Doom3

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So last night I finished Doom3. I did finish it on the medium level of course. I'm now playing it on the hard level. I think I'll play a couple of days on this level and if it looks like it's doable I'll move things up and play on nightmare level. If I remember correctly from past doom games that level the bad guys respawn after you kill them. So it's best to just keep running and don't look back. I'm not crazy about playing that way. I want to clear the place out so I have a safe zone around me in case I get into trouble. Anyway, we'll see I guess.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly…

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First the good. Today I finally got around to hooking up the 5.1 surround on my computer. I fished the cables up into the attic, mounted the speakers in the corners, added extensions to the cables and fished them back down the other wall and into the computer. Let me just say right now Doom3 sounds COMPLETELY AWESOME in surround. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before the neighbors call the cops.

The Bad, we had to cancel my poker game that I had planned for tonight. We were short on ppl anyway, there were going to be between 6 - 8 players. We had a few drop out at the last minute so we just canceled it until next time.

The Ugly, we used to have this really nice ride between Anna, to Celina, to Pilot point. It was about 30 miles of nearly perfect roads with tons of twist and turns. It was a motorcyclist dream. Well they have decided to repave it. Now that means something different to txdot. I didn't think it needed repaving anyway, but to them repaving mean to put down oil and rock. This means it completely ruins it for bikes cuz gravel is a big problem. This also sucks for auto traffic as well. It may smooth it out a bit for about a week. But it only takes one day with temps over 90 to bring all the oil to the top. Now you are splattering this crap all over your car or truck. Not to mention the rocks are sticking to your tires and throwing them everywhere. Now after a month of wear the road is now worse than it was before they decided to "fix" it. I don't know what they were thinking. Whoever decided that this was a good idea has evidently never driven on one of these roads. They did the same thing to CR78 here just a half a mile from my house. A matter of fact they have done it three times since I've been here, last year and a half, and each time it only gets worse and worse. Idiots......

Plan B

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Well after a lot of reading and some serious consideration I think I've made a change in my Xbox hacking attemp. That is unless I hear of a better way to do it. I'm still going to hack it but I'm going to do a mod chip instead. The chip I want is at www.system-mods.com but is not due in until the end of the month. I heard of a couple of people having issues with the save game hack's and them vegging out their systems... I would rather not do that. I figure this way when I have the mod chip in and working nicely I can than upgrade the HDD. It'll be better that way so I can do the movie/mp3 thang.

XBox Hack

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So Kevin Rose's article convinced me that I really needed to hack an Xbox. Ya know since I've hacked like half the appliances and machines in my house it's time to add one more to the list. I thought about hacking one of my other Tivo's, got 3 of them now, but that's old stuff now. What I've decided to do is a chipless mod on an Xbox. Many of the other hacks on the Xbox require to you add a mod chip. Some of these are soldier on but many of the new ones are just a contact connection rather than soldier. I'm sure I could handle either one of those types of mod's but I figured that many people would be more comfortable with something that is software only. Plus there is something about they way the hack is performed. This is the sort description of the hack. First you purchase a Xbox, by Microsoft. Then you pruchase MechAssault, by Microsoft. Then you order a free usb keyboard adapter for Fantasystar Online, by Microsoft. Are you starting to see a pattern here. :) From that point it's just a bit of software. You use a hack on the audio system to access the Xbox at a level lower than the default xbox software.

I'm just about to a point of getting ready to try this. I purchased the Mechassault over the weekend. It was $12.99. Two weeks ago I ordered the fantasy star online adapter from Microsoft. It was just under $7 for shipping and handling. I have downloaded all the software and read all about the procdure. I'm using a bastardized version of the hack instuctions. I hope it works. I'm basicly changing the way I get parts of the software to the Xbox. It should work just as normal but saves me from purchasing another piece of software. As soon as I get the adapter I'll be ready and then at that point I'll go purchase the Xbox. I didn't want to get it early and then get attached to it and not wanna take the change of the hack.

Anyway, wish me luck and I'll let you know how things turn out...

Cool things!!

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Ya know, there are many things that are really cool in this world. And I've rambled on about a lot of them. But ya know what I've found that's really cool.... when you look down and your turning 10,000 rpm and aren't even close to red line. Ya know what's almost as cool as that, pulling up next to someone at 80Mph and still being able to upshift, TWICE! Yeah, I know, I'm easy to please.... :P

Wireless

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So this last weekend I got to thinking, I know scary, when I was living in the apartment, there were many, many, MANY wireless networks around. Many of those were unsecured. I've been in this house for a bit over a year now and I haven't taken a single war driving excursion yet. So Sunday I took a little drive. I drove around just my little neighborhood. Maybe 100-120 homes or so TOPS... I found 24 wireless networks. All with some sort of vulnerability showing. Of the 24 found 14 of them were 100% open. Free to connect and browse their networks, use their internet, and whatever else. I also found 2 devices that I believe to be wireless cameras but I'm unsure of those at this point. A little more time on those and I'll figure it out. Anyway... That was my weekend. :P Exciting, huh?