Season's Greeted
Welcome to 2007.
My Christmas and New Year was very nice, but due to the nature of our celebration I couldn't report on it in as timely a manner as I would have liked. My uncle (Doug) and cousin (Nathan) from England came down to go snowboarding for the holidays. You may have seen Nate's comments here and there on the site, as well a few posts on the forum. It was great to have them down here, and we had a lot of fun up at Whister/Blackcomb from the 24th to the 27th and on into the interior to Big White for the 31st and 1st. A great way to start off the year if you ask me.
Whistler was pretty good, it snowed for the first 3 days, although getting a Live compatible connection was a bit of a hassle. Apparently, Telus ADSL doesn't have a sufficient MTU to connect to Live for Xbox 360, while I had little issues connecting to Telus with my original Xbox. Which left me with having to hunt down a different internet cafe than the first one I tried. Thanks to Aidan for all of his help, though. He even let me try to connect directly into the modem to bypass the firewall. The Christmas Miracle would reveal itself to be the manager/chef of Gone...Bakery & Soup Co., Todd. After attempting to use the Shaw Cable at the bistro, he offered us to go to his humble abode and use his connection, also Shaw. Thankfully, it worked like a charm, although it timed out when initially trying to connect, so despite correcting the internal clock, and showing my friends and messages, it prompted me to "Test Connection". I signed back in after canceling the troubleshooter with no problems. So that covered me for the 25th. The 26th and 27th were a little more complicated. Unfortunately, Todd was unavailable to lend his services for those days, so I had to resort to measures of extreme inconvenience. Drive back to Vancouver, from Whistler (77 miles each way), log in at home, do my thing both before and after midnight, grab a 3 hour nap, and then return to Whistler for one more day on the slopes. My justification is that December 26th was day 400, so to end it on 399 would be a slap in the face.
Still, the time on the hill was nice, and on the 27th, it was nice and sunny, so that was a plus. The backpack continued to own and grab attention (93% positive), with no hiccups due to being in a cold, and potentially wet, enviroment.
The main gifts for this year were the snowboard trips, so the physical gifts were obviously scant. I received a set of high quality rechargeable batteries (for said backpack), and some nice Salomon socks for snowboarding. That being said, because of my primary hobby, and the timing of when it's major releases are, I did buy myself some things within the last month or so that could count as a holiday gifts. These would include:
• Five (5) Sumo Lounge Omni chairs, 3 grey, 2 black.
• A PS3, that among three others was just chilling at a local Zellers.
• Viva Piñata. Just got into it yesterday, and it looks to be filled with fun.
• Wireless Xbox 360 Steering Wheel. Played around with it a bit in PGR3, and I plan on giving it a shot with NFS: Carbon and when I decide to actually open my copy of Test Drive Unlimited.
• Resistance: Fall of Man. Wow, the textures look so bland compared to the rich detail found in Gears of War. Maybe I need to give it more time, though.
So it's not like I don't have any new toys to mess around with.
Big White was really nice, and the hotel's business center was compatible with Xbox Live, so that was handy. The first day saw a little sun and the conditions were alright. It was close to the end of the day when we found the preferred run ride on. The next day was snowing and a bit foggy at the top of the lift, but that just gave way to fresh powder to tear through. I was going excessively fast, and it showed. I'll post pictures later, you'll be amused.
So that was my Christmas and New Years, didn't really party too much, just plowed.
My Christmas and New Year was very nice, but due to the nature of our celebration I couldn't report on it in as timely a manner as I would have liked. My uncle (Doug) and cousin (Nathan) from England came down to go snowboarding for the holidays. You may have seen Nate's comments here and there on the site, as well a few posts on the forum. It was great to have them down here, and we had a lot of fun up at Whister/Blackcomb from the 24th to the 27th and on into the interior to Big White for the 31st and 1st. A great way to start off the year if you ask me.
Whistler was pretty good, it snowed for the first 3 days, although getting a Live compatible connection was a bit of a hassle. Apparently, Telus ADSL doesn't have a sufficient MTU to connect to Live for Xbox 360, while I had little issues connecting to Telus with my original Xbox. Which left me with having to hunt down a different internet cafe than the first one I tried. Thanks to Aidan for all of his help, though. He even let me try to connect directly into the modem to bypass the firewall. The Christmas Miracle would reveal itself to be the manager/chef of Gone...Bakery & Soup Co., Todd. After attempting to use the Shaw Cable at the bistro, he offered us to go to his humble abode and use his connection, also Shaw. Thankfully, it worked like a charm, although it timed out when initially trying to connect, so despite correcting the internal clock, and showing my friends and messages, it prompted me to "Test Connection". I signed back in after canceling the troubleshooter with no problems. So that covered me for the 25th. The 26th and 27th were a little more complicated. Unfortunately, Todd was unavailable to lend his services for those days, so I had to resort to measures of extreme inconvenience. Drive back to Vancouver, from Whistler (77 miles each way), log in at home, do my thing both before and after midnight, grab a 3 hour nap, and then return to Whistler for one more day on the slopes. My justification is that December 26th was day 400, so to end it on 399 would be a slap in the face.
Still, the time on the hill was nice, and on the 27th, it was nice and sunny, so that was a plus. The backpack continued to own and grab attention (93% positive), with no hiccups due to being in a cold, and potentially wet, enviroment.
The main gifts for this year were the snowboard trips, so the physical gifts were obviously scant. I received a set of high quality rechargeable batteries (for said backpack), and some nice Salomon socks for snowboarding. That being said, because of my primary hobby, and the timing of when it's major releases are, I did buy myself some things within the last month or so that could count as a holiday gifts. These would include:
• Five (5) Sumo Lounge Omni chairs, 3 grey, 2 black.
• A PS3, that among three others was just chilling at a local Zellers.
• Viva Piñata. Just got into it yesterday, and it looks to be filled with fun.
• Wireless Xbox 360 Steering Wheel. Played around with it a bit in PGR3, and I plan on giving it a shot with NFS: Carbon and when I decide to actually open my copy of Test Drive Unlimited.
• Resistance: Fall of Man. Wow, the textures look so bland compared to the rich detail found in Gears of War. Maybe I need to give it more time, though.
So it's not like I don't have any new toys to mess around with.
Big White was really nice, and the hotel's business center was compatible with Xbox Live, so that was handy. The first day saw a little sun and the conditions were alright. It was close to the end of the day when we found the preferred run ride on. The next day was snowing and a bit foggy at the top of the lift, but that just gave way to fresh powder to tear through. I was going excessively fast, and it showed. I'll post pictures later, you'll be amused.
So that was my Christmas and New Years, didn't really party too much, just plowed.