The Avengers, Iron Man

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Over the weekend my daughter and I saw The Avengers on a Big D screen. It was a great movie! We hadn’t seen any of the superhero movies that have come in the previous several years. I’ve seen older ones and am aware of many aspects of the stories, though not fully versed. Beyond that it’s not something that is a requirement to enjoy any movie, you don’t HAVE to have read the book, comic book, seen other materials to enjoy something on the big screen. It doesn’t hurt to have done so, but conversely does not hinder if you haven’t.

It might be BETTER to have the background and have read and seen much or all of the material available first, but it is simply not a requirement for enjoyment of anything.

Seeing The Avengers turned on my superhero movie desires. I don’t mean I never had them before, I HAVE wanted to see Captain America and Thor, for example, but just haven’t been able to convince anyone (read as Frank) that we NEED to get the Blu-rays of those movies.

I’m not saying he’s not willing, or wasn’t, or anything, just didn’t happen, wasn’t important. With the upcoming The Avengers movie I got into it all and realized just how much we’d missed by not seeing Iron Man all this time. I searched Netflix, no Iron Man movie. So that was that.

We went to Costco yesterday and there in the Blu-ray section were Iron Man and Iron Man 2 for $13.99 each. OK!

The other movies were not there. At Best Buy I found each for just under $30 (Captain America & Thor) but that was for a combo pack (since we are comparing.)

It’s interesting to have seen The Avengers without prior explicit knowledge of Iron Man the character or the more recent movies. We “got it” and no part of the story was lost on us, and then to later see Iron Man, as we did last night, and see “how he became Iron Man, and WHY” was really a neat perspective. [Maybe something I like, as Chronicles of Narnia published in that kind of respect, former hidden until later ... it's a nice formula (though modernity doesn't seem to favor such.)]

Anyhow, The Avengers is a great story, a good looking movie, action, comedy, cool. Iron Man, good story, cool, funny, comedy, action, gritty. Awesome!

I find myself liking the idea of lots of stories, movies, films, comic books. There are only so many avenues I can go down. I love super heros, sci-fi, fantasy, action … a sort of horror, not slasher, the good kind. Yeah, good horror. Anyhow, I can only pick and choose here and there as to what we’ll do, see, read.

Therefore, I don’t read comic books or graphic novels. There are things like CD’s that I prefer — music. Then there are books I like to read, other things. So then there are movies, lots of movies, lots of junk to ignore and unfortunately that means something good gets labeled as junk on occasion and is bypassed.

That’s Iron Man. Hello! Sorry! You rock!

Sleep or No Sleep? No, NETFLIX!

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Today is Wednesday. Today is Wednesday. Today is Wednesday. I keep telling that to myself … it’s just not sinking in.

I didn’t have a great night. Well, I did, my morning wasn’t so great therefore. I used to be a regular old night owl. I had my fourth baby when I was 40 and blam! I instantly lost my “every night I’m awake for ever” night owl features. I still have the “I’m not a morning” thing, “I’m online in the evening” mentally, but I get tired easier, and can usually actually sleep. I mean, I need to sleep, I get SLEEP now. I still don’t really like it. I used to have way less sleep and lived on it fine. I get 6 hours now and feel like @#$%# I didn’t get enough. I HAVE to consistently get 7/8/9 hours of sleep. When I get woken up too early I can usually get back to sleep again, but sometimes no, and that perpetuates the other thing, getting up too early every day because of it. It becomes a regular thing. Since I’m not a morning person I don’t MIND those early mornings, if my baby isn’t up. He’s almost 5 (Yikes!) and he is oft time asleep until 7:00 to 8:30 … so if I’m up at 6, OK, 5:30, really? 4:45, oh please NO!

Last week it was like that, way to early woken by something, but got back to sleep. A couple of Four-something wakenings … with the 6 and earlier flirtation losing out to Wide Awake Three days in a row on less than 6 hours of sleep.

We have Netflix streaming via PS3 (finally signed-up for it in March 2012) and I was watching The Event with my two oldest children. We had three episodes to watch, and all this past weekend I kept telling them, “No, not tonight, I’m too tired” as I hadn’t had much sleep of late.

So then yesterday I got to “sleep in” a bit since my hubby left early for the airport, so there was no one making noise. I didn’t want to really watch last night, but I did and we saw the horrible NBC end of a great series. Now they know what I BITCHED about when NBC did that!

I kept falling asleep during the three episodes last night, and other nights we watched two or three I did that too. It’s late, usually I’m in bed asleep by then. So last night I decided to get my PS Vita and actually sign in to Netflix and see how well it worked. It’s really good, except for if you “pause” something … besides that though, it’s pretty good.

I couldn’t just “sign in” though. I had to change my password because I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what I’d set it up as. I used my phone to change the password, but I should have gotten up and gone to my computer, that would have “woken” me up more, and I wasn’t in for the game. I wanted to go to sleep. So changing the password got me more “awake” than I thought. I started scrolling through all the different Netflix things, and finally started looking at Jericho. Oh no, another short lived series. I remember it, I never did watch it, it had an odd name, wasn’t “descriptive enough” for me at the time, so I filed it under “ignore”. End of story.

Until last night, that is. I looked at the description for the show there on Netflix and said, “Why not” figuring I’d see if it was worth pursuing later, that I’d fall asleep and … ah, no, couldn’t be more wrong.

I watched episode 1, then 2, then 3, then, 4, then 5, then 6 holy cow! Now I did drift off during that EMP episode, so I’ll re-watch it. I might let my eldest watch this with me, so start over. Hook, line, sinker …stinking Netflix made it TOO EASY!

It that show that is always talked about, in the way the shows that I like are talked about, how it’s so awesome and it’s canceled and petitioned to be brought back and maybe a movie … or  not …  it’s the show that proves out fan based petitioning and all that stuff really works. Sort of.

So it was 5:30am when episode 6 was done. OMG (not my style to write that, but it just fits, so there it is.)

I turned music on (my Philips Android speaker dock) and eventually got less than 3 hours of sleep.

I feel pretty good right now, considering, but that’s just now. One cup of coffee down. Another one in a minute. I bet I’ll be taking a nap by late morning, or dragging myself comatose to bed in the afternoon. Better earlier than later.

This is the kind of thing that teaches me to sleep during the day, and get some late night stuff in, but it backfires on me and my regular “need to go to sleep” that usually begins around 8pm will get me sleeping earlier sooner than later in the next few days, and then I’ll be getting up at 4am … not good.

So. That’s that. I used to sometimes watch UMD movies on my PSP in bed. Killer, can’t find a good spot to put it … but I have a wonderful PS Vita dock for my PS Vita, and THAT was too easy to sit most anywhere and work to view movies. It was too easy, too good, it kept me from getting sleep, it got me hooked to something I’ll never be pleased about … :(

PSN PS Vita: TOM Blitz

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I’ve been playing the free game for PS Vita referred to as TOM Blitz … for short … as if it IS it’s name. Anyhow, it’s fun, Treasures of Montezuma Blitz, but can be very frustrating for anyone that plays and doesn’t want to or cannot pay for more lives. (By the way, the sounds are really nice, mysterious Mexico legend stuff.)

You get 5 lives to start with, and after 5 minutes you get another, and one life is one game, and it’s 1 minute long, maybe longer depending on things during game play. That makes for 6 games in a row then … do something else for awhile (15 or so or more minutes) until your lives are refilled.

It’s not an easy game to ALWAYS get a good score, those on the leader boards are the ones who pay to play, they can buy lives AND crystals. Crystals are something you get in the game by swapping the gems to erase them, if there is a crystal or more in the gems erased you get them, and they are added up and timed by something after your game. You can also get crystals via a Scratch Off Game that you get randomly mostly one time a day, different amounts are won depending on what 3 symbols are “scratched off” and you cant’ “lose” you always get “something”.

The other way to get crystals is via Near. You not only can get them that way from other players, you can also Give crystals, which is called “Share” after the scratch off game. You have to tell it Yes to launch Near and then hit the Near button to get it to update … then you can go back to the game, your crystals that you gave are there for Near people and your friends list people. You Get crystals from both sets of people as well.

Their is another way to get crystals, that is leveling up. On each one you get crystals. For instance I just leveled up to 6 and got 750 crystals for it.

The final way to get crystals is to PAY for them. That is something I won’t do. At least not until I’m “RICH” LOL

The game is very much like Bejeweled except everything else about the game play. You swap 3 or more gems, you get score multipliers, there are special Totems and Bonuses you can add on to a game round (they cost you crystals to use for each game they are in) you can take them out or change them around each game.

Game play is better with Totems and Bonuses available and that’s why PAY TO PLAY gets the highest scores. My many crystals got down to 0 once before and 5 today. I’ve played mostly today without anything extra and my scores haven’t been very high for the most part. I can’t top my own high score, it’s really hard to have a good game, it IS possible, just not very likely.

Anyhow you swap the gems, and you can keep moving more swaps as the board changes, THAT is NOT like Bejeweled at all. It’s sweet. As your levels progress there are harder things thrown at you, like what I see, a chain and lock around an occasional gem, you can’t move to swap unless you do it right, it’s harder, the rules are different for that chain wrapped gem.

Every week there is a “new” tournament, your friends that play and you are in the “tournament” and your score gets wiped to start over, but your LEVEL stays.

We aren’t sure in our house what happens if you win the week or whatever. We started the game with just 3 days (my son) and 1 day for me left in the “week tournament”, there are 23 or so hours left in THIS weeks right now, so I’ll know better then. My son has the top score right now, and other “friends” I have on my list are lower than me. One is catching up though and my lack of crystals is causing me fretting over getting put into third place maybe. That’s just on my list. His list could be different, and my sons only has me and him on it. So … how it works out, who knows.

All in all it’s a very fun game, just limiting in how much you can play at one time, and it’s very much something that makes you WANT to play it MORE and MORE, yet you can’t unless you wait between sets of lives or PAY for more. Either way, you are out either time or money and money takes time and so it’s all time and it’s all money … right?

Mozilla vs. Chrome: GetGlue & Flickr

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I’ve been using Pale Moon x64 for awhile now. There are problems with how some sites display and work though. I have also run Firefox, latest versions of both browsers, with the same URL’s and find that they have the same problems. I have used Firefox for years and years now.

Two sites are affected by this: Flickr and Getglue

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Flickr

Flickr is affected only on Group pages. Add Photos to Group makes one wish they were bald so they CAN’T pull their hair out.

In IE and Chrome it looks and behaves how it should, nice boxes on the right and your photos on the left to click for insertion into the boxes to submit to the group. In Pale Moon and Firefox that set of empty boxes to fill is one long stream of boxes overlaying the page, going well beyond the borders of it area. Nothing works to get photos into the group this way.

The only way to do so is to go to the individual pictures and look in Actions to Send to Group … or go to Organize & Create and THERE you can batch send to groups.

But not on the group page, which is my preferred method, usually.

I didn’t always participate in groups much and never understood how people can be so active in groups on Flickr like some seem. It’s a double-full time job! So this browser problem isn’t too new, it’s been happening for a little while, I just started trying to get more active again recently (with my Knockout Roses blooming ever so sweet and abundantly!) so I’m frustrated by it and remembering other times in the past where I quit trying at all because of such things.

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Get Glue

Then there’s GetGlue. It’s a service I started noticing on Twitter last year, and didn’t give it single thought past what’s that? Who cares. Then one day it just snagged me … I clicked on a link on a Twitter search that had a getglue item in it … and that’s history.

I love Getglue, the only thing I haven’t done is branched out to follow anyone but my family. As my family goes, they aren’t even active really, only slightly, and that’s my immediate family. I have no idea if anyone I know is on getglue or twitter or … well a couple of people on twitter, but my extended family … no. OK so GetGlue has grown up since then, in my short use of the service. They revamped their site some time ago and since then, flunk … -F for Palemoon and Firefox. I lived with it, just for easements sake, using one browser for everything but Music (I have Google Music in Chrome, it’s the only place I run it on my PC. Firefox was flaky feeling, and Chrome is it’s brother or cousin or something, so, it work better, it does.)

Getglue, search for anything in the top right search box, in Pale Moon and in Firefox you get the same results, poor results, one thing, a black box usually that is a link to something related or maybe what you want but usually not.

Check in field usually works, but I don’t like that way of checking in all the time, sometimes I want to go to the actually page of what I want to check into first. I don’t want a bunch of bookmarks to work from … so searching, is useless in Mozilla on Getglue.

All the LITTLE things are also missing. The things that made me go, huh? When they rolled out the new site. I couldn’t tell if I liked something already or not, and it was the same going to other people’s pages and it was all just a hassle.

I didn’t check-in much anymore. I checked in via my Android phone app for GetGlue occasionally, a much better experience!

So all of this got to me yesterday. I copied a URL into IE and voila! Beautiful full color photo results. The ugly black bubbly square icky FF experience gone. I tried it in Chrome next. Same beautiful results.

There’s another annoying beyond annoying behavior in Mozilla browsers on GetGlue, hover over your profile links, and sometime you catch the edge of the Find Friends link. That pops out a label that won’t go away unless you navigate elsewhere and if it’s a link to go to your Profile or anything on the top of that list, you are SOL, the label won’t let you access the links (this stuff is just petty, who’s fault is it, webpage coding or browswer?)

No such behaviour in Chrome or IE or on my PS Vita in the browser on it.

So using Chrome I know that when I use a tab to go somewhere online besides Google Music, I end up X-ing the whole thing closed at some point, forgetting that “This is MY MUSIC PLAYER and IT WAS PLAYING but not anymore!” because I shut it down. Reflex.

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Good things about Chrome

I found out something about Chrome that I didn’t read about, don’t know if others know much about it but … open a site in a tab. Right Click the tab, choose Pin Tab. Nice!

Close browser. Open Chrome again, not a sub-link, the actual plain Chrome. Pinned Tabs open with the browser, plus a regular tab with you home page on it.

Pinned Tabs are tiny tabs on the left of regular tabs. So now I have Get Glue on the far left and Google Music on the Right of it. If I want to use other sites frequently I’ll add them, but only if it makes sense. I will have to add Flickr.

Things about computer use are nice when they work. So since FF won’t, I will move, some of it, the stuff that WILL work elsewhere, since there is an IE alternative.

Get Glue looks splendid in Chrome. It’s understandable, what they did with it when viewing it like that. The mystery solved, I can like and not like and favorite again. I can check-in however I want, I am not annoyed with pop out text nor searches that are wonky, wrong, ugly, slim, useless.

I don’t HAVE to use my phone to do this easier. It’s easy in Chrome as it should be on the PC. (It shouldn’t be hard and mysterious, should it? No. Fault on either side, coders or Mozilla coders, which side it doesn’t matter, the browser SHOULD be universal. Chrome and IE work on Flickr and GetGlue like mozilla doesn’t, update after update, nothing changes, just me.)

Scrobble, Scrobble, Scrobble: Sony, Playstation, PS Vita

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One thing I’ve wanted for a long time is an ability to listen to my music on anything and be able to Scrobble it. I had that ability with my PC when I first discovered what became Last.fm … audioscrobbler … and that support didn’t extend to the portable player I had at the time and it made me stop using it (really!) … I got a new device later and it wouldn’t do two things I wanted, log songs so that I could upload via a scrobbler of some kind … lots of devices have that capability, just none I ever picked. So eventually I heard of ROCK BOX and once I had to guts to perform the operation, I never looked back. I stayed with that until I got an Android phone and started using that for music (last.fm support + 3rd party scrobblers) and then Google Music came along and all my desires were met (with other tries in the middle, like Audio Galaxy and Mplay, both just didn’t work for me at all.) Google Music (now called Google Play) is my best friend.

Of late the Last.fm client on my PC won’t scrobble. That’s OK since I mostly use Chrome for Google Music on my PC, but there are things I want to scrobble sometimes that I do not have on Google Music, so then it’s a point of contention, and I know other people have the same problem on their computers with last.fm not scrobbling but I can’t figure out what to do. It says it scrobbles tracks, but it doesn’t. Anyhow …

Another place I have wanted scrobbling from is the PS3. I don’t want it hacked. We use it standard as it is and that’s fine with how we use it, I just would like to see Sony understand that simply SCROBBLING what music I have on their device is what I want to do. I just want Scrobble support.

On the PSP that would have been nice too.

Now, on my PS Vita it’s even more desired.

Sony Playstation PS Vita PS3 people, please support Scrobbling to Last.fm … even to other services … but Last.fm is the main scrobbler and lots of people would like a simple process that logs the song name, album, time played (each song, each time) … and can be submitted to last.fm as scrobbles.

I use a scrobbler on my Android devices, I don’t listen to music from Last.fm, I listen to my music library and scrobble from that. The scrobbler has my credentials and logs in behind the scenes and submits on the fly or caches for later submission. It shouldn’t be so hard to implement this for hardcore users, buried in settings … please, please, please!

Google Music app would be nice too, but that’s not really something I want, I only put some music on my PS3 and PS Vita, not all my music, fwiw. I’d use it if it came to the PS Vita or PS3 though. :)

Google Music (Google Play)

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Today I got a new (for me [but brand new copy]) CD/DVD – Flyleaf … name of CD and group name. I haven’t always been aware of all the kinds of music coming out that I like or may eventually like or don’t like or will absolutely hate.

I’ve been on an Octane XM 37 (sat. radio) kick for many months now. One artist they didn’t (to me) play until more recently is Flyleaf. As it goes, in music there are less female singers than male, and the ones that are any good are even less … I prefer male voices, high or low, more dry than rich, depends though. Female voices, I’m totally disgusted by so many, not worth listing even one of them. I can say I like Evanescence … I can listen to them anytime. Flyleaf is new to me these last couple of months.

My male voice prejudice for music would have had me neglect them if I had heard of them though. Evanescence came to my attention when some kid on Youtube used one of their songs with a Bionicle video, and I was hooked immediately. I had heard of Amy before, but didn’t particularly like her on the Seether album I have with her singing on one song. Evanescence is totally a different story.

So today I got my Flyleaf CD and ripped it and Google Music starts uploading it.

Why, don’t know, but whyever, they don’t usually upload an album intact and ready to go without my intervention in the browser editing one or two or three albums and/or their album covers.

Way back when Google Music started, once I got an invite, I immediately didn’t like the album cover problem that was glaringly obvious on my HTC Evo 4g phone … pictures were ugly, grainy distorted (worse than grainy) like tiny graphics blown up hugely. I contacted them via email and got a reply that only MP3′s will upload the high resolution album art, or obtain it somehow or other, and that, like in my case, .wma’s only uploaded a small pic and I’d have to manually add hi-res pics for them.

Urg! I was using wma for a long time since I could do quality variable bit rate in less space with their proprietary format. Since then I’ve ripped a lot of new music as .mp3 and have to for certain uses of the music for other devices, but for my HTC Evo, not the case, Google Music, not the case. But because I now use Google Music on my android devices and I want nice pictures for the album covers … with little fuss and muss … it pains me when I try to get something ripped and uploaded fast so I can take it on the road …. but I can’t.

Some albums go up without a problem. Most do though. I had 3 of one sitting there one day. And once you have that cleaned up, the HOME screen of Google Music in the browser keeps those defunct folders around until you listen to enough other music to recycle their position to “gone”. So it’s ugly.

Plus, how many times do I get a whole album uploaded, .mp3′s and the picture stinks of horribleness but the album info is kosher.

So today both things happened, divided album (lack of artist in artist field on half of the tracks) plus both had low-res pictures for album covers. So I had to fiddle faddle and because of that I noticed something Google Play had on the home screen, under my recent albums (they have stuff from their Play store, tracks to buy) and so I looked at one thing, and that led me to see something else, and I saw something called Cults/Cults … which brings this post full circle. UGH!! I listened to a few seconds of at least three tracks and I was like… gag! Give me YES or Slipknot or 12 Stones or Clan of Xymox or The Cure or Cinderella or The Cult or … on and on .. up to Evanescence … but no, no, no to “Cults” whatever they are, yuck! Yes, a sickening female voice. Scratch my own eyes out.

LEGO #6866 X-Men Wolverine’s Chopper Showdown

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My new LEGO set by CrazyMaisy
My new LEGO set, a photo by CrazyMaisy on Flickr.

I bought this last week and put it together while videoing segments … something which I’ll link to once the video is processed and uploaded to YouTube.

It’s a really fun set, fun to build and play with. The helicopter chopper is really neato and the motorcycle chopper is really nice. The three mini-figures are great, Deadpool all red, printed details and a back-holster to hold twp cool swords. Magneto has a nice helmet, purple hands and purple cape and printed details, two faces that are oh so Magneto. Wolverine has his claws for each hand to hold, two faces, nice printed detail, perfect Wolverine Hair, oh, and his expressions are perfect.

Wolverine is my most favorite, by far, X-Men character.

Saving Personal Data

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Data on disks can make one totally insane. I haven’t had a good solution for many years, always “waiting” for the time when I can have a nice setup with a desktop, a laptop AND a great backup and backup of backup and … so on.

So now, with not having said desktop computer, only having a really very old Win XP computer from the mid-2000′s I’ve had my oldest, most precious, photos on a hard disk inside that machine, and though I truly believe in separate disks, time and action have forced me to use my 1TB for storing all that stuff to be partitioned to run Win XP AND store all my stuff.

Backtrack to last year. I had a 320gb drive that was partitioned for Win XP and All My Stuff, two partitions. Something went sideways and Windows wasn’t starting, and I couldn’t even see my files via connecting to anything else. I got an external Sata dock and Win 7 said the drive was empty, nothing, noninitialized, etc.

Win XP Wouldn’t recognize it, and eventually it worked out that I found this thing called TestDisk … which I thank God for since I needed it AGAIN … OK, what it does is allows you to get into a drive that Win thinks is broken … it is, and TestDisk will go deep and find your stuff. Yes, you can fix a drive. But man if that’s what I want, it’s always about … save the data. I don’t have extra stuff around … lets see, back then it was … sigh, the 1TB drive was new and I had to put all that stuff on it and through the means of trying to get things to run Win XP I ended up having no choice (recent drive and sata dock purchases) but to use the 1TB drive to host Win XP AND My Stuff.

So then we had internet problems the half of the year. Not really, only on that one machine. Ethernet, drivers properly installed, but I had to System Restore many times, then I ended up recently having to reinstall Win XP. Great, Fresh … got everything in line and no internet. It was #$@.k#$@dkald#$@ Anyhow I finally figured out SOMETHING to make it work, but I didn’t like it since “Automatic” wouldn’t work at all.

Plus that Win XP was ON MY Terra-byte drive and I didn’t want it there … and then the wonky started, I realized that one of those times of Sys Restore or reinstall… Win XP marked my My Stuff partition as Active and … I was toast.

It was too late. Missing NTLDR … akdjfklasdlkjfjkladsfjklaslk;dflk;adjflkjadlkfjlk;ajdf;lkjdslk;fjasdkljf (that’s how I felt) … so then, flip flopping things around I found my OLD 40GB drive actually WORK and such, as long as it’s level it doesn’t make horrid sounds, so I put WIN XP on that and right out of the box, with SP3 then drivers … bam! Fast internet without fiddling.

So … something was wrong before. Anyhow, I was taking the drive tray off of the 1TB drive and I dropped it. #$@%#%#%@ Yeah, the drive.
From there, it wasn’t a simple “repair” of WIN XP it was now, OH My …. DATA!

Test Disk to the rescue. Actually I tried “System Rescue CD” which was laying around. Crap for me. Test Disk was lying in my old downloads on my Win 7 laptop. I finally remembered that and listened as it tried to scan and do something. Basically it didn’t work with it inside the system. Once I had the Sata dock up and running with the right electrical cord it fired up the drive and Test Disk took forever but finally produced something, and Win XP went bonkers with Auto play windows for all these new drives it recognized. Wow!
I mean, I didn’t change anything in the Test Disk program, but something changed enough for Win XP to see that stuff. I moved the newer stuff only. I don’t have the space to move the old good stuff, plus I still have the 320GB drive that it came from which may or maybe can’t be fixed … but it can give up more data again, I do believe (it’s in a pretty good state via the Sata dock, I can use xcopy in cmd and it’s pretty good, very little of what it didn’t get. But now I am able to use Windows to look at stuff on it. It’s not as flaky as it was last year. Anyhow, it’s stable enough I can re-acquire that which I acquired before, again.

That means I can hopefully wipe the 1TB drive and start over, is it OK or not? We’ll find out. Also, that 320GB drive, have to do something with that too. I know, I need two more new drives so I can make it all work out safely. No three new drives. There’s a 3TB external thing I’d like to archive my video and photos and such on. Then a nice 500GB or so for the XP Computer, and … oh forget it. Just something has got to give so that I can build my powerful system, then I can rebuild the Win XP machine in a new case and MB setup … and then get an all in one computer for the Family room.

Why do I want an XP computer? Why not? It seems useful at times. It’s nice to keep old stuff in working condition. But I don’t work too well on that. I like my higher resolution, beautiful Win 7 … yes, I do like it, as bad as it is, it’s their best so far. I’ve also used Fedora & Ubuntu and looked at other distros. I am a PC, but I like my stuff to look good and run easily, but I want to fix it if I have to. I like coding and commanding and stuff, but it’s not something I have gotten to very much, only if I’m in the mood for it. So when I just want the internet and programs on my computer to WORK, I choose Win 7, for now.

So it’s a day of hoping to deactive that 1TB drive partition and see what happens.

Guitar Hero Again – Dongle fix

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(Dongle fix story, and Dongle Fix Directions at the bottom.)

Lately I’ve felt like revisting Guitar Hero. It’s been a long time. We first finally bought into the franchise on the Wii with Guitar Hero III Legends of Rock. I really liked that game.

We got GH World Tour next.

Then we got heavier into PlayStation than Wii, got the whole band kit for GH WT PS3 … and within a month the drums died and DH promised to bring it back to BB and exchange it, but never did, and I have no idea what happened to that, and the microphone eventually fell apart from little kids banging on it with no use for it but that (I couldn’t stand singing with GH WT, it wouldn’t give me points for doing it even one iota different from what was the original singer, so my own style was poo-poo’d and that sucks since sometimes even it was just MY OWN VOICE replicating the original singer but with my own voice, not a style, just copying “their way” and it would deduct points … ick. Forget it. I’m a great singer and since it wouldn’t recognize me … what’s new? Nothing.

Anyhow, forget WT I didn’t like the whole game anyhow, I really liked Legends of Rock. We picked up a used copy of PS3 GH III Legends of Rock a couple of years ago. I also have the Aerosmith GH but haven’t actually played it (as far as I can remember, like I may have … but not more than put the game in …)

So the other day we pulled out PS3 GH III and the WT Guitar and dongle for it. Plug the usb of the dongle in and … nothing. Par for the course. It always was trouble after not very long of having it.

So the first time anyone played in this session, it was my 13 year old daughter, she used a PS3 dualshock controller to play the songs. She didn’t like it, but got better at it soon. Later I had batteries finally useful for the guitar, and I gave it another go with the dongle. Miraculously it finally turned on. My daughter played with the WT guitar and it worked for her.

So yesterday I finally got my chance to play, felt like playing too, so I got out the dongle and … nothing. I #%#@!!@%!$%@$%&!!!!! with it for hours it seemed. All in all I think I did indeed wasted nearly an hour before I got it to light up. I had trouble with the guitar then, finally found the right battery stuff and had it linked. Started the game and found I only had named my band “BAND” ha ha ha. Must have been a frustrating day those long years ago. So I crank it up and start with Slow Ride. I didn’t do so swell. Lets put it this way. I wasn’t that bad, only had lost my “Medium” edge, just need to re-tune it. Long ago I started GH and used EASY, and got through the game. Then I started over perfecting each song (nearly each song) on Medium, and loved it that way. I intended to go to HARD but didn’t (for whatever reason) and then WT came about and that whole game was like a joke to me, I liked some of it, but man …

So that’s when we also switched to PS3 with GH WT and left the Wii behind. Left GH behind mostly too. Resurgence of GH III later, but not for too long, then we just let it all sit and gather dust.

So there I was playing GH III on my old GH “BAND” profile and with one song under my belt I moved to a second song in the first sections, a few notes in, my guitar was unresponsive, totally …. what??????? Both dongle and guitar were lit up like connected.

So I wasted a bunch more time, fiddling with it all. If I unplugged the dongle to reset the connecting, guess what? It wouldn’t turn back on. I go so sick of it. I had been blowing into the usb ports to warm it up, used my scrapbooking heat gun too. It didn’t work, or did, eventually I got it back on. And my guitar still was unresponsive.

I took it all downstairs to my “office” then. Get away from the Wi-Fi signal that was right there in that other room, and try it on a newer PS3 (like mine in the office is.) Trials galore, no dongle light. So I started more searching online than I had been doing already and found a video of a guy folding paper and cutting it to fit inside the Guitar neck. So I ripped out a piece of notebook paper and folded it up and got the neck of the guitar off, put in the paper and re-inserted the neck. Really tight, but it all went back together. OK, would that fix it? Who knows. The Dongle was still not working.

I put it in the freezer for 10 minutes. Nothing. Heated it. Nothing. Let it sit plugged in for 15 or more minutes. Nothing. Restart PS3. Many times. It was so testy, it was simply more than a pain in the.

Dongle Fix: the Story

Finally I did the only thing that I could figure out. OK, where are the screws. I’m taking this thing apart.

I did.

With the case off of it I looked at it, looked fine, smelled fine. Nothing lose, worn, or anything. Plugged it into my PS3 downstairs like that, the light was part of the button, loose in the case, just held in place, I couldn’t tell if it was connecting without it, so I carefully put the top onto it and voila! It instantly lit up! Yeah! So I had the top on, little poles slide into the circuitboard, so it’s held on secure enough. Anyhow, So now I played through GH III the first two sections and lost my battle against Tom M. Yes, I don’t care. I was able to play, the paper in the guitar neck seems to have worked. I guess I need to test it all without the paper now.

So I played a whole new game, never had played GH on that machine and I didn’t even think to put my save file in the cloud. All in all it’s OK since I really don’t mind beating it again. Not that I beat it already. No. I’m two sections in, just need to beat Tom M. and then I’ll have my more favorite songs to practice on.

So I played the two sections with no hitches. Then I quit, brought the dongle and guitar upstairs and asked my daughter if she wanted to play then. Yes. OK, let’s see … yes, instant dongle light up. Guitar worked. Awesome!

I had her unplug the dongle when she was done and put it in a drawer. This morning I pulled it out and quickly plugged it in, it lit up right away! I brought it down to my other PS3 and repeated my success.

I decided to put the bottom and screws and feet back on it. I didn’t over tighten, just enough. Sure enough, it still works. I tried it on both machines … instant light.

I didn’t do anything but take the feet off, take the screws out, take the bottom off, pry the circuit board off the poles in the top of the dongle case. It wasn’t anything about taking it apart that needed to be done. I’m guessing it’s the button, maybe it sits funny and that’s why, but simply replacing it makes it work solidly again. Works for me.

I have nothing against taking things apart (love doing that anyhow!)

Directions to fix GH Dongle to light up every time you plug it in!

So if you have a GH dongle and it won’t light up, try taking it apart. Pry off the sticky black dot feet, I used a T6 screwdriver to unscrew the 4 screws. Take the bottom and top (case) off. The circuit board is on poles connected to the top, just wiggle the board up to get it off. The button fits into a slot there, it’s easy enough to put it back together. If the dongle works when opened up, it just may work when put back together, as it did for me. Reverse the process to put it back together.