Did Somebody Say McD... Wait, What?

I had a McGangBang recently. Ok, not recently, a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't get around to posting about it until now. "A McWhat?" you say? Yes, a McGangBang, a crazy combination of a McChicken and a Double Cheeseburger, although some people cheap out and get the recently introduced McDouble instead of an authentic Double Cheeseburger. The McDouble has two all beef patties, but only one slice of cheese, and costs about 20 cents less than a Double Cheeseburger, and in this economy, some people find it wise to save in any way possible. McDonalds introduced it so they could keep a double burger on the dollar menu, even if it meant losing a slice of cheese. Oh wait, that's right, i've been sidetracked, so now back to the madness. To make a McGangBang, first you just split the Double Cheeseburger (or McDouble if you're on a budget) in two by seperating the top beef pattie from the bottom one. Then you place the McChicken (yes, the whole McChicken, including the buns) in the middle of the two halves that you just seperated. Finished! Now you eat it :D

... And I Don't Even Like Guitar Hero!

If there was a Steel Pan Hero or Soca Hero or Reggae Band or something like that, i might actually care about music games. Well, at least i can care about corporate cross promotional meal deals based on music games. The KFC 'Fully Loaded Box' cross promotion with Guitar Hero is a wonderful meal. You get a chicken snacker, a leg or thigh, two chicken strips, two side orders, a biscuit and a 32oz drink. Yes, this meal *could* feed two people, but where's the fun in that? Nowhere, that's where.

Special Bonus Paragraph: What happened to those updates the past few months? Here's a clue: I got stuck!

Hanging Around With Bad Company Late At Night Is Bad For Sleep!

Seriously, there is nothing worse for your sleeping routine than hanging out with Bad Company late at nights. You will suffer during the day because of it, you will randomly feel sleepy, you will randomly feel hungry. It's just so much FUN to do it! Battlefield: Bad Company is crazily addictive, and knowing that being a Defender is much easier than being an Attacker just puts more pressure on both, since you want to succeed against all odds while attacking, and you don't want to be the defenfing team that blew it by losing due to some lucky attacker sneaking thru your defenses and getting his squad to spawn on him. The game just gives out sleepless nights with
reckless abandon. If only the single player was 1/10 as fun as the multiplayer...

Let Me Upgrade U - Double Time!

More space is usually a good thing, especially when it comes to this generation of videogame consoles, with all their media capabilities and the plethora of downloadable content, such as game demos, downloadable games and expansion packs. I watched as my stock drives on both my 360 and PS3 inched closer and closer to capacity, bit by bit, byte by byte, until they finally hit the wall. Then I had to play the endless minigame of juggling content for a few months, until i decided to skip the game altogether and upgrade them both. On the same day!

With the PS3, this was a fairly simple task, involving first using the convenient and handy backup option in the XMB menu to back up all my data onto an external USB drive. This took about an hour for the system to complete the backup of about 40GB of data. Up next was the big swap, removing the side panel, unscrewing the hard drive and inserting in the new one. Once that was all done, and everything was put back together, restoring the data to the PS3 was just a matter of booting the system up, formatting the drive when prompted, and then going back to the XMB menu and choosing the restore option, which took about an hour again. Pretty simple indeed.

Upgrading the 360 was a bit more involved, as it takes some hackery with a DOS application called HDDHACKR, that was made specifically for this purpose, and also requires a very specific make and model of 2.5" SATA Hard Drive (Western Digital BEVS) for the replacement to be recognized by the console. Then there are the additional steps of backing up and re-copying the backed up data with another app, Xplorer360. The disassembly and reassembly was fairly easy, albeit a bit more complicated than the PS3, since there are more parts to worry about. The backup process took under an hour, but the restore process took over four hours, and this was with about 20GB of data.

What better way is there to put the old drives to good use than with an external enclosure? Especially with the prices the way they are now, it was cheaper to buy Western Digital My Passport Essential drives than buying bare drives and enclosures seperately. They also conveniently contain Western Digital BEVS hard drives, which are the only drives that can currently be swapped into an Xbox 360, with a little work anyway. The choice on the size of the 360 drive was fairly simple, since only 20GB and 120GB sizes are supported by the console, i went with a 160GB HDD as the 120GB Passport drives were impossible to find. With the PS3 i just thought 250GB was enough and didn't feel the need to spend $30 more for a 320GB Passport. Both upgrades are working flawlessly, and so are both of the old drives, which are now swapped into the enclosures.

He Shoots, He Scores Some Passover Coke!

There is only one thing better than an ice cold coca-cola. Ok, maybe there are two things, but the other one will no doubt want to share some of this delicious product, and that would just cut down on our precious supply. The other, other thing that's better than an ice cold coca-cola is, of course, an ice cold coca-cola sweetened with sucrose (sugar!) and not high fructose corn syrup. This is real coke, this is the stuff i grew up drinking in the caribbean!

Some people may not know this, but there was a time when coke was always sweetened with sugar and not corn syrup. Nowadays, at least in the USA, this rare occurence only happens during passover, and i'd like to personally thank the jewish community for their stance on not consuming grain products during passover for giving me this wonderfol opportunity.

Why are so many things so much better when you don't pay for them?

It seems like whenever i taste someone else's food, it tastes better than when i buy the same thing. Especially french fries, someone else's fries just taste so much better, why is that? I recently got this Soyo Freestyler 500 Bluetooth Headset for free thanks to Google Checkout and Buy.com and for some reason, it seems to be so awesome, despite a few minor gripes. Probably because it was free.

Opening it up, as usual, is a breeze, thanks to a handy pair of scissors. I know that these plastic clamshells are a bane to many people, but i enjoy taking them apart with laser guided precision and solid stainless steel. Now, on to the specifics...

The headset works fine for my PS3 and HTC Mogul Cellphone. I can hear people well, and they can hear me just fine too. The volume output on maximum has a little buzzing noise, but the volume doesn't need to be that high, and the noise disappears when you turn it down a notch.

As far as the fit goes, it's fine, and the headset also comes with a corded earpiece with a pocket clip, so you don't have to use the ear hook style piece. The build quality feels slightly stiff, but not cheap, it just doesn't have that slightly soft feel and has a more brittle feel than i'm used to. The main button takes more pressure than you would expect to push, this may be a good thing to some people, and a bad thing to others. then again pushing it also feels snappier than one would expect.

I Got Creative, Cry Me I River.

It's that time again, yes, it's time to upgrade mp3 players, and this time i got Creative.

My last mp3 player was an iRiver H10, well, actually, my last two. I originally owned a 5GB model, then sold it and bought a 6GB model. I really liked my iRiver H10, and iRiver customer support was great. When the HDD died, they replaced the unit free of charge, and even sent it with another battery attatched, despite them telling me to remove the battery before shipping the unit out. When navigation touch strip stopped working, they repaired it free of charge, and i mean they repaired it, all my music was still on the unit when i got it back.

Shortly after the H10 series, they abandoned HDD based players, and that's perfectly fine. I had the same attitude, FlashROM was the new king for mp3 player storage as far as i was concerned, i don't have to carry every song i own with me. Lately iRiver hasn't been keeping up with everyone else when it comes to large (as in capacity) FlashROM players, so i read specs, previews, reviews, looked at Youtube videos and even compared the virtual sizes of different devices while trying to make my decision.

After weeks of research, the decision was made, and i knew exactly what i wanted: a 32GB Creative ZEN. So i got one, and it's great! Cry me iRiver.

I Just Love That New Phone Smell!

I know i'm not alone when i say i love that factory clean smell of new electronics devices. That fresh and clean aroma that just smells of NEW is one of the most intoxicating aromas around. The joy of opening a new item is unmatched due to several factors, including this.

I got a new cellphone, a HTC Mogul (PPC 6800). It may not be awesome enough for Michael Bay, since it doesn't explode, but it's awesome enough for me. Plus, it has a built in GPS that's been recently unlocked in a leaked firmware.

How awesome is that? As awesome as it smells!

Two Weeks Later... The Double Cheeseburger Taste Test!

I was supposed to post this two weeks ago. Ooops!

Anyway, two weeks ago, i decided to try out the competing double cheeseburger brands.

The results were pretty clear. Burger King's was the best. The Burger King burger was of a good size, great tasting, cheesy and pretty delicious.

Wendy's was a close second. The Wendy's burger was smaller, but also a mouth pleaser and cheesy.

McDonald's was a DISTANT third. The McDonald's burger was really small and didn't even have a slice of cheese in between the beef patties, just one slice on top! It also wasn't that flavorful.

Irish Moss ... IN A CAN!?

Why was i not informed of this earlier? Sure, it's not as good as fresh homemade stuff, but it's pretty good when that isn't an option.

This stuff is so good!

No one, no one, no oooooone

Can get in the way of what I'm feeling
No one, no one, no one
Can get in the way of what I feel for you, you, you
Can get in the way of what I feel for you

oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

Will the third time be the charm?

A Real Man's Sunday Breakfast (MMM Beefy!)

How corny was that? Yeah, extremely corny, i know, i know. However, bad puns aside, the formula for manly breakfast is simple.

Corned Beed + Eggs + Onions = WIN in the morning.





P.S. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!