Because I like Portal SO MUCH....

Because I like the video game PORTAL so much, Im listing a bunch of my favorite quotes from the game. They are absolutely hilarious, and Im super excited for the SEQUEL!!!!!!!!

• "Spectacular. You appear to understand how a portal affects forward momentum, or to be more precise, how it does not. Momentum, a function of mass and velocity, is conserved between portals. In layman's terms, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out."
• "Please be advised that a noticeable taste of blood is not part of any test protocol but is an unintended side effect of the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grid, which may, in semi-rare cases, emancipate dental fillings, crowns, tooth enamel, and teeth."
• [in a room flooded with toxic acid] "Please note that we have added a consequence for failure. Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an 'unsatisfactory' mark on your official testing record, followed by death. Good luck!"
• "The Enrichment Center promises to always provide a safe testing environment. In dangerous testing environments, the Enrichment Center promises to always provide useful advice. For instance, the floor here will kill you. Try to avoid it."
• "Did you know you can donate one or all of your vital organs to the Aperture Science self esteem fund for girls? It's true!"
• "The Enrichment Center is committed to the well being of all participants. Cake and grief counseling will be available at the conclusion of the test. Thank you for helping us help you help us all."
• "Remember, the Aperture Science 'Bring Your Daughter to Work Day' is the perfect time to have her tested."
• "Unbelievable. You, [subject name here], must be the pride of [subject hometown here]!"
• "As an optional test protocol, we are pleased to present an amusing fact. The device is now more valuable than the organs and combined incomes of everyone in [subject hometown here]."
• "The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Weighted Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak."
• "The Enrichment Center reminds you that the Companion Cube cannot speak. In the event that the Companion Cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice."
• "If the Weighted Companion Cube could speak, and the Enrichment Center takes this opportunity to remind you that it cannot, it would tell you to go on without it because it would rather die in a fire than become a burden to YOU."
• [near the end of the nineteenth and final test chamber] "Congratulations. The test is now over. All Aperture technologies remain safely operational up to 4000 degrees Kelvin. Rest assured that there is absolutely no chance of a dangerous equipment malfunction prior to your victory candescence. [the moving platform the player is standing on is sinking into a fire pit] Thank you for participating in this Aperture Science computer-aided enrichment activity. Goodbye."
• "Didn't we have some fun though? Remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and I said 'Goodbye,' and you were like [in low pitched voice]'No way,' Then I was all like 'We pretended we were going to murder you?'[sigh] That was great."

---

• "Well, you found me. Congratulations. Was it worth it? Because despite your violent behavior, the only thing you have managed to break so far is my heart. Maybe you could settle for that and we'll just call it a day? I guess we both know that isn't going to happen... You chose this path, and now I have a surprise for you."
• "Deploying surprise in five... four... [morality core becomes detached from GLaDOS and falls to the floor] Time out for a second. That wasn't supposed to happen. Do you see that thing that fell out of me? What is that? It's not the surprise... I've never seen it before. Never mind, it's a mystery I'll solve later, by myself, because you'll be dead."*
• "That thing is probably some kind of raw sewage container. Go ahead and wipe your face all over it."
• "Maybe you should marry that thing because you love it so much. Do you want to marry it? WELL I WON'T LET YOU! How does that feel?"
• "I am being serious now. That crazy thing is not part of any test protocol."
• "Have I lied to you? [pause] I mean, in this room? Trust me, leave that thing alone."
• [After burning the morality core] "[Garbled Sounds] You're kidding me. Did you just stuff that Aperture Science Thing We Don't Know What It Does into an Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator? That has got to be the dumbest thing that whoah, whoah, whoah. [Laughs] [In a much lower voice] Good news, I figured out what that thing you just incinerated did. It was a morality core they installed after I flooded the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin to make me stop flooding the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin, so get comfortable while I warm up the neurotoxin emitters."
• "Huh. That core must have had some ancillary responsibilities. I can't shut off the turret defences. Oh well. If you want my advice, you should just go lie down in front of a rocket. Trust me, it will be a lot less painful than the neurotoxin."
• "Keep doing whatever it is you think you're doing. Killing you and giving you good advice aren't mutually exclusive. The rocket really is the way to go."
• "Two plus two is f-f-f-f... ten. [distorted sounds] ...in base four; I'm fine!"
• "That thing you burned up isn't important to me. It's the fluid catalytic cracking unit. It made shoes for orphans. Nice job breaking it, hero."
• "I'd just like to point out that you were given every opportunity to succeed. There was even going to be a party for you. A big party that all your friends were invited to. I invited your best friend the Companion Cube. Of course, he couldn't come because you murdered him. All your other friends couldn't come either because you don't have any other friends. Because of how unlikeable you are. It says so here in your personnel file: Unlikeable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikeable loner whose passing shall not be mourned. 'Shall not be mourned.' That's exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says you were adopted. So that's funny, too."
• "Speaking of curiosity, you're curious about what happens after you die, right? Guess what? I know! You're going to find out first-hand before I can finish telling you, though, so I won't bother. I'll give you a hint: you're going to want to pack as much living as you possibly can into the next couple of minutes."
• "I have your brain scanned and permanently backed up in case something terrible happens to you... which it's just about to. Don't believe me? Here. I'll put you on. [in a high pitched voice] Hello! [normal voice] That's you! That's how dumb you sound! You've been wrong about every single thing you've ever done, including this thing. You're not smart. You're not a scientist. You're not a doctor. You're not even a full-time employee. Where did your life go so wrong?"
• "Your entire life has been a mathematical error. A mathematical error I'm about to correct."
• "This isn't brave. It's murder. What did I ever do to you?"

---

• "We both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
• "We're a lot alike, you and I. You tested me. I tested you. You killed me, I... oh no, wait. I guess I haven't killed you yet. Well... food for thought."

Weekend

This week has been kinda weird, since I havent really felt like writing. I guess not a whole lot is going on in my life these days... something which I need to fix.

But for the time being, heres the wrap up of my weekend in song/video.

Spring is a Long, LONG ways away

Ive only owned my PS3 for 5 days, and already its causing me problems.

Thank GOD there arent any super awesome games coming out for it this Fall. They have all been pushed back to Spring, which is nice.

But I just went over the Top 25 PS3 games of all time, and sadly, most of them look rather enticing.

But Im busy now, and I dont have time for that.

I dont have time for Metal Gear Solid, the God of War series, Little Big Planet, Kill Zone 2, or the Uncharted SERIES.

No, no. I dont have time for any of that. Not right now..... not right now........

Hell, next week Fallout New Vegas comes out, and then Force Unleashed 2, and then Fable 3. I mean shit, how am I supposed to get anything done even with these games on the release?

Heres the thing, and trust me, I ask myself this question A LOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

"Wouldnt it just be easier if I got paid to play video games and write about them for a living?"

The small, tiny problem is, this isnt a passion for me. This is, and might always be - a straight-up addiction. What you dont know- is that 50% of time, I GROAN a little bit at how LONG a game is, or how much MORE I have to go.  Its like Im fighting just to get to the end! In a bad way.

Games arent even super enjoyable for me anymore. They arent. Really, they arent.

I do it because Im searching. Im always searching for that something more. That one experience. That one moment of sheer brilliance where the game has successfully drawn you in, grabbed hold of your gut, and pulls you along for the ride with you believing every second of it. You arent just playing anymore, but you are feeling exactly what the character is feeling, and you wince with every difficult decision or move.

And in this moment, I realize what I have always know. I play video games because of exactly why all my counselors have told me I play - and that is to get away. To successfully make the jump from my life to another, better than my own, and live, even for a short, brief moment, in the shoes of someone else who has all the power and glory of success and magic that my life doesnt possess.

Its not quite as sad as it sounds, but then again it might be. Its 100% accurate that I only bother with the games that have garnered exceedingly high reviews. I dont have time for them all.  Its why I only got my PS3 just recently. By and large, the PS3 only pumps out 1, maybe 2 awesome games a year. While the Xbox guarantees 4 or more, at least. It was never worth it to have the PS3, for just like the Wii, it sits cold and out of use because I dont want to play any games on it.

Its also why I dont really care for first person shooters without a compelling storyline. All those do, as Halo:Reach just did to me, is feed me with an excessively high dose of aggression and madness. It throws me into war mode, and lord knows I dont need more of that. I have enough diva mode to last a life time, thanks. Besides, after so much aggression and violence, I get so desensitized that its not like Im even feeling anymore anyways. And thats not what I want, at all.

So what to do from here? You know, I cant say I actually know. I dont think this is about feeling better about myself. It is about escape, but thats not to say I dont love my life. I do, but Im also lazy, and love instant gratification. When I play, its a stones throw away from some sort of self satisfaction and achievement. But when I put the controller down, all I feel is empty and worthless, because I know that within the realm of my own life, I have actually accomplished nothing at all. That feeling hits every time.

The problem is that my mind is trained to procrastinate and be lazy until something dire enough occurs that forces me to change the pattern. Like an F on a paper or a test, I wont change my ways til something shakes me and makes me. And instant gratification is AWFUL nice, aint it?

Ho hum. Too bad I havent kept track of my hours playing video games over the years. I betcha a nickle I have enough video game hours, accumulated JUST over the last 3 years, to fill up OVER a month of my life. A solid month, 24/7, given to video games.

Damn. I was hoping thatd stir me in some way. It didnt.

Ive been writing and thinking for a while, and my workout from earlier has stripped my legs of ease, and im in a lot of pain now, actually, meaning I need to get to bed sooner than later.

But this is a conversation we'll continue another time, I suppose. Or not. Or maybe.......

Maybe I will just wait until Spring. After all, its not like I can deny myself the pleasure of games I have been WAITING for, right?

Oh dear.

In Brief: Got the new Xbox 360 Dashboard!

I dont wanna upload shitty pictures of mine, but heres basically what shows on my Xbox now.  AWESOME.

 Be Jealous.

Source: Engadget

Notables 8/23/10

Notable things I remember about today. Hopefully I will do this everyday.

1) Woke up and my Dad had kindly sorted through my "cleaning out" pile.

2) I showered at 5pm, and ate "breakfast" at 6:45pm.

3) Got the new Xbox 360.

4) Card got denied due me not being in Oregon anymore.

5) Dude at Target who sold me the Xbox 360 was a SUPER CUTE nerd. I mean like, I was having trouble resisting asking him about his personal life. Man, he was cute. His name was Troy.

6) Worked on that hard drive issue a lot. Its 3am. Im still working on it.

7) Wound up on "The Hill" at 1am for Jimmy Johns. Dude in a window shouting to dudes on the street. He used the word faggot a lot, and yet his voice was quite high pitched. I giggled a little, understanding the circumstances, then moved on.

8) Tried Outlook 2011 for Mac today. It wouldnt work with my Oregon exchange account, so I called SAIT, and they had no clue. But they said they would keep my account open so I could be their guinea pig and help them test it. Yay!

Picture of the Day:

The Xbox 360 you wish you had: The Iron Man Xbox 360.

How I Conquered the Xbox 360 Slim Hard Drive

Wow, what a wild past couple of days. Ive been cleaning like crazy, trying to get adjusted back to life in Boulder, CO.  But that meant first moving my 19-year old self old OUT of my room before my 23 year old self could move in.

... But thats a different post, with pictures.

Right now I wanna talk about how I am slowly, but surely, conquering the Xbox 360 Slim Hard Drive.

The story starts with me being impatient. My room at home doesnt have an Ethernet port for me to plug my current Xbox 360 into.  That means no Netflix Instant Streaming to my HDTV. However, I could go out and buy a wireless adapter for $100 bux that would make it work in my house, since my house has wireless.

Or I could buy the new $300 Xbox 360 Slim edition that has the wireless adapter built in.

Having money in my pocket, I promptly went out and bought the new Xbox 360 with a 250GB hard drive.

Now that I had my new Xbox, I needed to transfer all my old data from the old Xbox onto the new one.

So I went back to the store and bought a $20 transfer cable. (Remember, Im doing all this to avoid paying for the $100 adapter. Im saving money, right?)

So I came home and transferred all the data from my old Xbox to my new one.

Simple enough right?

Well, not quite. The Xboxs got to talking and decided they didnt want to transfer all my installed games from the hard drive, which is about 50GB of data. Well, that didnt sit ok with me. I was pissed.

I was super pissed. Thats dumb, I thought. There must be a way around this.

So I got to researching, and I found a program that will copy ANY data from one Xbox hard drive to a PC, and then back out to another Xbox hard drive.

So I got to work, slowly moving over all the data from the hard drive.  This first part was simple enough, as the cable I bought from the store was a simple connect one end here, and the USB end to the PC.  Done and done.

Then i went to repeat this process for the new Xbox 360 hard drive, the slim model.

Again, I was thrown a curve ball.

The new Xbox 360 slim hard drive uses a standard SATA port, instead of an eSATA port that the transfer cable uses.  Another words, I couldnt just plug in the new hard drive to the cable.

Oh no. It wouldnt be that easy, laughed my new shiny hard drive.

But a thought occurred to me. This is a STANDARD SATA port. Couldnt I just plug in the hard drive to an external hard drive shell and run it through the USB port that the drive shells come with?

So around the house I went, grabbing every custom made external hard drive I could find, and ripping them apart. After ripping apart 3 of them, I finally found one that would work.

My little... contraption... is displayed below:

Left: New Hard Drive. Right: Old Hard Drive

So as you can see, the old hard drive plugged into the cable as didnt need any mess.  The one on the left, however, the new shiny black hard drive, needed some.... tender loving care.

And this, sadly, was only half the battle. Now I am patiently waiting as each file uploads back to the new hard drive, carefully coding each folder to match the 8 hexi-decimal code so that the new Xbox can read it right.

Its been 2 hours, and Im not even done with the first set of files. There are EIGHT sets of files. Oy vey, I dont even know if this will work yet!

But Im proud of myself though. Even when the Xbox said no, I said yes, and I pushed til I got the answer I want.

Side note: My dad will kinda be pissed when he finds out ultimately it was his hard drive shell I had to take apart for my contraption to work.  Oops. Ill put it back together before I go to bed.

More posts to come soon!  Especially one Im excited to write about dealing with parents hosting drinking parties.  It will very much be a Student Affairs post, and Ill be excited for feedback!