The Black Donnellys

Best show on TV that got cancelled.  Watch the entire first season on Netflix!

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Accolades

Unstoppable: Longest killstreak
Sharpshooter: Most headshots
Wingman: Most assists
Devastation: Highest multikill
Clutch Player: Match Winning Kill
The Feared: Most kills
MVP: Most kills/Fewest deaths
Overkill: Most kills/Most headshots
Steamroller: Most kills/Longest killstreak
The Show: 10 kills/No deaths
Supernatural: Kill/Death ratio over 10
Decimator: Killed entire enemy team without dying
Immortal: Highest kill/death ratio
Juggernaut: Fewest deaths
Pathfinder Most UAVs
Top Gun: Most airstrikes
Air Ops: Most helicopters
Flanker: Most kills from behind
Blindfire: Most bullet penetration kills
Vengeful: Most paybacks
Avenger: Most avenger kills
Rescuer: Most rescues
Marksman: Most longshots
Upriser: Most kills of higher rank
Revenge: Most last stand kills
Executioner: Most execution kills
Genocidal: Most multikills
Rally: Most comebacks
Lifer: Longest life
Statuesque: Most stationary kills
Lights Out: Most tactical insertions prevented
Shell Shocked: Most explosions survived
Unbreakable: Most bullets deflected
Blinder: Most flashbang hits
Stunner: Most stun grenade kills
Hot Potato: Most grenades thrown back
None Spared: Killed entire enemy team
6th Sense: No deaths from behind
Switchblade: Most knife kills
Hard Boiled: Most pistol kills
Grenadier: Most grenade kills
Fragger: Most frag grenade kills
C4 Killer: Most C4 kills
Semtex Pro: Most semtex kills
Ambusher: Most claymore kills
Butcher: Most throwing knife kills
CQB: Most SMG kills
AR Specialist: Most assault rifle kills
Explosivo: Most rocket kills
Buckshot: Most shotgun kills
7.62MM: Most LMG kills
Sniper: Most sniper kills
Smoking Gun: Most pistol headshots
SMG Expert: Most SMG headshots
AR Expert: Most assault rifle headshots
Boomstick: Most shotgun headshots
LMG Expert: Most LMG headshots
Dead Aim: Most sniper headshots
Survivalist: Most equipment kills
Magnifier: Most scoped kills
White Hot: Most thermal kills
Exterminator: Most thumper kills
Crowd Control: Most riot shield kills
Hairtrigger: Most ADS kills (Aiming Down Sights)
Sprayer: Most hipfire kills
Alpha Male: Most kills of lower rank
Loaner: Most kills with enemy weapons
Nomad: Longest distance traveled
Runner: Most time spent sprinting
Sneaker: Most time spent crouched
Grassy Knoll: Most time spent prone
Spy Game: Most time watching killcams
Lock & Load: Most reloads
Weapon Rack: Most weapon swaps
Trigger Happy: Most shots fired
Lockdown: Most time spent in one place
High Command: Highest average altitude
Low Profile: Lowest average altitude
Nearsighted: Most friendlies shot
Grudge Match: Most kills of same player
Arsenal: Most weapons used
Undercover: Most time near enemies
Evolver: Most classes changed
Starter: Most killcams skipped
Participant: No kills/At least 1 death
Accident prone: Most suicides
Blindsided: Most deaths from behind
Clay Pigeon: Most deaths by shotgun
Terminal: Shortest life
Deathrow: Longest deathstreak
Hijacker: Most stolen kills
AFK: No kills/No deaths
Protester: Most deaths by riot shield
Warming Up: Just getting started PLUS the warming up accolade is for getting no other accolades in a private match, so you have to play a full length match in a private match and get no other accolades while doing it.
Bomb Expert: Most bombs planted
Defuser: Most bombs defused
Destroyer: Most targets destroyed
Bomb Blocker: Most bomb carrier kills
Bomb Threat: Most kills as a bomb carrier
Bomb Runner: Most bombs carried
Dominator: Most points captured
HQ Capturer: Most HQs captured
HQ Destroyer: Most HQs destroyed
Flag Capturer: Most flags captured
Flag Returner: Most flags returned
Flag Runner: Most flags carried
Flag Blocker: Most flag carrier kills
Double Threat: Most kills as flag carrier

Home Videos on your TV

I posted before my goal of having all my home videos available for viewing on my HDTV in the living room.  The XBOX hasn’t quite delivered.  Lo and behold I recently gave my PS3 another try and it does circles around the XBOX! I can view all my MPEG2 video using the free TVersity Media Server application running on my PC.  I can now get rid of all the lower quality .MP4 files I created for the XBOX.  Maybe the XBOX will one day be updated to allow it to stream the same MPEG2 files; or perhaps it would work today if I knew how to set it up better.  I wonder if the iPad with iTunes running on my PC will be able to stream my video; if it can it will probably be limited to what formats it will stream (QuickTime).

I ran into the following error message on the PS3 while trying to connect to TVersity:

Media Server Error: DLNA Protocol Error (501) has occurred.

This thread lead me to this solution on the TVersity site.

Recovering GamerTag on a new XBOX

We just got back our XBOX that was freezing up. Turns out Microsoft was willing to fix it free of charge because it was a Core system.  This system has already been sent in for the red ring of death.

This first Core XBOX I bought used, was a huge bundle. It came with a hard drive, wireless adapter, driving wheel, a custom Gears of War metal carrying case, lots of games, controllers, wireless headset, charging units, Memory Unit.

Microsoft sent a replacement unit which has a new Serial #.  On boot up I had to answer some first-time questions as a brand new system.  I didn’t have any problem with my XBOX live profiles (FrostySlam and  SuperSlam2)  because I keep those on MUs so David and I can play on either one of our two systems.    If  I had kept our XBOX live profiles on the hard drive, it would have been another story.

Tonight a friend called because he had just gotten back HIS XBox  from the Microsoft repair center, but after connecting his Hard Drive his XBOX Live gamertag was missing.  I suggested he needed to recover the gamertag.  I researched a bit and found out why he had to do this.

When you download content, the content is registered to the gamertag that downloaded as well as to the XBOX that it was downloaded on.  That means ANYONE can use the content on that XBOX, like extra map-packs to Call of Duty or Arcade games (without having to connect to XBOX Live).  In addition, you can re-download and use that content on any other XBOX as long as you are logged in using the gamertag that downloaded the content.  That works out great for us because an extra purchase can be used by both David and I as long as we download on one XBOX, then take the gamertag to the other and download and  use it there.

In addition, it seems that the gamertag is also somehow tied to the xbox on which it was purchased.  So simply replacing the hard drive isn’t going to allow the gamertag to be active on that xbox, hence the need to recover a gamertag on a new xbox even though you connect the hard drive that had the gamertag stored on it.

My friend, having the worst luck, ran into one more problem as he was recovering his gamertag on the new XBOX. He got the message “cannot find a storage device or not enough space to recover game tag”.  He needed to go Settings…Memory…Gamer Profiles and delete his XBox live gamertag (it showed up THERE) because it was apprently corrupt.  That allowed him to recover his gamertag again.

A few posts on the subject: 1 2 3

KLUX for Elevator Music

I don’t expect to get many takers on this but even though this will place an old fogie label on me, I’m secure enough in my music tastes to write that there is a time and place for even Elevator Music (besides the elevator).  Sometimes I just get tired of other genres.  Playing music at work, it’s easy to overplay the same tunes.  I actually discovered this station when we were staying at a Condo in Port Aransas.  The calming tunes just seemed to fit our laid back vacation and we kept it on this station most of the trip.  The KLUX website is here which contains several streaming links.

This is a Catholic station so you will get religious service announcements. You’ve been warned.

There may be other similar stations but I don’t know any, feel free to recommend others that would be worthy replacements.

Update: Someone pointed out that those are an unfortunate set of call letters. True enough but I discovered things could be worse.

Watching movies in Windows Media Center

I’ve transferred some of my movies to an external hard drive to make it more convenient to browse, select and watch a movie.   Windows Media Center makes it easy to select and play movies stored on disk.  First you will need to enable My DVDs by editing a registry setting.  Details are found in this post. It will instruct you to edit the following key:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings].

and change  ”ShowGallery”=”Play” to “ShowGallery”=”Gallery”

You will next want to select folders to monitor for movies.  It turns out that the settings for My Videos are used to locate DVDs on disk as well.    Navigate to the My Videos Screen, then hit <Ctrl><D> or right click or hit the Info button on the Windows Media remote.  Select Add Videos from the popup menu.   You will be able to add or remove folders.

WMC doesn’t show you artwork for your movies so you will have to manually provide an image to use in the main My DVDs screen.  I get all my artwork from CD Covers.  You will need to name the image folder.jpg and place it in the folder where your ripped movie is stored (the folder CONTAINING the VIDEO_TS folder).  Not the easiest process to go through but once you’ve done it you have a nice free  catalog for your movies.

Paintball around Austin

There are three primary fields I know of around Austin.  We’ve been to Hill13 the most because it is the most convenient to us.  I have not been to Texas Paintball but I know it is a much larger place and a more expensive than Hill13.  Some of David’s friends that have been there prefer Hill13. They particulary did NOT like crack house field at Texas Paintball.  They actually quit in the middle because they were too intimidated at being “trapped” in the crack house.  David and I visited Extreme PB years ago and liked it. We hope to return soon.  Here are comparisons of the three fields:

Texas Paintball (No  outside paint allowed)
Reviews: http://www.pbreview.com/fields/reviews/639/
Price:     $41.95 (500 rounds) $15 field fee
Paint:    $43 1000 rounds, $78 2000 rounds

Hill13 (Outside paint for personal guns allowed)
Reviews:http://www.pbreview.com/fields/reviews/2956/ 
Price: $40 (500 rounds). $12 Field Fee, $8 all-day air
Paint:  $17 500 rounds, $30 1000 rounds, $57 2000 rounds. They charge $8 for allowing you to use your own paint unless you previously bought it there.

Xtreme Paintball (No outside paint allowed)
Reviews:              http://www.pbreview.com/fields/reviews/2562/
Price:                     $40 (500 rounds, includes NXE Pack (pods & belt) )
CO2 Refill:           $19,12oz $2 20oz $5 all-day
Paint:                   $35/$40 1000 rounds $60/$80 2000 rounds

Other field not visited:

Outlaw Paintball Field (Pflugerville)

So over Halo 3. COD4 is where it’s at.

David can’t get enough of Call of Duty 4.  I have to admit, it is quite compelling.  The campaign is fun, but I found playing multiplayer online was extremely difficult.  You get killed almost instantly!  I kept at it and I’m finally at the point where I’m doing well and really enjoying it.  I really like the team work aspect of Search and Destroy.  Nothing beats hearing “Comrade, you’re the last one. Complete the objective!” and actually managing to kill the last two opponents or detonating the bomb while David, who is playing along with me from upstairs, watches and encourages me through our chat session yelling YEAH!!! when I manage to win the game for our team.  Doesn’t happen very often but when it does….sweet!

I read an interview with somebody involved with the game and he made two points I found very interesting. First, they took a great deal of time making sure that there were no completely “safe” spots where you could camp through the whole game.  Virtually every “good” spot has another spot from which you could get shot!
The other point was that they wanted the game to be fair for a newbie when they found themselves up against an experienced player.  They felt if you had the “jump” on a guy, you should be able to win that fire-fight. And even though more experienced players may have better equipment it shouldn’t give them TOO big of an advantage.  That’s why the almost-instant kills in COD4 can make for a better online experience than Halo 3 which due to the shields, allows a better player to turn things around and easily overtake a novice that started out with the advantage.

Prestige Modes Icons (Thanks Pavel)

Points needed to rank and unlock weapons and perks.

RANK (number/rank title/xp required)

1 Private First Class 0
2 Private First Class I 30
3 Private First Class II 120
4 Lance Corporal 270
5 Lance Corporal I 480
6 Lance Corporal II 750
7 Corporal 1080
8 Corporal I 1470
9 Corporal II 1920
10 Sergeant 2430
11 Sergeant I 3000
12 Sergeant II 3650
13 Staff Sergeant 4380
14 Staff Sergeant I 5190
15 Staff Sergeant II 6080
16 Gunnery Sergeant 7050
17 Gunnery Sergeant I 8100
18 Gunnery Sergeant II 9230
19 Master Sergeant 10440
20 Master Sergeant I 11730
21 Master Sergeant II 13100
22 Master Gunnery Sergeant 14550
23 Master Gunnery Sergeant I 16080
24 Master Gunnery Sergeant II 17690
25 2nd Lieutenant 19380
26 2nd Lieutenant I 21150
27 2nd Lieutenant II 23000
28 1st Lieutenant 24930
29 1st Lieutenant I 26940
30 1st Lieutenant II 29030
31 Captain 31240
32 Captain I 33570
33 Captain II 36020
34 Major 38590
35 Major I 41280
36 Major II 44090
37 Lt. Colonel 47020
38 Lt. Colonel 50070
39 Lt. Colonel II 53240
40 Colonel 56530
41 Colonel I 59940
42 Colonel II 63470
43 Brigadier General 67120
44 Brigadier General I 70890
45 Brigadier General II 74780
46 Major General 78790
47 Major General I 82920
48 Major General II 87170
49 Lieutenant General 91540
50 Lieutenant General I 96030
51 Lieutenant General II 100640
52 General 105370
53 General I 110220
54 General II 115190
55 Commander 120280

UNLOCKABLES (Unlockable/Rank #)

Features

Demolitions Class 2
Sniper Class 3
Create-A-Class 4
Challenges 5
Clan Tag 12
Prestige Mode 55

Pistols

M9 0
M1911 .45 16
USP .45 0
Desert Eagle 43
Golden Desert Eagle 55

SMGs

Mini Uzi 13
MP5 1
Skorpion 4
AK74u 28
P90 40

LMGs

M60E4 19
M249 SAW 1
RPD 4

Shotguns

W1200 2
M1014 31

Assault Rifles

AK 47 4
M4 Carbine 10
G3 25
M16A4 1
G36c 37
M14 46
MP44 52

Sniper Rifles

SVD 22
M21 8
M40A3 3
Barrett .50cal 49
R700 34

Perk 1

C-4 x2 1
Special Grenade x3 1
RPG-7 x2 2
Claymore x2 23
Frag x3 41
Bandolier 32
Bomb Squad 14

Perk 2

Stopping Power 1
Juggernaut 1
Sleight of Hand 20
Double Tap 29
Overkill 38
UAV Jammer 11
Sonic Boom 1

Perk 3

Extreme Conditioning 1
Steady Aim 1
Last Stand 8
Martydom 17
Deep Impact 1
Iron Lungs 26
Dead Silence 44
Eavesdrop 35

Wait wait don’t tell me: Radio podcast

I stumbled across Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, an NPR show recently one Saturday morning.  Few shows makes me laugh outloud but this one does and I highly recommend it.  It’s actually pretty informative since they take news items of the day and make fun of them.  I’ve subcribed to the weekly podcasts in iTunes

Survivor China: James is a class act

Never have a group of folks been so scared of repercussions for going behind someone’s back when voting a trusted tribe member off.  James was physically strong, assertive, a force.  But I have to say James’  final words were the classiest I’ve heard.  He basically said he wasn’t mad, they did what they had to do,  it was a smart move on their part, and the  most impressive, he blamed himself for throwing the dice one too many times and not playing one of the TWO idols in his possession.

Hats off to you James!

I’d like to see a show where the “social” aspect is deemphasized and the “survivor” skills more emphasized.  The most worthy ones rarely win.