Good People equals good things

A couple of weeks back I did the MS Walk in Seattle, to help raise money with the hope of finding a cure for Multiple Sclerosis, something that my father has been afflicted with since 1998.  I raised $2,075, more than twice what I raised last year, and would like to thank everyone who supported me, or who participated in a walk themselves.  A good friend of mine is doing the Vancouver MS Walk, and I encourage you to support him or reach out to your local MS chapter and participate.  The walks are fun, short and the proceeds go to a great cause.

The fundraising this year helped me see the generosity of people in western society (or it least in my small circle within).  In a previous post I mentioned that I had posted an original NES to eBay and that any proceeds I made on the sale greater than the cost of the system would be donated to MS.  I didn't have any proceeds (in fact, I sold the NES for roughly half of what I paid for it), but the buyer still donated $25 to MS.  That is really cool (gives me that warm fuzzy feeling, you know?).  It is great to see people do random acts of kindness.

The week before the walk I was fortunate enough to meet Dennis Miller down in San Antonio during the Final Four.  While talking he mentioned that with everything going on in the world, he can look at his kids and think "well, I can say that I have this."  I would like to think that our generosity towards each other is also something we can be thankful for.

Free Music (and Legal too)!

A lot of people know Austin, TX regards itself as the live music capital of the world. A lot of people think Austin has tumbleweeds.

For those of you that don't know, the South by Southwest (SXSW) music and film festival is coming up, March 7 to 16th. This is one of the premier festivals in the world, and worth the trip from wherever you are.

As a treat for fans of the festival, they organizers have made all of the music from prior festivals available free in the form of torrents. That is right, this music is totally free, totally legal and a lot of it is totally kick ass.

You can access the music here, and I recommend uTorrent to open it up. uTorrent is great because you don't need to install it. just throw it on a flash drive and run it off the flash drive on whatever computer you are using. Thanks to Guggenmos for pointing me to this gem of an application.

A note to those who don't know what torrents are; Torrents are these little files that tells your computer where to get a whole bunch of files, usually music or video. Torrents are kinda like playlists, telling your computer which files to download. Only problem is your computer doesn't know how to read these files, and that is where uTorrent helps.

For you iTunes fans, Apple would have charged you roughly $1,000. Yeah, think about it.

Enjoy!

Contra Unveiled & Supporting a Great Cause

Last post, I talked about re-discovering the Contra code and purchased an NES and the Contra game cartridge.  I was pretty excited when all the equipment arrived, and was looking forward to see the 8-bit gaming beauty on my 42" plasma...glad it still had a old school cable input.  I set everything up, turned it on and all I got was a big blue screen.  WTF?  I panicked, not knowing what to do, when a memory from 1989 came back to me on how to fix this.

I took the cartridge out and blew on it.

Does that give you the same chills as I had?  I put it back in, and voila, I had Contra up and running. 

Here are the best suggestions I had on what the Code actually is;

My 5'11.75" friend Pistol Pete first gave his opinion:

I would have bet my 6 foot height on... U U D D L R L R A B A B Select Start.

Bert submitted:

I  think it is, "up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-a-b-select-start".  Take my word for it...I'm Asian.

Peter Burns offered this soon after:

Good lord.....im in a dentists office right now, all I can think about is the freaking Spray gun.

I think its up-down-up-down not up-up-down-down.

Trust me, my sister is Korean

And then Joon gave his two cents:

Actually....its up up down down, left right left right a b, a b select start

Two a-b in the series

I am Korean.....but not a really good one, so I may be wrong....

In the end, one person got it right, William Hizzey, though he only offered the 2 person code....I am just assuming he was so popular he always played with a friend.  Here are the codes:

1 player: up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-b-a-start

2 player: up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-b-a-select-start

Good call Hizz, all that beer has done little to affect the memory.

I am now auctioning off the Nintendo on EBay here, with any proceeds from the sale vs. what it cost me to purchase the thing being donated to MS in the winning bidder's name.  See my MS fundraising site here.

Hopefully I can raise some more money towards finding a cure for MS.

New England Clam Chowder. The Red or the White?

In my last post, I referenced the infamous Contra code from the original Nintendo game.  My friend Pistol pointed me to this site saying that I was incorrect.  However, after discussions with several people and getting a different answer from everyone, I have decided to take matters into my own hands.  I am attempting to buy an original Nintendo on eBay, an original contra game, and then test out everyone's password and get back to you.  Yeah, it is a lot of effort, and curiosity killed the cat and all that jazz, but I just gotta figure it out, I just gotta.  This isn't Russia, is this Russia?  Stay tuned for the final answer, and look out for a new eBay auction for a Nintendo system with a Contra game with a twist....anything over what I paid for it will be donated to the MS Society in the name of the purchaser.

Looks like I just won the auction, the Nintendo is on the way.

Holy Crap, it actually worked

 

On December 31, 2007, I received a check from GadgetCity.com for $488; the rough price of one Xbox Elite + tax.  I was absolutely stunned and had assumed the envelope consisted of a rejection letter.  I took that check to the bank and headed over to Target (pronounced 'tarjhea' for those of us who love the place) and rather than purchase the Elite system, purchased the Xbox 360 Pro and a the wireless adapter, for roughly the price of the Elite.

Wow, this system is freakin' amazing.  In 30 minutes I had music and photos streaming from my desktop in the study to our living room TV.  I don't have XP or Vista Media Center, just regular XP, and it was simple.  I had Xbox Live hooked up in another 10 minutes and less than 20 minutes later I was playing Call Of Duty 4 with my teammate/friend/groomsmen in San Antonio online.  I hadn't been interested in video games since NHL 94 and Contra (up-down-up-down-left-right-left-right-a-b-select-start bitches), but I am hooked.  I have Madden 08 and Call Of Duty 4 and a gift certificate to HMV which will be used on Xbox 360 I am sure.  I am officially a video game geek, and it cost me nothing (though I may have to buy another TV to play on instead of monopolizing the main TV and being yelled at by the GF.)

The check has cleared, for those of you thinking I would get shafted that way

One More Step, and the Lunch is free

So here is an update to my attempt to get a free Xbox 360.  Much to the chagrin of the GF, it looks like this might actually work.  Once I completed the terms of each offer, the sponsor sites contacted GadgetCity and let them know that the terms had been met.  I had a little trouble with the Discover Card, and had to send some emails and faxes to GadgetCity to verify I had completed the offer.  Once that was complete, I printed out the certificates provided and sent them in to the address specified.  When received, the site updated my gift status as confirmed, and all I had to do was sit and wait until the gift was shipped.  I checked today, and amazingly, the gift has been 'shipped.'  Now I just have to wait until it gets delivered, we will see what happens.

Is There Such Thing As A Free Lunch, Or A Free Xbox 360?

I see all these ads telling me I can get a free Xbox 360 (Elite, no less) by filling out a couple of promotional trials.  I figured I might as well give it a shot, write about it, and hopefully clear the air for everyone else who has always wanted to do it but couldn't be bothered. 

After going through dozens of screens of trials and promos, (Are you interested in the patch? No. Are you interested in a vegan cookbook? No.) I came to the sponsored offers.  Three screens of offers, and I had to sign up for 1 on the first two screens and 2 on the final screen.  Once I have met the terms of these offers, I should be able to log in to GadgetCity.com and find my completion certificates.  I then mail these in and viola (yeah right) a Xbox 360 Elite is shipped to me free of charge.  I tried to find the cheapest way to get through these offers, so this is what I applied for;

Netflix - $8.99 a month, I will cancel my Blockbuster Account (savings of $5 per month)

Discover Card - Just have to activate and use once, no fees

Citibank Card - Pre-approved, again, just activate and use once

Experian Credit Report - Figured this might be a good move seeing as how I just dished out a ton of personal info, though this site could be a scam too.

So now I wait, and I wait, and I try to meet all the requirements.  Not looking good so far; I can't log back in to gadgetcity.com with my email address, and the request for a new password still hasn't come to my inbox.  I will keep you posted.

GadgetCity.com