Should I get a modded Xbox?

It was a long day at work—I finished up some reviews of our comptetition. Then I went to our Orem City League game, which started at 6:45. I showed up pretty early to stretch the ankle (Rachel had given me some tips last night). We only had 4 guys and 4 girls show up. So we played 4 guys, 3 girls the entire game, with one girl rotating in. Neither Scott or Jeremy showed up, and we were playing Mike and Jon's team with tons of subs, so I thought we were goners (especially with my ankle). And it certainly looked that way with them going up 2-0 really quickly. That's when Rob suggested we throw a zone (the wind was really bad, just like it always is in Spring), which I hadn't suggested at first because I knew that most of our team had never played it before. But it actually worked. I played down in the cup most of the time, and it wasn't the best cup in the world (we always seemed to rotate a girl middle-defender into the cup as it swung), but they couldn't handle it. Plus all of our guys, especially Rob, played stellar defense. We went up 6-2. It was just really fun. We took the half 7-5 before we got tired and lost 10-8. It was kind of frustrating, because our team seemed to be dropping everything on the last few points, even my wide-open, pin-point accurate long throws to receivers who weren't being covered because of the other team's zone. But I can't complain too much, because even being down a guy (they insisted on playing 5 guys and 2 girls), it still was a very close game, and I played all out and had a lot of fun. I did turn my ankle again right before the half, which really hurt, but I was able to walk it off. And then two throws later I got tackled by Tori (accidentally of course, so that didn't help much).

Anyway, it was loads of fun, and then I came home and played around with my computer. I'm trying to fix some glitches I've been hearing on the optical out, as well as some problems with the cable and the home automation software. But so far, it hasn't been working too well. I'm thinking maybe I should just get a new one, but I don't know, it works decently and maybe I should just wait until I move out and can better evaluate my needs. Or maybe I should just get an Xbox. I've been talking to Ammon at work, who modded his, and it sounds like a pretty sweet setup. He's got tons of games for all the old emulators, including a very smoothly running Super Mario Kart 64. The only thing that his Xbox doesn't have that I want is a TV Tuner. And a modded Xbox plus hard drive only runs $200 or so, so it's cheaper than a new computer. So I've been thinking maybe I'll do that instead. Meanwhile, I've been looking at Home Theater PC software online—basically programs that run on top of your operating system, that give the system a more streamlined interface that can be navigated by remote control and viewed from far away on a TV. I think that's where I want to go with my PC, whether or not I get a new one (there's ports of this software for the Xbox as well). Actually, it kind of looks like Windows Media Center XP, except it runs on top of regular Windows XP instead of running as a separate operating system. The two that I really like are Media Portal and myHTPC. I think I like myHTPC better, just because it's more refined and has tons of plugins for TV tuners and remote controls and home automation stuff. But I like the fact that Media Portal is open source, so when it gets beyond Alpha quality I might switch to that. Except right now they require a TV tuner card with hardware MPEG2 support, which I don't have. Maybe I should just get one, because it'll be better quality anyway (since it doesn't increase the CPU load at all for time-shifting) but the cheapest version is $130, so I don't know. Especially if I get a new computer. We'll see. But I really should be responsible and save up money for school instead of spending it all before I start school.

Posted May 20, 2004 (08:30 PM) | Comments (1)