The Wheel of Cheese

Its been less than a year since my XBox 360 went on the fritz and decided to die. I commemorated the death of my console with this post on my blog last May. Since receiving my new 360 in June of 2007, I have not had to deal with the three lights of death, but I have run into a hand full of problems that make me want to toss my XBox 360 into the garbage receptacle.

When looking at the various hardware failures my 360 has encountered, its ranged from minor things, such as my game disc's getting minor scratches on them to major things such as the Three Rings of Death where I've had to send in my console to Microsoft. Major or minor, I have had a nice long list of troubles with my 360, and am tired of it, especially my most re-occurring problem of my system freezing.

The one problem that stands out the most with my XBox360 is the fact that my games sometimes freeze up. This happens in two ways. First and most noteworthy is the "Disc Read Error" that has plagued my system a lot lately. It mainly happens with newer 360 games that run at a solid 60 frames per second. It's quite simple, as you'll be playing your game, and all of a sudden, the audio goes...then you hear the disc drive clicking, and all of a sudden, you get a message popping up from your XBox 360 Dashboard, stating that the "Disc is unreadable". When this happens, you must restart the console, and reload your game. The other way the 360 freezes up, is when your game simply freezes up, and you are stuck staring at a frozen screen.

Here are some of the examples I've encountered so far:

1. NBA2k7 - This game gave me disc error messages during the game, and for some reason, my game would freeze whenever I played a home game with the Cleveland Cavaliers. I know the second part sounds strange, but it did happen, and I really wanted to play a season with LeBron James and the Cavaliers.

2. MLB2k7 - One in about every 15 games I played would freeze. Doesn't sound like many froze, but when the game did freeze, it sucked, as half the time I had a good game going that I did not want to see end.

3. NBA2k8 - I am able to play with Cleveland in this year's game, but I still get lots of "disc error" messages as the game play is going too fast for the disc drive to process it. Looks like 2kSports made their game a little too good, as the 360 system has struggled to keep up with the speed of the game.

4. Madden 08 - I have enjoyed playing this game, but every once in awhile I would be playing and signs of my game ending would arise. It would start out with the pathetic radio commentary going away. After that occurred, you could hear the 360 disc reader skipping on the console, and finally...BAM!!! The Disc Error message popping up on the screen and my game was over. This was especially frustrating after I had it happen once in a game where I returned TWO kickoff returns for TD's in the same game.

5. NHL 08 - I've played countless amounts of this game, and only a few times, I have had the disc error message. In addition to this, I've also had the game actually freeze up, as the screen freezes, and I am forced to restart the game.

So as you can see, with the faster game speeds...the XBox 360 has been unable to handle the pressure, as I've had multiple sports games go on the fritz and freeze up on me.

To counter this dilemma, I bought a cooling fan for my 360. Initially, this cut down on the amount of times my system froze up a lot, but to this day, I still am having problems with my games freezing up. Quite frankly, I feel that when paying $400 for a video game system, you should not have to put up with your games freezing up at all...period.

So why make it such a big deal with only a couple of games freezing up. Well lets just say that prior to purchasing my XBox 360, I owned a PlayStation2, Super Nintendo and a regular Nintendo. Put all three systems together, and its about a 13 year period between owning all of those consoles. Sure with the Nintendo, you had to blow out the cartridges once in awhile, but even that was very minor, and that system never had a moment where the games froze. Overall, during this 13 year period, I never once had a problem with any of those systems and I never even had to return one of my consoles to the manufacturer...looks like Microsoft ended my 13 year streak.

With all the problems I've had with my 360, I am starting to give up on this console. Sure it is one hell of a machine and is a fun system to play, but at the same time, all the mechanical problems put a black eye over Microsoft's newest gaming system. I'm not sure what I will do, but the PlayStation 3 is looking like a great alternative, as I have not heard people having much problems with that system...and in addition, it also doubles as a Blue-Ray DVD player.

Labels: game freezes, three rings of death, xbox 360

Posted by Kyle at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments

About a year ago, I wrote an article about how gas prices have gone skyhigh across the United States. This was back when gas was well over $3.00, and most people (including me) were still in a state of shock over the sudden rising price of gas. Almost a year later, things have not changed as gas prices are still very high and people like me are continuing to get ripped off by oil companies. So here is another blog entry with added reasoning as to why the cost of gas risen.

So what am I going to talk about this time??? With so much to choose from pertaining to high gas prices, there are practically a million reasons as to why gasoline is so high right now. Usually a person's main target is the oil companies who manufacturer the oil and are a key reason why the prices are so high. That is a very significant claim, as they are the ones supplying us with the crude oil to create gasoline, but two sources that I think pose a larger threat are George Bush, and the consumers who purchase gas. After talking about these two topics, I am also going to provide you with some ways you can cut your costs on gasoline.

Thanks to our current president George Bush, we are fighting the fight against high gas prices. Bush started the ripple of rising gas prices by sending troops to Iraq in March 2003 and in the closing months before exiting his term as president, he is once again creating new ripples to keep prices rising. In these final months of his presidency, George Dubya has been on a continuous push for ethanol becoming the next major energy source for automobiles. Sure, ethanol powered cars would be a great alternative to gas powered cars, but by promoting ethanol powered cars, Bush is hurting gas prices.

Since Bush begun campaigning for ethanol powered cars, oil companies have been very hesitant to invest in new oil refineries, as they are afraid that Ethanol may become the next big thing and knock crude oil down a peg. As a result, lesser oil refinerys have been made, which has lowered supply for crude oil and thus raised gas prices and demand for oil. While the ethanol push is a new energy alternative for autos, it sounds weird coming from a native Texan who once ran an oil company before becoming president.

When looking further into the increased demand for crude oil, George Bush isn't the only one to blame. Today, there are more cars out on the road today than ever and with the increase in consumers needing gasoline, comes a greater demand, which has not been met by the oil companies. With the demand not being met, that has led to higher gas prices, as consumers will pay as much as oil companies want them to pay.

So why else are the consumers to blame??? Well there are many reasons why we should blame ourselves for the rise in gas prices. Just as people are beginning to fall in love with new energy efficient cars, we are also driving around SUV's that are bigger than ever and use all sorts of gasoline to get people from Point A to Point B.

This past summer, I worked for the Kansas City Chiefs as a courier, and I drove around a 2007 Chevy Suburban for the duration of camp, so I had a first-hand experience with how poor a SUV's gas mileage is. Lets just say that I will never personally own an SUV, and I would never drive one, even if it was the only mode of transportation out there.

In addition, in conjunction with gas prices going up, more people are driving, so the amount of cars on the road has increased tenfold. With more cars, comes increased demand that oil companies struggle to meet. This leads to higher gas prices. In addition, with the gas prices continugin as the consumers are dependent on the oil companies for oil. We are at the point, where the consumer has abused driving to the point where we need oil companies to create gasoline for purchase, no matter how expensive that is.

Personally, living in Minnesota, the price of gas currently hovers in my homestate at an average price of $2.96 per gallon. This may be a high price for gas, but its considerabally lower than the national average, as nationwide, gas costs an average of $3.15 in the United States. I guess it helps that I don't live in a place like California, Illinois or Florida. At the same time though, everybody across the United States is getting hurt by high gas prices, and paying $2.96 per gallon does create a pinch in my wallet.

In addition, I drive a sports compact car, which is very fuel efficient, so I am not getting torn apart at the pumps like those who drive SUV's. Finally, I have come across some great methods to cut down gas prices. They range from performance upgrades to looking around for the best deal on gas. Here is a small list of useful tips to keep your car gasoline friendly, no matter how large/small your car is:

1. Complete tuneups on your car regularly (ex - Oil changes, tire rotations)
2. Bring your car in every so often for detailed checkups at your local car dealership
3. Put in a custom air filter to improve your gas mileage (ex - K&N/Fram)
4. I visit GasBuddy.com to find the best gas prices in my area.
5. If you cannot find any gas prices online, drive around your neighborhood to find the gas station with the best price.

So, after my blog entry last year about rising gas prices, I noticed that the rate of gas declined a little bit after my post. Maybe this time, the same will happen and gas will fall a couple of cents. I'm not crossing my fingers though because experts are saying this summer, gas prices will soar to above $3.00 per gallon. But, if this does happen, I think I will start to post a regular weekly article about gas prices, in hopes that they fall back down to $2.00.

Note - The gas prices in this article were found at TwinCitiesGasPrices.com

Labels: gas prices

Posted by Kyle at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. What do the following players have in common? Yes, they are some of basketballs greatest players to ever put on a uniform, but more importantly they are currently the top leading scorers in NBA history, having each scored 30,000+ points.

Labels: Cavaliers, Lebron James, NBA

Posted by Kyle at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments

Being a fan of sports gambling, I occaisionally place bets on sporting events. Lately, its been a lot of NBA/College Hoops for me, and in the past few days, I've stumbled upon a system that produces some pretty good profits. I have only used it for a couple days now, but in that short time period, I have gone 11-6 in my sports picks and have posted a profit each day.

The system basically is useful for both NCAA/NBA basketball games and revolves around the first half of betting on a game. Since the second half can ruin bets due to garbage time and whatnot, the first half is used for this betting system, as teams will be competetive during the first half, no matter what is going on (ex - No starters pulled if its a blowout).

1. The first rule and the basis of the system. When you see the favored team's odds are -110/-115/-120/-125 this means to pick the underdog. When you see the favored team's odds are -105/even/+100 pick the favored team.

2. A lot of people have a hard time finding a book to use. Try basing your picks of multiple sites. The more sites that are available to get info, the stronger your pick would be. I use covers live odds to get the 1st half lines. Another good site to use is SBRLINES.com. Sometimes you ask yourself, why does this site say this, while this one is exact opposite? So far this week, the most successful sites are sportsbook, bodog, beted, pinnacle.

3. This system works both in NBA and NCAA. So far NBA has been very successful with this system. But for NCAA, it has been off and on.

4. CHECK GAMES THAT HAS A TEAM -115/-110 in all the sites or even/-105. That is a good indication this going to be a sure bet.NOTE *when a favorite team is -110 in 11 or 12 sites, this doesn't necessarily mean to take the other team.

5. When tracking different sites, make sure when comparing the odds, make sure the spreads are the same in the sites, or else you have a guessing game when picking.

6. Games that are really low in spreads tends to be a toss up game such -1 or -2. The system may work but either team can take the lead so be cautionary.

7. Remember you don't have to bet every game that is out there.

8. Never use the system when there is a very late change in the lineup. Pick at your own risk.

I think its a pretty sweet system for the most part, and if your a sports bettor, be sure to check it out, as its a nice system to use. Personally, I only use it on the early games that get a lot of bets placed for them, and avoid late night games, as the betting public is not usually on those.

Labels: gambling, sports betting, systems

Posted by Kyle at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments