I'm not sure why I like reporting about these events. I wrote about a similar story in a previous post. According to the article, at least this guy lived to tell his side of story.

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Well, it took about two decades, but I finally left something behind when I got off the bus yesterday. I didn't have my messenger bag with me, so I had multiple items to keep track of instead of the one bag that held everything.

When I boarded the bus, I shoved my umbrella in between the seat and the wall of the bus. It was out of the way and made for a more comfortable ride. It being out of the way ultimately was my undoing. The other bag I had with me contained a housewarming gift that I had bought during lunch and a copy of G.R.A.W. which I was quite eager to try.

When it was time to de-bus, I hopped up and left my umbrella behind. Sure, people leave umbrellas behind all the time but I really liked this umbrella. It was the first piece of swag I got from Backbone Entertainment when I was working for them. The umbrella was bar none, the best umbrella I've ever owned. It both opened and closed at a push of a button. I'd never seen that in a brolley before. It also had a foam handle that made holding it a pleasure. Last but not least, it had an amusing gorilla version of the Backbone logo on it.

I am going to get a replacement umbrella that has the same features. Once you've had the best umbrella that a game company gives away for free, you just can't go back.

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You know he's got a blog about lunch but did you know he's got other blogs too? Yep, gwilli is a blogging machine.

This time around, Greg exacts pedestrian justice on the crazy drivers of Vancouver. Offences are listed as well as sentences. It's a compact and quick summary of urban law at its best. All of this is chronicled at spitwilliams.

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So I arrived home from work today to find a large box waiting for in my bedroom. Inside said box was the Xbox 360 prize pack I had been waiting for. It was the premium version of the 360 complete with 20 Gb hard drive, wireless controller, and headset. It also came with PGR 3 and a Forza 2 faceplate. Because Forza 2 has been delayed, the fine people at Pepsi/Doritos will send it to me when it gets released.

It took only a few minutes to set up including connecting it to my router. I tell ya, consoles have come a long way. The last console I owned was a Playstation 1. The 360 impressed me from the second I turned it on. It updated automatically and I didn't have to do a single thing to setup my network connection. It took less than a minute for me to grab my gamertag (Irv74, add me!).

The 360 dashboard is a slick application. It's so easy to setup all various parts of the console. I was able to see the various trailers, demos, and content that was available for download. There's nothing complicated about it at all.

I was having so much fun and I hadn't even played a single game yet. In preparation of today's blessed event, I went to the EA store on the 19th floor to purchase a game. Based on gwilli's recommendation, I got Burnout Revenge. When the game loaded up, it was clear that next-gen graphics do indeed kick ass. Even at a paltry resolution of 1024 x 768, the game looked fantastic. I can't even imagine what it would look like at 720p on a large widesceen. Without reading the manual, I played through a single track, smashing cars left and right, in general having a great next-gen time.

I've had less than two hours with the 360 but I am really impressed with Microsoft's offering. In 2002, I had some doubts about MS's ability to make a good console. The original Xbox was a monstrosity. It was a big, heavy machine which looked ugly next to the much slimmer PS2 that you could place vertically. The original Xbox controller was also massive, which had people wondering who it was originally designed for.

Whatever shortcomings the original Xbox had, I think MS has fixed them for the 360. Almost everything about it has been well-designed. I still can't believe we're into the era of networked consoles now. Amazing!

Enough talk for now, it's back to the 360!

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My long awaited Xbox 360 arrived via Canada Post in the mail today. Unfortunately, no one was able to answer the postperson's knock on the door. They left a pickup card instead. I had a feeling it was going to arrive today. Other people in Vancouver who won were reporting their 360s arrived on Sunday. Greg, of gwilli fame, got his on Sunday as well.

Greg was so confident that I was going to get mine today that he bet me lunch it'd be waiting for me when I got back from work. Well, as I mentioned earlier, only a pick up card was waiting for me. So close! The card listed the delivery time as 9:30am. If I had known it was coming at that time I would have delayed my commute into work. Sure I would have been late but I would have made up for it. So, while I was on a damp and humid bus headed towards downtown Vancouver, my 360 was getting ever so close to my home. It was on my doorstep!

So it'll be ready for pick up at the 7-11 just down street at 1pm tomorrow. I have decided to send an emissary, or as some people call him, my father, to pick up the precious cargo for me. I've warned him it would be disasterous if he dropped the package in any way.

Though the package comes with Project Gotham Racing 3, I think I'll stop by the EA store tomorrow to pick up an EA-published game for cheap. I hear Carbon is good but I don't want another racing game. There are the sports games but I'd prefer another genre. Though, I am interested in the new NHL game, having worked on the PS2 version many years ago.

The whole issue is slightly moo (how you doin'?) however, since I have no suitable display to play the 360 on. Playing a next-gen console on a standard definition TV is a waste of pixels. My new widescreen LCD monitor doesn't arrive until Friday. What I'm left with is my trusty old 17" CRT monitor with its quaint 4:3 aspect ratio, allowing me a maximum resolution of 1024 x 768.

I'll be able to setup up 360, register my new gametag (say hi to Luvs2Spoog69!), sign up for my free month Xbox Live gold membership, and yes, even play a game or two.

And finally, though my own Xbox 360 is sitting in some mail sorting plant right now, here's a picture of someone else's Xbox 360 prize pack.

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I have been quite interested in technology since I was a child. As a kid, it seemed I always knew about the latest consumer electronics innovation and was on top of every new gadget introduced into the market.

I always shook my head when adults seemed stupified at tech talk. I would cringe when people would go to an electronics store all clueless and then be at the mercy of some salesperson. I vowed never to be like that.

It dawned on me a few days ago, I was coming very close to not knowing anything about consumer electronics anymore. So let's examine this for a second. I haven't upgraded my computer since 2002. I've actually never bought a TV. I don't own an Ipod. I've never owned a DVD player. Until last year, my cell phone was a Nokia brick. I've never owned a stereo. I've never owned a CD player.

Despite the fact I have post-secondary degrees in "tech" and work a "tech" job, a lot of the "tech" that was going on in the world was kinda passing me by. I first noticed this when I started my job at EA.

When I got my Xbox 360 dev kit, I realized I'd never been that close to one before. Despite working in the industry, it took me about a year after its launch to touch a 360. When I went to hook it up, I was like a 80 year-old senior citizen. It was the first time I'd hooked up component cables to an HDTV. I didn't know where to plug the controllers in nor did I know how reset the console. Oh man and then there was HDTV itself. They gave me a $1200 HDTV to display the game on and I had no idea about all the myriad of inputs and outputs on the thing.

I managed to hook up the HDTV alright but a few days later, some guy came to my desk and asked me why the game looked like crap on my TV. It turns out that I hadn't set it to the proper resolution. It was on 480i or something stupid and he put it on 720p. At the time, it was just a blaze of numbers and letters... 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. I had no idea what those numbers meant, I had a clue but no real answer.

Then I got my PS3 dev kit and it used an HDMI cable. I remember asking myself what the hell an HDMI cable was. It was an eye-opening experience because for the first time ever, I felt I knew what those old people in the electronic store were feeling.

It's taken a few months but I think I'm back on track. If I were to go buy an LCD TV and a next-gen console tomorrow I'm pretty sure I would know exactly what to consider.

Speaking of which, I think my Xbox 360 arrives in the mail this week along with my new LCD monitor! Yay!

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