**Update**

I also want to note that this will apply to just about any console with composite (Red/White/Yellow) or component (Red/Blue/Green and Red/White). PS, PS2, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, Gamecube all have composite out by default and use the same basic process except of course the Nintendo Wi-Fi connector will only work with the Wii. Of course older consoles like the NES, SNES, n64, and Sega Genesis, don’t have composite out so you’ll have to use an RF adapter in most cases.

**Original Article**

I noticed a couple of people were directed by Google to this post in search of how to connect a Wii to a hotel TV. I figure if Google is desperate enough to send people here maybe it might be good idea to expand upon my previous entry.

Most consoles come with a composite (Red/White/Yellow) connection by default (Red/White/Yellow). I connect to the TV using a component cable (Red/Blue/Green and Red/White). Either way it’s the same idea just different ports. Start by connecting the cable directly to the back of the hotel TV. If you only see red/white connectors then just plug in those two, if you don’t see any colored connections then you need an RF adapter and you can skip to the next paragraph. At this point you can turn the TV on and try hitting the source/input button. If it changes the screen and you can see the game you’re done. If not that’s because most hotels have the inputs disabled by default. The idea being you’ll be more likely to buy pay per-view movies. This is pretty easy to get around by buying a a cheap universal remote. This will let you access the menu to re-enable the inputs on the television. In general all you need to do is program the universal remote for the brand and model of the TV and then you’ll be able to use the input/source button just like at home. Every TV and remote has different programming sequences and menu structures so I won’t get into that here. Suffice to say follow the directions that came with the remote and you can usually pull the model number of the TV off the sticker on the back.

If the TV does not have any composite or component connections on it then things are a bit trickier. *Disclaimer* I haven’t tried this method yet. **
In this case, you’ll need to use a RF modulator to convert the composite connection into a coaxial connection. Which you can then plugged into the the back of the TV. You might also need to use the universal remote to set the TV to the correct station usually 3 or 4.  Most hotels have a metal or plastic cover over the jack on the TV, to prevent you from messing with things. If you’re feeling bold you can either cut them off and assume no one will notice they’re missing or come up with a way to unscrew them. Whether disconnecting whatever system the hotel uses for their television will set off alarms I can’t say. I will say I have heard stories of people who unplugged the TV and had the front desk knocking on their door to make sure the TV wasn’t stolen. I’ve disconnected most of that stuff with out issue in various hotels and never had an issue but YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary). Just don’t blame me if you end up sleeping on the sidewalk because the hotel staff kicked out out.

To get internet access on my Wii I use the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Adapter. The adapter allows the Wii (and/or DS) to connect to your PC and through the magic of internet connection sharing to the internet. The adapter was recently updated to support both Windows XP and Windows Vista. (Sorry Mac & Linux people, Windows wins this round). This allows you to avoid the registration pages most hotels use (which the Wii won’t display) and the general lack of in room Wi-Fi. Another option is to get the Nintendo LAN adapter or just setup a wireless router in you room.

For my Xbox 360 I came up with another solution. This requires two things, one that you have a laptop and 2 that the hotel has a wired internet connection. Under the network settings options there’s an advanced page that will allow you to change your MAC address. Basically a MAC address is you computer’s unique ID on any network, similar to how your phone number works. First you need to connect you laptop to the network and register as you would normally, there’s usually directions on the card neat the desk. Once that is done go into the start menu and click on run, enter “cmd” in the box and click ok. This will bring up a command prompt type in the following

“ipconfig /all”

and you’ll see a whole bunch of information pop up somewhere in there you’ll see an entry that looks something like this

“Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 01-5A-74-1B-94-8E”

This is your MAC address. Now you’ll need to update the Mac on the 360 to match here’s the steps taken from xbox.com:

From the Xbox Dashboard, choose Settings, and then Network Settings.

From the Network Settings screen, select Advanced.

From the Advanced screen, select MAC Address.

Enter the MAC address of your PC in the Xbox Dashboard. Do not enter any dashes, just letters and numbers.

To attempt connection to Xbox Live using the new MAC address, return (Back) to the Network Settings screen, and then select Connect.

After that you should be all set. Just remember to change it back later on or you’ll run into trouble.

So there you go, how to setup a Nintendo Wii video game console in your hotel room. Enjoy!

The Team Fortress Classic was my first love affair with online gaming. I remember meeting up with friends in the Half-Life Spanish Chat room on WON. Coordinating our efforts to find a server we could all play in while hoping noone in my family would try to make a phone call and disconnect me. My first clan (*HWF*) played TFC and we talked about how we’d all switch over to TF2 once it came out. It was a long wait. TF2 was originally announced in 1998 as a realistic, team-based, war game and shown off at E3 in 1999, then delayed in 2000 so it could be ported to the Source engine and eventually just not talked about. In 2004 Valve stated that TF2 was still in development and in 2006 it was mentioned again. Last month roughly 8 years after being announced it was finally released as part of the Orange Box.

…and boy is it fun. It is well balanced, runs pretty darn good on my not so top of the line system. The game looks like a cartoon with a decent amount of blood and gore thrown in. Each of the classes has their own style, voice, and personality. The games oozes style and that style works really well. it actually reminds me a bit of No One Lives for Ever, minus the 60’s. Much of the game has been simplified from TFC. Grenades are gone, as are many guns, the flashlight, ammo backpacks, armor, etc. It actually took me sometime to notice that a lot of that stuff was missing. One of my favorite additions to the games is the stats and achievements. I love being able to keep track of my stats for each class and overall.

As for the classes it’d take me all day to cover them all. My favorite class so far is the scout, who isn’t too different from TFC. He gained a double jump which replaces the concussion jump in TFC. He lost the nail gun which I really miss when trying to take out a sentry gun but his scattergun is more powerful (at short ranges) so he take out other players easier. Medic’s healing gun is awesome but his syringe launcher is lacking. It’s pretty good close range but for long range you’d have a better chance of hitting someone with your bone saw. I do miss is the ability to to infect people. When a medic teams up with a heavy and gets an uber charge that combination can cause some serious havoc. Engineers are still awesome. Supposedly spies are good but for some reason I haven’t had much luck with them. Snipers, Soldiers, Heavy Weapons Guys, Pyros, and Demomen aren’t terribly different from TFC but I haven’t played them much.

Like CS: Source when it came out TF2 has a noticeable lack of maps. Right now there are only 6 maps: ctf_2fort, cp_well, cp_dustbowl, cp_gravelpit, cp_granary and tc_hydro. I am hoping for a few more (Avanti, casbah, crossover, cz2, epicenter, rock2 and my all time favorites maps the hunted). Presumably some of them will be added eventually but I fear I may never get to experience the hunted in TF2. The majority of the maps are control point now as opposed to capture the flag I knew and loved in TFC. Even Well has been converted to the control points which is somewhat disapointing because I think it was a much better CTF map. Maps like dustbowl and hydro aee broken up into sections where you fight for control between two points rather than multiple. This adds some variation to the game by making one map feel like several.

I graduated both high school AND college while waiting for TF2. If anyone from *HWF* happens to read this I’m still around and I have a feeling I’ll be playing TF2 for quite awhile. In fact I’ve delayed posting this about 3 weeks because I was too busy playing to bother with writing about it. Since noone bothers to read any of this, I think it worked out ok.

As for the rest of the Orange Box. I couldn’t beat Half-Life 2 because it made me feel sick so I didn’t bother with Episode One and won’t bother with Episode Two until I get around to buying some dramamine and beat HL2 and Ep1. Portal is quite simply the most fun I’ve had playing single player FPS in a long time and is a complete triumph. It is bit short but full of humor and just plain inventiveness that it’s a huge success. I can only hope there’s a sequel on its way.

So, it’s been awhile since I updated this thing*. To make up for this I’m putting up two new posts. The first (this one) is of the general “what’s new with Ryan” variety, the second (tomorrow soonish) is all about my new addiction, Team Fortress 2. OK so here are the highlights from the past few weeks:

Hollywood

About three of weeks ago I decided to take a trip to Hollywood and see what all the fuss was about. My directions led me to the wrong end of Hollywood Blvd and I found myself driving around in some shady areas and eventually paying to park in some shady lot. I made my way over to the walk of fame and … walked. Most of the names I didn’t recognize but I did see a couple Frank Sinatra (twice), Kermit the Frog, Rin Tin Tin and that’s about all I can remember. All the shops in this area seemed to consist of tattoo parlous and exotic clothing stores. The place in general seemed to be pretty dingy. Eventually I found a Borders and grabbed some coffee. After debating whether I should call it a bust and just head home, I decided to follow the crowd and see where it led me. Turns out sometimes following the crowd can be a good thing. In this case it led to a mall. This was basically a bunch of stores, a movie theatre and a couple of places to eat. Ok so it was fancy looking (Chinese Theatre), and I did get some pictures of the Hollywood sign and a pretzel because Auntie Anne’s rocks but not very exciting none the less. There were a lot of people dressed up as various characters on the streets which were kind of creepy and tons of people handing out free pamphlets & gum. This lead to a slight misunderstanding with someone selling CDs on the street; I thought they were free; he wanted to get paid…

Certification:

More importantly I retook my PRPC System Architect Exam. This is basically the exam that says I’m qualified to my job. I spent about two weeks avoiding doing anything fun, TV, DVDs, Wii, TF2, random trips etc, etc. It eventually paid off as I am now officially certified. Which give me a tiny bit more job security and makes me feel a lot better.

LA County Fair:

Yesterday, I decided to hit the LA County Fair. It took me roughly two hours to drive there (hurray traffic) and I forgot my camera but remembered the directions. When finally made it there I parked about a mile away and turned down an offer to have some guy pull me to the gate in a rickshaw-bike thing. The fair itself was huuuge way bigger than the ones back home. It was also really commercialized. There were about 8 buildings dedicated to selling you crap, the late night “call now for our special offer” kind of crap. Many of the companies were also set up in multiple buildings because you never know the fourth time you see that detoxification station you might just bite. One of the buildings was called “AT&T Winter Wonderland” which featured Santa (in September!) dressed as a lumberjack, an ice skating rink and fake snow complete with a hill for sledding. Having lived in a place that gets its fair share each yeah it seemed really pitiful but the kids seemed to enjoy it. All the animals seemed to come from a single farm as well and there were many of them, lots of variety but only a couple of each. McDonald’s also generously supplied a garden area with all sort of veggie and plants as well as eight or nine hi-def TVs playing McDonald’s ads on a constant loop. I didn’t see very many of the typical fair events, tractor pulling, animal judging, dung throwing… but at least some of those were in the program they gave me so I have to assume they were there. I did however find a place where I could bet on horse races. One of the cooler things I saw was the Shangri-la Acrobats. Some of the stuff they did made me cringe and think “oh crap that’s going to hurt.” The fair also had some really wicked looking rides such as the tango but I didn’t get to go on any of them. Overall it was fun and I got to eat my corndog which I missed out on at the Washington County Fair. I will say I always heard there are a lot of strange characters in LA and many of them seemed to be enjoying the fair.

Getty Museum:

Today I checked out the Getty Museum, which wasn’t my first choice but after realizing it’d take me almost 5 hours to get to the Joshua Tree National Park I decided to go somewhere a bit closer. I began by losing the detailed directions I wrote down (I think there’s a trend here somewhere) but managed to find the place without too much trouble. When you first get there all you see is a parking garage which seem kind of off but there is an actual museum. To get to there you take a tram up a mountain which is kind of cool. The museum also has free admission which made it extra nice. (Of course it costs eight bucks to park) Needless to say there are some pretty awesome views when you get to the top and some art too. The buildings are setup so you can wander from between them without actually realizing you it which I thought was neat. The bonus here is not only did I get to see some art, feel cultured, and justify buying a new camera but I also learn some stuff too. First, I learned that in the past people were pretty much always at minimum halfway naked. Unless they were going to be in a portrait then they tried to put as many clothes on as possible, perhaps to offset all the nakedness. Second, a museum on a mountain with free admission can make a lot of money by selling food and drink, say fifteen bucks for an iced tea and sandwich. Third, To be an artist all you really need to do is make/take pictures of strange objects (toilets, bananas, broken things, etc) and/or naked women. Although the wrong combinations (toilets & naked women) could get you labeled as a pornographer, which would arguably be more profitable.

That about sums up the last few weeks, in between I worked, surfed the web, went home for a weekend, watched some TV and played video games. I do indeed live an exciting life. Pics are coming just as soon as I figure out how this picture gallery plugin works.

*The conversion to wordpress doesn’t count, I had that ready to go minus a few tweaks weeks ago I just didn’t get around to switching it over until recently.

I’m calling it quits. As of today I’m forcing myself to stop work on FoolCMS, my custom built content management solution. You might ask “Why?” or more appropriately “Why the #%&@ do I care?” or “Where am I and how did I end up here?” or the all time favorite “Where is that damn back button?”. It doesn’t really matter what you ask, because the same words will be displayed for all possible questions.

1. I don’t have the time to add all the features and neato-cool stuff I’d like to.
2. Wordpress (and many many other solutions) has more features and does them better than I would trying to do it on my own in my spare time.
3. I’ve got better projects to waste my time on, well one project really and it’s a bit stalled…but I’m getting there.
4. Anytime I do work on FoolCMS I usually end up breaking something and Then I spend the rest of my time trying to figure out what it was. Then I get distracted and work on something else that I broke months ago.
5. I’ve got a Wii and Team Fortress 2 just came out…

So there you go. It’s done, over, no more FoolCMS. I mean it this time. For real. Ish…

So welcome to RandomFool.Net version 17.0 as near as I can figure. Beta. (just in case). It’s a bit vanilla looking right now. It’s basically a modified version of the default Wordpress theme. But I’m new at this whole editing theme business so give me a break (and/or a KitKat bar). It’ll get better eventually. At least I’ll have less stuff to break now when I do get the urge to fiddle around.

Some pictures from Simi Valley…
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