As most everyone knows, I'm a huge fan of the Xbox 360.  I have had mine for over a year and really enjoy how seamlessly it has integrated itself into our family.  Sarahpoo and Amberpoo may actually use it more than me now, and it is the only DVD player in our living room.  I was wondering how the PS3 was going to stack up against the year old Xbox 360 and to be frank, I am utterly shocked at how similar they are in graphics and amazed at some of the items the PS3 can't get right that the Xbox 360 has been doing from launch.  One of the greatest things I love about my Xbox 360 is the up-scaling feature.  I have an older Mitsubishi 65" HDTV and it doesn't handle 720p.  No worries, the Xbox 360 will upscale everything to 1080i.  It looks gorgeous!!  Seems that a special scaler chip is inside the Xbox 360 that handles all of that magic so the processor and graphics chips don't get bogged down worrying about what output resolution needs to be done.  Found a great article that explains it really well over at Ars Technica.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/headstart.ars

Below are just three of the changes that I think the Xbox Live Spring Dashboard update should include to help Microsoft grow it’s online advantage.

Online Game Save Storage.  Microsoft needs to offer online game save storage for Xbox Live Gold members.  This would be a huge advantage for owners who only have a core package and would be a great backup for those of us with a hard drive.  It is not if a hard drive will fail, but when and currently I have no easy way to backup all of my game saves.  This would also be great when you travel over to a friend’s house to be able to get to all of your game saves without having to carry a memory card that may not be big enough to hold everything.  Only offer it to people who are Gold membership

Web Browser.  This doesn’t have to be as fully featured as IE7, but it should be functional enough to do general surfing.  I should be able to pause a game such as Splinter Cell Double Agent and be able to bring up the web browser to find the solution to that stupid email encryption hacking cube.  (That was ridiculously hard!!)  Unpause the game, play some more, then pause and open the browser and it should be on the same page I left it.  It will in no way replace a regular PC web browser; only add to the pervasiveness of being able to access content from all of your connected devices.  Only offer it for users with a hard drive and Xbox Gold level membership.  The Windows XP download was only 14megs, so for the Xbox 360 I guess it might be 30megs since there are probably some items that are native in XP that would need to be included for the Xbox 360 version.

Enhance the Gold Membership level.  Microsoft has just recently started offering game demos to Gold members first.  This needs to be expanded.  Themes and picture packs should be free to Gold members and cost Silver members.  New Dashboard enhancements should be offered first to Gold, then months later to Silver.  When new content hits that is available for everyone, Gold members need to have priority in the download queues.  Have prizes and give a ways of various game related posters, shirts, stickers, etc. for Gold members only.  It was good that Microsoft introduced the Silver level, but as a Gold member, I currently feel that I am subsidizing the features that the Silver members get for free.  Gold members need to feel that they are getting a true service level like first class vs. coach.  Right now it feels like my first class membership only allows me to board the plane first and sit in the front row of coach.  I shouldn't have to see advertisements on my dashboard if I am a Gold member.  Advertisements should be limited to Silver since they don't pay anything.  For those of us who have been on Live since the beginning, give us a special look to our gamertag.  Make us alumni or something like that.

Adding these items would nullify most of all the advantages that the PS3 has introduced and be innovative in offering features that the PS3 team hasn’t even considered.

Just found a funny time waster site at http://www.msdewey.com  It is amazing how many different clips there are.  Try some of the following for an example:

Where do babies come from
Beer
jump rope
hdtv monitor
ipod music
dvd movies
Microsoft
there is no spoon
fishing
where can I get a date
std
george bush
bill clinton
does size matter
football
best buy
cry for me
dance

OK, it's official....we as a family are addicted to the new Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360.  We have bought three games now, Bejeweled 2, Zuma, and now Outpost Kaloki X.  Sarahpoo is currently playing two or three others that we will more than likely buy as well.  You just have to love being able to buy a simple fun game for $10 and getting to try it before you buy it.  Can't wait to see what else they bring out in the coming months.  I would buy the old arcade game called Kix which came be downloaded for PC at http://www.dosgames.com/g_cla.php

Yup, it's true, I'm a better person because I play video games.

 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060209.wxbrains09/BNStory/Science/home

Well I learned a new TLA (Three letter acronym) today and I must say that it applies here at my home.  WAF - Wife Acceptance Factor.  Seems that some guys have a tendency to go overboard with gadgets in the wife's view.  I can't understand that since I think all gadgets are cool, but I can see this with my wife Sarahpoo.  So, now when I want a new gadget I have a name to the process of figuring out a way to sell this to her.  I'll give a couple of examples.

DVR - Digital Video Recorder.  I wanted to get the new DVR that Dish was offering.  Talked to Sarahpoo about it, and she said I could get it, but that she didn't think it was useful or that she would use it.  The WAF was very low on this one, but after we got it the WAF shot through the roof.  She found that she couldn't watch TV without it and just loved how she could record all sorts of shows that she would normally miss and it wasn't a hassle to program.

Xbox 360 - WAF initial factor was not very high since we already had the original Xbox and it was still working fine.  Once we got it and then got Hexic, Zuma, and Bejeweled 2 it was a fight for time to use it.

As you can see, sometimes the WAF is low then grows.  I don't know if this is failure on my part to do a good sales job, or if my wifey just has to experience it before she accepts it.  I know the next gadget I want I will have to work harder on the sales pitch.

Well, we survived another Christmas.  It was wonderful.  Friday night the 23rd we went to Sarahpoo's parents and had the normal torturously slow gift opening marathon, then spent the night and did stockings the next morning.  Everyone got lots of neat stuff, and we had many laughs.

Christmas eve we participated in our church play and it went very well.  We had 700-800 people attend (actually, we just found out there were 1100+) and the jumbled mess that was practice a couple of days earlier dissapeared and a beautiful event happend.  Weird how things seem to gel at the last moment.

Christmas morning we got Amberpoo up at around 7:15 and starting in on her presents.  At about 7:25 Mammy and Papa showed up and got to watch het tear into her gifts.  I got some cool shake flashlights that require no batteries.

Christmas afternoon we went over to my Cousins house to celebrate with my Mom.  Good food, and great gifts happened there as well.

Pictures should be up sometime tomorrow.  Now I just need to figure out where to put all of this stuff!!!!