Some Great XBox Sports Games
I picked up a couple new XBox games this weekend. I continue to be amazed by how great the video games look and play these days. It doesn't hurt to play them on a 55" 16:9 HDTV with Dolby Digital Surround sound either.

Anyway, I'm very pleased to see some retailers begin to come out with some lower priced games. Outlaw Golf 2 is one example. Turns out that most of Global Star Software games are coming out at a $19.99 price point. ESPN 2K5 (NFL, NHL and NBA) are also all at $19.99. And there are a lot of platinum release XBox games coming out now, that are all below $20.

I picked up Outlaw Golf 2 and Top Spin. Normally, I don't like sports games too much, because it generally sucks playing solo (and I can't bring myself to pay $70/year for XBox Live!), but the original Outlaw Golf was fantastic and I really enjoyed playing solo even. And I've heard rave reviews about Top Spin, so when I saw them for $19.99 each, I just picked them up. Well, they are a blast.



Now I'm really trying to figure out how I get more playing time. I mean, I have the time, but the wife is practically always planted infront of the HDTV in the living room, and I can't get any game play time in there on the XBox. I don't want to even think of hooking it up to a normal TV without 480p and Dolby Digital. So, that has me wondering. Just how much would it cost to get a small 26" or 32" 16x9 widescreen 720p HDTV (plasma or LCD) for the computer room? Hum...probably could find a model that I could plug the monitor (via DVI connector) and the XBox into! Too bad they cost around $2400 for a nice Toshiba 26" LCD.
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- posted by Jeff @ 9:02 PM | 0 comments

 
Asia by way of Alaska
I won the bids for the Asian Collectors Edition DVD of Star Trek the Next Generation (ST-TNG) and Deep Space Nine (ST-DS9) Monday, got email confirmation that they would ship out on Tuesday, and had them on my door step on Wednesday before noon. Wow. They shipped out of Anchorage, Alaska, so I assume that the seller must have a whole CRATE LOAD of them sitting on a ship in the harbor waiting for the order and customs?

The disks are not the best quality (some scratches and blemishes on the DVD's, but all seem to play fine). I'm trying to figure out if they have been compressed to fit on a single layer DVD or if it is just a naturally poor picture because it is originally a TV show. All the DVD's are single layer 4.5GB disks, and you can certainly see compression artifacts (especially when flashing red lights blink on the red uniforms, like in second episode from the first season "The Naked Now". I'll go rent a copy of one of the seasons and see how it looks.

They have copyright information for Paramount Pictures, DVD Video TM logos and other stuff on the back, and a UPC label and everything, so I assume they are legit, but I am going to try to look it up a little more. There is some mis-spelling in the english (like it says "Complete Seaon") and the back of the box makes it seem like it is only the SECOND Complete Season, and that more seasons will be available (but the front shows "Complete One to Seventh Seaon on"). Video is Full Screen (but I'm not sure even the US version had a widescreen option, since it was a TV show). The box is a full 8.5"x11" and 2.5" deep and pretty sturdy and feels very much like a heavy hard back book. All of the DVD's have a color silk screen on them (some Chinese characters on them and the box). The FUNNY thing is, that in small print around the outside of ALL the discs, it says "Nine1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction & Indecent Proposal". That makes me doubt even more the authenticity of these DVD's.


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- posted by Jeff @ 8:49 PM | 0 comments

 
Star Trek on DVD...with an Asian twist
I've been recording Star Trek the Next Generation (ST-TNG) on my DirecTivo for about the last 5 months. I was about 3 episodes short of the whole set, when I began to think about how many hours it was going to take to edit all the comericals out of the shows, plus how much it was going to cost to burn all those to DVD (over 50 DVD's), and I would still be left with something that didn't have Dolby Digital, and was pretty poor quality standard definition lossy MPEG2 video (looks pretty bad on my widescreen HDTV).

So, I finally put some serious bids in on Ebay for the complete Seasons 1-7 (48 DVDs) of ST-TNG. Along the way, I saw Deep Space Nine (ST-DS9) the complete Seasons 1-7 (47 DVDs) and it was going to save me some S&H to get it from the same winning bid I got ST-TNG, so I got that too. I'm not a big DS9 fan, but I guess now, I'll just have to watch them all. That got me thinking about how much a lot of my friends rave about Babylon 5. I missed a couple episodes early on, and was always lost on what was going on, so I didn't watch them or get into them much. But I suppose I might really like them if I could watch them all in order. So, I may order the 5 complete Seasons of that as well as the 5 movies (made for TV, I assume).

Beyond that, what I REALLY want, is the Star Trek Voyager (ST-V) seasons. They have up through Season 4 or 5 out on DVD right now, and should have the last Season 7 released by Xmas. Even my wife wants to watch the first episode really bad, since she has never seen it.
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- posted by Jeff @ 7:33 PM | 1 comments

 
It's all up hill...
I've just finished up a 6 month long job that was putting me at work over 12 hours/day for 5 days a week (sometimes weekends), and I finally had the oportunity to take some time off. Perfect, since the weather is so nice out right now, and I just got my Hayes disc brake levers back, all fixed (thanks to some GREAT warantee service by Hayes and Idaho Mountain Touring Bike Shop). I took Monday off to go ride my 1994 Yamaha YZ 250 up in the hills with my dad. Sure hope I can ride as well as he can at 60.

I took yesterday afternoon off and picked up the brake levers and spent the rest of the afternoon with my family and getting the brakes put on the bike and the hydrolic lines bleed (not fun, since DOT-4 brake fluid eats paint). It was a mess, but I finally got it all done, and the brakes seem nice and stiff.

So, today, I figured I would take the bike out for it's virgin run. I decided to go up crestline trail (a pretty nice and easy ride of 8 miles, round trip). Well, I'm REALLY out of shape, but it was a great ride. I love the bike, though I think the rear shock is due for new seals...either that, or I trade it in for a Cloud Nine rear shock from Cane Creek that everyone seems to be VERY happy with. And you can't beat the trade in value of only $225 if you send your old shock in.

Anyway, I love the suspension, just feels a little mushy in the rear and sag is a little too much, but I may try to raise the seat and see if it is just my impression and I'll try to add just a little more air preload. I really need to get the bike on a nasty/bumpy downhill before I do much more. Used a lot of the front suspension, and most of the rear, but was trying to hit some stuff pretty hard on the downhill.

I also stopped at Costco before the ride and picked up a new Rave MP 256 MP3 player made by GoVideo with 256MB of builtin Flash, an FM tuner and support for SD flash memory expansion for $94. I also picked up a 512MB SanDisk SD flash card for $53. That should keep the tunes playing for a while.

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- posted by Jeff @ 9:01 PM | 0 comments