As mentioned previously I’m having some woes with my Xbox.  The main issue is video failure – audio continues fine.  This occurs with different cables and on different TV’s, so the fault is definitely with the hardware.  Unfortunately, since this isn’t the Red Ring of Death and since I’ve had the thing for about 2 and a half years, it means I have to reluctantly pay £56 to get it fixed (new ones recently only cost £99 at Sainsburys).

Not happy Microsoft.  Here’s hoping you do an absolute diamond repair job or give me a new one.

I’m gonna miss Fallout 3 launch day because of this :(

I’ll keep this post updated with how things are going.  Tomorrow I’ll be booking the UPS collection of the box.

Update: I got a replacement console on Wednesday 12th November – thats a turn around of roughly 2 weeks.  Not too shabby.  Feels good to have a new 3 year warranty on it now – then again, I did pay for it.

So I thought it was about time I gave the blog a breath of fresh air using a new theme (Rihanna for WordPress).  Hopefully it doesn’t feel too cluttered.  I like it anyway!

Note: Since my old theme worked with images up to a width of 480 and this new one works only to 450, I’ve had to scale some of the images on old posts down.  They look fine on Firefox, but IE’s resizing of images seems to be a bit naff.  Anyway, thank God for the max-width CSS :-)

Wordle generates a “word cloud” from whatever text or site you provide it with.  I decided to give it a go on this blog, and here it is:

Hmmm… I swear I’m not an Xbox fanboy.

*cough*

Gamesradar have a pretty excellent article online entitled 10 Reasons Why Its Hard Work Being a Gamer – definitely worth a read.  I can particularly relate to point 5, since my Xbox 360 pretty much died this week (without the 3 red rings).  It seems to have gained life again through some divine healing, but something tells me thats only temporary.  Good timing, what with Fallout 3 coming in 2 weeks :(

*fires up oven*

A friend of mine recently recommended checking out a track called “Wrapped in Piano Strings“, by an artist called Radical Face who I’d previously never heard of.  Never one to refuse a recommendation, I checked out the track online (via Radical Face’s Myspace) and immediately found it very enjoyable, also noting that it was on the Morr Music label which is also a plus (their Slowdive tribute compilation was quite the gem).  I proceeded to check out the album, and I completely recommend you do the same.  This is the Last.fm description of Radical Face:

Radical Face is the solo project of Ben Cooper (mainly of Electric President fame). Cooper is the sole member of the band, although he has enlisted the help of fellow Electric President Alex Kane and Cooper’s brother Emeral. The album “Ghost” was originally scheduled to be released in late 2006, but was delayed to be remastered by the label (Morr Music), and it was subsequently released in March 2007. It features acoustic guitar, “found-sound” percussion, and many multi-layered tracks. The sound is incredibly unique, not only because of Cooper’s originality and raw talent, but also because most of the music has traditionally been recorded in the shed in his backyard.

His sound is definitely unique and I heartily recommend you check out the album.  You can listen to many of his songs at his Myspace, and also on the preview track below.

Recommended tracks: Welcome Home Son, Glory, Wrapped in Piano Strings, Along the Road

Preview: Welcome Home, Son

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Websites: Official site / Myspace / Last.fm

More random spewings from things I found out this week!

• For anyone in the UK looking for a cheap Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360 console, check out Sainsburys supermarket.  From 3rd October to 12th October, the Wii is to be priced at £149.97, the Xbox 360 Arcade will be £99.97, and Xbox 360 Premium (60gb) will be £139.97!  For the 360 consoles, thats a freakin’ bargain! [Source]
• iPhone games Space Monkey and Amnesia are free for a limited time.  Grab them now while you can (well, if you have an iPhone that is)!
• I pre-ordered Fallout 3: Collector’s Edition this week for the Xbox 360.  God damn that lunch box and the items contained within it look good.  I’ve never played any of the Fallout franchise before, but having loved Morrowind and Oblivion, I couldn’t miss out on this since Bethesda are the developers.  Hoping for great things!  Hoping to pre-order Little Big Planet (PS3) very soon as well.
• My USB ports on my desktop machine (Windows Vista, Asus M2N motherboard with Nforce 570 chipset) are corrupting data I transfer through them (writing to a disk in particular).  The files appear to copy fine, but any larger files then give corruption errors when accessed later from any machine.  Anyone got any saving ideas?
• I’m really enjoying Wipeout HD on the PS3 right now.  I’ve enjoyed previous Wipeout games, but never got engaged with them to the extent that I am with this one.  Pity I suck at it though.
• The final achievement on the Xbox 360 port of Galaga is killing me (achieve a perfect bonus round).  Its actually driving me insane.