I spent the this past week on vacation, not doing anything specific, just tying up all of the loose stuff I had been juggling seemingly forever. I also got bitched at for not updating this Blog by an unnamed associate. This is for him. PLEASE NOTE: The new Britney Spears video is on as I write this, so I’m typing at about 1 word every 15 seconds…will be back to normal soon… It was a real geeky week, hence the new page banner. On Sunday Sioban and I went to see a wedding videographer at his house. We apparently woke him up because his bed head and BO told us all we needed to know. As we walked into his living room, he swept the coffee table free of all the previous night’s debris…real classy like. He piled the rest of the stuff on his turkey frier in the corner. We’re not gonna use him, mainly due to the fact that I saw a “Wedding Videos for Dummies” book on his bookshelf. Not a good sign. However, we finally found a photographer and videographer for the wedding next year. Been a long search, but the vendors are out of this world. The photographer uses mutliple Cisco switches for his home network…had to choose him for that reason alone. The videographer runs a Mac shop with Canon GL DV cams and 22″ cinema displays. Cool. Tuesday I spent trying to get my old ass Opcode Studio 64X MIDI interface to work with my Cubase setup and the MC-303 Groovebox. First, I can’t find the DB9 to DB15 male to male serial cable I need for the interface (say no more) and there is no Cubase mixermap for the 303. This obstacle proved too much for me. I gave up on this for the time being. Pulled out the Musician’s Friend catalog. Started dreaming… Wednesday I spent replacing iMac RAM at Mom’s, teaching my folks how to use eBay, and troubleshooting Dad’s laptop’s USB issues. (Don’t ask) Thursday I got a home equity loan. 6.5% for 15 years. We’re now out of debt (depending on how you look at it)! Friday I spent generally geeking on the PC…testing new software, video editing, making music, etc. We saw a wedding band Friday night…they were unreal, but so were their prices. Now comes Saturday, the day that shall live in Infamy. The day I modded Craig’s XBox. A while ago, I explained to Craig what a modded Xbox can do, he was intrigued and wanted a chip for his box. I told him which one to order, and he bought a chip online. We just needed to find a time to get together. So I drive to his house (12:15pm), wait for our friend Bish, and drive out to CompUSA to get a new HD for the XBox. Once that was done, we head back to the house, not knowing what lay ahead (2pm). I take apart the box and at the same time realize that Craig ordered the wrong chip. He did not get the “solder-less” chip. He got the “solder-full”. Therefore, we need to de-solder quite a few holes on the mobo where the chip will sit. Bish and Craig go to Radio shack for a soldering iron. They return (2:30pm). Bish and I take turns trying to remove the solder, subsequently burning the shit out of my right index finger (7pm). Almost knock myself cold by walking into Craig’s ceiling fan lights (7:05pm). A lot of that time was also spent making fun of Craig’s ecommerce skills. We solder the chip to the board (7:30pm). We realize the pin header doesn’t work and we need to solder wires to the board instead. We finish this (9pm). The next 2 hours were spent burning and reburning DVDs to flash the chip BIOS and install the EvoX dashboard and OS. Bish leaves at 11:30 after waht is seemingly my last failed attempt to get this working. By some miracle, I finished the XBox mods and was able to copy games to the HD by midnight. I walked out the door to my car at 12:15am, exactly 12 hours after I arrived. All in all it wasn’t that bad, it just became a crusade to beat that fucking Xbox. Sunday I moved some friends into their new apartment. My body aches today. Message board traffic has been slow. I need to redesign the page again…getting bored. Back to work…sigh…
