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Since I'm up and this is probably going to take forever I've decided to try this whole "Live Blogging" thing to update those of you early birds who are actually up.7:55a - I just saw B pop up online. He sent me a message asking if you needed to go through Crackdown to download the beta. I told him I think so. This is off to a good start. 8:00a - Right on the nose. It should be here...it's not yet. The download beta button is still "gray". 8:02a - Nothing yet. I keep going into the downloads section of the Crackdown menu and backing out to "refresh" the options. I don't really know how else to check. *Note - my times are as close to the "World Clock" as I can get and they're all EST. 8:04a - The game comes out on September 25th, according to Bungie.net. Sneaky, sneaky. 8:06a - Restarting the game to try and get this going, Major Nelson is reporting that it's up and available. I think he's lying. 8:07a - Still nothin'. 8:10a - GUESS WHAT? Nothing. 8:11a - While I was waiting for 8am I downloaded Aegis Wings and tried it out. Not too bad, it's a side-scrolling schmup but it's pretty neat. Need to try it with friends to form the Voltron-like ship. 8:14a - STILL nothing. If you've been refreshing our home page, hit the jump to read the rest.
8:15a - It was pretty sneaky of Bungie to announce the release date in the past 12 hours. Well timed. 8:17a - Jimmy's online now. I think B gave up. Hi Jimmy! 8:18a - I'm really starting to get hungry, I hope this pops up soon. 8:20a - I restarted the game again. Nothing. You know, I didn't expect this to happen EXACTLY at 8:00a, but this is getting silly. There's a bunch of people on Bungie's boards reporting that they're getting it right now and that was only a couple minutes past 8. 8:23a - I love you guys. This is why I'm still actually waiting for this thing to pop up. WTF Bungie? 8:27a - Major Nelson's site is getting hammered. I was just trying to get there to see if there's a reason I can't get this fucking thing yet. 8:30a - 30 fucking minutes have passed. I'm such a loser. This was a good joke Bungie. Funny. It's never actually coming, is it? 8:32a - Of course. The people who PAID to get in this thing are getting fucked. 8:35a - I'm getting something to eat. Be back in a jiff. 8:39a - Mmmmmm. Wheat Chex. (Still nothing) 8:45a - Finished my cereal. Kept checking while I was eating my Chex (not as funny as I hoped) but still nothing. 8:49a -  8:58a -  9:00a - If I had known it would be over an hour before I could even START downloading this thing (even though I purchased Crackdown with cold, hard, sexy cash) I would have brushed my teeth and gotten a shower first. Now I'm just sitting here with dirty teeth and dirty balls. Dirty, dirty balls. 9:07a - I'm starting to think that if I do something else it will fix itself. I'll be indisposed if you need me. 9:20a - Damn. I was really hoping that after I was done taking a dump it would be up so I could brag that me dropping a deuce saved the Halo 3 beta for everyone. I guess putting on a load of laundry too nixed that. I overdid it. 9:22a - I'm really starting to think about jumping into WoW. I think I will...just to check my auctions. :) 9:27a - BOOOO! Nothing sold. Oh, and there's no beta yet. 9:30a - It's been 90 minutes and nothing. I'm getting a shower so I'll be back after I'm done being all naked and soapy. 9:53a - Done showering, I'm dressed and still fucking waiting. You know, you think they would have...oh, I don't know...TESTED this before today. Un-friggin-believable. I'm heading to the Realtime Worlds site to see if they have anything to say. 9:55a - Nothing on their site. Heading to the Crackdown site. 9:57a - Nothing official on the Crackdown site, though there is a small thread going in their forums. 10:00a - It's 10:00 AM on a Monday, do you know where your Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta Download is? 10:12a - Oh well. I was hoping this would be a little more exciting to do, though it is quite possible that this was slightly more entertaining to read because of the delay. As long as they get this fixed today things will be cool. Everyone who has Crackdown will be able to get in on the fun and hopefully those folks who never received their codes (Rule Of Three) will get their own situations resolved. Though I bitched about it earlier, things like this happen. Problems arise that were previously unpredictable and since they know about it they are trying to get it resolved. The kids on the Bungie forums who are talking about suing (LOL!!!) need to calm the hell down and realize that they should feel lucky that Bungie is holding a public beta. I'll check back in when something happens. 11:29a - Nothing new, but I had to point out this thread. It's a riot. 11:32a - Since I don't have the H3 beta yet, I ran out to pick up a few things and got Touch The Dead while I was at it. I'll be letting you all know how it is in next week's podcast. Listen to this week's to hear Dan and Jimmy make fun of me for wanting it. 12:26p - Lunch = In the oven as we speak. Stoefer's French Bread Pizza. Mmmmmmmmmmm snooky. Can't wait. Don't worry though, there will be ZERO delay in me eating it...except for it to cool off, that shit is HOT when it first comes out of the oven...who'da thunk it.' 12:50p - Still no word at all on what's going on. Here's a list of things I've accomplished since 8:00a EST: - Started this live blog.
- Downloaded and played Aegis Wings
- Ate some cereal.
- Took a dump.
- Started my laundry.
- Got a shower and got dressed.
- Went to Target. Purchased canned air (compy's dirty), a box of Total for Linda and 3 compact flourescant light bulbs.
- Went to GameStop. Purchased Touch The Dead and a game that will be mentioned in this week's podcast.
- Did the dishes.
- Cooked French Bread Pizza.
- Played Touch The Dead.
- Ate aforementioned pizza.
- Relentlessly checked internet for news on Halo 3 beta.
- Prepared for work.
Now I'm about to leave for work. I'll be keeping an eye on things and I'll update if need be, but I won't be able to actually play until at least 10:30 or 11:00pm tonight. 1:47p - Nothing happened during my time traveling to work. I did stop by my mom's house and got a fan out of the attic for her. It's getting hot here in South Jersey. Holla. 2:39p - Now I'm bleeding while I'm waiting. I just got back from donating blood here at our annual blood drive. Everyone should donate blood, only 3% of all eligible Americans actually donate. Find a place to donate here. 3:29p - Almost just beat the first boss in Touch The Dead, but I died and it sent me back further than I felt like playing over so soon. I'll get back to it later. 4:24p - Just read a good interview with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco (who just released their new album Sky Blue Sky yesterday) on The Onion's AV Club. 4:46p -  Mmmmmm...pudding. I only had one though. I'm about to tear into some Sun Chips. YEAH WORD COTTON!!
5:30p - It is now POURING here in South Jersey. Like, end of the world type shit. High winds, thunder, lightning, cats and dogs living together, MASS HYSTERIA!! Actually, I hope this helps the wild fires that have already covered 20 miles in Atlantic City. 6:15p - I'm really starting to wonder what could possibly be wrong that it's taking this long to fix. As C+C Music Factory and Arsenio Hall said, Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm... 6:25p - And like that, Bungie speaks: Roughly around the time the beta was supposed to go up at 5:00 AM PDT, there was a server problem with the Crackdown downloadable content. The recently updated Crackdown content, as you all have most likely noticed, is also downloading at extremely slow speeds. The beta content was left seemingly broken, and Xbox Live officials have been working since the crash to fix it. This is a tedious and troublesome process and we are pushing for a fix somewhere in the vicinity of 10:00 PM PDT tonight. So it looks like we'll be waiting for quite a while longer. Go play Aegis Wings or Catan to kill the time. 8:45p - Another update, this one more promising: We're happy to finally announce that the issues being faced with the Halo 3 beta and Crackdown will be resolved shortly. The Microsoft team has found a solution and it's undergoing final testing now.Assuming the test pass goes according to plan, the fix will come in the form of a Crackdown title update within the next three to six hours. We understand many of you were eagerly awaiting your chance to jump into the Halo 3 Beta and this technical issue has put a damper on your plans. Thankfully the fix is incoming and we're sincerely sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. Ultimately we hope this will all soon be a distant memory once you pick up the Spartan Laser, launch yourself from a Mancannon and enjoy online shenanigans with your friends. As a reminder, people who already have the Halo 3 Beta are unaffected by this issue. We'll keep you posted as soon as we have more information. 10:28p - This time, when I was on my way home FROM work, something did happen: Halo 3 Beta Downloads via Crackdown are fixed!It's been a long day for a lot of people but we're happy to announce that effective immediately, a title update for Crackdown is available on Xbox Live that will fix the issue that previously prevented you from downloading the beta. The Microsoft team just deployed this fix and when you launch Crackdown you should receive a prompt to download the update. Please note that it could take up to four hours for your console to receive this update based on various factors. However, the good news is that we're in the clear and Halo 3 gameplay is just over the horizon. We realize this has been a pain for many and an inconvenience at the very least. Given the circumstances, we've decided to extend the duration of the Halo 3 Beta from June 6th to June 10th at 11:59 PM PDT. So, you lost almost a full day of play today but to make up for it we're tacking on four more days (and a weekend at that). We apologize for the delay and hardships this issue has caused and hope that it quickly becomes a distant memory clouded by good times playing Halo 3 with your friends. Thank you all for your patience and understanding. We'll see you online! Note : A rare bug has been discovered that sometimes results in improper text display in the game UI. Basically, you won't see any text at all. If you encounter this issue, you can fix it yourself by doing the following: 1. Restart your Xbox 360 2. Boot up the Halo 3 Beta 3. While the Halo 3 Beta is loading, immediately press up on the D-Pad and hold the A button until you see the Bungie logo. If you perform this correctly a dialog box will appear confirming maintenance has been done to your system. 4. Resume the Halo 3 Beta! Right now, Linda's watching Lost, so at the next commercial break I'll boot up the 360 and start downloading the beta.
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