This one was familiar! Sikeston, MO was where I went on my first cross-country. And this time I got actual pictures! So I’ll let them do the talking.
The mighty Mississippi.
This one was taken on the trip there, somewhere past Reynoldsville.
This is me flying an airplane!
Even when I’m flying an airplane, I’m still vain enough to take a self-portrait.
Sikeston runway
Okay, this one didn’t turn out awesome, but it’s the runway at Sikeston, MO.
My aircraft, post-refueling
Here’s my little airplane right after re-fueling. When I got to Sikeston, a kid (okay, probably 16 – 17 year old) came out to help me park it. When I told him I was just here to re-fuel it, he helped me find and operate the the pump, too. There was a Beechcraft jet also parked there, and he said it’d been a busy day.
Scotty City bridge
This bridge is an easy to spot checkpoint, but this picture is less about the scenery than it is about the conditions. Moderate visibility but the clouds were rather low, way lower than forecast.
When I got back to Carbondale, I made a pretty drawn out landing and that was that!
This was a big one! It was my NAV ride, which is the second road block on my way to being a private pilot!
So I went up with someone who wasn’t my instructor. The first leg was easy, just getting into the air and getting to Fairfield. Once we got there, and we got off the ground again, the instructor had me put on the goggles that simulate flying into a cloud. Then he had me close my eyes and he’d do a few maneuvers and then tell me to open my eyes and I’d have to put it back to straight and level.
After doing that a couple times, he told me to figure out where I am and get us home. I used the navigation radio, found a point on the map where it told me I was, and looked outside. None of it lined up with my map. So I did that two or three more times. Still nothing. Then I started to think about the instruments.
There’s a directional gyro and a magnetic compass. The directional gyro is made to be set by hand because it can get off direction sometimes, so you look at the mag compass, and set the DG to what it says. While I had my eyes closed, the instructor had twisted my DG around, which is why the road that was supposed to be East-West was running North-South. Once I’d set the DG straight, I pointed us in the correct direction and got us back to Carbondale.
I beat it on Xbox 360, getting nearly all of the achievements. I beat the Zombie Island of Dr. Ned DLC. I quit on Mad Moxxi because that DLC suuuucked. But between the main campaign and Dr. Ned, I put a load of time into it.
I just beat it again on PC. 14 hours, 30 minutes. I just started Dr. Ned. Then I’ll do the Secret Armory of General Knoxx.
I’m still amazed by some of the weapons this game throws at me. A lot of them are garbage. Then you get something absolutely fucking magical. Like an accurate shotgun with high damage, fast reload, large magazine, and ammo regeneration. This is the gun that Zombie Island was made for. I can’t lose with this thing.
Oh boy, I sank some time into this one this weekend. Brutal Legend is the definition of a mixed bag. When it starts out, you’re hacking things to death with an axe and blasting them lightning bolts out of your guitar. Soon after, you’ve got a car and it’s an open world game where you’re driving around and doing side missions and collecting stuff. Then you start collecting followers and guiding them into battle. About halfway through, you’ve got a handful of units, you can fly, give orders, build stuff, and it’s a full blown console RTS.
The transition from simple action to RTS is very smooth, and you never lose the open world aspect when you’re not in the middle of a story mission. What is kind of a jarring is that the whole first half of the game is the tutorial into the RTS side. The game has three continents and that whole first half of the game takes places on the first one alone. On top of that, there are two other factions in the game, but you spend that first half fighting against the same units you’re using. You then spend almost the rest of the game fighting the second faction, and you only really fight the third faction in the absolute final mission.
It’s pretty obvious to me that a lot of time and effort went into the first continent and first half of the game, then the rest was cleaned up and rushed through. Everything about the pacing in the second half of the game is off and rushed, and the end drops like a hammer. There’s that final RTS mission and one final action sequence and then you’re done.
Despite this, Brutal Legend is a ton of fun. It’s fun to drive around in. It takes place during the Age of Metal and the backstory and environments and soundtrack are all fantastic. It’s simply a fun world to exist in if you’re into metal. I’m pretty horrible at RTS games, and I still enjoyed the RTS battles. The controls kind of take some getting used to because they focus on your character as a leader, and so you can only issue orders to your units if you’re near them. This is probably why the first half of the game feels like a tutorial, but by time you get off the first continent, you’re definitely proficient at commanding your units.
I don’t know how to recommend this. I was turned off of it when it was released by reviews saying it was half-baked, and not that fun. It is true that it was definitely a rushed release, but it never feels incomplete. Everything is there, it’s just paced poorly. And I definitely had a lot of fun with it. I guess it boils down to whether or not you like metal. If I didn’t enjoy the setting so much, I probably wouldn’t have spent so much time playing it.
My first solo cross-country! I had a choice between flying to Salem-Leckrone, Sikeston, or Fairfield. I picked Salem because I’ve been to Sikeston before, and Salem was a little further away than Fairfield.
This was pretty much an ideal day to fly; clear skies, decent visibility, only a slight wind. I got to Salem without any problems, saw the Mt. Vernon and Centralia airfields, and put it down at Salem. There was a cropduster there, but he was on the ground almost the whole time I was there and he had a radio.
Proof I was there.
Apparently solo cross-countries require students to re-fuel at each stop. I’ve only had to re-fuel once and that was at Evansville, where the FBO took care of everything. I stopped my plane on the wrong side of the gas pump, so I had to get back in, fire it up, and putter around to the other side. From there, it was almost as easy as re-fueling a car.
Cellphone picture of me and my aircraft
As I was taxiing to the runway, I noticed a couple walking their dog… on the runway. Thankfully, they got off of it once they saw me pull on to it.
The flight back to Carbondale was even less eventful than the flight to Salem. When I got off the runway, the controller cleared me to taxi to park. Once I got on a main taxiway though, someone else tried to get on it. The controller cleared me, and I didn’t hear him clear the other guy, so he yielded.
Overall, I probably couldn’t ask for an easier flight.
This was a relatively interesting flight. The first leg was rather straightforward, except that clouds were way lower than reported and I had to fly it 1000 feet under what I planned. We get to Paducah, and set up to take off again when my instructor tells me we’re going to fly the Cunningham VOR to Mayfield. So I tune the VOR, intercept the radial, and fly it straight in.
Mayfield is uncontrolled. I put it down and we’re getting set up at the hold short when a Bonanza comes in for a landing. It’s way too high, keeps gliding past the midway point, and for whatever reason the pilot still tries to put it down. From my angle, there was no way in hell he was going to make it, and he realized it just before touching the ground. He goes around, then I get to take off.
On our way back to Carbondale, my instructor tells me to put the simulated instrument goggles on. Again, we fly the VOR to Cunningham, then to Carbondale. It’s really nice flying without exactly knowing where I am because my instructor can’t ask me how fast we’re going or when we’re going to get there. About halfway through he tells me to take the goggles off, then he pulls my power for a simulated engine out. I do the routine, recover from it, then he tells me I can’t go higher than 1,700 ft, my VOR is busted, and I can’t put it down on any nearby airfields.
Now, when he pulled my engine, I was pretty much on course for Carbondale to begin with. I picked a field directly below me, so I didn’t deviate far from my course. I still had my flight plan, so I point the plane towards Carbondale, and climb to 1,700. From that low to the ground, you can’t see that much to reference, but whatever. I find one of the towns on my flight path and trust my instincts, and voila, I’m in Carbondale. So close to the ground, I got a really good view of the new stadium.
Next time, I fly solo to some uncontrolled airfield near Carbondale!
This game caught me by surprise. It didn’t get much hype and what it did get didn’t excite me. Crawling around in tunnels in the dark, who cares? Then I found out that the developers are the engineers who made S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which I loved. It got pretty positive reviews, with some complaints being about the difficulty and poor gunplay and dumb AI.
I’m pleased to report these complaints are mostly unfounded. Metro 2033 is a beautiful game with a strong narrative, even if Artyom’s motivations are somewhat unclear. I beat the game on normal difficulty without much trouble. The weapons in the game are no less responsive than those in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I knew from the start that bullets were currency in the game, and that crappy bullets existed, but I didn’t figure out how to use those crappy bullets until halfway through the game. The crappy bullets really are crappy, being much louder, less powerful, and more inaccurate. It really makes you value those money bullets and forced me to decide when it was worth shooting my money away.
Around the halfway mark, there’s a vendor who will sell you either heavier armor or stealthier clothing. I had spent nearly all of my good bullets on a better gun, which was poor foresight on my behalf because guns are everywhere. I was duly punished for it though, as I was never offered the opportunity to buy a different armor again.
I got Metro 2033 on sale, and it’s one of those games in which I wish I had bought it on release. The game is short, but it’s really immersive. I hope 4A made enough to keep developing, because I’ll definitely get their next title the minute it comes out.
This flight has been in the works for two weeks now, thanks to weather cancellations. It almost didn’t happen this time either, because I had planned to go to Paducah, KY but the clouds were low over Paducah so we went this route instead.
Flying cross-country during the day is relatively simple. There are lots of landmarks on the ground that are on my maps, so it’s easy to hop from one to next. My trouble came when I got into the St. Louis area. There’s so much stuff that it’s difficult to distinguish one landmark from another. At one point I was on my course and my instructor asked me if I could see the airport yet. I couldn’t pick it out of the noise around it so I started to doubt myself and felt lost. Thankfully, St. Louis has rather extensive radar service so they pointed me in the correct direction and I made it to the airport just fine. I did a substandard soft field landing, we turned around, and then flew right back out again.
On the way out of St. Louis I noticed landmarks that I had seen on the way in before I began to doubt myself. I was on the right track the entire time. I may have ended up overflying the airport, but I definitely would’ve gotten there. Oh well. The trip back was dead simple and I had radar following me the whole time. I managed to correctly pick out Carbondale from at least 20NM away, which is amazing because I almost never spot it until I’m 10NM from it. I put it back down with another horrible soft field landing, and that was that!
This was my second night flight ever. On the first, all we did was fly in circles around the airport to do a bunch of takeoffs and landings. Evansville, IN is about 50 minutes away in my little 152. My normal instructor paired me up with another instructor for this flight.
A bit about my current instructor. He’s a team leader and a check airman, which means that when people finish a course, they go on a flight with him and he checks them out to make sure they can fly up to standard. He’s got a ton of experience flying, and he’s generally rather chill.
The instructor I flew with for this flight was quite a bit more uppity. He threw some things at me on the ground that I wasn’t exactly expecting but wasn’t unprepared for. In the air, he kind of nagged me about things that I was probably getting around to but not currently focused on.
But the flight was pleasant enough, and I didn’t get us lost, and I even found the airport before he did. I put it down, we got some fuel, hung out at the FBO for a little while, then we came back. The way back was even less eventful.
We got in around 10 till midnight. We were the last ones in, so the girl working the dispatch counter was half asleep. We did our debrief and log completion in the terminal, and that was that!
About midway through finals week, one of my roommate’s left. He said he was going home for a few weeks and didn’t really give a timeframe for coming back. That weekend, my other roommate moved out entirely to go live with his girlfriend. I had the whole place to myself!
I relaxed a little more. I kind of let myself spread outside of the confines of my room. All good things must come to an end, however, and my remaining roommate returned yesterday.
I almost wish he hadn’t left, because I got used to living alone. I could wander around the apartment in my underwear whenever. I could leave dishes and pans in the sink for a couple days. I didn’t have to get my clothes out of the dryer as soon as they were dry. I could leave a mess of razors and face cleaning stuff in the bathroom.
But now I have to go back to living-with-other-people mode. And it’s annoying.
Unlike a lot of people, I really enjoyed Doom 3. It’s a big departure from the first two in terms of atmosphere and gameplay, but it holds its own and looks good. I’m doing what feels like my yearly replay of it, except on Veteran (hard) difficulty and I feel like the increased difficulty is really exposing some of the less obvious flaws in the game. I may not even finish this playthrough.
Half of the enemies jump out of closets. It’s one of those obvious flaws that you learn about in the first 15 minutes of the game. On medium, it’s no big deal because you take a hit, turn around, pop them, and they die. On hard, you still take that first hit, and it’s always at least 15% of your health. So you can take two paths with it; you can keep rolling and slowly bleed out from repeated monster closets, or you can quick save after every fight and reload when you find a monster closet so you can better deal with it. It sucks.
Lost souls are the fucking worst. They were an annoyance in Doom 1/2 but never a real threat. In Doom 3, they’re tiny, they hit for at least 15%, they bounce out of the way if you hit them without killing them, and when they hit, your view moves. I died in the first encounter with lost souls. LOST SOULS. Flying, screaming skulls pecked me to death.
The shotgun, which sucks at any range beyond 1 meter in front of you, is the best weapon to kill them with because it’ll almost always kill them in one hit, except you have to wait until it’s charging at you and it’s right in front of your goddamned face before you can think about pulling the trigger. The shotgun only holds 8 rounds, and it takes forever to reload so you better not miss!
And let’s talk about how much the shotgun blows. The shotgun in Doom 1/2 is one of my favorite weapons. It is versatile and possesses a good amount of stopping power. The shotgun in Doom 3 is worthless beyond 1 meter ahead of you. If you are not jamming that shotgun into the bad guy’s face before you pull the trigger, you’re going to have to shoot them twice. That said, it will kill ims, soldiers, zombies, maggots, and those dumb teleporting things in one shot, so what I’ve found myself doing is dancing around while they shoot at me, and then charging at them before I blast them in the face, then running backwards in case that first shot didn’t do the trick. It’s a huge letdown. It’s horrible. Thankfully the plasma rifle is even more awesome than it was in Doom 1/2.
Even playing on hard, Doom 3 is no more difficult. It is just more annoying. Playing it feels like work. I will probably abort this playthrough, and remind myself next time to play it on medium again, when the game is more fun.
I have finally, finally, finally finished Shogo: Mobile Armor Division. I missed the boat on this one when it was first released, picked it up from GOG when it was re-released there, got stuck finding an exit, and now I’ve cleaned it up. This is an old Monolith game, and it shows. It’s not as buggy as Blood 2, but it has its fair share of glitches. Still, the action is fast, the mechs are fun, and it still sports some impressive-for-its-time effects. The mechs have a useless vehicle mode, and some of the fights are in unreasonably cramped quarters. Gun fights are super-short, as nearly all the enemies have machine guns and you can’t particularly afford to take a lot of damage from them. It’s usually a case of who spot whom first, because if you can get a couple bullets in them first that’s nearly enough to kill them, or at least interrupt them long enough to mop up some others. The game is clearly heavily influenced by anime and the designs and sound effects work fantastically towards this purpose. Overall, rather fun!
I am a huge fan of Ubuntu! I’m a big fan of linux and OSS in general, but Ubuntu is linux done right. It is a clean, well-made, easy to use distribution. This release is particularly important because it is a Long Term Support release. These releases come every two years and are good for three years of updates and support from the Ubuntu developers. See, Ubuntu has a six month release cycle. Every six months, you get a new Ubuntu release! Usually enough aesthetics are updated and tweaked to make it feel like a whole new OS, but the underlying changes usually revolve around kernel updates and program updates.
Free software thrives on a constant flow of updates and fixes. Usually these fixes improve the program, but sometimes they break things, and sometimes they really break things. When you get a typical six month release of Ubuntu, you’re getting software that’s been tested, but may still be a little unstable in some far-out conditions. The appeal of the LTS release is that it is software that’s been vetted for stability over the last two years, and will continue to be supported for the next two years.
If getting a new OS every six months is a little overwhelming, than the LTS release is the perfect option! It’s not the bleeding edge, so you’re not going to get burned by buggy software, and it’s particularly tested for stability. I’m a mad man and I love installing a new version of Ubuntu from scratch every six months, but what I suffer through in buggy software (which is rarely buggy at all) pays off when the new LTS is released and everyone gets to reap the benefits of well-tested software.
If you’re thinking about getting into linux, now is the perfect time. Installation could not be simpler, and this version even has a full blown manual.
I’m kind of done with numbering the games I finish and writing up shitty little reviews. I’ve most recently finished Batman: Arkham Asylum and The Darkness, and there’s been plenty said about both of them. I guess if I feel I have something significant to contribute I’ll write something proper, otherwise you can listen to yammer on about crap on Facebook.
Today a census dude showed up at my apartment. This is strange because my roommates and I all filled out our census and I put it in the mail myself, but apparently no one else in our building did because this guy was tasked with canvassing the whole building.
Brad answered the door so he got to go first. The guy was asking him the basic questions, and then he asked Brad what race he was. Brad kind of gave him an incredulous look and said “white”, which is quite obvious if you look at him, but I know he has to ask this question every single time because he doesn’t actually know Brad and he could have answered in any number of ways.
So he gets to me and asks me my race and I answer “human”. He kind of chuckled and said he had to write it down because that’s what I answered. I didn’t make any effort to correct my answer.
I almost felt guilty for giving this guy an answer he clearly wasn’t looking for, but I think in the grand scheme of things I’d rather be marked down as “human” than “white”.
I think someone has given out my Google Voice number. Last week I got missed three phone calls from three unknown numbers within the span of six hours. One of them I can trace back to a gas station in New Berlin, I don’t know where the rest came from.
My dad called me a couple days ago and says he’s been getting a couple of phone calls from people asking for me. My dad lives in Florida. I have his number on my phone, and I haven’t given it out to anyone. We’re both boggled as to how anyone can make the connection between us as I haven’t seen him in more than two years and we typically only communicate through email.
Just 20 minutes ago, I got this voicemail in my Google Voice mailbox. I missed the call because my phone was on silent. I can’t even tell what the person on the other end is saying except for the bit at the end.
So if anyone knows anything about this, please let me know!
I can’t deny it; I love F.E.A.R. 2. I don’t even understand why I love it so much. The F.E.A.R. games just feel so right to me. This is one of my favorite sections; where you get to stomp around in enormous power armor, with unlimited ammo, turning replica and Armacham soldiers into red mist. The effects when you’re in this power armor are fantastic, between the sounds of the chainguns firing and how the whole hud behaves like you’re inside a machine looking at a display screen. It distorts and corrupts as you take damage and it’s awesome.
I saw this episode on Adult Swim two weeks ago and it motivated me to watch the rest of the series. I’ve made it through the first season, Bollo was my favorite episode. This song, however, is amazing.
My friend Ed is really into Mindless Self Indulgence, and I never really got it. I’ve listened to Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy before and was seriously unimpressed. At his birthday party he was trying to play If but the files were corrupted. Afterwards I thought I’d give them another shot. It took at least two playthroughs to really enjoy it, but If is fantastic. It’s definitely not for everyone but it’s a huge improvement over Frankenstein Girls.
I am having the world’s most embarrassing day and it is not even noon yet.
Last night I simply could not sleep. I tossed and turned for what must have been at least an hour. I’m woken up this morning by a phone call. I knew that the weather today would be shitty so I was expecting this to be my instructor telling me that she’s canceling this morning’s flight. It was my instructor, but she was asking whether or not I planned on coming in this morning. I had overslept. So we plan on me coming in at 9:30 and I apologize for oversleeping, and then I’m getting ready. I had apparently not re-set my alarm for this morning and it was still set for 10AM, which is when I woke up yesterday.
I get to the airport and my instructor had left me a practice exam to do while she was in a meeting. This practice exam is in preparation for a test that I have to take before I’m allowed to fly solo, and it’s kind of a big deal. There’s a certain number of failures, which implies that the test is somewhat difficult, and if you bomb out you’re done in the flight program. The practice test is short answer, which is the bane of my existence. I can take multiple choice tests all day but short answer is the worst because then I actually have to recall the things I’ve learned.
The practice test went well though, and I did pretty well on it. My confidence was building and my instructor and I went over the questions I missed and a couple of things that weren’t on the practice test. She asks me if I wanted to take the pre-solo written now. I was feeling pretty good about it and I know it’s a multiple choice test and by now I just want to get it done with so I agreed. She did some admin stuff, and made a phone call, and then she asked me if I had an E6B with me. The E6B is a little metal plate with some slides and charts for computing numbers quickly. I don’t entirely know what it’s used for. I told her my E6B is at my apartment because we haven’t really used it yet. She told me it wasn’t a big deal, if there were any questions involving the E6B it’d only be one or two, and I’d probably be OK guessing them. Another instructor pipes up to say that his student (a friend of mine) just took the test and didn’t even need the E6B. With that she sent me up to the terminal to take the test.
I got up there and talked to the lady to administers the test. She asked me if I needed a pencil or any materials. I couldn’t fathom what materials I would need beyond the E6B which I am now not concerned with, so I went into the testing room which what I have; a pen and my coat. She handed me a blue binder and piece of scrap paper. The test is computerized through Blackboard so I logged in, and started it. The questions were worded a little different from the practice exam and some of them covered topics not even hinted at in the practice exam, but it was a multiple choice test and I considered myself pretty knowledgeable as far as I’d been in the course. Then I got to a question that referred to figures and diagrams. This is a computerized test and there were no figures or diagrams on the screen so I assumed this was one of those E6B questions that I can disregard. I made an educated guess and moved on. I got to another question that referred to figures. Okay, two questions out of 36 isn’t that bad. All told there were about 5 questions involving figures. By the end of the test, I was slightly concerned. I submitted my answers and logged out.
Then I noticed that blue binder the lady gave me. I opened it up, and lo and behold, diagrams and figures. It was a little late now, though, because I had already submitted my answers and logged out. Oh well. At least I get multiple tries at this exam, right? I returned the binder and my scrap paper and the lady kind of looked at me like I was done, even though Blackboard didn’t immediately give me my score, and she clearly wasn’t going to tell me. Okay, I guess that means my instructor will let me know how I did.
Back in my instructor’s cubicle, another of her students is already there. She was astonished at how fast I had finished the test and asked me how I did. I made a face and told her about the blue binder. She assumed that I had failed and asked me if I wanted to try to get a retry now based on the fact that I’d missed out of the blue binder, or if I wanted another day to study and I could give it another go tomorrow. I knew that the difference in taking it with the binder would have saved my score so I told her I wanted to try to re-take it now.
She called the lady to administered the test and told her I didn’t know about the blue binder and that I failed. As soon as the words “failed” exited her mouth, I had to interject that I didn’t actually know my score and that I may not have failed. I was not looking forward to re-taking that test and if I passed, then the blue binder is moot. My instructor hung up with the lady, so she could try to check my score. Her account wouldn’t show her my score, so she asked me to log in to see if it’d tell me. Sure enough, I got 26 out of 36. Quick math revealed that I got a 72%. My instructor called up the lady to ask what was needed to pass and she’s told a 70%. Even without the blue binder and the diagrams, I passed.
That shit is embarrassing. I am so totally okay with bombing out on a test. I’m okay with bombing a test because I’m too dumb to realize that I have the testing materials and I’m not using them. But no, this time I get to limp across the finish line, with a barely passing grade. I almost would have rather failed the test and re-taken it and gotten an appropriate score, rather than slide through with the absolute minimum score.
I know my agonizing is ridiculous. I know passing is passing, and no one really cares how well (or poorly) I did on my pre-solo written exam. But I am seriously embarrassed.
I still have a theater class and a philosophy class to get through, on this rainy, embarrassing, shit day.
Spring break was pretty enjoyable. Got to spend some time helping my friends move into their new house, played some games, had a good time. I found a new love for Wii Fit Plus. Biked almost 20 miles on the first nice day of the year, and then got my nipples pierced again. That was a fun day!
I came back to Carbondale last night. Okay drive but it was all in the rain. Both of my roommates were gone. This morning I found out the little refrigerator that I use to keep my soda in was turned off for however long they were gone for. It was gross though because my roommates keep some meat in the freezer section and it had all de-thawed and stank.
Then my xbox 360 died. Not like the last time it died, where it was acting weird and not turning on but ended up working fine. No, this time it won’t turn back on without showing a screen that says E79 error. E79 is hard drive related, and since it won’t turn on with or without the hard drive, the internet tells me that the console is fucked. I have the good fortune of having just received a big check from the government for god knows what, so I didn’t have much work convincing myself that the best solution was to replace it entirely.
Soooo I did. I went to Best Buy first but they didn’t have any of the bundles with Halo: ODST and Forza 3. I found one at Gamestop. It was possibly one of the best experiences I’ve had at a Gamestop. I asked the lady behind the counter if they had one, she said they did and got it for me, and rang me right up. No Game Informer, no reservations, no warranty, no bullshit. In and out in less than 5 minutes.
I got it home and agonized over opening it. Unopened, I can still return it for a full refund. Once I opened it, though, it’s all mine. I stared at it for a while. I plugged my old xbox back in and tried it again. Same crap. Then I bit the bullet, took out my knife, and broke the seal.
Don’t get me wrong; I did want a new xbox. I wanted a bigger hard drive and quieter console and more reliable hardware. I just didn’t want it like this; my old xbox in a state of limbo, not entirely dead but definitely a brick until I open it up. I’m still going to need a transfer kit to move all my savegames and downloads from my old hard drive to my new hard drive.
I did it. I have a new xbox, huge (well, 120 GB) hard drive, HDMI support, another controller and headset, and Forza 3 and a bonus copy of ODST. Life is almost good again.
