email asking that if the workforce behind the maintenance is local to Redmond, that he suggest they don't shut the service down until, say 12:10 AM so I can grab a quickie after midnight. Surprisingly, I get a response in less than 90 minutes, which is pretty good considering the amount of email he gets. (Mind you, I was sending it to a different address than major@xbox.com, which jumps the queue, so to speak.) Unfortunately, he reminds me that this particular maintenance, like previous ones, requires many MS employees around the world to be coordinated, and changing the start time by 5 minutes isn't possible. I reply with a thanks for the relative hasty response, and give him a glimpse of my back up plans, and he replies again within the minute with a "No problem!" and the subtext of wishing me luck.
Later, at home, I play through some Saints Row, finish up the racing activities, and grab my achievement for Monday. I've got a few more achievements lined up for my "Plan A":
I'm currently have 49 helicopters destroyed. But that requires me to spend time raising my wanted level.
I'm 1 hit away from completing the hitman level, and my last guy is the SWAT with the McManus, which requires me to go buy the gun, and then raise my wanted level.
I've got to get the Quota delivered to the Downtown Chop Shop to finish that activity, and it just so happens to be sitting in my garage. Bingo.
But, as they say, "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." So, I try to kill time by watching The Brothers Grimm in HD, and watching American Chopper on Discovery HD (If I hear this "Paul Sr." guy pronounce "idea" like "eye-deer", again, I swear...), and it hits 11:50 PM. First, I go to timeanddate.com and my Saints Row achievement summary page on my laptop, to confirm that the site's clock, my laptops clock, my cable box directly under my HDTV's clock, and my 360's Live clock are all relatively synchronized. I turn on my 360 and it boots to dash, double check the clocks, and they all are within 3 seconds of eachother, which is good.
I check my friends list, and seeing iEyeCaptain on, send him a video and private chat invite, telling him that this is his last chance to go on video chat until the 18th, and he got his camera just a couple days before. He and I talk for a bit, but he still doesn't come to the video chat, despite my consistent insisting. 11:57 PM hits, and I'm like 'Screw it, I'm going to play Saints Row, I don't have time for this." As soon as I finish loading my save to get positioned, he's like "Fine, let's video chat, right now." and sends me an invite. I hesitate, and check the clock:
11:58:05
I mutter some expletives to myself and accept, because he knows I don't have time for this. So, as the video connection is established I pose for flipping him off with both hands, and tell him to take a good hard look. I then jump back to dash, load the game, and the save.
11:59:20 flashes on timeanddate.com's page as I gain control of my in game doppleganger. I'm in the Red light district, and need to hit closest crib, grab the quota and go to the Chop Shop. I sprint to a nearby parked Shogun, and gun it to my 3rd Street crib. I grab my Quota just as 12:00 o'clock strikes. My palms start sweating as I floor it, and b-line for the chop shop across town. Damn, that car is slow. Pedestrians pass me as I closely watch the top of the screen, hoping that a notification of being disconnected from Live doesn't appear. I'm crossing the bridge and I hear that familiar beep. I look and breath a sigh of relief as it says "iEyeCaptain wants to chat". I ignore it for the time being and am thankful that I still am connected to Live. I get to the chop shop, stop right in front of the drop off point, go to my guide and accept the chat invite, if only to confirm I was still connected at 12:03:18 AM. I immediately drive forward upon hearing the voice on the other end, and drop off the car.
Achievement Unlocked
I repeat those words an an excessive volume and immediately look to my xbox.com Saints Row Achievement Summary, reload the page, and see "Scavenger - 10 G - Acquired 10/17/06". Sweet. I got it, and not a moment too soon. I go to start up a video chat with iEye, who's playing Geometry Wars, and get disconnected from Xbox Live at 12:05:00.
I call iEye's cell, and he tells me my cell call disconnected him from Live. Stare blankly for a second, then tell him that Xbox Live is down for a Schedule Server Maintenance.
"Really?"
"Yeah, for twenty-four hours."
"Xbox Live's down for Twenty-four HOURS?!"
"Yeah," Jeez, he didn't even know about it, no wonder he didn't understand my reasoning for wanting to be on Saints Row before, at, and shortly after midnight. " I guess now you know why I needed to get an achievement just now? Even if Live's back up in time, it's not worth running the risk."
"Uh, I guess your flipping me off was valid."
"Shyeah. So, I'll talk to you later, I've got to get up for work in 5 hours."
So, I went to bed and left Jester a 3 minute voicemail detailing the complete rundown of the last 10, and tried to calm myself to sleep.
So, yesterday I shoot Sir Larry an email asking that if the workforce behind the maintenance is local to Redmond, that he suggest they don't shut the service down until, say 12:10 AM so I can grab a quickie after midnight. Surprisingly, I get a response in less than 90 minutes, which is pretty good considering the amount of email he gets. (Mind you, I was sending it to a different address than major@xbox.com, which jumps the queue, so to speak.) Unfortunately, he reminds me that this particular maintenance, like previous ones, requires many MS employees around the world to be coordinated, and changing the start time by 5 minutes isn't possible. I reply with a thanks for the relative hasty response, and give him a glimpse of my back up plans, and he replies again within the minute with a "No problem!" and the subtext of wishing me luck.
Later, at home, I play through some Saints Row, finish up the racing activities, and grab my achievement for Monday. I've got a few more achievements lined up for my "Plan A":
I'm currently have 49 helicopters destroyed. But that requires me to spend time raising my wanted level.
I'm 1 hit away from completing the hitman level, and my last guy is the SWAT with the McManus, which requires me to go buy the gun, and then raise my wanted level.
I've got to get the Quota delivered to the Downtown Chop Shop to finish that activity, and it just so happens to be sitting in my garage. Bingo.
But, as they say, "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." So, I try to kill time by watching The Brothers Grimm in HD, and watching American Chopper on Discovery HD (If I hear this "Paul Sr." guy pronounce "idea" like "eye-deer", again, I swear...), and it hits 11:50 PM. First, I go to timeanddate.com and my Saints Row achievement summary page on my laptop, to confirm that the site's clock, my laptops clock, my cable box directly under my HDTV's clock, and my 360's Live clock are all relatively synchronized. I turn on my 360 and it boots to dash, double check the clocks, and they all are within 3 seconds of eachother, which is good.
I check my friends list, and seeing iEyeCaptain on, send him a video and private chat invite, telling him that this is his last chance to go on video chat until the 18th, and he got his camera just a couple days before. He and I talk for a bit, but he still doesn't come to the video chat, despite my consistent insisting. 11:57 PM hits, and I'm like 'Screw it, I'm going to play Saints Row, I don't have time for this." As soon as I finish loading my save to get positioned, he's like "Fine, let's video chat, right now." and sends me an invite. I hesitate, and check the clock:
11:58:05
I mutter some expletives to myself and accept, because he knows I don't have time for this. So, as the video connection is established I pose for flipping him off with both hands, and tell him to take a good hard look. I then jump back to dash, load the game, and the save.
11:59:20 flashes on timeanddate.com's page as I gain control of my in game doppleganger. I'm in the Red light district, and need to hit closest crib, grab the quota and go to the Chop Shop. I sprint to a nearby parked Shogun, and gun it to my 3rd Street crib. I grab my Quota just as 12:00 o'clock strikes. My palms start sweating as I floor it, and b-line for the chop shop across town. Damn, that car is slow. Pedestrians pass me as I closely watch the top of the screen, hoping that a notification of being disconnected from Live doesn't appear. I'm crossing the bridge and I hear that familiar beep. I look and breath a sigh of relief as it says "iEyeCaptain wants to chat". I ignore it for the time being and am thankful that I still am connected to Live. I get to the chop shop, stop right in front of the drop off point, go to my guide and accept the chat invite, if only to confirm I was still connected at 12:03:18 AM. I immediately drive forward upon hearing the voice on the other end, and drop off the car.
Achievement Unlocked
I repeat those words an an excessive volume and immediately look to my xbox.com Saints Row Achievement Summary, reload the page, and see "Scavenger - 10 G - Acquired 10/17/06". Sweet. I got it, and not a moment too soon. I go to start up a video chat with iEye, who's playing Geometry Wars, and get disconnected from Xbox Live at 12:05:00.
I call iEye's cell, and he tells me my cell call disconnected him from Live. Stare blankly for a second, then tell him that Xbox Live is down for a Schedule Server Maintenance.
"Really?"
"Yeah, for twenty-four hours."
"Xbox Live's down for Twenty-four HOURS?!"
"Yeah," Jeez, he didn't even know about it, no wonder he didn't understand my reasoning for wanting to be on Saints Row before, at, and shortly after midnight. " I guess now you know why I needed to get an achievement just now? Even if Live's back up in time, it's not worth running the risk."
"Uh, I guess your flipping me off was valid."
"Shyeah. So, I'll talk to you later, I've got to get up for work in 5 hours."
So, I went to bed and left Jester a 3 minute voicemail detailing the complete rundown of the last 10, and tried to calm myself to sleep.
October 11, 2006
Just an Expression.
The forum is now public. That also means that the "kd expressionists" blade to the right is active. So, now it's more than just something that looks spiffy. Anyway, join the forum, post to your hearts content and hopefully make this place a home away from home for you to hang out and shoot the breeze or whatever.
Again, the design for the board isn't final, that'll be taken care of in time. For now, look past the standard phpBB set up and it's still a place for you to voice your thoughts, and before you know it, it will share the same setup as the main page here.
Oh, and I fixed the colour scheme of the gamercards to better suit the design here. The green was a little out of place.
Again, the design for the board isn't final, that'll be taken care of in time. For now, look past the standard phpBB set up and it's still a place for you to voice your thoughts, and before you know it, it will share the same setup as the main page here.
Oh, and I fixed the colour scheme of the gamercards to better suit the design here. The green was a little out of place.
October 10, 2006
Premature Rejuvenation
The new work in progress layout has been implemented. The blades will be links and text will be fixed shortly. In any case, enjoy. I'll also get the layout to be present throughout (which is to say, anywhere other than this main page), probably within the week or something. The forum is also up, but has a bare bones design, and needs to be organised. That will be linked to for all your posting needs after I at least replace the "Test Forum" with something useful.
Oh, and this was advised by my Manager, Nathan Dreger. (Insert indication of my eyes rolling here)
Oh, and this was advised by my Manager, Nathan Dreger. (Insert indication of my eyes rolling here)
October 06, 2006
APKJester - The Most Known Unknown
As I make my long-awaited debut into the Knuckles Dawson Entourage, I am at a loss for words/emotions. Who knew that a simple friendship with an intellectually superior individual, would propel a lowly gamer like myself to the brink of internet stardom?
Before crafting this post, I analyzed the intial description provided by KD, and I cannot disagree with its content. My relationship with KD began on the launch day, and so far it has only hit 1 small barrier ("How was that fortnight?"). I must say it has been an interesting/fun-filled ride, and I look forward to future collaborations through this site and elsewhere. I have always had the upmost respect for the Boss, and his achievements (double-punage?), and I am glad to bring another facet to knucklesdawson.com.
In the near-future, I intend to provide my own personal opinions on the latest in everything Xbox, as well as trying to intitiate the masses to the inner workings of mind of the Jester.
Until then...
NEAOUR!
(more on that later...)
-APKJester
October 02, 2006
Whoopsie-DOOMdle
I'm trying to get back into Rockstar's Table Tennis, after dropping it shortly after purchase to focus on MotoGP'06, and it's not exactly the easiest of games to pick up after a long hiatus, but I'll keep plugging away at it. Out of impulse, I bought Import Tuner Challenge, because it's made by Genki, who did Tokyo Xtreme Racer 1 and 2 for Dreamcast. TXR2 being obviously the better of the two, and had great graphics for its time. A trailer was released during the recent "Bringing TGS/X'06 Home" campaign for it and upon watching it I was overcome with nostalgia. I haven't touched the game yet, but I had a bunch on my plate over the weekend.
Saints Row is style taking up some of my time. The Hitman Activity is giving me the most grief, as the hits don't really show up when and where they're supposed to. I'm doing the Drug Trafficking activity right now, and listening to the soccer mom's comments are hilarious:
"Killing cops, sweetie, is a bad thing."
"This'll be hard to explain to the PTA."
"Whoopsie-doodle!"
Classic.
I also beat the story for Prey. It was very good, and being a regular listener to Coast to Coast AM, especially when Art Bell was the primary host, I really enjoyed the excerpts found throughout the game. I'm going to try to get on the air one weekend when he's on and ask him about his involvement etc. I'll post my time on the air should I get through.
I watched Doom (bad) in HD, which helped on my PVR and A History of Violence (good) on DVD. I guess both served their purpose, as being entertainment, but the quality there in was vastly different.
Saints Row is style taking up some of my time. The Hitman Activity is giving me the most grief, as the hits don't really show up when and where they're supposed to. I'm doing the Drug Trafficking activity right now, and listening to the soccer mom's comments are hilarious:
"Killing cops, sweetie, is a bad thing."
"This'll be hard to explain to the PTA."
"Whoopsie-doodle!"
Classic.
I also beat the story for Prey. It was very good, and being a regular listener to Coast to Coast AM, especially when Art Bell was the primary host, I really enjoyed the excerpts found throughout the game. I'm going to try to get on the air one weekend when he's on and ask him about his involvement etc. I'll post my time on the air should I get through.
I watched Doom (bad) in HD, which helped on my PVR and A History of Violence (good) on DVD. I guess both served their purpose, as being entertainment, but the quality there in was vastly different.