You can imagine my rage this Wednesday when, after checking the UPS tracking status for my Xbox as it was returning from the repair facility, I found that they tried to make delivery at 11:40 that morning.

Who the heck is up and able to sign for a package at 11:30? Wait, let me rephrase that. Which Xbox gamer would be up and able to sign for a package at 11:30?

Well, disappointment aside, I made sure to set my alarm clock the next morning. I figured 9am would be a safe bet. So as I awoke Thursday morning the earliest I had in months, I sat patiently for that big brown truck to arrive. Thankfully, the wait wasn't long.


At around 10:35, I got a knock on the door. After exactly 2 weeks without my Xbox, I finally had it back. I was a bit shocked however, as it appeared they sent the machine back in the same box I sent it to them in. I guess plain white boxes are a big commodity for Microsoft. I wouldn't usually mind it, but, as you can see above, the box was not in the best shape. On the underside pictured, a gash nearly broke entirely through the cardboard.

Fortunately the machine was not damaged. Taking it from the box, the first thing I did was check the serial number on the back. If a repair was not possible, the MS support guys said they would send me a refurbished machine in its stead. Sure enough, I got a refurb.

According to the sticker on the back, it was manufactured back in December of 2006. So at least its a fairly new refurb unit.

The rest of the box's contents are picture below.


Along with the console, there were three sheets of paper. The first was a simple diagram showing how to re-sync my wireless accessories to the new machine. In the middle of the picture is a customer service survey. I reckon I'll get around to filling it out eventually. Finally, there was letter from Xbox Customer Service explaining why I got a refurbished console and trying to apologize for the inconvenience of having to send it in.

Interestingly, in the last line of the letter, it said that to try and make up for the hassle, they were including for me a free month of Xbox Live Gold service. Even more interestingly, as you can see below, no such card was included...


I could get angry and call up tech support and complain until I get my free month, but I figure you have to pick and choose your battles. So long as this refurb doesn't break, that's apology enough for me.

So, with that, the saga of Khyron's busted 360 comes to an end. It took exactly 2 weeks from the time I discovered it broke until I got the replacement. So far, I'd say I was pretty pleased with the service. When I finally get around to it, Xbox Customer Support can expect a generally positive survey card.

Now, I'm off to make up for lost gaming. Don't even try contacting me this weekend.

Hot Fuzz - Directed by Edgar Wright
Rated R for violent content including some graphic images, and language.

The follow up to writer/director pair Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's 2004 cult smash Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz brings back the duo's signature 'Spaced'-out humor and does for buddy cop flicks what Shaun did for zombies.

In Hot Fuzz, London super-cop Nick Angel (Pegg) is forced into taking a transfer to a small town precinct after all of the other metro officers on the force (or service, I should say...it sounds less aggressive) accuse him of making them all look bad. There, he is teamed up with country bumpkin Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) who is only a cop because "It's what my dad does." But before long, the team finds themselves knee-deep in a murder mystery.

Because so much of the advertising campaign for Hot Fuzz involves comparing it to Shaun of the Dead, let's see just how well it stacks up:

If you in any way, shape, or form found enjoyment out of Shaun, you're more than likely going to find more of it in Fuzz. Pegg and Wright's signature humor remains entirely intact, with witty dialog and sitcom-esque gags bearing the bulk of the load in the funny department. And, just as with Shaun, Hot Fuzz is so jam packed with movie and pop culture references that action film fanboy's will think they died and went to violence heaven.

The humor is still rather British, complex in a way that it is often easy to miss. For the most part, its the kind of inside funniness that, while maybe not inducing uncontrollable belly laughs, will keep you in a constant state of grins and giggles for most of Fuzz's 2 hours plus runtime. And don't worry, the trailers didn't even scratch the surface as far as spoiling all of the good jokes (though expect the few they do show to fall pretty flat).

As far as pacing is concerned, it shares a similarly mixed bag with Shaun. Although less dramatic than Shaun's mid-way switch from romantic comedy to horror film, Fuzz's third act takes the film's up until then groundedness into a whole new level of zany. The nearly 2 hours it takes getting there seemed to drag at a couple points, but the extravagant finale is well worth the wait.

Bottom line, Hot Fuzz is a top-notch British comedy as well as an entertaining, living homage to all things action. A must-see for Shaun or Spaced fans, I'd recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in chasing cars and firing 2 guns while jumping through the air. It may not be quite as good as Shaun of the Dead, but I'd say it comes pretty dang close.

Rating: 5 /5

~khyron, 2007

Like most Americans, I was deeply saddened by the senseless carnage of the Virginia Tech shooting as it unfolded last week. A college student myself, the gravity of the situation hit that much closer to home. I'd be lying if I said that thoughts of insecurity and terror didn't cross my mind at least a little, but it wasn't long before my emotions soon turned from solemnity to anger and outrage.

The details trickling in about the identity of the killer and his sheer callousness in committing such acts of evil certainly added to the rage I felt building inside me, but that wasn't the only source of anger to be had. No, what really got my blood boiling was the massacre-chasing, exploitative blowhards the likes of attorney Jack Thompson--who, mere hours after the shooting and before barely any information had been collected, made his way onto the FOX News channel and began blaming the tragedy on video game violence.

Much more a gamer than a college student, this kind of opportunistic, blatantly agenda-pushing tirade against video games really put me over the edge...Full Article.

I came home on Tuesday afternoon to find my poor Xbox 360's coffin waiting for me on the front step. As you can see above, there's really nothing to it. It's a simply a plain ol' white box with no mentioning of the words 'Microsoft' or 'Xbox' anywhere on it.


But, as shown above in greater detail, because the box was essentially empty, it took a bit of a beating in transit. One corner of it was bashed in pretty good. On the plus side, however, the structural integrity of it remained intact.

Alright then, time to open it up...


The contents of the box include (from left to right): Instructions on how to package the 360 properly, tape (if you can believe it) to reseal the box, a prepaid return shipping label for UPS 3-day select, and 2 foam covers to place at each end of the 360. Also pictured is a static bag to wrap the console in.

I was pretty impressed at just how carefully everything was planned out. They thought of everything I would need, even down to some tape (though I chose to use some more of my own to ensure safe delivery).

All that was left was to secure the 360 and place it in the box.


Despite the damage the box received while getting here, the console fit quite securely with the included foam. Once the box was resealed, I felt pretty confident that it would indeed reach Texas in no worse shape than it was already in.

According to the UPS tracking number, she made it to the McAllen, TX repair facility around Noon on Friday. They claim no more than 2 days turnaround time while there, so time shall see.

Check back for more updates.

While playing in the woods as a kid, I was attacked by a swarm of wasps. By the end of the merciless attack, I was stung well over 17 times across my entire body. Like demented alien implants, I was pulling out little black stingers that had surfaced under my skin for months after.

It has been stated that an average of one out of three bites of food you take can be directly credited to bees. They are responsible for pollinating 1/3 of the United States' crop species.

Suddenly, I find myself torn between my hate for bees and my love for eating.

If you haven't been keeping score, it seems that lately it's Man: 1, Bees: 0. In at least 24 states in the US, those flying assassins are suffering from a new infliction being called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). In the worst cases, some regions are seeing their bee population reduced by as much as 75%. Although no definite cause for CCD has been found, mankind is already getting the bulk of the blame. The finger has been pointed at everything from the overuse of pesticides to global warming, and that even perhaps our use of cellular phones is somehow disorienting the pests.

As a melissophobic (that would be someone with an irrational fear of bees), I was initially quite glad when I first got news that the heartless bastards were dropping like common houseflies. It could've been God's smiting for all I cared--just so long as I could leave my house in the summer months without being harassed constantly by their incessant buzzing as they try to fly into my ears with near daemonic resolve. Such calculated and altogether unwarranted evil spewed forth by the likes of the mud dauber and the yellowjacket is certainly something this world could do without.

But then why, why!? must those timid honeybees be so damn important to our survival? It's like being trapped in some perpetual Catch-22 of venomous injections and tasty strawberries.

As I sat weighing the options between the elimination of fear and possible death by starvation, a faint bit of movement caught my eye. There, silhouetted in monstrous deformity across the floor was the shadow of a large hornet crawling along the outside of a window to my rear. Overcoming the initial paralysis of the encounter, I turned to face the cold-blooded killer head-on. Protected by a thick layer of glass, I watched the beast for the better part of a couple minutes as it went about its business--lazily flying around with what appeared to be little reason. Perhaps it was my inclination towards empathy getting the best of me, but doggonit...I actually felt pity for the thing.

Could this mean the start of some kind of Khyron/bee ceasefire? Ha, don't count on it. But I think I walked away from the experience with a better understanding of my winged tormentors. Maybe I've been looking at it wrong the whole time. Maybe labeling all bees as pure evil just because a few bad seeds decided to swarm me wasn't the right thing to do.

With this new disposition, I ventured forth outside the next morning with confidence. No longer tied down by hate, I soaked in the caressing Springtime sun for a glorious 10 seconds before getting buzzed by what had to have been the biggest wasp of all time. Gaining my composure after flailing violently and nearly collapsing to the ground in fright, I asked myself, Is it really that wrong to wish for the genocide of an entire species of insect?

After about half of a second of thought, I came to a definite "No". Besides, we can just get more hummingbirds to pull in the slack. Heck, the honeybee isn't even a native insect to North America. I think we can get along just fine without them.

So your colony is collapsing, huh? Here's a quarter...call someone who cares.

~Khyron, 2007

Flash back to November 22, 2005. After standing in line in the freezing Minnesotan cold for several hours, I was among the first to get his hands on Microsoft's next-gen Xbox 360 video game system.

Such good times, those. Mega hits like Gears of War were still far off in the horizon, the Wii was still the Revolution, and Sony had yet to price their $599 wonder-machine. We had games like Call of Duty 2 (crappy online play still intact) and Condemned to hold us over until the good stuff like Oblivion and Fight Night Round 3 came out.

Yup...fine times, indeed.

Before long (and after an investment of over $2,000 when everything was said and done) my attachment to the 360 had grown rather strong. Despite claims starting to surface that the launch batch of consoles were somehow defective, I was blissfully uninterested as I gamed away in high definition.

Fast forward to last week, my faithful launch console friend finally moved on to that great TV stand in the sky. As I came home from work eager to jump into the Shadowrun beta test I was accepted into not even a week prior, I was left a little dumbfounded when, after pressing the power button, I was greeted with 3 red, flashing lights. Thinking a cable must've come unplugged, I made sure all connections where firm. Yet still, those 3 lights flashed on.

Why!? Why now!? Why not 18 months ago...?

Why is it, at the cusp of firmware updates, new hard drive releases, mega HD-DVD releases, and two big game betas, did ol' faithful need to suffer from "general hardware failure"?

Lamenting my misfortune, I phoned the 1-800-4MyXbox Microsoft support line. I've heard more than a few horror stories pertaining to Xbox support, so suffice it to say, I wasn't looking forward to the experience. However, I'm pleased to announce that, ultimately,it wasn't so bad.

My tier 1 support specialist was obviously stationed in a foreign country, but his comprehension of the English language and understanding of the Xbox 360 hardware was remarkable. Really, there were no problems communicating with him at all. Moreover, the total time I spent on hold was no more than 5 minutes.

So alright then...so far, so good.

But then came the best news of all: because my console is from the first batch of 360's produced (way back in October of '05), it is under what is essentially an indefinite warranty. Not only does this mean they will repair/replace it for free, but UPS shipping both ways is on them.

My repair box coffin is now on its way. I will be posting updates of the repair process as they occur, so be sure to check back later. Also, if anyone can provide some ideas on how I should pass the time until I get my 'Box back, feel free to chime in.

Xbox 360 launch console. Born October 25, 2005, deceased April 11, 2007.

Review: Grindhouse (2007)
Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
Rated R for strong graphic bloody violence and gore, terror, pervasive language, some sexuality.

I've made it a habit to see movies at odd times of the day. Not only does this mean fewer crowds--which is always a plus--but more importantly, late afternoon, weekday showings usually mean cheaper ticket prices. Frankly, the little more than 90 minutes of entertainment offered by most movies these days is rarely worth the $8+ for evening admission. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse, on the other hand...well, I would've felt satisfied paying twice that.

In this double-feature throwback to the sleazy action and horror flicks of the 70's, Grindhouse is an excellent showcase of mindless entertainment complete with film grain and clever faux trailers by some of horror's best directing talent.

The first main attraction is Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror. In this over over-the-top zombie thriller, a group of small town Texans--including, among others, a one-legged go-go dancer with an assault rifle prosthetic--are forced into a fight for their lives. Get ready for gore, guns, girls, and laughs galore.

Planet Terror is everything good about monster and action movies rolled into one brilliant concoction of pure balls to the wall entertainment. A glamorized, CGI smorgasbord, it is complimented excellently by the traditional and disgusting makeup effects of Gregory Nicotero's KNB effects group. Seriously, if Planet Terror doesn't keep you in a constant state of awe and enjoyment, you need to stop going to see movies.

The spot on cast also features such cult favorites as Tom Savini and Michael Biehn. It's definitely a zombie movie for fans by a fan...And not to be missed by those interested in the genre.

Next up comes Quentin Tarantino's road thriller Death Proof. Starring Kurt Russell as the sly Suntman Mike, two groups of women face off against him in what turns into one of the greatest real-life car chases ever filmed.

About as different from the grandeur of Planet Terror as possible, Death Proof is all about suspense, tight direction, and plenty of Tarantino-esque dialog. With more than a few similarities to Reservoir Dogs in this regard, its markedly slower pace (that is until the climax) may be a buzz-kill for some. But keep with it, because before long, it gets good in a big way.

The main draw of Death Proof is its spectacular car chase near the end. Quite unlike Planet Terror, it reportedly contains no CGI enhancements. If so, then it is certainly a noteworthy piece of cinematic history. The stuntwork involved is simply mind-blowing.

Put short, Grindhouse is a true spectacle of cult filmmaking. This stuff certainly isn't for everyone--the heavy gore, strong language, sexual undertones, and over 3 hour length will be a turn off for some--but if this is your bag, then you'll have more fun during this movie experience than anything yet this year.

One thing's for sure...Grindhouse makes 300 look like a friggen flip book. Go see it.

Rating: 5 / 5

I sometimes think that maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Commenting on all of this 9/11 Truth Movement stuff, that is. As I was putting the finishing touches on my review for Dylan Avery's documentary, Loose Change 2nd Edition, last week, I had to stop and wonder...is this really something that I want to put my name on?

In the closing lines of that review, I wrote: "I applaud Avery and crew for having the courage to put their necks on the line to make this film and get this info out to the public." Indeed, what those filmmakers did--exposing themselves to almost certain ridicule and personal attacks--definitely took an enormous amount of courage. I'm nowhere near cynical enough to think that they made such a film for publicity-seeking or otherwise egotistical reasons alone, so, love or hate the final product, these guys chose to stand for something that they believe in--and I think that, at the very least, is something worth honoring.

But that said, I'm not sure that I have the guts to follow suit...

Full Article.