Tag Archives: christmas

Meet the Turtle Beach PX21 Headset

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Posted by Rob on December 30, 2011 – 11:13 am
Filed under Video Games
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When I first picked up the PS3 and was in need of a headset, I went with the Official PS3 Bluetooth (since for some bizarre reason Sony refuses to box even the lowest quality headset with consoles like Microsoft does) At the time it was bundled with some SOCOM game, and I immediately traded in the game once I had the Bluetooth in my possession. I’ve been using it for almost three years, and it got the job done. However, over the past year I have begun to find it uncomfortable in my ear. With Christmas over, I decided to use up some cash and treat myself (and my ears) to a new headset. Enter the Turtle Beach PX21 Headset!

Here are the things I like about it:

  • It’s versatile: It works with my PS3, 360 and PC (and a Mac if I was silly enough to blow my money on such an overpriced piece of junk)
  • It’s comfortable: The official PS3 Bluetooth was extremely uncomfortable when I had to jam the bud into my ear hole. The PX21 is a nice comfy set of headphones that fit nicely over my entire head and are made of a much softer material. And while the headset is wired, the wire is long enough (16 feet) where it’s not an issue at all. Read More »

My Christmas Swag 2011

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Posted by Rob on December 26, 2011 – 9:00 am
Filed under Board & Card Games, Books, Food & Drink, Movies, Music, Randomness, Sports, TV Shows, Video Games
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Just wanted to share some of my Christmas swag:

Games:

DVDs:

  • Futurama Volume 6 Bluray
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
  • Simpsons Season 14 DVD Read More »

Best Buy Hates Santa

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Posted by Rob on December 13, 2011 – 6:54 pm
Filed under Randomness
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When it comes to the Christmas season, I’m quite the jolly fellow. I especially love the whole culture behind Santa Claus and have even written a story or two diving further into the mythos of the big guy in red. So when I saw Best Buy’s new campaign ads this season, I was a bit turned off. Here is one example of their holiday-bashing. I tried to get more off youtube but Best Buy blocked any direct link to them from their youtube account.

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So Best Buy’s idea for a great marketing campaign is to bash on Santa. I’m not exactly a fan of this…what are kids going to think? They’re going to ask their parents “oh Mommy did you buy me these gifts instead of Santa?” And how does this make mothers look? They are a bunch of kids themselves, taunting Santa as he brings their children free gifts. Who does that?!

How could Best Buy possibly think that a bunch of commercials that make Santa look like a chump could possibly be a good idea. This is almost as bad as Dr. Peppers “Dr. Pepper 10″ marketing strategy that says their new drink is too manly for women to drink. But attacking Santa is going to put you on the naughty list faster than making stupid, cliched 1930′s sexist comments.

 

My Top Five Simpsons Christmas Episodes

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Posted by Rob on December 9, 2011 – 12:31 pm
Filed under TV Shows
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Every December Shell and I get ready for the holidays by pulling out all of our Christmas movies and begin watching them. Of course I consider my two “Christmas with the Simpsons” DVDs part of this tradition and it’s nice to get to watch a bunch of Christmas-themed episodes back to back without having to switch through all the DVDs. Unfortunately not all of the episodes on the DVDs are Christmas-related but are included as a filler mainly because there is snow in the episode, or if Christmas is briefly mentioned but not the center of the episode. So I decided to put together a list of my five favorite Christmas-themed Simpsons episodes. Most of these can be found on the DVDs, but one is not present for some unknown reason.

5. Miracle on Evergreen Terrace

How You Can Watch It: Season 9 DVD, Christmas with the Simpsons DVD

Rundown: This episode is based around Bart ruining Christmas. He decides to open his presents early and ends up burning the tree down on accident. Rather than tell the family that he ruined Christmas he buries the remains outside and then tells the family that he saw a burglar steal the tree and toys. The townspeople gladly donate money to the family a la “It’s a Wonderful Life” but once Bart confesses and the truth is known, the townspeople feel like they’ve been scammed. The Simpsons are shunned until the townspeople believe that the only way to make things right is to steal stuff from the Simpsons to get their money back, and the episode ends with the family fighting/bonding over their last remaining possession: a washcloth.

Why I Like It: It’s a great Christmas story. You have the family all excited and geared up for Christmas until Bart ruins it. The Simpsons soon find themselves stripped of all their stuff but still find happiness having just the washcloth. It’s not the best Christmas episode but it’s more Christmasy than Mr. Plow. Read More »

Fried Game Consoles, or The Importance of Having a Good Surge Protector

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Posted by Rob on December 1, 2011 – 6:28 pm
Filed under Video Games
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Only slightly exaggerated

So there I was…Shell was doing some research on the computer last night, which meant it was time for me to play a bit. I turned the PS3 on, booted up the new Jurassic Park game, and was in the options screen getting things situated when all of a sudden my PS3 just died. There were no blinking lights, no beeps and blips, just complete and utter silence and stillness. I pushed and held buttons, plugged and unplugged wires, gave the PS3 a tour of all the outlets in the apartment, but no such luck. I was horrified, and it got even worse as I tried to turn the system back on without success. I was crushed.

This morning I gave Amazon a call to see about getting an exchange. I had purchased this system in September, so the 30 day return policy was long overdue. But I didn’t let Amazon’s policy stop me from getting what I wanted. I spent an hour talking to two customer service reps and one supervisor before I convinced them to give me a refund. It was a battle, but a battle worth fighting, as the alternative was to wait weeks for Sony to “fix” it, and we all know those don’t always go as planned. So I packed the PS3 up and took it off to UPS so that Amazon can do what they want with it. Read More »

Picked Up “Under the Dome” from the Local Library

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Posted by Rob on March 5, 2011 – 6:26 pm
Filed under Books
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I finished up most of the books I received for Christmas, so it was back to the library for me. I have been interested in Stephen King’s Under the Dome for quite awhile, but the three copies that the library had were always checked out. While all three regular copies were still checked out today, I was able to get my hands on the large print edition. It’s pretty ridiculous, clocking in at a massive 1400+ pages in hardcover. Still, I’m just glad I finally snagged a copy. I haven’t read King in a few years (the last book of his that I read was probably book seven in the Dark Tower series), and the title of the book reminds me of The Simpsons Movie, which made me want to read it even more. The good thing is that the book is so long that it will definitely last me while we’re in Vegas next weekend.

New Resistance Novel, “A Hole in the Sky” in the Works

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Posted by Rob on January 25, 2011 – 11:30 am
Filed under Books, Video Games
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Wow, this is funny. Just last night I was musing about my book review of Resistance: Gathering Storm, and was saying that I hoped there would be another Resistance novel written. I just happened to check out the PlayStation blog today, and they just announced this morning that there is indeed another book in the works. Titled “A Hole in the Sky”, and written by the same author as “Gathering Storm” (William C. Dietz), the new novel will take place following the events of Resistance 2, and will be a bridge for the story to connect it to Resistance 3, which comes out in November.

I’m pretty stoked for this new book, and I hope it answers some questions; the biggest one being “what the hell happened to Cole at the end of Resistance 2?!” Chances are I will be picking it up on release date, using the Borders gift card I have yet to use from Christmas.

Fable III Finally on the Way

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Posted by Rob on December 29, 2010 – 12:33 pm
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My Gamefly queue has been full for almost two weeks, just waiting to ship a game. Unfortuately, of the fourteen games on my queue, apparently all of them had been labeled “low availability.” I finally got an e-mail saying they were shipping out Fable III, so I’m happy. Now I have a huge influx of games, with all the ones I got for Christmas along with Fable III, which I’m sure will be as addicting as the second one was. I’ve been looking forward to checking out the new Fable, so I guess I can excuse Gamefly’s lack of shipping since I’m getting the top game in my queue.

My Christmas Swag 2010

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Posted by Rob on December 29, 2010 – 7:45 am
Filed under Books, My Personal Life, Video Games
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Here’s some of the nifty gifts I received for Christmas this year:

Video Games:

  • NHL ’11 (PS3)
  • Plants vs. Zombies (360)
  • Gears of War 2 (360)
  • PlayStation Move Controller

Books:

DVDs/CDs:

  • Futurama: Volume 5
  • Jim Gaffigan: Beyond the Pale

Clothing:

Gift Cards:

Other Stuff:

  • Windshield mount for my Droid
  • Candy
  • Cash

With my gift cards and cash, I went out to the mall yesterday and bought:

  • New computer
  • Sports Champions (PS3)

How I Spent My Christmas

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Posted by Rob on December 28, 2010 – 11:17 pm
Filed under My Personal Life
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Christmas Eve

For years, my family tradition was always the same: we went down to Long Island on Christmas Eve to see my extended family at either my grandparents’ or aunt’s house. We would spend the night at my grandparent’s, and then after breakfast we would jump in the car and drive back to my parents house for Christmas Day. Once Shell and I were dating, things soon changed, as we had to start dividing up time between the two families. Last year it happened that we spent Christmas with Shell’s mom down in South Carolina, so this year we remained up here. This year we decided to have Shell’s dad come up to our apartment for Christmas Eve, and then we would drive down to my parents house to see them and my sister for Christmas Day.

One of the reasons we made these plans was because Shell actually had to work Christmas Eve. So that morning, after she went to work, I ventured out to the local grocery store to pick up stuff for dinner that night, and for the next week. Price Chopper was a mad house, and plenty of people had the same idea as me apparently. After pushing though crowds and waiting on line, I made it back to the apartment in one piece. I then straightened up the house, prepared the guest bedroom, and then I had like five hours to kill before Shell and her dad got back. It was a weird Christmas Eve for me…most probably the least stressful one I ever had since we moved away from Long Island about fifteen years ago.  Read More »

New Laptop Means More Blogs

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Posted by Rob on December 28, 2010 – 5:49 pm
Filed under Gadgets/Tech
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As many may know, I’ve had a laptop issue for quite some time now…almost a month, during which my laptop was inaccessible. With only one computer in the apartment, my internet time was cut down, so I haven’t been as active online, with blogs and doing other stuff.

Luckily, I got plenty of cash for Christmas, so today I headed over to Best Buy and picked up a new laptop. It’s not the best, and is definitely lower-end, but I don’t really care since I won’t be using it for gaming or anything else super fancy like that. After speaking with the clerk at Best Buy, I decided on a Gateway.

I got it up and running pretty quickly, and this is in fact the first blog from my new laptop. I’ve got some blogs backed up that just need some re-touching before I publish them, so hopefully I’ll get around to that some time tomorrow.

Gearing Up for Christmas

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Posted by Rob on December 17, 2010 – 4:49 pm
Filed under My Personal Life
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With Christmas almost a week away now, Shell and I are close to be as prepared as can be. The house has been decorated and the tree has been up since the weekend after Thanksgiving. So far, the cats have been relatively well-behaved, and neither Loki nor Odin have tried climbing up the tree yet. Holiday cookies have been baked regularly, and there are now about three batches left to go. We spent several nights last week baking together after dinner, and made some tasty treats. Shopping wise, we are all done with what gifts we needed to buy. We got a few things done the week of Black Friday, and everything else was done either online or with some shopping at local stores.

We have also begun our annual tradition of watching a crud-load of Christmas movies. This year marks the first time I was able to get Shell to agree watching one of my favorites; Ernest Saves Christmas. She is not a fan of Ernest, but I love the movies, and Ernest Saves Christmas is one of my top holiday movies. We’ve also watched some of Shell’s classic favorites like Frosty, Rudolph, Charlie Brown, and Garfield. We also watched some old-fashioned classics this year, including White Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street, and It’s a Wonderful Life.

So I think it’s safe to say that we are set for the holidays. The next week will be spent doing some last-minute baking and then preparing for Christmas Eve when Shell’s dad comes up. Then Christmas Day will be spent down at my parents, and I’ll finally see my sister and bro-in-law for Christmas, who I haven’t seen for Christmas in a few years, between them visiting in-laws in Ohio and us visiting Shell’s mom in South Carolina.

I hope everyone has a happy, safe, and MERRY CHRISTMAS this year!

Christmas is Upon Us

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Posted by Rob on November 30, 2010 – 7:31 pm
Filed under Randomness
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With Thanksgiving behind us, we start to look ahead to the next holiday…Christmas. A sure sign that it is that time of year is when Shell and I break out boxes upon boxes of Christmas decorations, ranging from lights, wreaths, window displays, and, my personal favorite, my talking Homer Santa! He makes a great addition to my cluttered desk during the holidays.

Amazon Delivers Borderlands Lickity Split

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Posted by Rob on October 27, 2010 – 7:29 pm
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I had some Amazon credit from previous trade ins, and I also had a $10 credit for pre-ordering WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011. I had planned on ordering Borderlands GOTY edition (for the PS3) within a few days, since Amazon usually takes about 48 hours to credit the pre-order bonus. But I guess someone at Amazon is sure drinking their caffeinated beverage of choice or something, because I received Borderlands in under 24 hours of ordering it.

I got the e-mail yesterday afternoon informing me that my $10 pre-order bonus was applied to my account. After dinner last night, at around 6:00pm, I came into the computer room and purchased Borderlands with all my credits. Then at 7:00pm I got the e-mail saying that my order had shipped. I was pretty impressed by that one hour between processing the order and shipping it out. Still, since it was later last night, I didn’t expect to get the game until tomorrow.

But sure enough, at 5:10 this evening, the UPS man dropped off a package for me, and I knew it was Borderlands. So in under 24 hours Amazon had taken my order, processed it, shipped it, and delivered. That’s pretty impressive, and one of the many reasons I love doing my shopping through Amazon.

As a side note, I am now overwhelmed with games, having Fallout: New Vegas in from Gamefly, and now owning SvR 2011 and Borderlands. Needless to say I don’t see myself really wanting any games until Christmas, where I hope to get NHL 11 and Rock Band 3. Then I’ll be one happy pappy.

It’s Going to Be a Busy Week

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Posted by Rob on October 26, 2010 – 8:28 am
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For many gamers, this is where the gaming season really takes shape, as the months September through December are the prime months for developers to unleash the massively epic games they have been working on. This year is no exception, except for the fact that all the games I have been looking forward to for the year are out as of today, and I will be having most of them in my house by the end of the week. Having all these games at once is going to be torture as I’m torn between what I want to play.

First up is Fallout: New Vegas, which I have rented from Gamefly. Despite the freezing and other bugs/glitches, the game has been a very enjoyable experience. It has the same feel of Fallout 3, but with a new environment, although many of the interior buildings and NPC characters have been recycled from Fallout 3, and are just given new names. As of right now I’m about twenty five hours or so into the game and at level 21, but there is still plenty to do. I have no doubt that, at this rate, I will max out my character at level thirty way before the end of the game. Read More »

Our Souvenirs from the Honeymoon

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Posted by Rob on June 17, 2010 – 4:34 pm
Filed under My Wedding
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Of course we brought back some gifties for ourselves from Florida! When we went down there, our package came with a $500 gift card, so we bought more than we normally would have. Luckily the gift card for for anything, so we used it for alcohol, tips, occasional snacks, activities (like the boat and bike rentals) and other stuff. But I digress…here are the stupid little things we bought down there!

Magnets

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We bought a couple of magnets, mostly picture ones. We both loved the one with the cats, and I just have to find a nice picture of Loki and Odin to put in there. The Tinker Bell one Shell bought to bring to work with her, and the baby seal magnet we snagged at Sea World, just so we had a memory of the place.

Apron

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Knowing that I was going to be snagging a grill when we got back, I was sold on getting a Disney apron. There were quite a few choices, but in the end I went with the whole “Mickey Mouse” thing. You may think it’s lame, but I think it’s flippin’ sweet. Read More »

Ten of my Video Game Moments (in my life)

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Posted by Rob on January 23, 2010 – 9:02 pm
Filed under My Personal Life, Video Games
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Im not saying that what follows are the 10 best games ever made, or my top 10 favorite games. Instead, I starting thinking back through my life about some fond memories I have of playing video games, from growing up to nowadays. I  brainstormed a bit about these memories and to see what would to mind, and then I organized them chronologically and as you see below. Enjoy taking this trip down memory lane with me.

Read More »

My Sword and Knife Collection

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Posted by Rob on January 11, 2010 – 12:09 pm
Filed under My Personal Life
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On Saturday, the women (Shell, Cara, and my mom) went out shopping in the afternoon. While I was home at my parents house, I decided to go up to my room and look over my weapons collection. Ive been collecting bladed weapons for many years, and have an extensive collection of all kinds of swords, knives, axes, and other weapons. I dont remember how I first got interested in it, but Im sure my Tae Kwon Do training had a big impact on it. As I was looking through them, I thought it would be interesting to show off some of my personal favorites in a post. Mind you, what you are seeing here is only a sampling of what I own. I just picked some of my favorites and the things that looked coolest. I also own other weapons that I didnt put on here because they arent that special or because I probably shouldnt share them publicly…

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This is the weapons cabinet in my room. As you can see, it is filled with weapons and boxes containing more weapons…mostly swords and knives. I also have a stash of my larger weapons in my closet.

Read More »

What I Got for Christmas

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Posted by Rob on January 3, 2010 – 8:46 am
Filed under Books, History, Movies, My Personal Life, Video Games
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Heres what I ended up getting for Christmas from everyone. It took me awhile to write this since I just saw my parents and future father-in-law this weekend…

-Games

  • Dragon Age: Origins
  • Beatles Rockband
  • Year subscription to Gamefly

-DVD

  • Watchmen
  • Star Trek
  • Wolverine
  • Street Fighter
  • Simpsons Season 12
  • Cronkite Remembers

-Books

  • Best Little Stories from the Civil War
  • Washington’s War
  • Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born graphic novel
  • For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War
  • Elder Scrolls: The Infernal City
  • Andrew Jackson: American Lion

-Clothes

  • Dress shirt/tie combos
  • Flannel pants (x3)
  • Solid T-shirts
  • Long sleeve shirt
  • Boxers
  • Declaration of Independence tie

-Gift Cards

  • Gamestop
  • Wal-Mart
  • Disney

-Other

  • Gummi Bears
  • Assorted chocolates
  • Gumdrops
  • Gum
  • Cash
  • Toiletries
  • Wine
  • Batteries
  • Scratch-offs

New Years Eve Plans

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Posted by Rob on December 31, 2009 – 4:52 pm
Filed under My Personal Life
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Well, I still cant believe it, but tonight is the one-year anniversary of our engagement. I cant believe its been a whole year since I popped the question. Now that Christmas is over, the next few months are gonna fly by, and before I know it, the wedding will be here. Anywho, due to this, we decided to have a nice, quiet night together.

We made reservations at some Thai restaurant in Albany. The restaurant does not have a liquor license, which means we are bringing our own bottle of wine, which should be fun. Afterwards, we will be hitting up the movies. We’re not sure what we’re gonna see yet, it will depend on what time it is. What we do know is that we will either be seeing Avatar or Sherlock Holmes. I dont care which one, since I want to see both, and the other one we will just go see next week.

After the movie we will head home, get drunk, and hang out the rest of the night. If she gets drunk enough I hope to get some Rock Band in or something. Eventually we will settle down to watch the ball drop, and then its off to bed. Tomorrow morning we are leaving early to get to my parents house for lunch and to exchange Christmas gifts, and to stay overnight. Then Saturday we will do the same thing at Shell’s dads house, and we will head back up to Albany Sunday afternoon. Thats the plan for the weekend!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy New Years!