Play Station 3 - Corrupted by the Dark Side...

[Jim von Krieg]

Greetings all,

I've finally reached block leave, aka vacation... It's great to have 30 days of relaxation after so many months of high optempo... I think I'll just rattle on a bit...

It's raining here in Texas... and it hasn't turned into a sea of slime that rain in Iraq brings...

This is probably going to be one of the few times I'll have to relax because the unit's next deployment is already scheduled and they can't do without me... Back to Iraq in 08/09... and possibly part of 10 if they keep the 15 month schedules...

I've started looking around at all the new electronic toys out there... All these new shiny things that for a fee are supposed to help us manage, organize, entertain and generally make our life better...

I see there are a mind numbing array of new cell phones around... Most of the Soldiers in my unit ran out immediately upon their return for all the tricked out cell phones...

Funny story, one of the Soldiers had his cell phone ring in the orderly room which was packed full of folks busy talking and conducting business... His ring simulated the artillery warning system deployed on installations in Iraq..

It was comical because the room went completely silent as everyone went into automatic reaction mode... then burst out laughing as we all realized it was this kids cell phone... For a few seconds we were all back in Iraq waiting on the mortars and rockets to come in, even if we were in Texas...

For November, about the only new toy was a present of Matrix CS... Sweet... However, we're all talking about the other array of new goodies out there which have hit the scene since we started preparation and departure for Iraq almost two years ago...

I settled in on a new HD DVD or Blue Ray player... It was a fairly simple decision for me after the research... a blue ray player... now which one... then it became apparent to me... For essentially the same price and/or cheaper than most Blue Ray players, I can pick up a game system... aka Sony Play Station 3...

I really enjoy the clear display offered on my HDTV that blue ray brings out ... Also, the few PS3 games I have are interesting... This has been like a high tech trainer for me as I worked through this purchase...

First the research about HD/Blue Ray, the different Game Systems, Blue Tooth, 1080i/p, and the whole menagerie of techie jibberish that I was no longer up to speed on... I can talk IED and VBIED cells, but I couldn't tell you about apple or motorola cells... LOL...

Then the purchase... and finally the setup...

What really amazed me was all the tech under the hood of the PS3 and the relative simplicity with which I set it up... Of course, I needed a new HDMI cable... Duh... techno-speak for expensive cable to hook your HDTV to HD equipment to maintain picture quality... Since I already have a functioning wireless setup in the house, I can now surf the internet on my big screen... well, I have the capability... I need a keyboard for the set-up to work easily...

the wireless blue tooth controllers really got me thinking about the blue tooth on my lap-top which I haven't used... My understanding of Blue Tooth has expanded a bit as I researched a blue tooth earpiece for daughter's boyfriend...

then there were the new wireless headphones I bought to replace the pair I broke in Iraq...

I was walking through Best Buy and saw they now have wireless surround speakers...

Well enough of my babble... More digging under the hood of Matrix CS to do... I've been playing around to see just how the game feels in its new form... Woo Hoo....

Take care...

Jim