Xbox 360 - still relevant?

I honestly don't remember if I blogged about this a lot, but my sister and I have been diehard fans of Left 4 Dead since the first one came out in late 2008. That was the same year I started this blog, so I'm sure I've mentioned it a time or two. We got our very first Xbox 360 in spring of 2007 and kept the same one until we got a PS4, which was early winter of 2014. We only had to send it in for repairs one time a few years after we got it, but other than that it's been really good.

After we got out PS4 we didn't really play the 360 that much, just once or twice when I wanted to play Splinter Cell or Survival Instinct. A couple months back I wanted to play L4D so bad that we got our old 360 out of storage and hooked it up. It was no surprise that it didn't turn on, even though it's in basically the same shape as it was the last time we played it. It could be something simple like a faulty power cord, or it could be the console itself. I mean, the disc tray jams and has to be forced open, plus the faceplate is missing entirely.

Nothing else was said about it up until a couple weeks ago when I started thinking of L4D again and wanting to play SO terribly bad. I started looking for used 360's on eBay and found several decent deals. A lot of them were just under $100 and a few over, but I already knew I didn't even want to pay close to that. After searching for days, I finally found one that wasn't ridiculously priced (under $60) and placed an offer. The guy countered for $4 less than the original listing price, so I countered again and he finally accepted. 

If he had shipped it out the day after I paid, we could've gotten it Saturday and had it Monday when we got back from work, but he took a while to ship it out and we just got it yesterday. It sucks, but it's whatever. We made up for lost time yesterday by playing for nearly 8 hours. I can't express how happy I am that we have a functioning 360 again. There is SO much nostalgia involved, it's amazing. Even though L4D and L4D2 are 12 and 13 years old, they're still so amazing to play. 

I was hoping that the graphics wouldn't be a major letdown, considering we've been playing PS4 games for 7 years, but it really wasn't an issue. It's just as fun as it was 13 years ago.

So let me ask, does anyone still use their Xbox 360? I know it's all the rage to buy the newest and best console, but I find so much joy in playing old games that are near and dear to my heart. Games that make me happy and sad at the same time because they take me back to a time that I loved so dearly, a time that I miss so much. 

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with new consoles. I mean, I would love to have a PS5, but I'm not gonna go crazy trying to find one and paying scalpers $1500 for something that costs less than $500. I'll be perfectly content playing PS4 games until they stop making them. 

I guess that's all for now. I'm going to share completely unrelated gaming photos below, which should come as no surprise.

One of the two pepper plants I'm trying to save/grow.

This is the other guy.

One of the baby cabbages.

Strawberry blooms!

These are some of the orange cherry tomatoes.

I can't wait to eat them.

I think this is a big guy.

And lastly, our giant hostas.

I'm noticing a pattern here...

Is is just me or is every other blog of mine about sugar gliders or something pertaining to sugar gliders? Like today for example, 16 of the 20 pictures I have to share are of sugar gliders. It's usually that way with every other paragraph as well...

Anyway, LaVaughn managed to get some really, really cute pictures of... guess who... Deagol (sugar glider) last night! I also managed to get some really cute pictures of Violet. I also got a video of Violet cleaning herself, which is too cute for words. So be sure to check those bad boys out at the bottom.

In NON-animal news, I have a movie to talk about. Not sure if you've heard of The Inn Keepers or not, but it was a pretty good little ghostly movie. It's not like "edge of your seat" horrifying or anything, but it definitely has it's scary moments. The beginning is a little draggy, but it makes up for it in the end. It stars The Last House On The Left actress, Sara Paxton, whom I like. So... if you have nothing better to watch, you should check it out. Remember, it's The Inn Keepers!

I suppose that's all I can drain out of myself at the moment. Until next time... yadda, yadda, yadda.

Love & Peace

-Megan

Song of the day: Rondo Alla Turca by Mozart

Here are the pics:

 Una completely tuckered herself out playing the Xbox last night, lol..

 She's a big Left 4 Dead player, lol.

 My Valentine treat. Just in case you can't tell, it's Dove chocolates. :)

The following photos are of our mosaic sugar glider joey, Deagol. These were all taken by LaVaughn:

 Having a yoggie treat.

 "All mine, really?"

 *gasp* "How exciting!"

 Look at that cute little mosaic face. <3

I seriously want to keep him sometimes, lol.

 Yogurt on his mouth.

The following pictures are of our WFB sugar glider joey, Violet. These were all taken by me:

 Sleepy little sugar glider.

 She has such a pretty face. <3

 "No more photos please."

 This is quite possible my favorite photo of her ever!

 And yes, her eyes are open. (this was taken by LaVaughn)

Yes, this is a sugar glider penis. And yes, it is forked.

Here's the video:

 

Dead Island... can you handle it?

It was brought to my attention not too long ago that Techland (Call of Juarez) was developing a game by the name of, Dead Island. It's second nature for me to automatically want to know more about a game that has the word "dead" in it or seems like it may be zombie related. So I didn't think twice about looking into it. Dead Island is going to be similar to the ever so awesome, Left 4 Dead games. It's a first person game and can have up to four players. And like L4D again, it's main form of combat is with melee weapons. But Dead Island does have something that L4D doesn't, customizable weaponry. I know, I'm stoked too! And if you're lucky enough to own an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, then you're golden. There hasn't been any talk of it being released on Wii or Playstation 2 yet, I guess we'll have to wait and see. Oh yeah, it's going to be published by Deep Silver.

The game is set in Papua New Guinea at the Royal Palms resort in a fictional town called, Banoi. Apparently, whichever character you choose wakes up after a drunken night on the town to full fledged zombie apocalypse. The characters you get to choose from are: Xian Mei (Royal Palms staff member), Logan (a surfer), Sam B (ex rapper) and Purna (unknown background).

Now I don't know about you, but I'm definitely going to be first in line when this bad boy hits stores later this year. I can already feel my heart start to pound at the thought of blood gushing, zombie bashing, head splitting fun of playing this game. Light up the darkness... now who's with me!

Love & Peace

-Megan

Song of the day: Shoot To Thrill by AC/DC

Ready to wet yourself? Here's the latest trailer for Dead Island:

Pure creative genius! I love this trailer so much, it makes me want to cry. No joke. It's seriously one of the best game trailers of its time. If for some odd reason that wasn't enough, maybe these stills will help you along the way:

Let me check... yup, I'm wet!

Kind of a boring day...

Well my day started off with a trip to the funeral home in town. No worries, there are no new deaths in the family, just had to drop something off for someone. The people in there are extremely nice for some reason, a little weird if you ask me, but at least they're not dicks. The entire time I was in there, this one lady was talking to someone on the phone about their family member (who has apparently been there for 4 days) that was needing to be cremated. I guess they wouldn't sign some papers or something, but that's beside the point. During this time, I couldn't help but think about how awesome it must be to work there. I mean, you just sit in a funeral home all day planning funerals or burning people! What? Anyway, I guess I should think of happier things, like kitty cats and rainbows.

After that, I headed over to the car wash to clean out our poor car. I spent the majority of my time switching between radio stations to try and find something awesome to clean to. I finally landed on The Bone and listened to Stone Temple Pilots (who are going to be at the Black River Coliseum in the coming weeks). I got pretty much all the trash and rocks out of the car, but the dog hair was a different story. Ugh, that shit is so hard to get out. We have to use these one dog brushes to get it out or we're screwed. Anyway, I didn't really worry about the hair too much, mostly the trash and rocks/dirt.

After that I had to run to the store and pick up a few things. Nothing awesome, just some cereal, cheese and ketchup. The cereal of the moment is Honey Bunches of Oats with almonds. Man is that stuff awesome! I could seriously live on it.

Well, I think that concludes my utterly boring day. Now, time to hold some joeys, play Left 4 Dead and/or watch something on Netflix. Peace!

-Megan

Song of the day: No Rain by Blind Melon

I'm still here...

Just thought I'd let everyone know that I am in fact, still here. I've got you all spoiled on daily blogs, lol. I've just been slowly recovering from a horrendous cold. I think I'm 5 days in now. It started out as a tickle in my throat, then it got progressively worse. After that, it turned in to a HORRID sore throat then to runny/stuffy nose. And now, it's the dreaded cough! I've been doping myself up for almost a week now, so hopefully some light will start to shine through.

Anyway, what I wanted to come here and tell you about, we've got yet another gamertag. We realised that we each needed an Xbox Live account to use our headsets and have our own names. So now, I'm Madame Magenta and LaVaughn is still Machete Girls. We're in the process of changing girls to girl, lol. So, if you're an Xbox Live fan and like to play Left 4 Dead 1 and/or 2, come join us.

Well, I guess that's all for now. Oh yeah, I'm not sure, but I think I might start my movie reviews back up. I've got LOADS that I haven't done, so keep your finders crossed for me. Until next time, you know where to find me (the pharmacy, lol)...

Love & Peace

-Megan

Song of the day: Hard To Handle by The Black Crows

Of course this happened...

I don't think I've said anything about this since it's happened. I guess it's just too painful for me to bring up. For the past month or two, our Xbox has been giving us some trouble. It would work, but after so long, it would freeze. We thought that maybe it was because we had played Left 4 Dead too much, but it froze every game we have. So, with our warranty being out, we were faced with three choices:

A) Get a new one

B) Send it to Microsoft and have them fix it

C) Fix it ourselves

And which one of those lucky letters do you think we chose? That's right, we chose C. So, we got all of our stuff together and started tearing it apart. Which is no easy task. After we got it stripped down, we started cleaning it. There was so much dust, we thought that might be the problem. Then we cleaned the laser in the disc drive. After we were finished, we put it back together. Piece of cake right? Wrong! Guess what happened after that. It overheated. So, we then had to wait. We didn't touch it until the next day. Then we tried to turn it on again... still overheated. We both knew there was now way that it was overheated, so we took it apart again. While it was still stripped, we decided to turn it to see if it would work or not before we put everything back together. So, we did and it worked. We were like, "Hell yea!". So we put it back together, hooked it up, and turned it on. Can you guess what happened next? It said it was overheated again. At this time we were so pissed, we just wanted to play. So, we took everything back off of it and left it that way.

So now, we have a piss poor looking Xbox that still freezes. We've got an Xbox fund going, so hopefully we have a new one by the time Left 4 Dead 2 comes out. If not, we've both decided to prostitute ourselves out for the money.

Well, I think that's all for now. See you on the other side. Peace...

-Megan

Song of the day: Detroit Rock City by Kiss

Here's what our poor Xbox looks like now. We sat it on its outer shell so that it wouldn't get too hot. Hopefully, there's a nice new Xbox sitting on our floor by the 17th.

Left 4 Dead…

Awesome is really the only way that I can describe this game. It is definitely the best game ever made. We got it Tuesday night and haven’t stopped playing it since. I swear to everyone right now, it will be the best $60 you have ever spend. It’s has so much to offer. Well first, you can choose between four different people: Bill (an old army guy that kicks total ass and sounds a little bit like Bartender from the Feast movies), Francis (a kick ass guy that oddly looks and sounds like Diamond Dallas Page), Louis (comes off as a wimpy business guy, but will save your ass more than anyone else), and last but definitely not least, Zoey (a pretty badass chick that we would be lost without and who also has a very canny eye for the sky). These four magnificent people make the game Left 4 Dead a truly awesome experience. We’ve been playing with one wired Microsoft xBox controller and one wired Joytech controller. Both of which have given us a great gaming experience. But, the Joytech controller is too loose when it comes to aiming and it doesn’t shoot very fast. So yesterday, we were discussing how awesome it would be to have a couple wireless controllers. Considering it would enhance our gaming experience and would stop our two kittens from chewing on the cords. So we thought, “What the hell.” Lets get a couple. So LaVaughn called and asked how much their wireless controllers were and they said that they were $44.92. So we hopped in the car and got to the store ASAP. Well I decided to just run in and grab them. So when I got back to the gaming section, I noticed that the controllers were $49.98 instead. Well I only had $105 on me, so I had to use $2.75 in quarters which sucked, but totally worth it. Well as soon as we got home we started playing again. And oh my god, it is so much better. It’s almost like you’re holding the actual gun. It’s so badass. I can’t believe we never got wireless controllers before. It’ll change your life, lol. Well I guess I better stop there. I could go on for hours. And, I didn’t even tell you about the special creatures. But I don’t really have the energy to type that much, maybe some other time. Well, since this is the best zombie game ever made, I’m gonna have to give it an 100/10. So please, for the love of god, go buy this game now. I swear, if you like horror, action, and just kicking ass with your friends, then this is so the game for you. Peace out, have fun, and kick some major zombie ass!

- Megan

Song of the day: Please, Please, Please by James Brown

Do you want to be, Left 4 Dead?…

Well, if not, then I suggest you gather 3 of your closest buds and get ready for the gaming experience of your life. Well, I’m sure the vast majority of you have seen the preview for the new multiplayer co-operative survival horror game Left 4 Dead. Brought to you by the fine people of the Valve Corporation. And for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, then you’re really missing out. You, and up to 3 of your friends have to help each other through zombie hell. And for those of you who don’t know us, we freak out over anything zombie. We even bought a movie call Automaton Transfusion just because it had a zombie dude on the cover. And let me just say, I really wish we had our $15 back. Word of advice, don’t judge a DVD b its cover. Anyway, the concept of the game is to help your friends through a bunch of scenarios until you reach the end alive. That’s pretty much all I know about it right now. I’ll probably be able to tell you more tomorrow, when we but it! Hopefully we get to but it anyway. Well I guess that’s about it. So, good luckto everyone that will be slaying zombies with the best of them tomorrow. Until next time…

- Megan

Song of the day: Fooled Around and Fell In Love by Elvin Bishop