Mad Props!

Today I got down to the post office to send the cable back to the UK (the one they sent me by mistake).

For me to send the cable back to them via Air Express, it cost about $31 (Aus). They're going to reimburse me that amount, so it's all good.

The funny part is: When you consider that it probably cost them about $10 to $20 to send me the cable in the first place, then another $31 for me to return it, and then between $10 and $20 to send me the correct cable ... we're talking about somewhere between $50 and $70 just in shipping.

Given that the cable that they sent me by mistake is only worth about $50 ... it actually would have been cheaper for them to tell me to keep the cable and then send me the right one as well!

Well ... perhaps when you factor in that they might be shipping in bulk out to Australia, it might work out a little cheaper for them to get me to return the original cable ... but still, you have to wonder.

Because I know you're just dying to know what happened with my Xbox 360 cable . . .

I managed to get a chat session going with the support folks from gameplay.co.uk (I can mention the site now 'coz everything worked out).

They said to return the cable and they will refund my postage costs. They will then send the correct cable via the fastest postage they have.

That's great service, and makes up for the initial stuff-up. The only bummer is that I have to wait so much longer for the real cable.

But anyway - gameplay.co.uk - recommended.

God damn it!

As I posted earlier, I had to order a SCART cable for my Xbox from the UK, as none were released here in Australia. My television won't accept a component or RGB connection via anything other than SCART, so if I want a decent picture I need a SCART cable.

So I ordered this cable from gameplay.co.uk. It's exactly what I need from the great folks at Joytech. It'll do an RGB connection and get my 5.1 digital surround sound.

The package arrived in excellent time - it was waiting for me today, only about two weeks after I ordered it. Problem is: they sent the wrong cable!!!

In fact, the cable they sent, a Joytech Digital-AV pack, isn't even listed on their site!!!

ARGH!

Now I have to wait until they get back to me to advise me on how to return this cable, and then wait for the proper one to arrive! I just can't win!!!

My Xbox Live "friends" list is looking a bit sparse right now. My only friend is Crucible (gamertag: crucibleAU).

So if you want to be my friend, feel free to add "mabsterama" to your friends list. It'll be nice to see those pop-ups as friends come online appearing more often! ;-)

Here's my gamer profile if anyone's interested.

Sal and I saw V for Vendetta yesterday. I had read several positive reviews of this flick, so I went to the movies with high expectations.

I wasn't disappointed.

This movie is kind of a modern take on Orwell's "1984". It shows where we could end up if things go horribly wrong. I'm not gonna try to do a huge review of it here. I'll just say that it's cool that they got John Hurt to play the scary "Big Brother" kind of character, given that he was the opposite in the movie version of 1984.

We also watched Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence on DVD last night. Wow. Mixing traditional animation with some absolutely amazing CG, this is a visual feast. As for the story ... well, let's just say it won't disappoint GitS fans. It's a mix of sci-fi action with sometimes-unintelligible (and always awkwardly placed) philosophy. Here in Australia we get an English DTS 5.1 soundtrack, as well as a bunch of exclusive special features, which is just great.

Like many people, I experimented at university. Dabbled, you might say. However, I can honestly say that I have not played Dungeons & Dragons for over 12 years.

Having said that, I do play games like Neverwinter Nights, which is based on the D&D rules, so I have a pretty good understanding of the system.

That's one reason I love The Order of the Stick. The other is that it's just plain funny, even if you don't get all the gags about D&D. Rich has crafted a bunch of likeable characters that interact with each other in a humorous way, and it makes me look forward to each new issue.

So a few weeks ago, as a birthday present to myself, I decided to buy Rich's two OOTS books: Dungeon Crawlin' Fools and On the Origin of PCs. I'm glad I did. The first book includes the first 100-or-so comics that were published on the web site, plus a slew of bonus material in the form of extra comics and commentary-text from Rich himself. The second is all new material, outlining the back stories of the characters (in glorious monochrome to give it a "historic" feel).

The books aren't what I would call inexpensive, but I found that it was a good way of paying Rich back for the enjoyment he gives me three times a week. Recommended.

Funkyj over on the Xbox World Australia blogs has posted a little rant about the "achievements" system on Xbox Live.

For him, it doesn't work so well because he jumps from game to game (being a reviewer), rarely finishing anything.

I wanted to post my own little rant about the achievements system in response. I do try to finish games, so I don't have Funkyj's problem. However, I did find one thing about the system fascinating:

I got as many points for completing the Ghost Recon training level as I did for rescuing the Mexican president!

Now, either el Presidente isn't considered by the G.R.A.W people to be all that important, or something's up with their distribution of gamer points! What do you think?

It's an Express Hero!

Got a cool project you've made using one of Microsoft's Express products? Why not submit it to their new Express Heroes promotion and let them write an article about it? If they do, they'll send an Amazon.com gift voucher worth $100 in your direction!

And by jingo, your humble coder and his whiz-bang hobby project might just be the first in line! Keep an eye out for a Comicster article on MSDN coming Real Soon Now (I kid you not)!

Props to Pete LePage for first letting me know about this great little promotion.

Looks like the site was down for the better part of last night.

It seems to be some sort of problem running CommunityServer on ASP.NET 2.0. Obviously not everyone is having this problem, but there are forum posts on the CS site with the exact exception that we were experiencing.

For now I've put the site back on ASP.NET 1.1. It seems to be up again for now.

Wow. That didn't quite go as smoothly as I planned.

Just brought madprops.org up to the final 2.0 release of CommunityServer.

We're now running under ASP.NET 2.0, too, which is a pretty big change.

I'm not particularly happy with the site's speed right now, but that may just be a caching thing (it might get faster over time).

Fingers crossed!