McCarron's Piece O' Mind

Over at TRMK.org, we have found that the Xbox 360's Backwards Compatibility is not what it's cracked up to be. Despite being listed as a Xbox 360 compatible title, the popular on-line fighting game Mortal Kombat: Deception is plagued with many glitches on the Xbox 360, rendering it practically unplayable on Microsoft's new console.






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I finally received my Xbox 360 that I won from the Every10Minutes contest today as promised. Below are some photos of me unpacking everything. More are available on the RealmMedia.com gallery here.













You can also see some other photos that I took for RealmMedia content over at RealmMedia.com's Xbox 360 Exposed feature.

Last week I received my Every10Minutes "Party in a Box" prize. It is meant to encourage us winners of the Xbox 360 to throw a party and show off the new system to your family and friends before the holiday season. Not like they need to push it, rumor has it you wont be able to walk into a store to get one until March of next year!

The box contained the following:

• 5 White Mountain Dew & Xbox 360 T-Shirts
  
• 5 Black Mountain Dew & Xbox 360 Hats
  
• 2 Coupons for a free 12-Pack of Cans for any Pepsi Product
  
• 1 Bottle of Mountain Dew MDX
  
• ~7-10 Party Invites to Hand Out
  
• 1 Congratulations Card
  
• 1 Ad for some upcoming "EXTREME" movie or something like that. (I threw it out, so no photo)
  

Here are some photos of the party package. You can also click on a photo, or here, view the photo gallery which has more and larger photos.

With my Party in the Box prize from winning the Every10Minutes contest from Mountain Dew, they gave me a free bottle of the new Mountain Dew MDX. You may remember I tested it earlier this year when it was still called Mountain Dew X.

It is just as good as I remembered it before. This drink will go over very well with all the caffiene addicts out there wanting an extra boost. They are offering it in both Sugar Free and Regular versions. But sadly I haven't been able to easily find the Sugar Free right now so I haven't got a good hold on if it's as good as a the Regular one. Pepsi is branding it as an Energy Soda and because it contains the following additives familar to most energy drink consumers:

• Ginseng
  
• Taurine
  
• Guarana
  
• D-Ribose
  
• Maltodextrin
  

Get a bottle and give it a try. I will continue the search for the sugar free to see if that'll be my new caffienated drink of choice when in need of a boost.

Here are some more photos of me pouring a bottle of it. You can also click on a photo, or here, view the photo gallery which has more and larger photos.

The nice folks over at AnandTech have taken apart their Xbox 360 so us curious ones getting the system in the next week don't have to open it on our own. Especially since opening it voids the warranty. Really impressive engineering work on Microsoft's part in getting that hardware all crammed into that tiny box.

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I usually don't sign online petitions, but this one is for a good cause.

Not sure if you knew, but earlier this week FOX basically cancelled their hit TV comedy Arrested Development. They reduced it's order of episodes to 13, from around 22, and decided not to air the show at all during Novemeber sweeps month. Instead it will rerun the previous's weeks episode Prison Break, which is also being stopped mid-season by FOX to make room for episodes of American Idol.

While Arrested Development is not yet "OFFICIALLY" cancelled yet, but it's close. So with this petition we have a small glimmer of hope that FOX may salvage it if we get another signatures to show our adoration for the series. So if you are a fan of the series, go out and add your name. It's about 10,000 strong right now, and can use many more!

Today the Every10Minutes contest updated my Account History to confirm the Saturday November 22nd delivery date of the Xbox 360 system to me. Here is the snippet the updated in my account history.




I should be throwing a Xbox 360 Party either on Saturday Night or Sunday Afternoon. I'll post up that 411 once I have a better concensus. I'll also put up photos of the Party in a Box that they sent me last week, I keep misplacing the photo files.

"Cheese Gifts Fireworks" is what I saw on about every sign in Wisconsin coming back from my Grandfather's funeral in Minnesota.

Glad to be back in Illinois now, just wish I didn't have to return to work tomorrow.

My "bird" flu is finally almost gone, except for a nasty cough and conjestion. I'll see what some good rigourous biking tomorrow does for that. I didn't update about it, but I had a bad case of the flu last week that started with the eye strain I mentioned in an earlier post. Then I lost my voice and developed a 102 fever.

It was not a fun week for me, here's hoping to a better one next week.

Off to get ready for work, joy!

Well I just got the email below from Pepsi saying to goto the Every10Minutes account page to see my account information. Mysterious message indeed.


Upon logging into my account and visiting the account page, I found this:


So it's official, my suspisions were correct and I have infact won an Xbox 360.

Now the wait begins, they say they ship them out the weekend before release. The release date is the 22nd, so I assume I'll be getting it around the 18th. So 18 more days to go!

I'll update my blog with more pictures as I receive the party package and the Xbox 360 itself.