Using a key to gouge expletives on another's vehicle is a sign of trust and friendship.

I was reading some tech crap last week, and I came across this article about turning your old xbox into a media center. It reminded me that I had wanted to do this for some time, but never got around to it. I decided it would be a fun project, and it would be cool to have in time for the party, so I can stream mp3z from my server to my stereo. I didn’t really follow this guide, I just searched around for the things I wanted to do, and ended up with bits and pieces from everywhere.

Since the Action Replay is pretty much non-existent now, I opted to create my own USB adapter. To do this, I took a USB extender, and cut off the female end, then took an xbox controller and cut off the connector. I then stripped the cables on both, and twisted them together. My first attempt failed miserably, because I cut the controller cable too close to the adapter, so I didn’t have enough room to splice the wires together. So I had to go out and buy another used controller (I didn’t want to kill my other one). I also picked up a copy of Splinter Cell for like $1.50 (needed to “crash” the xbox). Then I took my trusty titanium cruzer USB stick and plugged it into my xbox.

I decided to use the awesome Auto Installer Deluxe, to get everything setup on the xbox. Doing the softmod was stupid simple. Basically you grab a couple of “game saves” for Splinter Cell, and copy them to your xbox via the handy little USB adapter. Boot Splinter Cell up, and load one of the “saves”. Then you boot AID, and it has a nice graphical menu that walks you through installing what you want. I opted to use XBMC as my dashboard, cuz it’s just awesome. After a few minutes, I had a fully operational xbox media center.

I had no trouble connecting to my samba shares. So now I have mp3z, videos, and all kinds of other cool toys to play with, I even finally ordered another Harmony 880 to use in the living room (we’ve had one in our room for a couple years), since we have way too many remotes and devices. It makes me happy to put this thing to good use again, cuz it’s been collecting dust for over a year since I got my xbox 360.

I love these days, when you get a hair up your ass and decide to start listening to all the old shit you grew up on. It does not happen to me much, so I love it when it does. I’ve spent the last 2 hours listening to nothing but the shit I listened to back in middle school and high school.

worlock is: kickin it 0ld sk00l

Another Monday morning….
The weekend was good, just went by way too fast (don’t they always). I stayed up way too late both nights, which of course means sleeping till at least 11am. Funny thing is, I still did not get much sleep. We went to the drafthouse on Saturday night, and saw Traffic. That was a damn good flick. I loved how it was shot. Went grocery shopping yesterday, it’s nice to have food again. Didn’t do much else this weekend. I’m still trying to get shit straight for the hosting site. Steph is finishing up the design, and hopefully it’ll be operational by the end of the week. She took a break and started the design for my radio station site. I still have some work to do, but it’s at least functional now. Also, my station will be featured on iMNetworks shortly. For those unaware, iM Tuning, is a new form of radio. In a few years, it will be just another radio frequency like AM/FM. In the fall, Phillips will be releasing the first computer free internet radio device, called the FWi1000 bookshelf stereo system. Only stations listed on iMNetworks, will be availible to these devices.

I know, I’m a slacker. I never update my journal these days. Here’s what’s been going on. Last week, I decided that I wanted to start doing streaming audio again since I actually have the bandwidth to do so. So I setup my shoutcast server, with the intention of doing streams occaisonaly. After I started streaming, a few people asked me if it was gonna be on all night, and I was like, ummm probably not. Then I realized that I wanted the stream up all the time, to listen to at work, and at my desk. So I started setting things up, and next thing ya know, there are 6.5 gigz of mp3’z on my HD. Last night I started setting up the website. It is in the fetal stage right now. I have a ton of things I will be doing. Most important, the design. Stephanie, my wondrful wife, is working on re-developing an old design she had done for one of my old sites. It’s gonna rawk! If you wanna check out the stream click here. Enjoy!

So far, it’s been an alright morning. Woke up and got out of bed on time, this is a plus. Stopped and got a donut and some coffee on my way in. Traffic kinda sucked, but it wasn’t that bad.

I forgot to mention that we went to see “Almost Famous” this weekend, it was a pretty cool flick, especially if you were really into the music during the seventies. The soundtrack was dominated by Zep, which just kickz ass, cuz they are my alltime favorite band. So I was inspired to listen to old music today. I listened to some Gary Numan in the car, now I will listen to nothing but Zep and the Police all day at work 🙂