Eric Krassinger

Wow, what a fun weekend. Mardi Gras is one of my most favorite weekends in St Louis. It is #1 when it is warm but we have not seen that in several years. I also missed out last year due to my senior capstone class at Wash U so I felt like I needed to make up for lost time. I headed out to my friend’s now annual party which has unlimited alcohol (or at least we thought), heated tent, and multiple port-a-potties. It was a a fun time. I was surprised that we did not walk around as much but it was pretty cold. It was also a first that I did not go to a bar but that is because we were having that good of a time. It was also the first time I woke up without a hangover afterwards…lol. Here is the limited pictures from the weekend.

Friday and Sunday were both laid back days. Got some good Vday time in with the girlfriend along with some DVR, COD, and movie watching. Two things: (1) I am getting better and better at COD (up to a level 21). Especially since I gave up on the sniper rifle. My kill to death ration is almost always positive now. (2) I watched District 9 on Sunday. The first 25 minutes was so bad that we turned it off but I gave it a second chance since it was recommended and up for awards. I turned it off right as it was getting good. The weird thing about it is that the movie had a totally different look and feel the first 30 mins compared to the last hour. It was almost like it was directed by two different people. The last hour was very good and I would recommend it. It had a good plot which I did not see coming.

I had the two rings over heating Xbox failure several months ago. I found out that only the 4 ring (i.e the Red Ring of Death) is covered under the extended 3 year warranty. Pretty worthless considering both are overheating issues. I wrote about this before but basically I tried to clean it off, inspect the fans, and put new thermal compound on it but nothing worked. I didn’t want to buy a new one but had so much invested in Rock Band songs that it was hard to walk away.

A friend suggested I give a guy a call that he saw on his work message boards and has this site. I was super skeptical because it didn’t sound on the up-and-up. The reason I thought this was because it was basically a guy picking up Xbox’s outside a local restaurant in St Charles. A second person posted on my friend’s work message board that his fix worked so I figured I would give it a try since what did I have to lose since it was basically useless.

The guy charges $35 (unless it’s unrepairable) but the estimate to fix  is free. Their main fix is to reflow the chips with a special machine. He also does a modification on the fan to keep it running at full power which cost another $10 (even thought he charged me $5). He told me it would be loud so made sure I did not use my xbox for watching movies. He claimed the change would decrease heat by 30 degrees which is a pretty bold statement.

I got the xbox and he told me he reflowed it and put in bolts for the heat sink clamps (something that makes much more sense than the stupid X clamps that MS used). I took the unit home and fired it up. The first thing I noticed is the loudness. I was expecting it to be first generation loud like some of my friends but it is 3 times louder. I don’t notice it when playing games but definitely can when it’s idle. I probably wouldn’t have done this if I knew it was this loud but then again it will probably prevent it from breaking again.

All in all, it is still working after several hours of COD Modern Warfare 2 and Rock Band.

I would make a couple suggestions to the guy running this service even though it sounds like he is running a pretty successful business and I would recommend him to anyone with Xbox 360 problems.

1. Have some kind of receipt/contract for when you turn your $300 xbox over to a random stranger in a mall parking lot. I asked him about a receipt and he said no one ever asked him about that even though he thought it was a good idea. He claimed to do a over a dozen fixes a week so business must be good.
2. Workout a better drop off process. It just makes the whole thing shady. You have a great word of mouth business but it could be better if you had more of a professional front.
3. Detail the 40 day warranty that you claim in a contract. A spoken warranty is never good for a business.

As with every other year, I embarked on my two week hiatus from work for the holiday break. This year was a little different since I rarely went out and instead opted for a more relaxed feeling with the people I care about.

Movies

I saw a ton of movies over my break. All the summer hits all hit my Blu ray at the right time. I am not going to go into a lot of details but I was disappointed in The Hangover. It was definitely funny but I can think of a lot more comedies that are much better. For example, Old School is 5 times funnier. Maybe it was over hyped. What I did see that was amazing was Avatar in 3D. Going into the movie, I did not know much about it except everyone kept saying how good it was. It was very impressive and would only recommend it in 3D (well worth the $17 ticket). The color, images, and plot was fantastic. It instantly became one of my top 5 movies ever and can see it being my first 3D movie since 3D TVs are already hitting the market.

Fantasy Football

I came super close to do the unthinkable and winning my league. That is a hard concept to grasp because I lost 4 out of the first 5 games but had some good mid season pickups (Miles Austin) and people returning from injury (or getting more time due to teammates injured) that made my team into a powerhouse. Unfortunately, I got distracted in the semi finals and did not manage my team that Sunday morning and loss by 2 points when all my bench people had over 20 points each. I won the consolation bracket and scored my points in the final week than both the teams in the final.

Family

I spent a lot of time with the family. What is funny (or maybe not) is that I think I spent more time in a 30 day period than I do the other 11 months combined. I really enjoyed all Christmas and New Years parties that I went to.

New Years Eve

First off, I hope to never plan a NYE night ever again. Unless it is in Vegas (something I have always wanted to do and just happened to be something one of my Wash U friends did this year but she did it way more than I ever could). After much going back and forth, we went to MoMos for dinner and Big Daddy’s in Soulard for the night. It was my first time at MoMo’s. I was most impressed by the Sea Bass. It was $10 and was equal to a $30 serving at most fine restaurants. Big Daddy’s was also good. Well worth the $55 since they had premium drinks and Red Bull included … hello Three Olives Cherry Vodka and Red Bull drinks (my fav). Like expected cabs were impossible but worst than I thought. I thought it would be easier since we went to a 1 o’clock and all the city bars don’t close till 3 but I was wrong. Thankfully a friend drove us home after a couple hours. I found out today at lunch that I could have gotten a ride immediately from a guy at work that lived next door from where we were.

Sports

I only followed two sporting events closely this break, both MU games. The MU vs IL basketball game was a surprising win. The MU bowl game was a rather disappointing one. I did watch a lot of the other bowl games but no NFL games. It is also nice that the Rams got the #1 draft. I would like to see them get Suh as the #1 then a quarterback for the #33 pick.

Various

• After a couple failed fixing attempts, my Xbox 360 is still broke.
• My friends can be complete idiots at times especially when it comes to hot tubs in the cold.
• I did not catch up on my DVR watching which is amazing since no new shows recorded. Watched a lot of movies instead. I also probably only played an hour of video games the whole 2 weeks.
• No one goes to Wash Ave during a holiday break. Important fact to remember.
• Finally went ice skating at Steinberg Park. It was fun but very cold and windy so we did not stay long. One thing to note is that place must make a killing. Very low overhead since it is outdoors and getting like $9 a person.

First off, I have always been a huge fan of Microsoft. Ive own their stock for multiple years and have always been a huge fan of their operating systems. I also was a huge fan of Xbox 360. I thought it has been ground breaking and offered more features than PS3.

Lately, I have been rethinking my stance. Enough that I haven’t installed my Windows 7 that I preordered. The reason for this spite is that my Xbox 360 Elite quit working last month. Everyone knows that Microsoft has experienced a huge problem with defective units due to overheating. I bought an elite almost 2 years ago because it had the new processor that ran at a lower temperature and was quiet. Well, I turned it on last month to watch a DVD and I got two red lights. I looked it up and saw that it was an overheating issue. I knew they extended the warranty to 3 issues for an overheating issue. 2 out of 3 people I know with an Xbox had to send theirs in to get fixed. So I filed a warranty claim to find out that I did not have the “right” overheating problem (i.e. The Red Ring of Death). What is up with that? How can there be more than one over heating issue and have different warranty periods? It cost $100 to send in to Microsoft to get repaired which I thought was totally crazy. Why would I pay for half the cost of a new one to run into the possibility that it would just fail again? My next thing was to take it apart to clean it. I did that and it still overheated. It had no dirt on the fans anyway. I also took off the heat sinks and applied new thermal compound based on possible fixes I read but that did not work either. So that leaves me with a tough decision. I really like having a Xbox and have a ton of money invested in it with Rock Band songs. I also really want to get the new Call of Duty but am struggling with the idea of buying a new one to have the same problem again. I might just buy a Wii because it rocks and a PS3 because I can play COD and also the new upcoming Gran Turismo.

All I can say is how can Microsoft have allowed such a nightmare? They have basically lost a huge fan and purchaser of their products.

• I am talking with a CPA/Tax guy about redoing my taxes to deduct for my entire Wash U tuition. Here is a good article on the subject. I know it will raise a red flag if I refile my last 3 years and get a bunch of money back so want to go through official channels.
• I am officially uninstalling Civ 4 tonight. That game is too addictive. Its taking to much of my time and preventing me from working out and getting other important items done.
• Not sure if this Smoltz pickup is good. I guess it is at least not bad for the Cards since it only cost them $100k. The upsides could be huge with small downsides.
• Does no one want to go floating on August 29th? The Rengler is going with a huge group (25+). Hoff and I reserved a 6 man raft and a cabin with AC that has 3 beds (For Friday and Saturday but we might only use it Friday). The total costs comes to $210 so that would be split amongst whoever goes. Let me know if interested. We are floating the Black River. Were trying to mix it up.
• Going to check out Parties in the Plaza for the first time before volleyball on Thursday.
• Does anyone know a good St Louis cleaning service that will buff hardwood floors? Mine really need it and I do not want to buy/rent the equipment needed to do it.
• I realized that my favorite character is not Kevin Nealon on Weeds. He does offer comedic relief which has gone downhill throughout the season but I realized that Guillermo is not only funny but he makes the show by bringing it back to its original plot line which is more entertaining …. selling drugs.
• Looks like I will finally move/sell my desk tonight. I have posted on Craiglist 3 times and got good responses but everything always fell through. I am still very hesitant about selling stuff on Craigslist. Especially when it is a low cost item.
• I was somewhat entertained with the Shaq Vs show last night. Not sure if any other sports star could pull off that show. I liked it for the same reason the only sports star I follow on Twitter is Shaq….he just says funny things. The staged aspect of the show sort of bothered me.

This was a pretty fun past weekend. It was neither a weekend to get sleep nor a weekend to paint which is what I had planned and two things that I really needed to do. I guess I am going to take the full day off Wednesday to get sleep because I need as much sleep built up for the 6 day trip to Chicago, Grand Haven/Spring Lake, and Grand Rapids.

We mixed it up on Friday. I met some friends at D’s place in Soulard for some cheap drinks then followed it up with McGurks. We should have never left McGurks because Wash Ave was dead. Lucas Park had about 20 people in it, Side Bar was about the same, and Rue 13 had its normal crowd (which normally means no girls but I did dance with a good looking lady for a while with no results). Hoff did convince me to get pizza at the end of the night to continue breaking my “Michigan diet.”

Saturday, the day I was supposed to take easy was pretty fun. After driving around in constant circle between my house and the Soulard area, I went over to a friend’s to swim and have some beers. It was a lot of fun. There was a lot of good Rengelisms to be heard. We started the evening at my house with the boys for a BBQ and some good ole fashion video game playing plus some hot tub lounging while we were waiting for the food to cook. I make sirloin kabobs. They were delicious. We played NBA 2k9 and Left for Dead along with some Rock Band 2. The group loved killing zombies but I more enjoyed the NBA game. Enough to purchase it which is exactly how Matt Smith recently got it and had this whole idea about a video game party. We concluded the night at Harry followed up with more Rock Band. I do have to say that Harry’s is still by far the best place in St Louis to people watch and see a lot of good looking women.

Bar Hopping in the Lou

Hoff and I did a lot of bar hopping on Friday. We started at Lumiere to meet some friends then went to Cielo Bar on top of the Four Seasons. It was empty but it is a cool place. Great place to bring a girl for a date. It was very relaxing with lounge chairs everywhere plus two pools and a great view of the city, the Arch, and the river. After that, we went from Dubliner to meet Dave to Lucas Park (which was more empty than I ever have seen it before) and then to Rue 13 since we knew the night was a wash. Not sure where everyone was at. People tell me it was because the Kumen race the following day. I’m not sure if I believe that.

“I’m on a Boat”

This was the first weekend of the year that I went on the river. Man was it a great time. Mike P, Dave, Jeff, and Catherine made the trek. It started out to a funny experience with Dave dropping his glasses into the 10ft deep brown water at the dock. Jeff thought we could pick it with a magnet but I knew that wouldn’t work. I rigged up a net and amazingly Dave was able to snag the classes out of the mud after about 10 minutes. Once we were on the water, I forgot about how dangerous Jeff’s boat seems but he is merchant engineer so I believe him when he tells me the boat is in sound shape.

We got to the main beech around 1 but it did not start to get packed until around 2. We tossed around the football, walked up and down the beach people watching, but mainly sat on the beach enjoying our beer (in which we drank all of). We avoided playing sand vball because it was mainly guys. We ended the afternoon with the boat stereo blaring to “I’m on a boat.” Amazingly enough, no one had played it the whole afternoon. The girls on the huge boat next to me said they forgot to download it and were glad we played it. On the way back, Mike was hilarious. We were listening to some old school rap and everyone was having fun until we got pulled over by water patrol. Don’t worry, it was really just our friend Tom. He gets to drive a pretty fancy boat. Earlier in the day we saw him on a waverunner doing some undercover work.

After soaking up the sun and the fine AB products, we decided we needed some food. Mike had the amazing idea of going to the China King buffet only a mile away since we did not get the opportunity before Parties in the Park like planned. All I can say is that it was delicious and I can not believe we did not get kicked out. Somehow they must have known and sat us on the side of the restaurant that was totally empty and behind a corner. I got a text the next morning that perfectly described the event “The State Dept called, they said we were being extradited to China to stand trial for the war crimes committed at the buffet yesterday.”

I love sleep but love denying myself of its goodness

This weekend very much replicated last weeks sleep. I had very little sleep Friday night, went to bed around 9PM on Saturday, and stayed up past 1AM on Sunday night. Luckily there are no more NBA games to keep me up past midnight anymore.

The Lake Show

The Lakers won the NBA Finals on Sunday. I missed the first half because I thought the game started at 8 like every other game this playoffs. Supposedly the Magic came out strong but collapsed at the end allowing the Lakers to go on a huge run to end the half. In the end, the combination of Gasol, Ariza, Odom, and Kobe were way too much for Orlando. The series surprised me some what. I thought all the games we close except for the first one. I really expected it to go to 7 games; especially after the trouble that the Lakers had in the previous rounds but Orlando’s amazing 3 point shooting went cold.

I do think that both Ariza and Odom do need to come back next year. If I had to choose one, I would pick Ariza even though I am a huge Odom fan. Hopefully Bynum will pick up his game and be more of a force to ease the loss of Odom. The Lakers do need to pick up a more consistent shooter for the bench. The bench was their strongpoint at once and now it is their weak point.

I’m Addicted

I did start playing the new (I think it is a year old) iteration of Civilization 4. It is called Colonization. To all my Civ 4 friends, this game is very addicting and it is similar to the 3 versions of Civ 4 but it is also totally different. There are so many things you need to control so it is a bit overwhelming. You basically start a colony among Indians and 3 other nations. You can befriend the Indians and the other colonies or fight them. If you are nice to the Indians, they give you things but they also do not allow you to expand your empire without pissing them off. The game has like 20 different types of workers which makes it totally different than past Civ games. I’ve played it twice and I still do not know what I am doing. I think the goal is to build enough points so that you defect from your country like US did from Britain. I haven’t even come close before running out of turns.

Wow, the 12 and half day holiday break went by extremely fast. This  break went by a lot faster than my previous long holiday breaks the previous years. Normally, I am bored as all get out but I seemed to only accomplish half of the things I had planned for this break. I am still “off work” for another week since I am taking an International Business class at Wash U this week but I am keeping up with my emails with my new Blackberry.

As a warning, this is an extremely long post but I did a lot in the 12 days I was off.

Football

I watched a ton of college football this break. I think it was the combination of not having much on TV during the day plus I just love sports in HD.

The MU – Northwestern game was an utter disaster even though Mizzou won. This game should have never been close. I am not sure what happened to Chase Daniel. It seems that he had a Brad Lidge / Rick Ankiel moment in the OK State game. He never looked the same since that game. Like all the other games, he was making horrible decisions and throwing the ball randomly into coverage and not making the finesse passes we are use to. I really doubt he will make it in the NFL. I had an argument with someone at school today that thought he could make it in the NFL as a safety. I said he was crazy. He disagreed.

The Big 12 does not look at strong as it appeared in the season due to a Texas Tech and Oklahoma St loss plus the near loss by Mizzou. I don’t know what to say because I really thought we were the best conference in NCAA. It does look like Texas is turning it up on Ohio State which is making me feel a little better.

Nightlife

I did not go out as much as I expected. Amazingly enough, not very many people were off any of the days I was so we only ended up going out on Friday and Saturdays.

I went to a variety of bars which are in our normal rotation. They were Bar Louie (CWE), Lure, Lucas Park, Rue 13, and Pepper Lounge. The two nights that stand out are Bar Louie and Lucas Park. Bar Louie has really become a hot spot in the last year. I remember when I lived in the CWE that the place would really thin out around 11 but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. I also really want to work Lucas Park in the rotation more. There are just so many attractive girls in that place.

I did go to my first SOCO bar in  a long time. I went to House of Rock because my cousin’s husband’s band was playing there. The band was Disturbing the Peace who I actually saw open for the Urge quite a lot back in the day. It was a reunion concert since the band hadn’t played in forever. The show was good and the place was packed. I know an owner through another friend and he said this was the most packed he had ever seen the place. It was nice hanging out with my brother along with other friends. I did run into people I went to high school with which is not a normal occurrence in city bars.

Gaming

I got Gear of War 2 for Xbox 360 for Christmas. It did not disappoint. I beat the co-op in Gear of War 1, but never played it online. I started to play the campaign first on my new game before trying the online play. I at first, was a little hesitant but I eventually fell in love. I beat the game after about 10 days of play. Over Christmas, my much younger cousins kept talking about playing in Horde matches. I had no clue what they were talking about. I was surprised to find it was a pretty awesome online match wear you play waves of computer enemies on a team of 5 online players. I played this a ton with my cousins and other online friends. I got to wave 17 out of 50. We normally get to about 7 before the whole team dies so I have no clue how people get to 50. My only complaint is that you sometime lose your connection so teammates get dropped which really hurts your chances of making it past the 10th wave.

I also played a lot of Rock Band 2 for our normal pre and post drinking activities. I downloaded a good number of tracks too. My favorite being a lot of the Nirvana tracks from Nevermind.

Family Life

My moms sister was in town so I spent a lot of time with the family this break. I did the usual Christmas Eve and New Years day get together at my Dad’s parents. I had a Christmas dinner along with a good Italian dinner with my mom’s side. It is always fun to catch up with the fam and eat good food.

New Years Eve

Mike, Ted, Dave and I went to the Pepper Lounge for NYE. I did not go there last year, but did go there the two previous years. It was always a fun time. It did not disappoint this year either. I think this was the best yet. We have been going to Pepper Lounge lately and there has been a very good crowd; similar to the crowd 3 years ago. This same crowd was there this time. Almost everyone was dressed  very well. Guys in suits and dress pants and girls in dresses. I had a lot of fun and all my friends were successful in meeting girls. My cousin Mark was also there with his girlfriend.

Movies

All the summer releases were out so I spent some serious time catching up on my Netflix movie watching. Below are my reviews.

Wall-E – All my friends told me how great of a movie this was. I went into this movie expecting it to be great since my friend’s reviews plus my love of animated movies. I did not like it at all. It was basically a bad love movie. It had very minimal funny scenes and was not worth me seeing.

Hancock – I supposedly have a “man crush” on Will Smith. I have liked Will ever since Fresh Prince and have always been fond of his movies. This movie did entertain me but was one of Will’s poorer flicks.

Chronicles of Narnia – Prince Caspian – I hated this movie. I guess I did not remember what happened in the first movie so I was a little confused with the storyline. As some of my friends made fun of me, I also was distracted by deciding if the Susan character was attractive. She is over 18 so don’t judge me. I am still undecided.

Gym  and Workout Life

I worked out more in the 2 and half weeks than I probably did the entire year. It felt great. I had motivation from all angles. The highest being the mere fact that I weigh more  than I ever have but my main excuse for not working out was time (the last year of school was pretty tough) so I couldn’t use time as an excuse. I worked out at least every day during the break; sometimes twice a day. I have been taking a whey protein / creatine mixture from Walmart that seems to be pretty good since I think I have seen pretty good gains in a short time. It also seems like I have entered in a “weight loss” challenge with Mike and Dave in preparation for a possible “spring break” trip. We will see how it goes.

I concluded my break with a good touch football game with the boys in Forest Park. It was a lot of fun and I was in much better shape than our game a month ago. I had our teams first TD plus had a nice interception (something Matt Smith can not claim). I supposedly was too rough though. My friends say they are going to take Gear of War away from me since they say I have “roid” rage. I think it is the ton of energy I have lately from working out so much.

Random Stuff

• My Moxi DVR through Charter died on me. I got the new DVR and am not pleased. The Charter installer told me that I could still use my external hard drive as a secondary storage device. He was mistaken which sucks. I liked  not having to ever delete recordings since I had a 500 GB harddrive.
• I did buy three new fish. I bought a “Pimp Juice” replacement. I also had to buy a new filter since one of mine was on its last leg. My new fish are very aggressive so I am pretty happy. I was worried that my much larger lone fish would eat the fish but the three tiny fish really mess with the large fish. And one last note, inflation has really hit the fish market. These fish were outrageously expensive.
• I am not going to dedicate a whole post (like other people … Matt Smith) but I did spend a couple hours washing my car. It was the first time I had washed and cleaned the inside in over a year. Car washing has always been relaxing for me but was hard to do since there is not a close car wash nor did I have the time. I really love my car. It looks amazing after a good cleaning. The idea of getting a new Nissan 370z has crossed my mind. The subtle changes they made in the body made a big difference in my mind even though my friends disagree. It has a Porsche look even though I do not like Porsche brand. The 330 HP is also really attractive but I plan on keeping my car for another year. I do have an outrageous grad school bill that I am going to have to start paying for this year.
• On last note, I started the first day of my last semester of grad school at Wash U. I am so excited to finish. The one casualty is that I am going to miss Mardi Gras weekend since my capstone class goes all day that Saturday. That is quite disappointing since it is one of my most favorite days of the year in St Louis.

I woke up a little early to get a quick view of the new xbox dashboard. I felt like I was a kid waking up Christmas morning. I booted up the 360 and it had the old update box popup. It download a 30 second update and restarted. I then had a new update screen that was doing the main update. This only took a 1 minute or so. I was surprised by that. Maybe its my 10MB connection.

The first thing it had me do was pick an avatar. Once I picked one, I got to edit him like I wanted. Mine is pretty cool. He is sporting a sweet mustache, a faux hawk, and a white suit. I wanted white shoes but unfortunately it only offered two shoe. This is a cooler feature than I expected but I hope they incorporate cloths and accessories from other games. I am specifically thinking about your closet from Rock Band.

I did some more exploring but I kept getting “can not connect to xbox.com.” I assume this is because the tens of thousands people are doing the same thing. I next tried to activate my Neflix device. I went to the Netflix page and it said the add a new device feature was temporarily disabled … try back in two hours. I guess they got a little overloaded.

I do like the blades features. I do have some questions though:

1. Why can you not preview the Rock Band downloadable tracks before you buy one?
2. All of my friends had some random object in the background of their blade. Can you change these? My brother had guitars and a drum set. He does not have Rock Band or Guitar Hero so I thought that was weird.
3. Will the streaming music and video feature work correctly on this version? I had to use Tiversity because I could never get it to work.

I have class the next two nights so I expect to give a full review over the weekend.

UPDATE #1 – Read this on Engadget. I think Sony is taking a sad route. I would have thought that Netflix would have protected this from happening but maybe not.

Harmonix finally announced the 20 free additional songs that will be available to everyone who bought Rock Band 2. I saw a list a couple weeks ago that was all big name bands so I am greatly disappointed with this list since I don’t know a single band. These songs will be available on November 20th.

• The 88 – “Sons and Daughters”
• Authority Zero – “No Regrets”
• Between the Buried and Me – “Prequel To The Sequel”
• The Cab – “Bounce”
• The Chevelles – “Get It On”
• The Cocktail Slippers – “Give It To Me”
• Dealership – “Database Corrupted”
• Endeverafter – “I Wanna Be Your Man”
• The Ghost Hounds – “Ashes To Fire”
• Hollywood Undead – “Young”
• Kutless – “The Feeling”
• The Len Price 3 – “If I Ain’t Got You”
• Lesley Roy – “I’m Gone, I’m Going”
• Opiate for the Masses – “Burn You Down”
• Semi-Precious Weapons – “Magnetic Baby”
• Shaimus – “Like a Fool”
• Thenewno2″ – Crazy Tuesday”
• Tickle Me Pink – “The Time Is Wrong”
• Underoath – “Desperate Times, Desperate Measures”
• X Japan – “I.V.”