That's it, I finally took the time to finish everything that I haven't seen yet on my TiVo. I can now disconnect it and store it away. *sigh* I'm going to miss the TiVo.

This past Friday, I visited the "E For All" expo's second day, and it looks like the attendance went up a little bit compared to Thursday. Even though I commented about how there weren't that many things to do, there were still things I haven't done. So I had three main goals for the day, the first was to get as many Nintendo Wii keychain / flashlights as possible, the second was to actually spend the time in line for Metal Gear Solid 4 and Super Smash Bros Brawl, finally the third was to play Rock Band on the MTV main stage again. Needless to say, I did all of the above.

I returned to the Nintendo booth over and over again at different times, picking up those cool Wii-mote keychain / flashlights, as well as getting them from the many Nintendo booth babes (ended up with 15+). I spent nearly two hours in line for the chance to get hands on game time with Metal Gear Solid 4; which was pretty cool. While I was in line, Gametrailers.com and G4TV were doing interviews with attendees, and I made some humorous attempts in trying to be on video (we'll see when it gets broadcasted on Monday). I then spent time at the Super Smash Bros Brawl booth, where I got to play it and got easily defeated by my lack of actual game skillz (got me a free t-shirt though).

I then went over to the Rock Band area and once again acted as a "musician for hire" waiting to join a group. A party of three needed a fourth, so I was once again in "another band." After some decent practice time together we experienced some actual rock band drama, when our drummer decided she didn't want to perform on the main stage. Our bass guitarist had to fill in for drums and we got another musician for hire to take over bass (I was still on lead guitar like the other day). Once we were on stage, we learned that we really had to sing one of the default songs for MTV, unfortunately the only song our singer knew from that list was Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" which isn't a bad song, but hardly the upbeat song we wanted. We didn't sound so great as a whole because our new bass guitarist frankly was not good at all, and we ended up screaming at the guy while on stage. I would be going "bass! bass!" when he for some reason forgot that he was suppose to be playing, and our singer was punching the guy's shoulder to "keep him awake." Yeah, not the best second performance I was hoping for, but I did get a new Rock Band hat to go along with the shirt I got the other day.

Click below for the video of my Rock Band performance from Thursday
mtv_rockband/highlights/viewvid.asp?v=1096378

Click below for the video of my Rock Band performance from Friday
mtv_rockband/highlights/viewvid.asp?v=1098149

After half of the expo hall lost it's power (funny coincidence), I went to drop off some things in my car and headed for the Nokia Theatre for the "Video Games Live" concert. hhmm, as a quick aside, I just realized that I never did try playing "Super Mario Galaxy." Anyways, I was able to get a good view of the concert, and I took advantage of that by testing out how my new camera would fair in that long distance, with no use of flash (no flash photography or video taping there). The concert itself was incredibly enjoyable, with the orchestra and choir group doing wonderful renditions of music found in video games. A lot of game music was covered, like Donkey Kong, Tetris, Metal Gear Solid, Sonic the Hedgehog, Bioshock, Civilization, Tron, the Legend of Zelda, Conan, Kingdom Hearts, Warcraft, Starcraft II, Contra, Mario Bros, Halo, and ofcourse Final Fantasy (even though SquareEnix wouldn't allow them the use of their video footages). They even had cosplayers show up on stage once in awhile, to coincide with the game music being played. Special guest appearance from famous video game music composers also showed up, and even the "father of video games" Nolan Bushnell was there. At two occassions, they had an audience member go up on stage to play a game on the huge screen, while the orchestra would play the music in real time. It was a really cool experience, and the many gamers in the audience sure were audibly excited when a favorite game of theirs would show up. Video Games Live is something I definitely want to attend  to again in the future.

Leaving Random So Soon?

Stephen Colbert = President candidant (link)

The Dark Knight prologue in IMAX? (link)

Street Fighter 4 is coming! (video)

wilhelm scream (video)

hello kitty (video)

choreographed gang fight (video)

dune buggied (video)

LAX 3D mailbox (video)

talented boobs (video)

R Kelly's "Real Talk" - NSFW (video)

I'm currently at the Los Angeles convention center for the very first day of the very first year of the "E for All" video game expo. This is suppose to be the "public's E3" but based on what I'm seeing so far, the public hasn't come out in full force yet. There is a considerable lack of people attending E For All however,
although the bulk of them might show up on Saturday or Sunday. I did however got to play Metallica's "One" on "Guitar Hero III : Legends of Rock" for the Nintendo Wii, so this expo has already succeeded in allowing the gamers a chance to play games that aren't in stores yet. I even had a great time playing "Rock Band" on the main stage with three other gamers (I was lead guitarist), that may even be shown on MTV. I'm actually waiting for the video of my performance to be uploaded to the Rock Band video website. Nintendo also has a huge presence, showing off upcoming games like Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros Brawl.

Although E For All is rather small in size and scope; barely a third of what E3 used to be, there is huge potential of growth if the industry embraces it more. This is finally an event that the public can willingly go to, in celebration of the video game industry. The problem I see is that the expo is still basing it's design like E3, which I think is a mistake. E3 is suppose to be a media event for professionals in the industry, and the showcase format that it has is appropriate for that purpose. E For All however needs to follow the convention format similar to the San Diego Comic-Con; which uses the showcase format as well as the retail market by selling relatable products to attendees. This will give people even more reason to come back besides being able to play video games, as well as bring money to the event.

I'll be back attending just one more day of E For All as well as going to the Video Games Live concert across the street at the newly opened Nokia Theatre of Los Angeles. So more on that later on.

Isn't Mountain Dew suppose to keep me more awake? I know sodas in general are suppose to do that, but the Dew is most known for it. Lately however, it actually relaxes me more and makes me want to go to sleep. It kinda now defeats the purpose of me bringing it to my graveyard shifts.

Nothing Random In My Way

Toyota advertises with Warcraft (video)

powerthirst 2 : re-domination (video)

get outta my office -NSFW-language (video)

Japanese table cloth challenge (video)

Asian commercials can be pretty weird (video)

300, the cat version (video)

horn blasters (video)

Gali the Alligator (video)

Deal or No Deal : The Office (video)

hand vagina (video)

Just to add a little more to what I said yesterday about Direct TV, there's a few more plusses that I need to give it credit for. 50 hours recording capabilities for High Definition content or 200 hours of standard definition recording is definitely a good thing. I wish HD-TiVo can boast that same recording time. Also having some channels like G4TV, Comedy Central, VH1, etc, broadcasted at East Coast time is also nice, since that means it's three hours earlier than normal for me.

I am still playing around with what Direct TV can do for me, but at the same time I'm finding more things that it can't do. I'm still finishing up programming I recorded with my TiVo, and it just reminds me how much I'll miss that DVR interface. Ah well, enough bitchin about that for me, as there's really nothing I can do about it.

On another note, here's a nice tidbit that my friend brought up that I didn't know about before. Using a standard "QWERTY" keyboard, and using most of the letters from the first line (QWERTYUIOP), there is one long word that you can make with them. Coincidentally enough, that one long word that you can make using eight of those ten letters, spells out to be "typewriter." That's a nice little fact and I wonder if it was done on purpose.

I finally made the switch, no more cable TV for me, no more TiVo for me, it's all Direct TV satellite service now. I spent the majority of this past Friday revolving around Direct TV. Straight from coming home from my graveyard work shift, rearranging rooms to accomodate the installation, the DirectTV guy showing up relatively on time (8:20am), done installing by 11am, spent the rest of the afternoon settting up my channel preferrences (still a lot of channels I don't get to filter out), and then spent the rest of the evening just playing around with the DirectTV service. I'm surprised I was able to stay up the whole day with requiring no sleep, but that's dedication to you right?

My primary reason for getting DirectTV is to take advantage of the fact that they are the best in getting High Definition content to my HDTV. They really are the best at that, but honestly, besides sports fans out there getting something like the NFL package, there really is no other reason to get Direct TV. There I said it, so you cable TV owners don't have to fret with what you got, because believe me it's not *that* big of a deal. Okay, maybe I am downplaying it a little bit, but the main appeal of watching high definition tv content is that it is more detailed than standard digital cable right? Yes it is more detailed, and in some cases there is a stark positive difference in quality, but the primary relevant appeal is that you get to watch TV taking full and proper advantage of that widescreen format that HDTV uses. That's the trick, the widescreen. Almost all HD feeds are still not in "full quality" 1080P high definition, and most of them are just 480P (DVD quality) upscaled to 720P (HD that starts making a difference). I don't really want to get into too many technical jargon here, but the hype for high definition is honestly only half justified right now.

In many cases, I actually am already missing my TiVo service. I gotta give them credit for making the DVR experience the best there is, because now that I only have the DirectTV DVR system to go with, I'm missing some key features that TiVo had. TiVo's remote control features are clearly a step above DirectTV's, and some DVR functions aren't as "smooth" as TiVo. The program guide for TiVo is a lot more robust and more promptly detailed too, as I'm actually still waiting for Direct TV to fill in the "gaps" in the schedule for this upcoming Monday and Tuesday that's preventing me of putting some shows on my recording list (TiVo would have had it up two weeks ago!). The simple task of putting my TV on close captioning mode (I use it a lot more than you would think) is also more of a hassle using the DirectTV remote. Admitedly DirectTV and TiVo does have a combo service to go with each other, but I'm not really willing to pay that extra fee.

Speaking of fees, for those wondering if DirectTV is cheaper than cableTV, it is, and at the same time it isn't. If you get the basic DirectTV service it is cheaper, but there will be a channel or two that you would have gotten with basic digital cable TV that won't be included and that you'll really want. So you are put in a position to get the next level up, which will put you on par with the same price as cable TV, but with more of the channels you want, and a lot more that you never got before (XM radio too). Don't forget that the High Def package is yet another additional price that to me puts it a little above the digital cable TV + TiVo monthly fee. There's also the initial fee of getting the DVRs themselves, which while they record many more hours than TiVo does still has that $300 entry fee per HD-DVR, in addition to the monthly lease of  $6. So I basically am paying more or less the same as I used to, except with more channels and in High Def. I'm not saving money, but I'm getting more for my buck.

*edit* It has to be mentioned here that I did pay over $600 for initial installation. Yeah, that's a steep price to pay but at that moment I was already in deep of wanting to get Direct TV that I just agreed to the price. It turns out that the initial fee varies between customers based on their credit history, and some people pay as little as $200 for what I got to as much or more than what I paid for. I thought I had a decent credit history, but I didn't think it would cost me an extra $300! It was a credit fee of $300 plus the $300 for the HD-DVR. I didn't know that until I saw the bill online. So keep this in mind if you are considering getting Direct TV. Find out first how much they are charging extra because of your credit history, before agreeing to what Direct TV package "you qualify for."

To top off my luckluster excitement on what I just got, I didn't realize that the second DirectTV box that I got for the bedroom (HD-DVR went to family room) wasn't even a DVR. I made a mistake in thinking that all their boxes are DVRs and I ended up with one that isn't. I had to pay an extra $100 to order a DVR for the bedroom, because I honestly can't go back to a non-DVR TV watching world. Seriously.

So buyer's remorse then? eehhh, dunno, because I'm watching an HD feed of a channel that I never got before right now, on a dual-tuner DVR that I never had before. That is what I got DirectTV for, so I think I'll be okay.

Is It Any Random Wonder?

get your costumes for Halloween (link)

Street View : six new cities (video)

Star Wars Trumpet solo (video)

Japanese developer's talk about the xbox360 (link)

skilled bear (video)

batman theme song (video)

unicorn kingdom club (video)

web browser Firefox will be coming to your cellphone (link)

breath wars (video)

dear : Halo 3 haters (video)