I am now the owner of a PS3 and have been so for more than three weeks now. I only started playing just over a week ago, however, given a slew of problems I encountered along the way. Join me as I relive my annoying quest to play my first console since the original Xbox.
I got the PS3 for Christmas. My mom, who likes buying me things and always hooks me up at Christmastime, was wondering what she could possibly get me. I’d been thinking about getting a PS3 for awhile but before I told her about it she mentioned she’d seen it in some store and thought it looked interesting. I said, “Sure, why not?” and thus ended up with a PS3 on Christmas morning.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t play it until I had an HDMI-capable TV or monitor. I took a couple days tossing ideas around — TVs are fucking expensive and I didn’t want to spend that much money. I also have no speakers for a good TV setup. I settled on a monitor instead and wound up purchasing a 24″ Samsung T240HD. The idea was that I could hook both my computer and PS3 up to it and switch between them at will. Then, once I had the proper type of adapter, I could also switch my speakers between the two.
It sounded like a plan, so I finally committed to a purchase on the 30th of December. I could have done it sooner, and looking back I definitely should have. Due to my order date I inadvertently ensured the delivery of my monitor would take the longest time possible. My order wasn’t processed until the next day, there was a holiday that Friday (the New Year), and then no one ships over the weekend. My monitor sat in Maryland for days on end while I amused myself with CoD4 and L4D the best I could.
The next Tuesday was its slated arrival date. Since I’d thought it might come sooner I had told NewEgg to ship it to my apartment rather than my office, and now it was going to arrive when I wasn’t there to sign for it. Luckily, my roommate’s friend was to be hanging around the apartment all day and he said he’d sign for it. Just in case, I left a note saying a neighbor could sign for it if no one was home. Everything was peachy. Wrong! When I got home there was a UPS slip on the door saying no one had been there to sign. The driver wrote his own note: “CANNOT LEAVE PACKAGE.” They’d try again the next day.
Why my roommate’s friend hadn’t been there to sign for it I’m not sure. He even said later that he had indeed been there all day. Whatever. Wednesday I hatched a plan and my bosses went with it. Since the new delivery time was set to be between 10:30 and 2:00, I could leave work after an hour, work from home during that time slot, and return to work after finally getting my monitor. I did just that and the UPS driver showed up at a punctual 1:58. The wait had started to cause me anxiety due to what my roommate’s friend had said — what if I somehow missed them again? If I missed UPS three times they’d ship it back to NewEgg and I’d have to buy the damn thing and start the process all over again.
Now I was set. Or so I thought; it couldn’t be that easy. For some reason I had majorly brainfarted and hadn’t gotten an HDMI cable. On NewEgg the product images showed a bunch of cables and for some reason my dumb brain assumed HDMI would be one of them. Thus, I needed one as soon as possible, but faced with overpaying three to ten times more than necessary in a retail store, I decided to try online first. I’d waited this long; what was another two days? Well, turned out that the cable I wanted was backordered until Friday, so even if I paid the $4 for one-day shipping (Amazon Prime kicks ass) it would arrive Monday at the earliest. It was whatever at that point so I went ahead and ordered it.
I then tried my hand at hooking up the PS3 with the AV cables that come with it. Well, that was fucking terrible. For whatever reason the picture came through as black and white, so I was getting a blotchy, grayscale picture at 480i stretched to 1920×1080. It was fucking beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that I couldn’t even get through the second Spec Ops section of MW2 on the easy difficulty because I couldn’t make out the enemies from the background. Sigh.
Come Friday, which is when my HDMI cable order was finally processed (but not shipped), I was tired of waiting around. I bit the bullet and headed to Walmart. Surely Walmart of all places wouldn’t try to gouge me with overpriced cables — it’s Radioshack and Best Buy who are famous for their $130 HDMI cables. Walmart didn’t have cables quite that expensive but my options were limited to a $19 3′ cable or a $30 6′ one. I went with the latter even though it was still at least three times what a good HDMI cable is worth. When I returned home I attempted to cancel my Amazon order for the other one but was unable to do so. The window for canceling is pretty small apparently.
No matter. My PS3 was finally playable a full two weeks after I’d gotten it. I played the MW2 campaign for a little while and admired it for all its ridiculousness. Seriously, that game is so far beyond ridiculous that it wraps around lame and ends up back at awesome. The HDMI cable I’d ordered previously arrived Monday and I’ve hooked that one up instead. If I ever make it back to Walmart I’ll return the $30 one. Then again maybe I should keep it for the next time I brainfart and leave myself cableless for no good reason.
PS3 Adventures
I am now the owner of a PS3 and have been so for more than three weeks now. I only started playing just over a week ago, however, given a slew of problems I encountered along the way. Join me as I relive my annoying quest to play my first console since the original Xbox.
I got the PS3 for Christmas. My mom, who likes buying me things and always hooks me up at Christmastime, was wondering what she could possibly get me. I’d been thinking about getting a PS3 for awhile but before I told her about it she mentioned she’d seen it in some store and thought it looked interesting. I said, “Sure, why not?” and thus ended up with a PS3 on Christmas morning.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t play it until I had an HDMI-capable TV or monitor. I took a couple days tossing ideas around — TVs are fucking expensive and I didn’t want to spend that much money. I also have no speakers for a good TV setup. I settled on a monitor instead and wound up purchasing a 24″ Samsung T240HD. The idea was that I could hook both my computer and PS3 up to it and switch between them at will. Then, once I had the proper type of adapter, I could also switch my speakers between the two.
It sounded like a plan, so I finally committed to a purchase on the 30th of December. I could have done it sooner, and looking back I definitely should have. Due to my order date I inadvertently ensured the delivery of my monitor would take the longest time possible. My order wasn’t processed until the next day, there was a holiday that Friday (the New Year), and then no one ships over the weekend. My monitor sat in Maryland for days on end while I amused myself with CoD4 and L4D the best I could.
The next Tuesday was its slated arrival date. Since I’d thought it might come sooner I had told NewEgg to ship it to my apartment rather than my office, and now it was going to arrive when I wasn’t there to sign for it. Luckily, my roommate’s friend was to be hanging around the apartment all day and he said he’d sign for it. Just in case, I left a note saying a neighbor could sign for it if no one was home. Everything was peachy. Wrong! When I got home there was a UPS slip on the door saying no one had been there to sign. The driver wrote his own note: “CANNOT LEAVE PACKAGE.” They’d try again the next day.
Why my roommate’s friend hadn’t been there to sign for it I’m not sure. He even said later that he had indeed been there all day. Whatever. Wednesday I hatched a plan and my bosses went with it. Since the new delivery time was set to be between 10:30 and 2:00, I could leave work after an hour, work from home during that time slot, and return to work after finally getting my monitor. I did just that and the UPS driver showed up at a punctual 1:58. The wait had started to cause me anxiety due to what my roommate’s friend had said — what if I somehow missed them again? If I missed UPS three times they’d ship it back to NewEgg and I’d have to buy the damn thing and start the process all over again.
Now I was set. Or so I thought; it couldn’t be that easy. For some reason I had majorly brainfarted and hadn’t gotten an HDMI cable. On NewEgg the product images showed a bunch of cables and for some reason my dumb brain assumed HDMI would be one of them. Thus, I needed one as soon as possible, but faced with overpaying three to ten times more than necessary in a retail store, I decided to try online first. I’d waited this long; what was another two days? Well, turned out that the cable I wanted was backordered until Friday, so even if I paid the $4 for one-day shipping (Amazon Prime kicks ass) it would arrive Monday at the earliest. It was whatever at that point so I went ahead and ordered it.
I then tried my hand at hooking up the PS3 with the AV cables that come with it. Well, that was fucking terrible. For whatever reason the picture came through as black and white, so I was getting a blotchy, grayscale picture at 480i stretched to 1920×1080. It was fucking beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that I couldn’t even get through the second Spec Ops section of MW2 on the easy difficulty because I couldn’t make out the enemies from the background. Sigh.
Come Friday, which is when my HDMI cable order was finally processed (but not shipped), I was tired of waiting around. I bit the bullet and headed to Walmart. Surely Walmart of all places wouldn’t try to gouge me with overpriced cables — it’s Radioshack and Best Buy who are famous for their $130 HDMI cables. Walmart didn’t have cables quite that expensive but my options were limited to a $19 3′ cable or a $30 6′ one. I went with the latter even though it was still at least three times what a good HDMI cable is worth. When I returned home I attempted to cancel my Amazon order for the other one but was unable to do so. The window for canceling is pretty small apparently.
No matter. My PS3 was finally playable a full two weeks after I’d gotten it. I played the MW2 campaign for a little while and admired it for all its ridiculousness. Seriously, that game is so far beyond ridiculous that it wraps around lame and ends up back at awesome. The HDMI cable I’d ordered previously arrived Monday and I’ve hooked that one up instead. If I ever make it back to Walmart I’ll return the $30 one. Then again maybe I should keep it for the next time I brainfart and leave myself cableless for no good reason.