Saturday, November 08, 2008
I'm a Slut...With a Cooler-looking PC
I think Xoxide has been reading Seth Godin. It was just a few days after they sent me $30 for reviewing a Zalman 9700 that I decided its’ beauty was going to waste, trapped inside an opaque shell.
So I did what any sane person -- by consumerist standards, anyway – would do. I bought a new transparent case (to show off the Zalman, of course!) And in the process, Xoxide has made me their bitch.
Now I’m not one to jump on a fad, and I’m old enough to remember how cheesy neon lamps look underneath a car, but for some reason I like the look of naked electronics.
I present some pix showing various stages of completion.
Unpacking begins
Installing drive bays
Lots of different fasteners
Ready for mobo insertion
Almost ready for power on
Needs more cowbell, I mean LEDs…
I love the new look, so much that I’m going to buy some more LED-encrusted fans to fill up the remaining holes -- the case has five fan mounts – but I must let my cult following know a few things.
Acrylic / Lucite shows fingerprints. The makers understood this and included a set of white gloves to wear while assembling the case. Too bad the gloves won’t fit anyone except small Asian women.
The case does not come even partially assembled. Assembling the case poses no problem for someone handy with a (power) screwdriver, but it can get tedious.
I worry about the top fan sucking dust into the case. Sadly, the case doesn’t come with block-offs.
Now I worry that my power supply won’t withstand the load of the additional fans – back to xoxide.com…
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Who Needs n00bs?
Dedicated to CarpetDuck, v Shredder v, Superfly21, DaDoomday, spookytime, punkboy722, Bonghitkevin11, Liff13, and Junior32909, who said and did the things that put me in the right frame of mind.
I was playing a particularly horrible game of Halo 3 last night when one of my teammates started riding my ass for not pulling my weight kill-wise. He said something like, "the guy who has only two kills should never play Halo again."
After a few minutes of disparaging the person's parentage, sexual habits, and nasally tone of voice, I thought to myself, "I wonder how good the average players would be if all of the scrubs left?"
Imagine Bungie or Microsoft announcing tomorrow, "In response to the feedback provided by our very best players, we've decided to make Halo 3 n00b-free. Everyone with 500 or more matches and a K/D of less than 1.00 will be banned from Halo 3 permanently. You will be given a full refund for your game, including any Microsoft points spent on maps. We feel our decision is a small price to pay for the devotion of our best players."
"Furthermore, the stats for all remaining players will be reset."
OK, you can stop laughing now.
Sure, the idea is far-fetched and an extreme measure to produce exclusivity, but one hears a lot about the notion of firing your worst customers. Why wouldn't it work for Halo?
But think about it a little more, and you'll see that those of you obsessed with K/D might have a problem maintaining it without the padding provided by the clueless, the inaccurate, and the slow.
But worse yet, you should realize that excellence cannot exist without the mediocre. The top few in any field will always be called "the best"; everyone else is called "the rest."
You should pray for more n00bs, not fewer.
PS -- my team's tactics were suicidal; notice my +/- was comparable to theirs. We should have made the enemy come down and get us.
PPS -- Bungie wouldn't have to actually fire anyone. It would be easier to create a new playlist accessible to only the best players, using K/D, rank, or other criteria.
I was playing a particularly horrible game of Halo 3 last night when one of my teammates started riding my ass for not pulling my weight kill-wise. He said something like, "the guy who has only two kills should never play Halo again."
After a few minutes of disparaging the person's parentage, sexual habits, and nasally tone of voice, I thought to myself, "I wonder how good the average players would be if all of the scrubs left?"
Imagine Bungie or Microsoft announcing tomorrow, "In response to the feedback provided by our very best players, we've decided to make Halo 3 n00b-free. Everyone with 500 or more matches and a K/D of less than 1.00 will be banned from Halo 3 permanently. You will be given a full refund for your game, including any Microsoft points spent on maps. We feel our decision is a small price to pay for the devotion of our best players."
"Furthermore, the stats for all remaining players will be reset."
OK, you can stop laughing now.
Sure, the idea is far-fetched and an extreme measure to produce exclusivity, but one hears a lot about the notion of firing your worst customers. Why wouldn't it work for Halo?
But think about it a little more, and you'll see that those of you obsessed with K/D might have a problem maintaining it without the padding provided by the clueless, the inaccurate, and the slow.
But worse yet, you should realize that excellence cannot exist without the mediocre. The top few in any field will always be called "the best"; everyone else is called "the rest."
You should pray for more n00bs, not fewer.
PS -- my team's tactics were suicidal; notice my +/- was comparable to theirs. We should have made the enemy come down and get us.
PPS -- Bungie wouldn't have to actually fire anyone. It would be easier to create a new playlist accessible to only the best players, using K/D, rank, or other criteria.
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