My Xbox 360 finally died *sad face*

This past Saturday, we (myself, my girlfriend, and my girlfriends younger sister) were watching movies, using the Xbox 360 of course. Everything was fine, the movies played back with no problems, nothing. A friend asks me if I want to play Rock Band 2, naturally I said yes. I pop the disc in, and nothing happens. The 360 power indicator turns green, which it normally does when I turn it on, but after that, nothing. No signal what-so-ever to my TV. Then it happened; 3 red rings. SHIT!

I turned the 360 off, unplugged and replugged everything and still 3 red rings. Considering my console is a launch unit from October 2005 (though I bought it in May 2007), it was expected this would eventually happen, but damn, am I still disappointed. Thankfully my warranty expires on May 20th, 2009, so it picked the perfect time to breakdown. I just got done boxing it up in it’s coffin, will be shipping it off to Microsoft later today. Looks like I’ll be gaming on my PC and PSP for the next 3-4 weeks

RRoD

Lunch at Schnitzels

Just a quick update today.  Callan (my girlfriend) and I went to Schnitzels (Schnitzels.ca) over in Cornwall, Ontario (Canada) for lunch today.  We both ordered a pizza which is cooked in a wood oven.  Needless-to-say, they tasted great.  But the dessert…oh man the dessert.  I have no idea what the waitress called it but it tasted fucking amazing!  It was so good that i took a quick snapshot of it with the crappy camera on my phone, enjoy the amzingness below;

Palacinka

As an added bonus I requested caramel to be added and it just made it even better, no doubt.

What.A.Race.

I like NASCAR.  There, I said it.  Let the redneck jokes commence….

Moving on, today the Sprint Cup Series (the top series in NASCAR) raced at the largest track on the schedule; Talladega Superspeedway.  This track was originally built in 1969 and now covers approximately 3,000 acres including the track site and parking areas.  Talladega Superspeedway is a 2.66-mile tri-oval course.  The north and south turns are banked 33 degrees and the grandstands tri-oval is banked 16.5 degrees.  The track is 48-feet wide with an apron that is an additional 12 feet in width.  The frontstretch is 4,300′ long, while the backstretch is 4,000′ long.  Yeah, this place is HUGE!  But it’s not the size that is impressive, though while the track is huge, it’s the speed at which the cars race around this track that draws the fans in.

3-4-5 wide racing at 190+ MPH with speeds approaching 205+ MPH going into the turns.  This place is not only huge, it’s fast!  So what happens when you put 43 cars on the track, nose-to-tail, side-by-side, for 500 miles?  Crashes naturally, and today was no different.  Coming to the checkered flag, we saw Carl Edwards leading Brad Keselowski.  Now, to properly set this final dash to the finish up, I need to explain a major rule in NASCAR.  At Talladega (and Daytona International Speedway) NASCAR has the ‘Yellow Line’ rule.  This is a double yellow line that divides the race track and the apron and this line is a no-no when it comes to passing.  If you dip your left side tires below this line and make a pass, you are penalized (unless you give the position back).  So, with that out of the way, here is the end result:

Yeah…insane, I know.  Thankfully this doesn’t happen at every race, but NASCAR needs to do something to keep these cars on the ground.  Anyway, just thought i’d share this little ‘tidbit’…

Coming Soon…for realz

Still searching for a proper WordPress theme to use with the site.  I’ve tried several themes but each other just doesn’t do it for me.  What you see right now is a placeholder, i have no intentions of using the current theme.  I’m eagerly awaiting Jeremie Tisseau’s PigNews theme which is currently being coded.  You can check it out on Jeremie’s deviantART page.

As for the site itself, i’m hoping to actually blog this time around.  Before, i would always set out to try and be a ‘serious’ blogger, but that would usually last all of a week or two.  This time will be different.  I’m no longer in college, graduated back in December 2008 (more on this once my site is finalized) so i have A LOT of free time on my hands these days.  I work at Home Depot (yay?) and work a night shift consisting of 8-midnght, Monday thru Friday.  So i have plenty of time to blog during the day.

Unlike before, i’ll actually try to post pictures to my flickr account more often, post about current events, hobbies, and more importantly, myself.  There will hopefully be semi-regular reviews on games, movies, music, etc., but overall i just want a place of my own to rant and rave with complete freedom.

For now, check me out on;

• Twitter – SynGamer
• Xbox Live – SynGamer
• Just about anywhere else – SynGamer

You can also check out my girlfriends blog.  She doesn’t post often, but at least she posts.  I also encourage you to check out an old ModBlog friend of mine who can be found at RoughToiletPaper.com (RTP), he’s weird, but extremely funny.