Bill O'Reilly - Culture Warrior

First let me set the foundation here and say that I am not for or against Mr. O'Reilly and to tell you the truth I knew very little about him when I picked up his new book "Culture Warrior". I had not read anything by Bill O'Reilley in the past and I have watched his show "The O'Reilly Factor" only a few times in the past. The reason I need to set this foundation is because of how many people I have run across lately that are rabidly opposed to this man and yet have not read his writings or watched his tv show either. People see me reading this book and immediately indicate disgust and ask me how I can believe the trash this man spews. This has happened more than once and from strangers as well as people I know. I politely explain this is my first exposure to him and then I ask what they thought about the book, the answer is always the same, they never read this book or any other by Bill O'Reilly. OK, then what was it about his TV show that turned you off? The general response boil down to "Fox news is a bunch of lies and I wouldn't watch his show to save my life"

These people are the mindless sheep of our country that will in fact sell us down the river because they will believe any feel good dribble the seculiar progressives espouse. If you are going to dislike Bill O'Reilly then do so based on facts and read his books so you know where you disagree.

I found the book to be well written with facts, that I could confirm, very well presented. Perhaps the real problem for people is understanding what is at stake takes too much effort and just going along with what "feels good" is easier. What is right and best for us is not always what feels good.

While I do not agree with every position Bill takes in the book I do agree completely with this"

"it is simply better public policy for the United States to stay close to the vision of the Founders, which includes independance from big government, hard work, personal responsibility, and looking out for your neighbor" p174, Culture Warrior

Tell me this, do you think this [read next paragraph] should be allowed for anyone that feels like having this done?

" I stood at the doctor's side and watched him perform a partial-birth abortion on a woman who was six months pregnant. The baby's heartbeat was clearly visible on the ultrasound screen. The doctor delivered the baby's body and arms, everything but his little head. The baby's body was moving. His little fingers were clasping together. He was kicking his feet. The doctor took a pair of scissors and inserted them into the back of the baby's head, and the baby's arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like a baby does when he thinks that he might fall. Then the doctor opened the scissors up. Then he stuck the high-powered suction tube into the hole and sucked the baby's brains out. Now the baby was completely limp." http://www.abortioninfo.net/facts/pba.shtml

Apparently if it feels good to us it does not matter how it feels to the baby.

This is the sort of thing that is allowed to go on as seculiar progressives try to eliminate personal responsibility and looking out for your neighbor as concepts in America.

If you disagree with me then read the book and post comments of substance. If you haven't read the book then we have nothing to discuss.

Gears of War Player Review

Gears of War for the Xbox 360 has been a great deal of fun to play. The AI is pretty good, the graphics really are 2nd generation quality on the 360, and the story line is well supported with great cut scenes. One down side is the single player is very short. There are three difficulty levels: Casual, Hardcore and Insane. I played through the whole game in under 9 hours on the casual level and on Hardcore I have gotten through about 1/2 of the game in 5 hours.

My recommendation is folks rent this game and if you enjoy it enough and want to continue to play online then it might be worth purchasing. Honestly you can play through the single player a few times in a one week rental.

Marie Antoinette Movie was horrible

This past weekend my son and I went to see the movie Marie Antoinette for extra credit in his French class. This movie was horrible almost from the start. The story was very disjointed, the transitions between scenes were too slow and almost incomprehensible. We were dragged through this movie and never were able to connect with any of the characters. The characters were flat and two dimensional with no story to even play with in most scenes.

Take my advice and rent the 1938 version of this movie.

How does a closet beta tester become official

My friend Sparky has me hooked on Microsoft OneNote and helped me to get a beta installed that I currently use. As you know my friend Sparky is looking for employment elsewhere. While I do plan on staying in touch with Sparky I do wonder what the process is to let MS know "Hey I like this and want to be an official Beta tester for you, how I do dat?"

I am going to try and promote OneNote to my team and user our sharepoint server to store notebooks that we can share, this should be fun.

Oh My God! I might leave Xbox for PS3!

Ok, many of you know I am an avid Xbox 360 and XboxLive gamer. I really love playing online games and video games in general. So much so that I also travel with my Xbox 360 and play from my motorhome over wifi and from hotels on business trips. Here is where the problem comes in. Many wifi providers require IE browser to authenticate into the wifi network. THE XBOX 360 HAS NO WEB BROWSER! So I get stuck offline about 90% of the time. Well according to this writeup the PS3 will have that browser I need.

Unlike the Xbox 360, the PlayStation will incorporate a browser so that gamers can surf the web via their console.

If I can surf the web then I can get access to those browser login pages I need to use to gain wifi network access.

Please Microsoft, please, please, add browser support so I can use IE on the Xbox 360 to log into wifi networks and then play my heart out.

Starbucks is really going to crap!

For many years Starbucks would change the flavor of their coffee multiple times a week. Bold, Mild and Decaf move around and let us both explore and enjoy a variety of coffees. Then a couple years ago they flavors went to changing weekly. This was not as good but it was ok, 104 flavors a year seemed pretty good (I do not drink decaf). Now my Starbucks has stopped changing the flavor. They have had House Blend as the mild flavor for WEEKS and they tell me it will stay that way until the end of the year! If I wanted the same flavor coffee every week I would go to one of the Bread Company places.

Another thing that made Starbucks interesting is they would re-arrange their furniture from time to time. Reminded me of coming home from school and finding my Mom had moved everything around. Well it seems the district manager does not like this and has insisted that the furniture remain one way to facilitate getting more customers through more quickly. Excuse me but it is this kind of attitude, worrying about revenue above everything else, that has caused me to leave other businesses. And they have stopped changing their music selection as much too, instead of each Starbucks having a variety of cd's to play they all now must use that crappy Hear music service.

Certainly I want them to be profitable and I know moving customers through quick helps, having a consolidate music service reduces costs etc. but I go there for the atmosphere as much as anything and they have killed the atmosphere.

Layoffs suck all around

A very good friend of mine has been laid off from the company we both work for. He is actually the friend who introduced me to blogging and opened my eyes to many other internet technologies. To be sure the layoff sucks most for him and his family during this time of uncertainty. At the same time it also sucks for those of us left behind who keep looking over our shoulders and wonder when the layoff bullet will finally hit us.

My friend, we will call him Sparky, has a valuable skill set that I think is really needed in the company so why then did the layoff hammer hit him? Like so many it is all about where you are in the company and not about your skills or value to the company. If you organization can save the company tons of money by shipping labor over seas to China or India or Costa Rica or even Canada then your organization will do that. Corporate America does not care that the average family income continues to drop year after year, they only care about cutting out the cost of labor as much as possible. Of course this does not extend to off-shoring our CEO's or Vice-Presidents.

I want to ask Sparky how the job hunt is going but I also don't want to rub salt in the wound since I am still employed. I want to tell him how much his friendship means to me but guys usually don't speak about such things. I want to apologize for not being a very good friend most of the time. Most of all though I want him to know how much I have appreciated his willingness to put up with me and open my eyes to so much in the world of technology.

I hope we can still see each other at Starbucks once in awhile Sparky.

Sincerely,

Eric

Don't take your eye off the immigration ball

With all of the recent news about North Korea launching missiles and Iran refining weapons grade uranium it is easy to forget about other major issues. Illegal immigration is one of those issues and this issue is impacting every working American on a daily basis. Total employment is about 144 million right now. If illegal immigrants are anywhere between 11 and 15 million then those people are artificially diluting the labor force by as much as 10% and that is reflected in lower competition for labor which translates to lower wages for everyone.

Don't take your eye off the ball because anyone in this country that earns an average income is losing ground because of this issue.

Why do we owe illegal immigrants anything?

I here a lot about it being impossible to remove 12 million illegal immigrants from the country and therefore we need to make them "legal" overnight and provide a path to earned citizenship. Excuse me but this country has never shied away from doing the impossible. Employers that employ illegal aliens must be severely punished and when the jobs dry up for the illegals then those illegals will go home. Every foreign citizen that wants to work in America or become an American citizen must do so according to the laws of this country. Illegal immigrants negatively impact everybody from an economic stand point and they prevent our capitalist system from working as designed. The only thing businesses are worried about is their profits. Capitalism does not guarantee any business a profit and hiring illegal immigrants to avoid raising labor rates to what legal citizens are willing to work for is unethical business at best.

Hiring illegal immigrants is an unethical business practice

The mantra of industries that hire a large number of illegal immigrants is that the work they need done is not something Americans are willing to do. Product and Service pricing is set by many factors that most economists would boil down into supply and demand. What no one in these industries will admit is that labor rates are set by a very similar set of factors that also boils down to supply and demand. If you demand labor (employees) and you do not get enough candidates then you must increase the compensation offered or make other changes to attract more potential employees. The same way you lower or raise prices to create demand for products or services.

A representative of the landscaping industry was on WGST Atlanta the other morning with Tom Hughes and explained that American children are not raised to do this kind of work. He also explained that the average wage in his industry was good at $9.50 an hour. And from his perspective, with unemployment at 5% there just are not enough workers available.

First lest talk about American Children and how they are "raised".
In 1999 (the latest year I could find data on)
62.9% of high school graduates enrolled in a college.
70.6% of the 17 year old population was high school graduates.
46.6$ of students completed a 4 year BA/BS degree
(Data on college completion rates is for the prior period, BA degree complete in 1995-1996)

The available labor pool for industries like landscaping would seem to be fairly significant.
For every 100 seventeen year olds in 1999 there were
30 without a high school diploma
26 with high school diploma that did not go on to college

I looked at over a dozen landscape labor job postings and almost none listed any qualifications required. Here are the requirements for one landscaping job listed on the web
Job Requirements
Required Qualifications:
Skills Requirements:
GENERAL LABOR, landscape

Note that a high school diploma does not seem to be required and so the labor pool of 56 out of every 100 seventeen year olds would be available for these jobs. The Landscaping industry must now compete for these employees with other companies and industries. This is where supply and demand starts to set labor rates for an industry like landscaping.

"Wal-Mart claims an hourly wage of $9.68 an hour is its national average" While some independent research indicates this amount is lower I will use both what Wal-Mart claims and what the landscaping industry representative have said as fact for this discussion.

It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that the average 18 year old would rather work in a low stress air conditioned Wal-Mart then doing the more grueling work involved with landscaping, FOR THE SAME WAGE. So what does a landscaping company need to do if it is going to run an ethical business? They need to increase their compensation to attract employees away from employers like Wal-Mart. This is the capitalist system. Yes this will raise their costs and prices and will lead to a thinning of the heard as far as landscaping companies go but that is legal, ethical, and natural business in a capitalist system.

Employing illegal immigrants artificially manipulates the labor side of supply and demand. It brings in a labor pool that under legal circumstances would be just as happy to work for Wal-Mart but cannot do so easily. The advantage to the landscaping industry is lower wages, reduced costs and increased profits. If this industry played by the rules it would create higher paying jobs that folks from Wal-Mart could move to in order to improve their situations. Because illegal immigrants are so heavily used this opportunity has been eliminated for citizens of America.

Consider that a fulltime worker at $9.50 an hour is ending up with about $15,000 in their pocket (80% of gross income). If the industry played by the rules the compensation they provide would have to increase to attract enough laborers. To keep costs down the industry would have to become more efficient in other ways. This is how our system is supposed to work.

Keeping costs and prices down is not a valid justification for employing illegal immigrants and so the industry tries to hide behind the fallacy that "this is work Americans are unwilling to do". Shame on any industry that wants the sales side to play by the rules of supply and demand but refuses to allow the labor side of business to play by those same rules, unethical business practices are never justifiable. Remember the goal of a capitalist system is NOT to keep you in business.

Final note: Tom Hughes indicated his wife hires a couple women to do their landscaping on a regular basis while the person across the street has a crew of potentially illegal immigrants show up and do his landscaping. Tom is paying more money for his service and lamented that he is a fool for paying more. I strongly disagree and I applaud Tom for playing by the rules and insisting his contractor do the same when it comes to employment.

Protecting my Xbox 360 investment

Well it happened to me, my Xbox 360 died a horrible "internal software error" death. The unit was still under warranty so it is being repaired/replaced for free. This experience has me thinking more about protecting my huge investment in this system and the associated games. I plan on being on this platform for at least the next four years and really don't want to run into more trouble.

Let me say here and now that the unit has run perfectly until this event and I have no complaints about the unit at all.

So what am I to do if I want to protect my investment. Well I am going to do three things to protect this investment.

1. I will purchase the extended warranty, the price is reasonable for two years and gives me peace of mind.

2. I have not had any indication of heat problems BUT you can never keep technology like the Xbox 360 too cool, and the cooler you keep high tech devices the longer their life in my opinion. I am buying an accessory to help keep the unit cooler. The cooler I have chosen is the Nyko Intercooler 360. The unit was only $20 and every review I could find from users were very positive.

3. Because the 360 allows the covers to be removed (for replacing with cool skins) I will be diligently blowing the unit clean with compressed air on a quarterly basis to avoid a dust build up.

I believe this combination of things will help to avoid any problems related to heat as well as give me a comfortable back stop if the unit should up and die again on me.

Illegal immigration is just that ILLEGAL!

I believe we should strengthen our borders, and punish employers seriously for hiring illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants would not come into this country if there was no employment. Employers that higher illegal immigrants are do it to contribute to our economy. They are hiring these folks to take advantage of people that are willing to work for wages far below the value of the work. Consumers want low cost but I do not believe consumers want low cost at the expense of other people being taken advantage. That is EXACTLY what employers that hire illegal immigrants are doing. They are taking advantage of people to line their own pockets with more cash. Market forces should set the wage rate and price of goods. That relationship should not be manipulated by keeping people poor.

Perhaps some of these jobs are not filled by legal immigrants and citizens because the wages do not fir the work. Employers should raise the wages and the prices to be able to provide these products, they should not take advantage of the poor from other countries so we can have cheap apples and low cost landscaping.

President Bush is too polite at press conferences

I find it amazing that liberal biased media journalists keep asking the President why he "wanted to go to war". Not only did he not want to go to war but once war was upon us it is the Congress that approved going to war. Why then did these Congress men and women approve going to war. For many obvious reasons that are as true today as they were then. Terrorists brought the war to us and we took our response to them where they live, train, and recruit. The major media outlets seem to want to ignore everything that is true about this situation and only concentrate on the clarity of things brought by hind sight. Journalists that documented the use of WMD's against Kurds in Iraq are suddenly indignant that intelligence reports before the war were not 100% accurate about WMD's. Excuse me, if Saddam used them once, he would certainly be willing to use them again and you can only use the best intelligence you have to make the best decision you can. That goes for Congress as well as the President.

I still believe that we are in Iraq and Afghanistan for all the correct reasons. Eliminating terrorist strong holds, bringing freedom to millions that yearn for it, and trying to create some stability in an area of the world that is historically instable. Perhaps if we had been as pre-emptive in 1939 then millions of people would not have been exterminated by the Nazi regime across Europe and Russia.

I am part of the BlogOsphere and I support the President

Starting with Rush Limbaugh there seems to be a growing opinion that the BlogOSphere is comprised of extreme liberal nut jobs. Today I heard Tom Hughes, on WGST 640am radio in Atlanta, connect the term extreme left democrats and blogosphere. I realize that organizations like moveon.org are out there on the extreme but not all bloggers are liberals. I am a conservative but rather than preaching fear and half truths on my blog about the President I choose to blog about life in general. Apparently conservative bloggers need to start dedicating some of their blogging to supporting the conservative values we agree with.

According to Tom Hughes, the blogosphere is very angry over the war in Iraq. I am always amazed at how selfish and self-centered liberals can be. Here we are a country that millions around the world have come to for the sole purpose of having freedom and yet we are suppose to ignore regimes like Saddams and NOT help others to have the simple freedom of choosing their own destiny. OH! That's right, liberals know better what is good for us, we should sit down, shutup, and do as they see fit. I do not think so.

I know that bringing freedom to Afghanistan and Iraq has cost us and is costing us American lives. This is not a sacrifice that I or any of us should commit to easily. When we do commit to this sacrifice it must be for something as important and critical to human beings as freedom. We can argue over how Iraq got to where it was for ever and never agree to what should or should not have been done, etc. I do not shy away from that debate I only point out that the current objective of bringing freedom to an enslaved, downtrodden, and abused populace is of such high importance to humanity that at this point it does not really matter how we got here. What matters is the smiling faces of millions of purple fingered people in Iraq that have tasted true freedom and are hungry for more.

As estimated 8 million people, 60 percent of eligible voters braved violence and calls for a boycott to vote in Iraq. A string of homicide bombings and mortar volleys killed at least 44 people, including nine attackers.

Americans suffer no such threats at 99% of polling places and yet we do not vote in such enthusiastic numbers, that is the power of people that are hungry for freedom, we take our freedom for granted.

99% of Iraqis's are praying America does not abandon them until they can truly stand on their own against the 1% ooppressorsrs that wish to return to the good old days of the powerful few dominating and controlling the lives of the many. Hey, wait a minute, isn't that what liberals want to do to us? Hmmm, maybe their anger with the war in Iraq is making sense now.

Liberals seem to forget or perhaps refuse to understand that conservatives do not "support war" but rather that we understand that in the course of history it is sometimenecessaryry to go to war in order to bring freedom and stability to an enslaved nation. War is NOT the first course of action but it is a course that once chosen cannot be abandoned for selfish reasons leaving other people to suffer once again under the yoke of oppression.

Were liberals so self-centered that the ONLY reason they approved the war in Iraq was because of weapons of mass destruction? Did the suffering oIraqis's, the documented brutaatrocitieses of Saddam's regime, and the DOCUMENTED use of weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds have nothing to do with their decision to support the war? If liberals reasons for supporting getting into the war were in fact so self-centered and narrow then it makes perfect sense that liberals now want out. The war serves no purpose for them and they could care less about what it means to humanity, the future of millions of people in the middle east, or the fact that turning tail and running would reduce our ability to help others in the future.

Let me close by saying that I appreciate the sacrifices that our military men, women, and families have made since 1776 to protect the freedoms we all enjoy and to bring freedom to others. The Germans, the FrenchIsraelis's, and countless others have the freedoms they enjoy as a direct result of our country putting the importance of freedom above the preservation of our own lives. Well maybe the liberals don't but I think the majority of Americans do, and if we don't we are doomed to losing our freedoms very soon.

Thanks for reading, Eric

The following words are designed to help search engines find this article
blogosphere blog-o-sphere blog o sphere

Call of Duty 2 needs an upgrade!

I have been playing Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and this game has the kind of lobby system for online play that I wish COD2 had. GRAW is first of all as awesome of a game as COD2, killer graphics, fun game play, and for people like me that love playing but suck we can kill bots in the online game.

I really want COD2 to do a major upgrade and give us a great lobby system. Another problem might be achievements, GRAW gives achievement points for online play while COD2 does not.

On a side note, I believe it would be best if all 360 games(that are xbox live enabled) provided 1000 achievement points for campaign and another 1000 points for online play, or 500 each at a minimum. Today it is a mixed bag where some games divide points and others do all points for the campaign

Call of Duty 2 needs an upgrade!

I have been playing Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and this game has the kind of lobby system for online play that I wish COD2 had. GRAW is first of all as awesome of a game as COD2, killer graphics, fun game play, and for people like me that love playing but suck we can kill bots in the online game.

I really want COD2 to do a major upgrade and give us a great lobby system. Another problem might be achievements, GRAW gives achievement points for online play while COD2 does not.

On a side note, I believe it would be best if all 360 games(that are xbox live enabled) provided 1000 achievement points for campaign and another 1000 points for online play, or 500 each at a minimum. Today it is a mixed bag where some games divide points and others do all points for the campaign

Quake 4 Online play is not so awesome

Quake 4's online play through Xboxlive works great and is a pretty fun time except for one minor little quirk that is aggravating to some of us. Jumping. People spend so much time jumping around like a bunch of hopping bunnies that the game is no longer any fun for those that want a first person shooter with some realism to it. The jumping is very fast, frantic, and short unlike Halo 2 where jumps are relatively slow and long. This is where Perfect Dark Zero really excels for folks that like first person shooters, there is no jumping, but you do tuck and roll in a realistic fashion and at a realistic speed in any of 4 directions.

I you want to spend your time jumping like a bunny and hunting bunny wabbits then Quake 4 online play is for you. If on the other hand you want more realism in the movement of a first person shooter then switch to Perfect Dark Zero.

Westinghouse 37" LCD HDTV Monitor LVM-37W1

I finally picked up a wide screen monitor for my entertainment center. The unit is made in China by a company that uses the Westinghouse name on the box. I found this unit to be the best all around unit for my needs. And one of the very few that will do 1080P.

The picture quality is EXCEPTIONAL, I could not be happier with the picture. This unit will accept 420P, 420I, 720P, 720I, 1080I and the important difference for me is that it will accept 1080P which helps me be prepared for the future. This was one of the few that had a resolution of 1920 X 1080, almost every other unit was X 768. Other units cost more for the lower resolution.

One warning about stores that sell this and other units. All the stores make the picture look perfect on the units they want to sell, which is usually the more expensive ones. Don't trust the picture you see at the store. Look for the features you want and the price you are willing to pay. I picked up this unit for $1499. At home this units picture looks as good or better then units selling for over $3000 at the store.

Display modes allow you to show standard TV in a square box with black bars on the side or a zoom feature puts the picture up to full screen mode. 420I looks good in the zoom unless there is a very dark background then the pixelation from the zoom appears. Switching to the standard TV view resolves this completely. The Xbox 360 games are so awesome looking as to be unbelievable. I hooked up the laptop for the first time and I am not sure how I will ever live with a normal monitor or laptop screen at home again. Having the real estate to use with the laptop and using the Bluetooth keyboard/mouse from the lazy boy chair is something I could definitely get used to :)

The number of inputs was important to me because I really hate to use a switch box to move between different video sources. I have the following components hooked up

Xbox 360 Component Video 1
Xbox Component Video 2
DishNetwork DVR AV (I am considering moving this to the S video port instead)
Laptop VGA port

This still leaves two DVI inputs for the future

Now my quest is to put a unit like this in every room of the house!

Xbox 360 Condemned Game

In this game you are a federal agent that is accused of shooting two police officers. A stranger that was a friend of your dad helps you escape capture so that you can hunt down the real killer. There are minimal traditional weapons in this game such as hand gun and shot gun. The primary weapons are bashing weapons such as steam pipes, rebar, fire axe, sledge hammer, etc. You also have investigative tools such as black light and digital camera that you use to collect evidence. That evidence is sent through your cell phone to the lab who gives you results and help along the way. The graphics are smooth but very unimpressive and really this game is hardly as good as a standard Xbox 1 game.

This game is a little too dark for me. I am up to level 4 and I have spent the entire time having to use a flashlight and grope through the dark. This gets tedious and makes the game feel like graphics were an afterthought. I prefer games that are more balanced when it comes to using a flashlight. Yes it is cool and should be needed during some of the game but the flashlight should also not be needed during some of the game as well.

This game is definitely a rental before you buy.

XBOX 360 - Quake 4 is AWESOME!

This game is by far the best overall game so far that I have played on the Xbox 360. The game play is smooth, graphics are excellent, and the online play rivals Halo 2.

There are a wide variety of reviews of this game with weapon details, in game pictures, etc. so I will keep my review short. The game play is just awesome for a first person shooter and if you enjoy the thrill of fighting evil you need this game for your 360.

Try this link for a good discussion and information on Quake 4
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/quake4/preview_6124476.html

Xbox 360 - Call of Duty 2

My Setup: Xbox 360, 27" Flat Screen 4:3 TV

I picked up Call of Duty 2 with my 360 back in November and I am still enjoying playing the campaign mode. The graphics are very realistic and the 360 has the power to show think like a soldiers breath in the cold Russian air. Frame rate is high enough to make the entire game run very smoothly with no slow down or jerking during extreme amounts of action.

Video cut scenes explain the current situation and take you from battles in Russia to the African Desert and onto the D-Day invasion. Mission objectives are added as each mission moves along. Most of the objective updates are spoken by commanders during battles. The dialogue is realistic with mission discussions happening all around you, and like I said, some are directions to you by commanders during a battle that give you new objectives.

The action shifts gears from slow to extremely fast action during the game. You can be slowly sniping the Germans during one objective and then in the next you have to really think and move to avoid being killed during an ambush.

I played online only a couple of times, the Live ability of this game is horrid. The problem here is that the Halo 2 lobby system has really spoiled those of us that like to form parties, chat in the lobby about what we are going to play, etc. COD2 does not offer this sort of live environment. I will be trying it some more and experimenting with the live portion in the future so expect an update on this part at some point.

My current gamer score is 760 with four levels yet to complete on the hardest difficulty setting.

I highly recommend this game as a great first person shooter campaign game and military history buffs will appreciate the realism and fairly accurate recreations the game uses.

XBOX 360 ROCKS

Over the next few weeks I will be posting my opinions about the Xbox 360 and the games I own. This week I examine the system itself, next week I will start game reviews.

I was one of the lucky ones that pre-ordered the Xbox 360 and received my unit on the launch day back in November. I got the $399 full system, an extra controller, and two games. The games I got at the time were Perfect Dark Zero and Call of Duty 2. Since I have gotten Project Gotham Racing 3 and Quake 4. Following are my opinions after a couple months use on a normal 4:3 flat screen 27" TV.

Xbox 360
THE SYSTEM
The graphics are fantastically crisp, clear, and smooth in all of the games. The graphic detail is very impressive and includes little extras that I have not seen in other game systems. In Call of Duty 2 you can see someone's breath in the cold Russian air, lip movement is more natural and matches better what is being said, facial features overall are much more natural. The Dashboard is a set of tabs or folders and is very easy to navigate. The system has the ability to download game updates, videos, skins and Microsoft Arcade games to play, one game is included free, Hexic HD, a variation on Tetris. Most of the downloads are for sale such as the arcade games. Rather than charge the payment to your credit card you have to purchase "gold points" that are used to pay for any downloads. This means Microsoft gets money up front for what you will buy in the future. There are FREE movie trailers, many in both 720p and 420p, that can be downloaded. Downloads on my 1.5Mbs DSL are much faster on the 360 then they are on the Xbox 1.

The system definitely runs HOT and I had to move the system from a slot in my entertainment center with 3 inches clearance all around to a slot with 6 inches of clearance all around. I plan on installing some sort of supplemental fan system to move heat out of the slot it resides in. This heat problem is likely why Microsoft moved the hefty power supply into an external enclosure instead of leaving it in the system.

THE WIRELESS CONTROLLER
The wireless controller is 2.4ghz and works flawlessly while my 2.4ghz wireless network is busy. Ergonomically the controller is well designed, feeling very comfortable in my hands and not causing finger fatigue. The white and black buttons of the Xbox 1 controller are now secondary trigger buttons above each of the triggers. This took some getting used to since I would suddenly push one while furiously working the trigger.

The Live headset that came with the system plugs into the back of the controller, it includes a mute slide switch and volume control. The head set SUCKS in almost all aspects. Sound quality is horrible, the sound breaks up and the headset is not very comfortable on my skull. Some of this could be the audio circuitry in the controller itself. I am looking forward to this being a situation that is drastically improved by the after market industry. Plantronics WHERE ARE YOU?!

BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY
The only backward compatible game I have played on the unit is Halo 2. The download to enable this went fine, and since the first download there has been another update to the backward compatibility for Halo 2. H2 on the 360 does not seem as responsive to me and I seem perform better playing H2 on the Xbox 1. Others I have asked had split opinion on this, some notice a difference and some do not. Backward compatibility ONLY works if you have the full system with hard disk drive or buy the disk drive option for the core system.

CONCLUSION
The 360 definitely rocks and from my perspective has already paid for itself in enjoyment. Usually I am one of those that waits until the price drops and I am always a year or two behind on consoles. This time I am EXTREMELY glad that I did not wait because I am really enjoying this system.

LINKS
Check out these links for additional information
http://www.xbox.com
http://www.majornelson.com

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

The holidays went by too fast again this year, I love this holiday time of year and get real joy from concentrating on what is good and fun about the holidays instead of grouching over the "hassle" of the holidays. I hope all of you were able to concentrate on the positive this year and not get dragged down into a grinch mood. And I cannot wait until next Christmas :)