It's Dai Time

Katie & Scott & Simon & Cecily.

Author: Scott (Page 56 of 104)

Day 178: sadbox downdate

August 8, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Well, that was a fun 12 hours.

After playing several hours of games, including a good session of Mass Effect, my Xbox decided to bring out its old friend: E73.

Sigh. I’ll tackle it again tomorrow, although I’m still holding out hope that American Express comes through with their extended warranty. It looks like the options now are to do greater surgery/research or just bite the bullet and send it in to Microsoft and cough up the $100 repair fee.

It’s been a somewhat exhilarating and severely disappointing day, a roller coaster of Microsoft hardware emotion.

I also mowed the lawn, so it wasn’t a complete loss of a day.

Day 177: sadbox update

August 7, 2009 / / 0 Comments

I might have (finally) gotten a bit of good luck with the broken Xbox.  I managed to squeeze some pennies under the motherboard in the electric tape/12 penny trick that’s spread across some forums and Youtube videos.

This caused my completely dead box (E73) to switch errors to E74.  After a short intentional overheating, the machine started up again!  But…it would overheat nigh immediately (after less than a minute).  I would see the startup screen, the menu would load, then I’d get two blinking lights and a blank screen.

So now, my machine is running topless – everything is as attached as it can be when half of the cover is completely missing.  This solved the overheating problem.

That wasn’t all, though.  My DVD drive wasn’t functioning well – it would say “Open Tray” as the only option when a perfectly good game was in the drive.  I was able to open the drive up, adjust the laser’s position slightly and wipe a bit of the gunk that had somehow accumulated on the laser track.  After putting the drive back together and into the system, it seems to be working now.

So, my Xbox has no top cover, an extra 12 pennies wrapped in electrical tape iin the bottom, and a (temporarily) working but finicky DVD drive.  But I was able to get it all functioning (at once!) tonight and played several (disc-based) games successfully as well as watch a movie on Netflix Watch Instantly.

So, I’d call this a possibly temporary but definite victory.  Maybe all the havoc I put the internals of the system through will actually hold up.  Maybe.

In the meantime, I guess my gamertag is back online and I can finally participate in my co-worker’s Battlefield Wednesdays.

Day 176: why am i still up

August 6, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Katie tends to go to sleep a bit earlier than I do. I’ve noticed something odd about my behavior once she goes to bed. It’s like I revert back to my college days. I’ll stay up way too late, playing games downstairs or on the computer, read various blogs online, or do other random things to stay out of bed.

It’s not because I dislike sleep and certainly not because I don’t like sharing a bed with my wife. But, the earlier she goes to bed, the more likely I am to stay up super late. If Katie goes to bed around midnight, I’ll usually only stay up a half hour or so, finishing up my blog reading and then heading to bed.

However, if Katie feels tired at around 10 PM, I find that staying up just an extra 2 hours suddenly turns into 3, then 4, then beyond. Why does this happen? Why do I stay up late, doing nothing when I know I’ll be tired in the morning? And why is this more likely to happen the earlier Katie goes to bed?

Well, I’ll try not to do that tonight. But…who knows? It’s hard to tell how well my mind works late at night.

Day 175: take me out to the…OMG there’s a guy on the field

August 5, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Katie and I went to the Oakland A’s game tonight, which was another $2 ticket/$1 hot dog night.  They’re the only times we can afford to see live sporting in this recession.

The hot dog line was shorter than the previous two times we had gone, which was nice.  Also, we saw the Mike Birbiglia baby again!  He looked a little less like Mike Birbiglia when we saw him in his show in New York, but probably more like Mike Birbiglia might look if he was an Oakland A’s fan decked out in baby clothes.

Then, everyone hit, like 50 home runs.  Because of that, Katie and I got coupons for free 2 liters of Pepsi at Lucky, which practically paid for the tickets!

Then a guy ran onto the field, who was not a ballplayer.  He ran all the way across the field, then got stopped by a ball boy or fieldsperson or something.

Then, another guy ran across the field and no one chased him because they were all tired from chasing the first guy!

Then, the A’s won.

It was great.

Now, I’m going to go eat some ice cream, which is free at home, as opposed to $5 at the ball park.  It’s enough to make a guy run across the field.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 It's Dai Time

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑