I’m usually a patient guy, but this is ridiculous.

EDIT: Fortunately for me, the RRoD is no longer there after I unplugged and plugged it back in from the socket. Still, extremely stupid.

In the past year—or more accurately, the past third of the year—I have owned three XBOX 360 consoles, due to repairs needed for each console. Technically, I’ve owned two; the first of three was my brother’s before he gave it to me after an E73 error, which wasn’t on the warranty fuck-up list and cost me about a hundred bucks. Here’s the order of events that have happened so far with this Microsoft-approved product.

1. My brother purchases an XBOX 360.
2. The E73 error; my brother sells me his console and gives me the shipping label to send it back.
3. New console with a month of XBOX Live Gold and renewed warranty comes in mail. Not too bad.
4. Console apparently had a faulty disk tray after less than a week of possession. Shipped back. Again.
5. Another new X360 comes in mail with another free month of Gold. Disk tray works pretty good.

With my third console, I was happy. The right DRM licenses were transferred properly, the disk tray was…quieter. All seemed great. Then, today, a power outage occurred:

Sigh. Why do this to me, Microsoft? I've never hated you before. BEFORE.

Now who in their right mind would design a console so fucking horrible that I would have to send it in three god-damned times? It just fuckin’ boggles my mind.

I’ve never seen the Red Ring of Death, but I’ve already suffered enough with the first two repairs. Seeing this is like I was brought out to the wall, wearing a white shirt, only to be shot down by a tonne of soldiers with muskets during the cold time of day. One amazing coup de grace.

That’s right, readers. I feel like the guy from Goya’s Third of May.

Goya's Third of May. Click to expand.

Now, I’ve read that sometimes this defect isn’t a permanent thing. I’ve heard that sometimes, it will disappear. Part of me is fine with that. Part of me.

It’s because I can be a patient person. But I’m not one now. I’m pretty pissed. I really don’t want to send this one back, considering I just got it back after the second cycle of returns in the past few months.

To quote my sister, I am “the saddest bee.”

Spooky Hallowe’en movie suggestions

As the 31st is just around the bend, I thought I’d share with you all my opinion on two horror movies I remember greatly in the past few years. Make a note that just one of these films has been positively embedded to my brain. The other has not.

The following was inspired by a conversation with my good friend Maggie.

SEE: Black Sheep (Jonathan King, 2006)

I’m not entirely sure where to start with this movie and why I enjoyed it. Could it be the boring yet intriguing setting of New Zealand where the movie is filmed? Maybe it’s the stars: the genetically mutated were-sheep? Or could it just be because the poster’s tagline is “GET THE FLOCK OUT OF HERE!”

What I will say is that for a setting such as these shockingly rural fields, King doesn’t hold any punches with this movie. Everything gratuitous happens to the point where you don’t know if it’s scary or hilarious. But I don’t mind that one bit.

Well, except for the bestiality part. But I won’t go into the details. I’ll leave that for your own curiousity.

DO NOT SEE. EVER.: The Nun (Luis de la Madrid, 2005)

Sadly, this is the most professionally classy poster I could find for this film. The film includes the following bits: a rag-tag group of college students from the U.S. in Madrid (including some of the worst New York accents ever), a mysteriously dark past about an all-girls private Catholic school, things that would make even the most corrupted mind go more insane, and the piéce du resistance:

A WATERY GHOST OF A VENGEFUL NUN THAT KILLS HER FORMER STUDENTS.

Now while to some this may sound like the best horror film ever, the one thing that prevents The Nun from being a good movie is the plot. A rarity for me, the plot progression in the movie actually made me mad, particularly the ending. I won’t “spoil” the experience for you, but the development of the story up to the ending is meant to play out as a mystery. Instead, the progression doesn’t just fall short. It finds a cliff, jumps off it, shoots itself in the head halfway, and activates a nuclear charge near a city inhabited by innocent orphans. Unless you want to hurt yourself, don’t see this movie.

—

I’ll end this off with an apology for updating so late. But I hope it was worth it this time.

It’s almost like computer polygamy.

The past month has been weird. So weird, that I should probably mention what’s happened in the past month. Since, well…I haven’t updated in a while.

First off, I have a new apartment in Kitchener. As the saying would go if it existed, “it’s nice, but it’s Downtown.” Not to mention I’m getting quite the deal for it, which isn’t too shabby at all. I’ve always been curious what it’d be like to live in an apartment above a shop, and lo and behold, the landlord’s wife runs the shop downstairs.

Second, my folks were able to help me upgrade to a new computer: an iMac. I’ve noticed that a lot of graphic designers have Macs and I remember hearing that they’re pretty stable machines, so I decided to go with it. I’m glad I did. And Adobe CS4 is pretty awesome; finally my lineart is getting smoother (although I don’t know if that’s because of Adobe or OSX)! Note though that one of the first things I installed on this sucker is Windows XP via Boot Camp for some apps, but OSX’s not so bad. Unlike my brother, who’s Mac-obsessed, I still like Windows enough to use it without a care.

And games run so beautifully on this machine. The hardware’s gonna last me a decade.

My bro also gave me his scratched-up iPhone, minus a phone service. So in other words it’s just a thicker iPod Touch with a camera. It’s cool, but kinda weird. Touch-sensitive products kinda annoy me, but it’s a great Skype and web handheld. I think I’ll stick with my Nano for my typical Personal Area Network. It’s more practical.

School and Imprint are my two top priorities this term. It’s my last term at UWaterloo (I hope), and I’m gonna end it off with a bang at the paper by finishing as Graphics Ed. That with the comic and my brand-spanking-new weekly blog at The Boar makes me a busy kid. And commissions from friends on the side are a bit much too. I need to stop those for a while.

I am he as you are he as you are me…and stuff.

I have, by far, some of the most bizarrely greatest friends. How bizarre?

In particular, a good side of my friends have decided to become me by changing their profile pic to my face.

In case you happen to be wondering, this is not my doing. I mean, seriously; would I ever think of doing something like this? I like myself too much to tell people to do something so embarrassing! I’m not saying I’m hating this, but rather that I can’t help but react by shaking a fist at certain people. I have never witnessed something so kind and nuts at the same time before. It’s still trying to sink in, all this insanity!

The culprit, of course, is my nemesis best friend, Cait Davidson. Please be sure to visit her site and tell her how frightened I am at her ability to lead thousands of people into a mimic convention.

The provided hyperbole has been brought to you by the letters ASJHKAJDFHASASKJDFHFASKFH!

New branding!

For those who’d rather read this in text format, click the jump.