I ended up arriving late and had to wait for over an hour in the will call line to pick up my pre-ordered
badge. Which was mildly annoying since it was only a two minute wait to buy a badge. Right after I got out of the badge line I got in line for the keynote, there were a lot of lines at PAX.

Ken Levine’s keynote was entertaining. He gave a brief overview of his history as a nerd. From his early days of wanting to fuck the scarlet witch and his first awkward experiences with D&D all the way to his failed screenwriting career and his decision to go get into the game industry and join Looking Glass Studios. The theme of the whole boiled down to “We’re all geeks, love it, embrace it and go have fun together”.

I skipped the Q&A panel to hit the exhibit floor. After a quick walk around I stopped and checked out Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour . I discovered that Brawndo The Thirst Mutilator, did indeed have what I (and plants) crave. It’s pretty tasty but oddly not got sale. (I’ve since learned that it wasn’t for sale because the convention center doesn’t allow non-convention vendors to sell food or drink)

Nintendo was nearby so I checked out some of their stuff. WarioLand: Shake It seems like a decent platformer although depending on how much it’s used; constantly shaking the controller could get annoying. Kirby Superstar Ultra was fun but there really isn’t much new about it. After that, I had some fun creating a creature in Spore Creature Creator for the DS. I couldn’t do anything more than walk around with it once it was created which makes me what the game play would be like in that game. I finished off my day in the exhibit hall with Left 4 Dead which was amazing.

Next up I hit the concerts. It was probably the strangest concert I’ve ever been too. No one was really getting into any of the bands mostly everyone was just sort of hanging out listening. The OneUps were kind of neat but it sounded a lot like they were just jamming the whole time and not really playing songs. Freezepop isn’t really my thing but they ended up being pretty good. During their entire set, there was a guy nearby playing Final Fantasy Tactics which was odd. Freezepop’s encore ended up being a cover of The Final Countdown and it was really good.

Finally Jonathan Coulton was up. I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing him but figured it would be cool to see “Still Alive” from Portal performed live. Of course, I was completely wrong and he ended up being the best of them all, I suppose that’s why he was “headlining”. I enjoyed all his songs, my favorite was “re: Your Brains” there is nothing cooler than a room of people out of sync and groaning “All we want to do is eat your brains”. He also managed to Rick Roll the whole audience twice. The first time the video played over the projectors and most of the crowd started singing along. The second time was mixed in the middle of “Mr. Fancy Pants”. For “Still Alive” Felicia Day, who is like geek goddess, came out and sang with him. He ended the night with a sing along cover of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” which was unexpected and really cool. Over all, Day One was amazing.

Pictures still to come.

The past few days I’ve had a hell of a time with XBL.

First I could stay connected for more than a few minutes without getting strange errors. Turns out I switched the MAC address on my 360 to match my laptop’s so I could use it at my hotel. It worked great in the hotel where I only had a single LAN line. When I brought it home and had both of them plugged in to the same switch; however, it didn’t work quite so well.

Once that was straightened out, I wanted to add MS points to my account. Every time I tried I got error code 80169d94 and some “Not available” message. At first I figured maybe it was a temporary problem on MS’s end. After a  few hours I began to suspect something else was up. I finally got around to googling the code today and it turns out that my account has been locked. Which means I need to call MS support and then convince them to transfer me to the credit department. From what I’ve read that isn’t going to be an easy task. I’m hoping I can find out what caused this and avoid it in the future. Right now I’ve got three possibilities:

1. Rapidly connecting and disconnecting from XBL because of the duplicate MAC addresses.
2. I bought points with my 360 using both the original and  changed MAC address.
3. Repeatedly traveling cross country with my 360.
4. Some combination of 1-3.

I’m going to give MS a call in the morning and see how it goes.

***Update***

0:00 Called MS Support someone picked up right away. She sounds a bit like a character I saw on Mad TV.

19:30 After spending 20 minutes S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G out all my information and explaining my problem I finally get transferred to Billing.

33:24 Billing confirms all my information a second time and makes me update using the XBL site. Transferred back to support.

41:50 Transferred to the supervisor. Apparently MS randomly audits the XBL information and if there is anything missing locks the account. Turns out when I originally setup my XBL account I entered my name as Ryan T and their system didn’t like that much. In 5-10 DAYS, MS will unlock my account and call me to let me know I can buy stuff from them again.

47:08 Done. For now.

***Update 2 - 9/01/2008***

MS called me twice.

The first time after putting my phone on speaker and turning the volume all the way up while putting it against my ear all I could make out was that it was the words “hi…xbox…call”

The second time I managed to get the number but they left the main support number. After 20 minutes on the phone all I had managed to get was a lot of voice prompts without an option to talk to a real person. I hung up and said screw it.

***Update 3 - 9/5/2008***

I finally made it home and managed to buy more points. FYI, Castle Crashers is awesome.

Hotels are dastardly places. First off they charge ridiculous prices to rent you a room that who knows how many people have walked around naked in, rubbing who knows what on anything they can touch. On top of that they have a restaurant that is the only decent place to eat nearby and over priced. Which causes you to avoid it like the plague and end up eating Chinese food. Even Worse, some of them even charge for “high speed” internet access that is only slightly faster than AOL. But nothing is more evil than hotel televisions. Here’s the idea. Take a TV then remove or disable any inputs on it then install this shady box that allows guest to watch about 10 channels and order all the latest and greatest movies with the simple mis-click of a button.

Being that I practically live in hotels at this point I’ve taken to carrying my Wii with me on my journeys. At first everything was great. The Residence Inn in Cambridge had two pretty nice TVs that were ready and willing to let me waste hours of time on the Godfather: Blackhand Edition.

The Sheraton, Parsippany. Being a Sheraton and paying a crazy amount of money each night to stay in the “Club Level”, I figured I’d have no trouble. Oh boy was I wrong. First there are no inputs on the TV. Alright then I suppose I can just buy an RF adapter and hook it up through that. Nope. They’ve got some metal casing around the coax jack AND there’s no where in walking distance to buy an adapter. Alright I can survive 3 weeks no problem. Besides I just bought a Nintendo DS I can always play that.

Three weeks go by and I’m jonesing for a Wii fix. I head home for the weekend and pick up an RF adapter and Mario Strikers Charged. Next stop the Best Western; Simi Valley, California. Not a bad hotel but again no inputs and metal jacks on the coax connectors. Ok I guess I can wait another week…

After that I move on the the Marriott Courtyard nearby. The Residence was owned by Marriott and they had some big press release about all sorts of connectivity options. So I can’t go wrong, right? I get to the room. I’ve only got a standard CRT TV but low and behold I’ve got inputs. Not only composite but component as well! Hallelujah!

Of course everything is working out way to good. The next night I attempt to connect my Wii. I plug everything in turn it on pick up the remote. “Where’s the input button? Well maybe I can just us the channel buttons to switch to a/v mode…hmmm…maybe a different input will work…” after another 20 minutes of trying just about everything I can think of I call the front desk. “I’m sorry sir the TV is not compatible with the inputs.” Wait WHAT? The TV isn’t compatible with itself? So I hit the net. I discover it’s possible to put the TV into maintenance mode which will allow you to enable the inputs. IF you have a special remote. Of course I’ve only got some crappy “On Command” remote. Eventually someone suggests that I go buy a Universal Remote and use that.

The next day I hit Target and buy a universal remote. I get back to the room, crap I forgot to buy batteries. So after eating dinner (For someone who was never a big fan of Chinese I sure do eat a lot of it these days) I head over to Walmart which is conveniently behind my hotel (I’ve got a lovely view of the sign from my room). I find the batteries and decide I’ll just take a quick peek at the DVDs. On my way out of the electronics section I see a clearance rack. Woot! Among the standard junk I find a Nintendo Wi-Fi USB connector. This little doohickey plugs in to your computer and basically uses your net connection to create a wireless network that a Wii (or DS) can connect to. Neat! I decide to buy it if it costs less than 20 bucks. I wander around looking for a price scanner eventually I go up to some guy and ask. “It’s 15 dollars I can tell” he says, without ever looking at me. I’m a bit skeptical at his psychic powers but I figure if it costs to much at the register I just won’t buy it.

I head to the self checkout line and of course the thing is out of paper so I don’t get a receipt. The good news is it did cost 15 dollars (technically 16.06 or so) Now I know if I walk away without a receipt as soon as I get to the door the alarm is going to go off and that old guy guarding the door isn’t going to believe for a second that I just didn’t happen to get a receipt. So I go to the lady at the front and tell her what happen. She ignores me walks away then comes back and checks the paper in the machine, replaces it and continues to ignore me. “Ummmm if I walk through the door is this going to go off?”

“Just get out of here.” So I hold my breath walk through the door aaaaaaannd no alarm. Hooray! I get back to the room use the universal remote to enable the inputs and install the Wi-Fi connector and suddenly I not only have a Wii that works but it can get online as well! After doing a little celebration dance I boot up Strikers.

Really the whole point I’m trying to make her is that I’m obviously spending my time in beautiful, sunny California wisely.

I decided to start this post with a few good things about New Jersey.

1. The weather has been nice, except for one crazy thunderstorm that took out the power on Saturday but that was just cool.
2. I’m getting a lot of exercise while I’m here.
3. Gas is cheaper than in Rhode Island.
4. There’s lots of rabbits around.
5. I’m getting paid.

There I feel better about being here already. Not much exciting has happened. I walked roughly 10-15 miles this week end. I didn’t accomplish much more than seeing Underdog and buying some milk. Underdog was a good movie, not great but entertaining and I didn’t feel ripped off afterwards. Maybe I’ve just got a soft spot for Disney movies. 6.5/10. The milk was excellent. I don’t have a fridge in my room so it’s currently sitting in my sink surrounded by ice and covered with a towel. I have to add more ice every 3-4 hours which is a pain but milk is worth it. I also managed to get the rest of the pictures from Boston and the Museum of Science posted as well as some new ones from Parsippany.

The good news is that the hotel feeds me breakfast and dinner. By dinner I mean appetizers but if you eat a lot of appetizers then it’s a lot like dinner. I walked about 3 miles yesterday and all I found was a Chinese restaurant, a half built Dunkin’ Donuts and about 50 million rabbits. I also found another hotel which is about as expensive as this one but has free internet, a kitchen and is probably the one I should have stayed in. Took my laptop over to the other hotel and sat outside trying to hijack an internet connection. I managed to get on but they wanted you to register with a room number and agree to stuff. All of which can easily be faked but I decided I didn’t really want to have someone else get charged for me checking my email. (At that point I didn’t know it was free at that hotel.)

Conscience: 1
1337 Hacker: 0

Afterwards I paid the 10 bucks for 24 hours of internet access at my hotel. It was wicked slow, the connection kept dropping because the cable was broken and I couldn’t access randomfool.net. Basically a complete rip off. So after screwing with it for a few minutes I went down to the front desk. I told the guy there that the internet here is a useless rip off and asked for my money back. He didn’t seem to understand what I meant by the internet so I tried to explain it again.” You know the cable…In the room…you plug it in, pay some money and get internet.” At that point he finally understands and looks up my account. Then he tells me I’ve been on for an hour. I’ve been on for a little over a half hour at best and besides its really crappy access. Apparently realizing I’m somewhat agitated he quickly says “It’s all set, you’re all set” and clicks a bunch of stuff. I assume this mean no charge and head back up to my room. Sure enough, I’ve still got internet access. I make one last attempt to check my email which fails and then decide to clean the room up. If I end up getting charged for that crap I’m going to be very unhappy. Maybe I’m just cheap.

As for work it’s going pretty well but I forgot how slow working in an office feels.