I would argue my case, but in this case I think the truth simply rings true. Blade is better than Blade 2 is better than Blade Trinity. First two were entertaining, and the third I walked in and out of the room to do dishes while it was still playing.

Over the years, I've come to like a number of musicians that I was introduced to, never sought out. These artists include the likes of Ani DiFranco, Hayden, Elliott Smith, and Tegan & Sara. I'm not a huge music buff, mostly just listening to whatever's on the radio, and so I never knew what to call these "bands". I just realized that they are all considered "folk". Before now I've always referred to them as singer/songwriter types, even though that's obviously not very descriptive. How did I avoid this knowledge for so long? Hell, I even knew a local folk artist (Tamara J Brown) in college and went to some of her shows with her! Damn I'm ignorant.

I was already fairly excited about BioShock before the demo came out, but since I played through it 3 times on Monday I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I'm even starting to worry a little that the game won't be able to live up to the hype it's built and is building through increasingly numerous "perfect" review scores. I know I've already seen 3 or 4 10/10 reviews go up. But realistically I'm sure I'll love the game as it seems catered towards the more hardcore, game-cultured crowd (damn I'm an elitist pig!).

What worries me more is that the game won't sell well, despite the critical success. Viva Pinata went this route, and so have many other amazing games over the years. Hopefully the fact that BioShock is (in some respects) a first-person shooter will provide enough immediate mainstream appeal for people to try it out. I know I will next week.

So after over a month since I originally called support to get my 360 fixed, I finally got my console back yesterday. Wait, no, they actually sent me a replacement console. I was hoping to get my original back, since I believe with a different console I'll need to be signed on to Xbox Live to play my XBLA games, but at this point, after all the bungled shipping, I'm willing to take what I can get.

I took the system home, hooked it up, ran through setup with my DVD remote, and got the latest Dashboard update. Everything was working fine, with one exception: the console could not connect to my wireless controllers. I went online, walked through the troubleshooting, turned off my wireless internet, etc. but none of it helped at all. You would think testing out wireless controller connectivity would be a major step to making sure a 360 works out of the repair system. So now, two tedious support calls later, I am yet again waiting for the box to ship this console back to repair in. I just hope that all goes well with the shipping this time so that it takes about 2 weeks instead of 5 to see if the next 360 works.

Damn, looks like my 360 died upon downloading the auto-update for Oblivion. Hopefully I can get it repaired for free since the system was purchased before 2006. I'm calling Xbox support later tonight...

[UPDATE] Well, it turns out that I'm past the one-year warranty date. To get my console fixed, I have to pay $140. The good news is that I get an extra year of warranty after I get the system back, get a month of Live Gold, and don't have to send in my hard drive and worry about losing my data. But still, $140 for a faulty system I paid $400 for seems a bit steep. Maybe I'll try fixing it myself...

[UPDATE 2] So, I called back a couple days later and the person I talked to told me I was still under warranty. A bunch of information exchanged and a week later, and I receive my repair box in the mail. So I open it up and take out the instructions: put the console in the static bag, attach the styrofoam ends, put the return sticker on the outside... wait, there's no return mailing sticker! Damnit. So I call up support for the 3rd time, get an apology and the rep says that a whole new repair package will be sent to me.

One week later and I haven't received a box or e-mail notification of a box being sent, so I call up support for the 4th time. After explaining the problem, and being put on hold for 15 minutes, I found out that the last rep I talked to did not correctly send me a new repair box. Argh! So now they are sending me a new box again. At least this time I got a verification e-mail, and hopefully there will be a return shipping label with the new package.