The Fifth Element

Sunday, I went for a car ride, I was going to get my birthday present. A present partially from my parents, partially from me. That's what happens when you ask for expensive gifts. Parents sometimes prefer to spend money on floor-heating systems or pool-cleaning robots instead. But they offered me a good deal, one that I could not refuse. So we went to FutureShop to get one of these Xbox 360 bundles. After a lot of research, I noticed they had newer hardware revisions that consumes less energy and has a better chance of surviving more than a few months (I'm sure most of you are familiar with the scourge of the Red Ring of Death).

Unfortunately, it seems all the cheaper models had older chipsets, being at a higher risk from the get-go. I found out that some higher-end models had the new ones, the mythical "Jasper" units. FutureShop had a special on everything in store over 50 bucks, shaving 10 bucks off. Well, it's better than nothing, right? But they didn't have any in stock. They had up to 10 units in all the other locations of the province, but not where I went. Dammit.

I decided to try my luck at BestBuy, giving up on the 10 bucks I wanted to save. I looked in the Xbox section, didn't see the bundle I was looking for...dammit. I asked the clerk if he had any left, and after about 15 minutes of "intense" research, I saw two units on the very top shelf in another section of the store.

Negociation time. This is where I try to seal a deal. I start by showing off the coupon from the other store, telling the clerk I need a better source of motivation to buy the bundle at his store. I says he's not sure he can do anything. Dammit. Suddenly, I remember they have an offer on the Pro models, which nets you 3 free games when you buy the hardware system. Unfortunately, this deal was only available for the Arcade or Pro units, and the one I had in my hands was an Elite unit. The thing is, the Elite model costs a hundred bucks more than a Pro unit and two hundred bucks more than an Arcade unit. Supposing they don't really make huge profits on the sales of video game hardware, I don't see why they don't apply the promotion on the higher-end model.

After a long discussion, not knowing what to do with an insisting guy with too much hair, the two clerks nervously called up a floor manager. He asked if they still had Pro models in stock, looks like they didn't have any more of those, so he said the promo would work on the model I wanted. The power of the manager. It barely took him 5 seconds to decide that. Immediately, a huge grin showed up on my face. I was getting 2 games inside the bundle, and 3 more games with the promo. I think that's a decent deal. I was satisfied and decided to seal the deal. It only took about 20 minutes to find all the games included in the promo, their fault for being disorganized. I didn't mind, because I was getting the best deal, in my opinion. My mom, on the other hand, was not quite happy, as I was ruining her plans for the day.

I ended up buying the console + 5 games for the price of the console. Surely, I would have been too excited about it to do anything else but open it and try all the games, right? Wrong. I spent a splendid night with my girlfriend. We tried a new sushi place and went to see a movie. Lovely, isn't it?

When I got back, with the help of public transportation, I noticed I didn't have my home key and that nobody was home. Dammit. I tried to bang on the doors, in case someone was sleeping or something. No luck. I decided to check at the back, and found an opened window, by which I entered the house. Lucky me! Seting up the beast wasn't very hard, until I tried to connect it to the internet. You see, it doesn't have wireless capabilities, and the only official way to connect it that way is to buy a $100 dongle from Microsoft. No thanks. People told me "Why don't you just run a cable between the router and the Xbox?" Well, it at the other side of the house and crosses a bunch of rooms, it wouldn't be practical at all. I read about another solution which would allow my laptop to serve as a network bridge, taking the wireless signal received by my laptop to transfer it through the ethernet cable from the laptop to the Xbox. Sounds simple, right? I wish.

The problem is that people make instructional videos for everything today, but for whatever is computer related, the videos are only showing ways to get around with the most commonly used OS. So I found instructions on how to make the network bridge with Windows XP, Windows Vista and even Mac OS, but what do you know, I'm using the RC version of Windows 7! It's not much of a difference with Vista, but once you try to mess with control pannel settings, a tiny name change can screw you up. I basically spent all night trying to figure this out, until I read about a related problem someone had on a weird forum. All the official Windows and Xbox boards were no help. You have to dig deep into the dark realms of the internet to find the most simple answers. I ended up making it work, allowing the 360 to update to the NXE interface and allowing me to download the games and themes my Xbox came with. Because, of course, why add a game disc when you can download the damn thing into your humongous hard drive? I'll miss physical media formats. The end seems near, but until then, I'll listen to my newest cd. Arctic Monkeys' debut album: "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not".

I just like to touch.