Xbox 360 Slims and their Wireless madness.

Hey Guys and Gals.

I know only two or three people out of the five followers I have actually enjoy video games, but I thought I'd post it anyway.

Back in October, I purchased a 250GB Xbox 360 Slim. Today, I returned that very same console to the shop I bought it from, thinking it broken. Anyway, got the new one back today, and it had the very same problem.

Turns out, it wasn't a genuine problem, just a stupid thing Microsoft have done. Now, this following problem is only wireless, it works fine if you're on a wired connection.

I brought up my network connection page on the Xbox, did everything correctly, and it still refused to connect. Me and Dad had added the MAC address into the filter, applied a static IP address, you name anything within reason, we did it. So, we rang up the ol' fellas at Microsoft, and began speaking to some Indian people. They asked us to try plugging the xbox into the router via ethernet cable, signing in, and then removing the ethernet cable. To our surprise, this worked.

Not very interesting, but a good thing to know if you're thinking about getting a slim on a wireless connection!

And since there's no place to go - write a blog post!

I didn't really want to use a cliche title, but it was all too much to resist.

It doesn't seem like to long ago that I was writing my last blog post on snow, turns out it was a good 11 months ago!

That in mind, this snow really kicks previous snows cold white ass! In January/February, we got about 2 inches of snow, and everyone was please with that. Then, on the night of December 2nd, we got about 5 inches! Granted, places up North have about 12, but 5 inches is pretty good for the South Coast.

Anyway, me and my little sister wake up on Thursday morning, take a peek outside and cheer. Went to the nearest laptop, looked on H'cliffe school website, yet another cheer! School was closed.

So after that, when everyone was ready, we went for a walk up to the Rec. It was like a white blanket, and it was really surreal. Even though the sun was behind clouds, it was still strangely bright because of the snow. And there was still snow falling, so it was great fun.

But today has surpassed any activities from yesterday. Me, Dad, Mum, Esme, Ben and I went to Buckland Rings to go sledging. Buckland Rings was a settlement for a large group of people, and they had a defense system of hills to make it more difficult for people to get in uninvited. Who'd of thought that hundreds of years later people would be sledging on it eh?

There were two main hills. One that was short and steep, the most popular one. But there was another hill in the field just further on that was longer, and slightly less steep. This had about ten people in total on it, and was great.

Now, we had two pieces of equipment, if you like, for sledging. We had a skimboard, which was great for tandem stuff and going stupidly fast, and a make-shift snowboard. This snowboard was made of an old skateboard that had been left in the rain too many times, minus the trucks. This was excellent for sledging, i.e. sitting down/lying down on, or standing up. Me and Ben preferred the snowboard, whereas the others preferred the skimboard.

Where the skimboard was relatively safe, the snowboard was not. And, there was barely room to
stand on. So you get the idea. On a few occasions, whilst going on the skimboard in a tandem fashion, me and Esme managed to somersault over eachother! Another occasion, whilst on the skateboard, some girls decided to walk and stay in the path me and Ben had been fashioning for about 10 minutes. I was already half way down, so I tried to stop by pressing down hard on the back of the board. This didn't work, the board ended up hitting some less compact snow and I went flying two or three meters in front of me.

Overall, it was amazing. I thoroughly recommend it! Go sledging at your nearest hill today!

WI Hall - 20/11/10

The Hordle WI hall was the place to be last night! Loads of brilliant musicians grouped together and played some really nice sets.

First off it was Matt and Louis. A really good duo that played the guitar really well and had an interesting style of singing. It was a shame that there was a constant level of talking though, it would have been nice if everyone had just listened to them.

Then, Max Doohan took to the stage. He was good, but I didn't find him very engaging.

After that, Luke Adams started playing. He was excellent. He managed to get the crowd singing back to him, and really got the crowd going. He played the guitar like it was an extension to his arm, and he sang brilliantly as well!

Shrunk it the Wash came up next. They too were great, managed to get the crowd moshing, and quite hard too! They played some older songs, but pulled (most of them) off really well!

New Royalty, however, really stole the show. When the curtains were drawn back, the whole crowd let out a cheer, and everyone started getting really excited (or I was!). The moshing really went mad at this point, so I thought I'd give it a go :p But seriously, New Royalty were brilliant, well worth the £2.50.

Although, it did suck that some people didn't get it. I guess they should have brought tickets beforehand!

The Black Keys

Alright, now, I've been to a few gigs, this being the fifth I've been to, so I think that I can make a reasonably good comparison/review.

The venue was great. Not too big, but it wasn't too crowded either.

The support act, "The Watchmen" were dreadful. I found they were whiney, nothing innovative and quite boring. Their only redeeming feature was their drummer, who I found was quite good. Aside from that, they were lifeless, had no charisma, and didn't get the crowd going at all.

Then, there they were. Stood on the stage with the lights in the background and their logo/insignia, whatever you want to call it, hanging behind them. And when they started playing...words cannot describe it, but I'll give it a go.

They're a two piece band and they filled the stage like an orchestra. The drumming was so intense you could feel it in your chest, almost like a heartbeat. And the guitar... one of the people that came with us, Sally, described it as:
"It was like the guitar was just an extension of Dan Auerbach's arm!", and it was true. He played the guitar as easily as he breathed. They played the perfect tracklist, although there was one other I would've liked for them to play, "Set you free".

It wasn't too bad mosh pit wise, but there was one main one. It was good fun, but it did get a little irritating after a while. Even though I'm not the biggest lad, it was still good fun just jumping around.

Not the most in-depth review of The Black Keys, but I just felt the need to put it up. They were brilliant, and I would recommend it to anyone!

Duane & BrandO, and other thangs.

Alright, couldn't think of an eye-catching title, but who really cares? I have like 3 people that actually read this.

Regarding the title, Duane & BrandO are a duo that make songs about games, mostly. They tend to do them on older games, like on NES/SNES games, and they're really original and innovative songs.

Phil Haddow told me about them, I gave 'em a listen and haven't regretted it. Although, they could swear for America, so be prepared!

Other thangs!
Yes, I had a very good weekend. On Saturday I finally got my new Xbox 360 Slim, which has taken ages to save up for. It's much better than the old 360's. Although mostly the same, they have inbuilt wireless adapters, virtually silent compared to the older version, and it is more compact. Although, I think that the box I got is slightly faulty, as in I reckon that the wireless component is broken. Yes, unfortunate, but at least we discovered it early.

And Sunday...Sunday was amazing! Me, Zak, Mike, Phillip, Patrick, Logan and Alex went down to Wingfields to play football, and I don't think I have laughed so much in one day. Ever. With various fouls and complete flukes, it was genuinely hilarious. Hopefully we'll do it again sometime!

So, go listen to Duane & BrandO, get a new Xbox (non faulty one) and play football, and you shall have much funsies.

Massive Pterodactyls!

Same tactic as last blog post, grab your attention with the title!

Although massive pterodactyls would be awesome, they would also reek a lot of havoc, so it's best they stay extinct. Forever. And a little longer. But then they could roam free for a while.

Anyway, away from ramblings of dinosaurs! Now onto ramblings of zombies!

Well, to be precise, not zombies themselves, but more of a TV programme on zombies. I've always liked the zombie apocalypse sort of comic, movie, programme etc. So this one seems right up my street. It's called The Walking Dead, and it's about a guy who gets shot, and wakes up in hospital with no one anywhere. He goes outside and *Dramatic music* everyone's dead! Shock!

Aside from all the FLESH EATING ZOMBIES! Hell yeah, we're into the good stuff. In the trailer I saw, there was lots of zombies being shot and big guns, but there was also a valid story line and reasonable acting going on, so this show has the potential to be very good. But it could just be another 30 Days of Night sequel, that got shockingly bad reviews.

Oh, I also want to mention a little project I've got going on with Phillip Haddow at the moment. It's called Alternate Autosaves, and it's basically reviewing a huge range of games, going from NES, to N64, to Xbox 360 and back to the N64 again! Phillip's going to be doing most of the reviews, but on the last Thursday of every month I get to post a review of my choice.

I know that I don't have a huge following on here, but go and check it out. It's in its early stages at the moment, but hopefully we'll be able to develop it a little and get a bigger variety of games. Here's the link: http://alternateautosaves.blogspot.com/

I also want to mention Zak Evernden, because he's the definition of awesomeness, and he was in a P&P episode recently! If you wanna see it, click on this link here: http://www.youtube.com/Haddowinc and their newest video should be up. I hope I'm correct in thinking they update their YouTube channel mostly every Monday. I have genuinely laughed out loud at some parts, so I'd say that it's worth 5 minutes of your time to go have a look, eh?

Pirates!

Alright, I'll say one thing. The subject has nothing to do with this post, aside from this paragraph, it's mainly to draw your attention. It's worked though, hasn't it?

Mainly, this post is themed on the first few weeks of school, and contains a little bit about my Xbox-y stuff.

School. The first day. Yes.
I thought it would be different really, but it wasn't. The only noticeable difference is the obvious one, black school jumpers. Charlie Barrington made a good point that he'd grown up going to the same school as me and Ben (currently walking back from the bus stop at the time) all of his school life, and it was weird that we were the highest year of Highcliffe.

My timetable was relatively the same, with 2 new teachers and all of the lessons at different times than they were last year, but most of the teachers were the same. As I think I've mentioned I now have Mrs Hunt for Physics, which hasn't been that bad really. Aside from one lesson, but I'll come onto that in a bit.

I now have Mrs Cullen as a biology teacher, and I must say she is a most definite upgrade from the Frazer-nator. Miss Frazer, who is now married, knew what she was talking about, but was horrific at controlling the class. I believe a pair of scissors were thrown on more than one occasion, and that just about sums up her lessons.

Mrs Hunt doesn't reaaaaallly know what she's on about. A common answer of hers, if she doesn't know the answer to your question, is either "That's not my field of expertise," or, "You don't need to know that for GCSE level,". Both of which are quite annoying, seeing as a teachers job is to teach, not make excuses. Mr Evans was a much better Physics teacher than T-Hunt, " 'nuff said".

But, the best lesson of hers so far (not down to her) was last week's. Everyone else, aside from the people in question, was sat down. We hear the turning of the door handle, and look to the door. And in comes 4 people, only 3 walking, striding into the room. On closer inspection, we can see none other than James Bonney being carried by Luke Adams, Jack Case, and Tom IB. I'd just like to add that Luke isn't even in our half of the year, let alone our class!

As to be expected, she went ballistic. Genuinely red-faced from shouting, and that was just at the rest of the class for laughing. I dread to think what she was like with James, Luke, Jack and Tom! Then, when she came in from "having words" with them, she saw Callum standing up. Immediately, he was sent out for disruptive behavior. Her eyes then drifted to the back of the room, to see Theo waving his hands around. At this point, Theo was explaining an equation to Amy. Miss Hunt sent Theo out on the grounds that he was "playing golf shots". She then wrote on his Incident Report that he had acquired a meter ruler, and was hitting balls of paper across the classroom. Although, this is what Theo said, and he is an avid user of hyperbole.

It was a hilarious lesson, but laughing could have ended in an incident report, so there was not a peep from the class.

Now, on a more cheerful note, I'm finally gaining some money! Not from a renewable source, but it's money all the same. A few weeks ago, my Xbox 360 broke, as it came down with the 3 RRoD (if you don't get it, google it, I'm not going into any detail). This is a hardware fault that renders the Xbox useless, so it worth nothing. So, a week ago, I (well, I say "I", by this I mean "my dad") put all the other bits and bobs on eBay. These bits 'n' bobs consisted of a wireless adapter, a 60GB hard drive and a Xbox 360 controller. They were put on at 99p, and, all together, managed to scrape up £63! The Hard drive and the adapter went for £32 and £30.99, and the controller went for £13.50. Either way, a healthy bit of cash for what I paid for them.

I intend to buy a new Xbox 360 Slim, which has overcome the problems that cause the RRoD.

Anyway, that was a very long-winded article, thank you for reading it!