We allowed ourselves to sleep an hour later on Saturday morning than we had on Friday morning. We still made it to the Convention Center by 9:30. Funny thing was we had a better position in the Queue Room than we had the previous day. I guess that a lot of other people needed a little extra sleep too. We were thrilled again to get wristbands for the concerts in the evening.

Once the doors opened Travis and I headed for the the Microsoft booth to get in the 40-minute line up to play ODST. There were three stations of four seats each and they were allowing each group to play ten minutes of the game's Firefight mode (Now that the game is released, my longest games of Firefight have all been over an hour and I can see them going much longer than that as I improve). However, ten minutes was enough to give us a great taste of a very very fun game mode. Of course Travis was the high-scorer on our team, and he continues to be the high-scorer in every game I have played with him since.

While in line waiting to get our hands on ODST we got to watch several people try their hand at Forza 3. I loved Forza 2 and have been very impressed with what I have seen of Forza 3 so far. The setup they were using to demo the game involved three 360s and three monitors and a cockpit with pedals and steering wheel. It was very very impressive. One of the most interesting things about the Forza community is that it is divided into those who race cars and those who paint cars. I'm good at neither of those things yet this is still on my list of "must-buy" games this fall.

While in line for ODST I started noticing my head hurting, I was pleased it wasn't a migraine, I didn't want a migraine wrecking our second day of PAX.

We wandered the aisles of the Expo. We saw the demo of Ubisoft's new Splinter Cell game which looks like it may be a lot of fun. I bought the Monster Manual 2 a second Players Guide and a set of three hero figures at the Wizards of the Coast booth. We saw some amazing gaming tables at the Geek Chic booth I really think the Emissary table would go very well in my dining room.

While watching people playing D&D on the very cool furniture I started to realize the headache was getting pretty bad. Migraines are not any fun, but I know how to deal with them and what to expect. I have no coping ability when I have a bad headache that is not a migraine. My life simply runs downhill. We had some food and I ingested some of my drug of choice, caffeine in an attempt to stave the headache off but that didn't work. After lunch we visited the Harmonix booth and took in The Beatles: Rockband. They were giving away t-shirts to people who were willing to play on stage but I couldn't convince Travis to participate so we missed out on those shirts! We did stay and watch a few groups play and it was a lot of fun. The Beatles music is amazingly timeless, and I am often in awe of the things they were able to accomplish musically. I'm looking forward to getting a copy of the game sometime soon.

By now I was completely miserable, but I still thought I had the energy to sit through the Brink show and tell at the Bethesda Softworks booth. The game looks stunning, some of the RPG aspects of it look like a lot of fun. I couldn't help but compare it a bit to what I had seen of Borderlands. I wish now that I had felt better at the time and could have more fully enjoyed the presentation. The game is definitely on my watchlist.

After seeing Brink we went in search of Advil. Thankfully I found some.

The headache on the mend, we headed to the Unicorn Theater to see Stepto's (Stephen Toulouse) talk about XBox Live policy enforcement. As XBox Live's top cop he's the man in charge of making sure Travis and I don't have to put up with two many jerks, and that my younger boys have a relatively safe environment when they are on Live. I first ran into him when I was concerned about some of the clan tags I was seeing in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. He had a great presentation that was full of laughs and good information about the way live is run. You can find this video, a reading from the Book of Enforcement, at the presentation link but it is too good to pass up here:


Major Nelson was at Stepto's presentation and afterward I got to do something I've wanted to do for quite some time and that is thank him for the part that XBox Live played in allowing me to stay in touch with Travis during the time that Jennifer and I were separated. I got to talk to my son almost every night as we gamed together, and I firmly believe that to be a vitally important role in he and I having the quality relationship we currently have.

We stopped and checked out the new BioWare game Mass Effect 2. I honestly expected more from that demo. I loved the original Mass Effect, despite it's flaws it was a remarkable game. The problem with the demo was two-fold, the area was too loud to hear the sound of the game, and the demo looked like exactly what it was an unfinished game. This was jarring to me given how much I had been reading about improvements to the game. Neither Travis or I was able to see those improvements in the portion of the game they were showing off.

I'm not quite sure how we ended up there, but we found ourselves in the Main Theater for the Rooster Teeth Productions panel. I've always enjoyed Red vs. Blue but I have never been a big enough fan to take the time to watch it all. The Rooster Teeth panel changed that. It was a lot of fun, and I made the decision right then that I needed to support their endeavours. These men are truly funny and truly a lot of fun, and they love gaming.

By now I was feeling 95% better and we headed off to Subway for dinner. After grabbing our sandwiches we headed back to the Rock Band freeplay stage and watched several bands do a really good job on their songs before the technical difficulties forced an end to the proceedings. Once that occured we moved back to the queue room to line up for the Saturday nigh concerts. We were both pleasantly surprised when the line started moving far sooner than we expected it to and once again we ended up with reasonably good standing spots, this time just in front of the sound board. Soon the lights went down and the big screens lit up with Rock Band graphics, the curtain opened and out came Gabe and Tycho's band, The Sex Generals. The screen mentioned something about The Rock Band Network and the band launched into their song "Are you really a woman?" It was incredibly cool seeing The Rock Band Network put to use for the first time (the audio gets better a few seconds in so be patient).


It was also incredibly cool seeing the Pip Boy puppets that had been part of the genesis for this entire father-son adventure into geekdom making a reappearance at the concerts this year. The owners of the puppets put on quite a show throughout all the events of the evening. They were quite fun to watch.

After the song Gabe and Tycho stayed on stage to introduce the final eight of the Omeganauts came out on stage, having been divided into two teams of four. The winners of this round would become the final-four contestants in the Omegathon. The competition for this round was going to be Beatles Rock Band. The song Twist and Shout. The first band out did wonderfully well. The second band, well not so well at all. It was a lot of fun watching The Beatles in animated form up on the big screen, and a lot of fun watching the two bands working for their place in the final four of the Omegathon.

When the curtains closed, Travis and I sat on the floor and waited for the opening act for the evening, Freezepop. My only familiarity with Freezepop was their music in Rock Band, but I thoroughly enjoyed their upbeat quirky music. Liz Enthusiasm, the front-woman for the band, is attractive, and knows she's attractive, and she played that up a whole lot with her mostly male audience, including getting down off the stage during one song to dance with the guys in the front row. Partway through their set, there was a pause and a couple who had won a raffle to appear on stage with the band were brought out. Only they weren't there because they had won a raffle, they were there so the guy could propose to his girl. She said "yes," which was a good thing because if she had said "no," it would have been awkward for everyone and severely diminished the good vibe the band had been generating up to that point.

Following Freezepop's very upbeat and fun set, we were told that we were fortunate enough to have an appearance by the Secretary of Geek Affairs, Wil Wheaton. Who appeared on stage to read the following proclamation:


I didn't know a thing about Paul and Storm prior to them coming on stage to receive the Secretary of Geek Affairs D20 award, but from the moment they launched into Opening Band I knew I was going to thoroughly enjoy the show. Their humour, their hawking their wares from the platform (Travis has a Dejected Arrr t-shirt and Jennifer has a lovely Minion t-shirt), and their talent as musicians made for a wonderfully enjoyable set that kept us both laughing throughout.

The last act of the night was Jonathon Coulton. My familiarity with him was limited to the fact that he wrote Still Alive, the song sung by GLaDOS at the end of the brilliant video game Portal. I knew he was something of a geek icon so I was very much looking forward to hearing the other things he has written. With Paul and Storm providing backing vocals for much of the set it was a lot of fun. Not as funny as the preceding set had been but still a lot of fun. In addition I got to hear the original songwriter singing Still Alive.

Once again it was a full day and once again, two very tired guys dragged into their hotel room just before 3:00am. Even though we were exhausted we were still looking forward to what the final day of PAX would hold for us.

Friday morning our alarms went off far too early. Fortunately I was able to drag my sorry backside out of bed and into the shower in a reasonable amount of time. Even waking Travis up was not to horribly difficult clean bodies and clean clothes we headed down to the motel lobby for their version of a Continental Breakfast. Let's just say it lived up to my expectations based on the price of the room. While not in any way shape or form exceptional, it did provide a much needed energy boost at the start of the day. We got in the car, I showed Travis where we were on the map of Seattle and where we needed to be on the map of Seattle and said "it's your job to navigate."

He did an excellent job of getting us exactly where we needed to go. We found parking in a parking garage that had far too low a clearance for my head, and made our way to the Queue Room at the convention center. The Queue Room is exactly what it sounds like a room set up with serpentine dividers to allow thousands of people to queue up in an orderly fashion. We hadn't been in this room for too long before we realized that not everyone had showered, was in clean clothes, or understood the concept of deodorant. It wasn't horrible but it was clear evidence that geeks and nerds still have some stereotypical traits to overcome.

Travis and I were obviously in the first four-thousand in the queue as we scored our wristbands for the concerts that night. Those wristbands were our first good score of the day. Usually queuing is a chore, a frustrating experience, but playing on the big screen in the queue room was some brilliant (at least if you're a geek or student of pop-culture) entertainment. Somewhat War Gamesish the computer kept "talking" to us and playing all sorts of entertaining interactive games. The games were made interactive via an SMS short-number and some entertaining uses of SMS messages. Voting for your favourite YouTube video. Solving puzzles via SMS. Creating a census of those in the queue. It was all handled really well and in a very fun and entertaining manner. In addition people played their hand held video games, read books or sat on the floor and played board games to pass the time. It was during queue time that the beach balls appeared. I can't tell you who sponsored the beach balls but I can tell you that the logo lent itself to "enhancement." and the Sharpies came out and most of the balls were "enhanced" by people who have spent far too much time watching the movie Superbad.

Once the doors opened we had a brief few minutes to wander the Expo floor before running upstairs to the first panel of the day for us, Game Development 101. It was a fascinating panel with some interesting people and there was some good insight into the insides of the development process. I was particularly interested in listening to the writer, and the producer. The writer because I love to write and believe that video game writing is just starting to come into its own, and the producer, well the producer because he has my dream job.

After the Game Design panel it was time to head back down to the Queue Room to Queue up for the Keynote speech. Travis held our place in line and I went in search of some food which we proceeded to eat sitting on the floor. We had great seats for the keynote, but there really weren't any bad seats in the room given the six large screens that gave everyone a great view. The keynote speaker was a gentleman who spent his formative years in La Grande, Oregon. He went on to fame designing games for LucasArts. You may have heard of Guybrush Threepwood and The Secret of Monkey Island. You may also know of Ron Gilbert the creator of The Secret of Monkey Island. Mr. Gilbert spoke of his history in game design and along the way helped show us the importance of games in our culture and games as art. It was a brilliant speech, quite moving, quite insightful, and definitely inspiring.

We stayed in our seats after the keynote for a Q&A session with Gabe and Tycho. Given that they are the reason for PAX the crowd was huge, and the Q&A quite fun. Gabe told the story that provided the impetus for the titles of these blog entries.

As the planning for PAX was underway contracts were entered into with many of the hotels near the conference center. As the time drew closer the PAX planners discovered that 37 rooms had gone missing at one of the hotels. When the PAX people called about the missing rooms they were told "Oh the Oakland Raiders are in town. We needed the rooms." They were told very politely that no one at PAX cared that the Oakland Raiders were in town and their attention was re-directed to the signed contract. The hotel told the Raiders that they would have to find lodging elsewhere. It was truly the reversal of roles for the geeks and the jocks.

There was one quite touching scene where the person at the microphone told his story about how Penny Arcade had helped keep his spirits up during some very dark and difficult times in his life. He was hoping he could shake Gabe and Tycho's hand, however, Tycho pre-empted that wish, hopped down off the stage and then gave the guy a huge hug.

From the Q&A with Gabe and Tycho we headed back upstairs to the Bungie panel, Prepare to Drop! They were in the biggest theater in the building and the line was quite long, I was worried we were not going to get seats. However, the Enforcers (PAX's volunteer security force) assured us that there would be room and there was. The panel was not what Travis or I were expecting, however, it proved to be an incredibly gratifying look behind the scenes at the creation of Halo: ODST. We heard from the Creative Director, the composer, the lead graphic designer, the producer, and several others. We saw some of the concept art. We heard how the game had taken shape, moving from something that should have been DLC to a full game. We heard some of the score (a complete departure from the typical Halo score but really impressive). We heard about weapon re-designs and why the Battle Rifle has no part in the game (something I'm still not sure I'm happy about). It was a great panel and lots of fun. Now that I've played the game I can say all their hard work was not in vain and that while it is completely different from its predecessors it is also a very good game in it's own right.

From the ODST panel we headed back downstairs to the expo for a while. A trip that proved to be far shorter than we expected it to be as we discovered that Gearbox Software was going to do a panel on their upcoming title Borderlands. Borderlands is one of the games Travis and I are most looking forward to this fall, so we knew we had to see that. We quickly dashed to the Subway in the Convention Center to get some dinner and then headed for presentation. It turns out we hadn't needed to get dinner as the Gearbox gang had ordered pizza for everyone who came to their panel, something I thought was quite cool of them. Right from the beginning this panel felt completely different from the Bungie panel. Where Bungie were professional and polished the Gearbox guys were rough and tumble. I quite enjoyed it. They started their presentation with this hilarious video of Claptrap the Robot. Then discussed the evolution of their game prior to letting one of the audience members up on stage to play co-op against the other panel members while their exploits were narrated. My interest in the game was heightened by the panel so I'm quite sure they did what they set out to do.

We left the Borderlands presentation expecting to go down to the Expo again, but when we got there we discovered the Expo was closed. Hearing music we followed the sound until we discovered the source. The Rock Band freeplay stage. We sat and watched and listened as group after group tried their hand at Rock Band. Many of them were no better than I am which gave me some hope. Of course I will never be up to Travis's standard of being able to play anything and everything on expert guitar.

Finally it was time to line up for the Friday night concerts. As you know from my PAX Day 0 post it was events from the concerts a year earlier that triggered my desire to go this year. After waiting in line and watching the sometimes quite funny SMS Message Board on the big screen (People could text their messages to the system and have them displayed on the big screen). We got to head into the Main Theater for the concerts. Most of the seats had been removed and we got extraordinarily good standing spots quite close to the front. Unfortunately, the concerts started quite late so that was a bit of a drag.

First up was Anamanaguchi a chiptune band that composes on a hacked NES. Their music was upbeat and and a lot of fun and they had lots of energy. The visuals provided by Paris Treantafeles and outpt were eye-catching, entertaining, and very well done. It was fascinating seeing the two visual artists working on stage as the music was played.

The second band of the evening was Metroid Metal. Having not played the Metroid games, I was doubly at a loss when I didn't enjoy their metal interpretations of music I was unfamiliar with. The band was very good, very loud and fun to watch, but the music simply left me cold.

The headliner for the evening was MC Frontalot I'm not a huge rap or hip-hop fan, but I certainly enjoy quite a bit of it so I was really looking forward to seeing the man who made "nerdcore" a household word. The set got off to a great start when Wil Wheaton came out on stage with a Guitar Hero guitar and started playing, because Frontalot was going to be unavoidably delayed. It wasn't long until the MC came out and ripped into his set. Musically and visually it was a great set. The man is fabulous entertainer with a great shtick. The biggest downfall (and I'm going to sound like my parents here) was that I couldn't understand a word the man was rapping. Travis felt the same way, and that took us way out of the set. For those who actually knew what he was rapping about it had to be a great and very enjoyable set.

Once the concert was over two very tired guys headed to the car and the trip back to the hotel. It had been a great first day at our first ever PAX. We fell into our beds just before 3am both dreading and looking forward to the alarms the next morning.

Last night I finally finished Fallout 3. I had enjoyed many many hours of playing this excellent game. A world full of interesting characters, interesting questions, and interesting places. Sure I was disappointed at the level cap (one of the reasons the game fell to the wayside of my gaming), but I understand that it was part of the price we paid for not having auto-leveling bad-guys in the game (like we did in Oblivion). On the whole my experience as I wandered through the Capital Wasteland was one of awe and deep enjoyment. There were so many little touches that made it possible to completely lose yourself in the world these incredibly talented developers had created.

And then we got to the finale, and instead of putting the capstone on this incredible piece of work, the game came to an Epic Failure. Not just a small gaffe, not a tiny distraction, but an Epic Failure. I won't go into to details as I hate spoilers as much as the next person, but the ending tossed out everything we might have expected for this game based on how things were handled at the end of Oblivion, based on what we had learned about our avatar as we wandered through the beautiful Capital Wasteland, based on the skills and items I had picked up in my wandering. It all came crashing down in a nonsensical jumble that left me incredibly disheartened and wondering whether I will be investing in the DLC Bethesda have made available for the game.

I don't understand how something so beautiful could end up so disappointing.

Thanks to registering for the preview, I got into NXE a day early. I was quite pleased. It's a fun change to the 360.

Travis and I finished the Gears of War 2 campaign on Hardcore difficulty last night. We will tackle it again on Insane and see how we do. While Epic and Dude Huge didn't re-invent the game, they did do a very nice job of making it an exceptionally satisfying experience. The campaign, in general, is much more solid and much more satisfying, answering a few questions, but leaving many more unanswered. As this is the middle chapter of a trilogy I don't find that to be much of a problem. The ending, while somewhat abrupt (I didn't expect to be there when I got there) is not as bad as much of what I have read about it in the press. I found it to be very similar to the novel where the climax happens three-quarters of the way through and the rest of the story is winding down.

While the storyline is much better, it is hampered by incredibly hammy voice-acting. There is one scene that is really quite poignant, and if done correctly I would have probably been in tears, but the voice-acting is so over-the-top that I never got past it and fully, emotionally into the moment. The story is also hampered by a couple of levels that seem to have been created for no other reason than to show off some of the cool features of the Unreal Engine.

In general, the levels are a lot of fun, one of them included some of my most satisfying moments ever in a video game. The mechanics are pretty much identical to the mechanics in the first game, however, there are a couple of really nice features that were added. One is the ability to attempt to crawl to safety when you are downed by the enemy. The other is that it is quite possible for you and your buddy to split up and carry on down two separate paths of the level for a brief while. This was forced several times in the first game, and sometimes still is in this one, but sometimes it's an optional path which is quite nice.

The new weapons and finishing moves are lots of fun. The mulcher, mortar, and flame thrower all add new and interesting strategies both in single-player and in multi-player. One of the fun things Epic has done is they have added distinct finishing moves for each weapon. Other new additions are the ability to use any of the grenade types as a proximity mine (you melee the wall) and that the concussion from grenades other than the frag grenades will knock you down.

Gears of War featured and achievement called "Seriously" and you achieved it with something like ten-thousand kills in public, ranked matches. The new game ups the ante on that significantly. Seriously 2.0 requires one hundred-thousand kills. Fortunately you get credit for every kill, not just kills in ranked matches.

Multi-player has changed too. The basics are still the same but there are several new game modes, and one additional player per team. The greatest improvements in multi-player have to do with the game lobby though. No longer is it an exercise in frustration to try and put a group together and take that group in search of battle.

My favourite addition to the PvP game modes is "Submission" (formerly known as Meatflag). The meatflag is a Stranded, lost in the middle of the map. Your job is to down the meatflag grab him as a meat-shield and carry him to the capture point. It's basically capture the flag with one caveat, the flag shoots back. I have seen several of those matches where the meatflag had more kills than anyone on either team.

I think my favourite multi-player mode overall is the new Horde mode. In Horde, you and up to four of your friends are dumped into a map where you will face wave after increasingly difficult wave of Locust enemies, fifty of them to be exact. The sheer fun of tackling that many enemies with your friends, and fighting cooperatively to defeat them is incredibly addictive and lots and lots of fun.

Epic has done a fabulous job on the sequel to one of the best games available on the XBox 360. I highly recommend it.

Major Nelson just released a video about avatar creation on the New XBox Experience.

<a href="http://www.craigelachie.org/standingfast/exit.php?url_id=209&amp;entry_id=132" onmouseover="window.status='http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&amp;playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:af0e0dcd-5cff-43a2-bd32-4841fe6a89d1&amp;showPlaylist=true&amp;from=msnvideo';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;" target="_new" title="Avatars in the new Xbox experience">Video: Avatars in the new Xbox experience</a>

I'm really looking forward to the complete redesign of the 360's interface, and as cutesy as avatars are, I'm really looking forward to getting to spend some time creating one. I'm sure I will be spending some MS Points to buy kit for my avatar at some point also.

One of the things I noticed in the video was just how smooth the interface appears to be when navigating between sections. I hope that it's as smooth for us as it is for the Major in this demo.

Via: Xbox Live's Major Nelson

Thanks very much to Kotaku's Luke Plunkett for making me laughs out loud with this...

You may read the rest of his review of Castle Crashers here

Via: Kotaku

[Updated: September, 3nd]
Went to my mailbox today and inside it was a package from Microsoft a copy of Project Gotham Racing 3. Thank you Microsoft and Jerry for coming through on your promises! That's impressive.

Now I only need the phone call from Gerald's Manager and this saga will be complete.

[Updated: September, 2nd]
I got a second call from Microsoft this morning at 6:00am. They were kindly letting me know that my unit had been shipped back to me. 6:00am is a bit early for me, but they get huge points for trying to keep me informed, so I have no complaint.

The box with my 360 in it walked through my door just about noon. The actual repair process went quite smoothly. Actually it's not the 360, it's a replacement unit, new cables, new power-supply new everything. I guess I'll get to try-out the new DLC license shuffler.

Supervisor Jerry did come through on one of his promises, I did get the one-month free of Live. There was no mention of a free game, nor have I heard from Supervisor Gerald's manager to file a complaint about his hanging up on me. So Jerry is batting 33% (though I think the one-month Live card gets sent by default so while I give him credit for that, I don't think he actually did anything.

I still give the credit for this to Major Nelson. I'm quite convinced that if I hadn't emailed him [thanks for the suggestion Seven] I would still be waiting on a shipping label. Thank you again Major.

[Updated: August, 29th]

I'm posting at the top here since Microsoft is doing the right things and deserves credit for that. I got a call from the service center at 6:52am today letting me know my 360 had been repaired and was waiting for shipment. That's incredibly fast turn-around on their end. I'm guessing I will see box on Tuesday, due to the holiday, though I will try and get FedEx to change delivery to my apartment once it has been shipped, just in case they can deliver on Saturday.

---

Originally Posted: August 24th, 2008
My 360 RRoD'd on Tuesday night August 12th. I was bummed. I watch all my DVDs on it and play my video games on it, being separated from my wife I have lots of time to play video games and watch DVDs. It's also a fabulous way to stay in touch with my oldest son Travanoid who I game with quite regularly. I'd heard pretty decent things about Xbox customer support and had been impressed that MS did the correct thing when it took that huge charge to extend the warranty on all 360s, so I sucked it up and called that evening.

The support person I spoke with promised me a shipping label in 72 hours. That meant I should have had a label by Friday evening. I didn't get it, but stuff happens so I didn't fret too much. Monday night the repair site on xbox.com lost track of my repair order. I was disconcerted by that so called support and the very nice man I spoke with told me that the systems were under maintenance and that was why I couldn't see the support request. I was cool with that, and asked him if it was weird that I hadn't got my mailing label yet. He said yes, and I likely would need to open a new repair order, but he couldn't do that as the systems were down, would I please call back in the morning. He was polite and helpful, so I had no problem doing as he asked.

The next morning, August, 19th, I called back and they said "Ohh that shouldn't have happened, we'll open a new ticket, you'll have your label in 24 hours."

On the morning of August 20th I called back and told them I didn't have my label yet and I was told "no one should have told you 24 hours. We can't make that kind of promise." I was a bit perturbed but waited the additional 24 hours before calling back to ask where my label was.

The person I spoke with on the morning of August 21st told me that there was something wrong with my email address, an address that they had double checked on every previous call, an address at which I get many hundred of emails a day. Since there was obviously a problem with my email address could I please give them a different email address. Once again I was disconcerted, but I gave them my work address, and then waited another 48 hours for my shipping label.

On the morning of the 23rd, eleven days after my first phone call and three service request numbers later, I checked my email, hoping that I had finally received the shipping label. There was no joy in Muddville. I checked the xbox.com website, the first item was still the one hi-lighted. The one that makes it clear that they had NOT sent an email yet and that the ball was still in their court.

I called back, the very nice girl who answered the phone told me there must be a problem with my email address, could I please provide another. I told her that was unacceptable and that I needed to speak to a supervisor. Eventually Gerald came on the line ready to help. He told me that instead of emailing me a shipping label they were going to ship me a return box. He told me that that would take three to five days. I told him that if they had done that on August 12th that would have been acceptable, but at eleven days past that time it was not acceptable. I told him I wanted my mailing label NOW.

He said he couldn't do that. I asked to speak with someone who could. I asked to speak to his supervisor. He said I couldn't. I told him we had a problem then. I told him about my son's experience with the iPod I bought him for his birthday on July, 27th that broke on August, 13th, which I returned to the Apple Store on August 22nd and had a new one in five minutes. He made a dreadful mistake. He sighed.

I don't care who you are, I don't care what your position is, you do not sigh at your customers. I would lose my job in an instant if I sighed at a customer. I told him that that was a problem, I told him that he and I would be on the phone together until I received the new email. I was quite serious about that. I work a gig where I'm on call 24/7/365. I work a gig where I have gone a couple of days without sleep. I've been there. I've done that, I know I can do it and there was no way I was getting off the phone until Gerald came through on his promise of a shipping label.

I put him on speaker, asked him what kind of music he liked (Metallica), turned on iTunes put on Metallica, and began the waiting process. He hung up on me one hour, eleven minutes and fifty-eight seconds into our call.

If sighing at your customer is bad, hanging up on your customer is far far worse. I called back, got another first level technician. She asked me for my serial number. I told her she had four service requests with my serial number on it, I wasn't going to give it to her again. I told her I wanted to speak with Supervisor Gerald. She said she couldn't make that happen. I told her that of course she could make it happen. She said she could get the supervisors on the line, but she could not ensure that I spoke with Gerald. I told her that she needed to explain to the supervisor on the line that I needed to speak with Gerald. She put me on hold for a long time (I honestly didn't think they were going to pick back up if *I* had to deal with me at that time I wouldn't have wanted to pick back up!)

I didn't get to speak with Gerald.

But I did get to speak with a very nice man named Jerry. I told Jerry that I either wanted an apology from Gerald, or I wanted to speak to Gerald's manager to file a complaint. He told me I couldn't speak to management, they weren't allowed to give out contact information. I told him he could pass on my phone number and they could call me. I was happy to wait for the phone call. He was disinclined to acquiesce to that request. We talked some more. He tried to blame my email address. He said that they had tried to deliver a couple of times but couldn't.

I asked him for the bounces or the logs, because if both my personal email server and our corporate email server are that messed up that we can't get emails, we need to fix things, I needed logs and bounces to pass on to our system administrators at work. He told me he couldn't do that. I told him that I was not going to believe his claims.

It was then that the story began to change (amazing what happens when you take someone off script). He promised me an email within 24 hours. I asked him if his recorders were running. He told me yes. I asked him if he guaranteed me an email by 8/24 at 12:30 PST. He said yes he did. I asked why he could promise that when I'd been told that no one could make that promise. He said it was because they'd been having system issues that were now fixed.

I asked him how they were going to recompense me for my Live subscription. He told me that they would take care of me. I really want to believe him. He also told me that I would get a call from management to talk about my problem with Gerald, but that would take 48 to 72 hours.

We'll see if he can keep his promises.

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Over 24 hours have gone by since I first wrote the above and posted it to the xbox.com hardware forum.

Today I called and spoke with Kim. While Gerald was nice, but made a mistake, and Jerry was very nice, and made me promises he couldn't keep, Kim was rude. She asked for my serial number. I told her it was on four prior support requests and that I wasn't going to provide it again. I told her that Jerry had promised me a label in 24 hours. She said no one in the organization would do that it wasn't allowed. I said Jerry had told me he was recording the call she was welcome to check exactly what he had said. She said they didn't record calls. I asked her if she were in the habit of arguing with her customers. She hung up on me.

I tried to email Major Nelson, I thoroughly enjoy reading him, I follow him on Twitter. He seems like a reasonable and nice man. The first email bounced back immediately telling me it looked like spam. I adjusted it a bit, changed the url for the xbox forums post to a tinyurl and resent. This time I got to messages back from his auto-responder. One of them said "If you sent a URL I haven't seen your email." At the moment I'm too despondent to care. Maybe I'll cut this out and paste it into an email to him.

---

If, perchance, anyone from Microsoft reads this and would like the four service request numbers I currently have in my possession I would be happy to provide them.

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I just emailed the Major. It would be lovely if he really could help.

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[Update: August 25th]
I just got a phone call from Microsoft. Unfortunately I was in a meeting and couldn't take the call. I called back and they said they were going to send me a box. The difference is, this time they're sending the box expedited. I can live with that, at least they're trying. If Gerald had volunteered to next-day me a box I would have been happy with that. I certainly hope that this time they will do as they say.

I would like to think this is Major Nelson's doing. If so thank you Major!

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[Update: August 26th]
Microsoft's service website finally says "We're waiting on you" instead of it saying "You're waiting on us." I brought the 360 to work today just incase the shipping carton arrives today.

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[Update: August 27th]
I have the coffin. It's packed, I'll be stopping at the FedEx drop off on the way home from work. The service depot should have my 360 sometime tomorrow.

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[Update: August 28th]
My box arrived in McAllen, Texas today according to FedEx's website, but apparently the MS site is down (well not really down but the CSS appears to be broken) so I can't see if they updated their records to reflect that they now have my 360.

One of the most difficult things about XBox Live is finding people you actually like to game with regularly. Shortly after I got my 360 I was perusing the forums on xbox.com when I came upon this thread about 30yo+ gamers. As I read through it I came upon this post...



By a guy named AlexOdin

I responded to his desperate plea for friends, and very soon thereafter was playing GRAW every Friday night with an absolutely super group of people, people who I actually looked forward to playing with, people who I came to think of as friends.

Several games have made our primary Friday night rotation. After GRAW it was Gears of War, and then Call of Duty 4. With occasional diversions in Halo 3 or Team Fortress 2.

Not too far into our gaming a website was put up and My XBox Friends was born.

So, if you're an older gamer (the rule of thumb is 30+) and you'd like to find a group of people who enjoy gaming, and enjoy each other, come check out the website, say hi, and get to playing.

My friend, co-worker and Dungeon Master, Transluscent has been working on a plugin for Vista Media Center called Open Media Library This is an open source effort that allows users to have great control over playing and managing their media libraries using Vista Media Center and Media Center Extenders (such as the XBox 360).

While I don't own a Windows machine, I have been watching the team's work, and think their interface is one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.

If you have an interest in such things go download one of their builds (they are releasing nightlies) and join in the discussion on their forums.

What better day for a father to spoil himself than Father's Day?

On Sunday the 18th of June, I did the unthinkable and willingly spent money on a product produced by Microsoft. I did this after coming to the realization that Sony, who I have fully supported for years (two PS/2s and a PSP), are every bit as arrogant and troubling as Microsoft. Since I don't really want to support Blu-Ray, and since it appears Sony is intent on gouging their fan base and creating a machine with too little bang for too much money, I purchased the more expensive version of the 360 (comes with hard drive, and a few other tidbits), the wireless adapter for connecting to my Wi-Fi network at home, the plug and charge charger for the wireless adapter, and two games Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I also shelled out for an extended warranty..

My normal place to buy games and equipment was (emphasis on the was) the GameStop store in the Gateway Shopping Center here in town. My family had taken me to Applebee's across the parking lot from the store and my boys and I trekked over to the GameStop after dinner only to find that they had closed at 6:00pm! I was stunned I had money I wanted to spend and the store was closed. Unfortunately for GameStop, Game Crazy doesn't share their silly retail hours, and there is a Game Crazy in the same complex as Applebee's and GameStop.

When we arrived at Game Crazy it was staffed by a single person, a young lady named Lully. She was friendly, polite, knew what she was talking about, and had no difficulty convincing me to to buy the extended warranty. We talked about games and XBox Live and rentals (12 free rentals with the purchase of a 360!) and what accessories were required (a plug and play charger for the controller). I spent quite a bit of money in that store and haven't regretted it at all.

Management at Game Crazy, you've got a gem in Lully, you should take good care of her!

I have two complaints about the 360.

1. I created a gamertag before I had an XBox Live account and after I had played through a bit of both G.R.A.W. and Oblivion. I could find no way to transfer my machine specific gamertag to XBox Live, and ended up starting both games over again once I had recreated the gamertag. As it was very little game play (maybe an hour in G.R.A.W. and two hours in Oblivion this wasn't so bad).
   
2. Twice when I've turned the unit on, I have had to restart due to strange video problems, colours not coming on, or coming on to brightly, all the "edges" showing up in one bright colour or another. Both times a restart corrected the problem, but I may be very glad I got the extended warranty!
   

That said the positives have far outweighed the negatives, and I'm thrilled that I finally allowed a Microsoft product in my house.

According to all accounts Nintendo stole the show at E3. Whether that was Nintendo genius or Sony stupidity, I'm not sure. Will we get a Wii at my house? Most likely, the demands of three sons will make the purchase of the most recent Nintendo platform inevitable. However, the big news coming on the heals of E3 is this...I'm contemplating buying an X-Box 360.

I never thought I would say such a thing. Ask one of my boys if they owned an X-Box and they'd tell you "No." Ask them why they didn't own an X-Box, and from a very early age they would frankly say "Because Microsoft sucks!"

I hate Microsoft, I believe they have done more to harm computing than any other company in history. However, it is apparent that they do get gaming. Or maybe it's becoming apparent that Sony is quickly falling into the category of not getting gaming.

I've been eagerly awaiting the announcement for the PS3. I love my Playstation 2. it's specs may not be that great, but the things that developers have been able to do with that hardware are amazing. Even though the PS3's specs may not have been so great on paper, Sony has always provided ways for people to wring every last drop of performance and cool-factor out of their hardware. Unfortunately, Sony appears to have become arrogant. These new game consoles probably look just fine on a normal TV, but to get the most out of them, to make them look incredible you need an HDTV. Yet Sony in an act of incredible foolishness, or complete hubris has determined that there will be no HDMI interface on their "entry level" PS3, a machine that is going to cost $500. If you want HDMI, you have to pay for the $600 unit. And that doesn't take into account the other ways Sony is short-changing the lower-end machine.

Who would have thought that Sony would drive me into the arms of Microsoft? Certainly not me.