nxe

NXE! That's 'New Xbox Experience' not 'Naughty Extraterrestrials Everywhere', which would really be NEE not NXE, but I couldn't think of another X word. I can't think of any way to describe the NXE excepted as an updated UI. (That's User Interface for all you non-nerds. I took an e-commerce course at uni last year and at least half of the content was just learning acronyms. What's with that? I don't think it's that hard to just write stuff out in full or perhaps IDTITHTJWTOIF.) As it was updating I decided to take some pictures in order to write this entry that you are reading now, but I am typing now.

I'll call this the 'Update in Progress Screen'. The 'Update in Progress Screen' informs you the approximate time remaining for the update to be applied. The green bar at the bottom displays graphically the approximate fraction completed. Exciting stuff! When the green bar gets to the end a new screen displays.

Looking at the time at the top right it is exactly 5 minutes since the last picture, which is the time the Xbox guessed was remaining. Lucky guess Mr/Mrs Xbox. Pressing 'A' to continue makes the following video play.

I did try to take photos while the video was playing, but of the 10 or so I took none were in focus. Don't bother actually watching the video, it is boring. Trust me, I watched it. Actually, I could have just linked to a video of the whole process, which makes this entry pretty redundant. After the video you have to make an 'Avatar', which is a digital representation of you that lives in your Xbox. I've you've seen the Wii's Miis, then Avatars are pretty much the same thing, only not as good. Here's me:

I don't think it looks much like me at all, especially when compared with my Mii. Looking around at other peoples creations, they all look pretty much the same and are all just very bland. It's not there is only a few choices when you are making them, it's more that all the choices are pretty much the same. For example, there is like 20 different noses but they are all very similar. I did give myself elf ears tho. The clothes were disappointing as well, you can't even change any of the colours which has really been the most basic part of character customisation from the time it began, way back whenever that was. Once your avatar is made you exit into the main screen, which is called the 'dashboard' for some reason.

I may have lied there, I might have seen this screen first but I can't really remember. I guess you need to know what the old version looked like but this is significantly different.

Well wasn't that fun?

I have a riddle...

What do you get when you capture a bat and a chicken, put them both in a box and shake the box? Some weird little bat-chicken babies, that's what. Flying around clucking in frequencies I can't hear and somehow using them to see with. Now suppose that one of the baby bat-chickens fell into a pile of batter you had sitting there, then bounced into a conveniently placed cauldron of boiling oil. After ricocheting around the cauldron for just the precise amount of time it takes to deep fry baby bat-chickens, it flies into you mouth and you think "Hey, this tastes pretty good but I can't be bothered to construct a Goldberg-esque machine for unnatural cross breeding and baby killing". Which is the same thought that I had, so I just bought batman shaped chicken nuggets instead.

There is the front, or possibly the back as I'm not sure which is which. I guess that it has something to do with the recently released 'the dark knight' batman movie. Was it all that recent tho? I mean were these sitting around in a truck for a couple of months before they were released? Or did they just decided that multiple months after the movies has left cinemas is the best time to put out chicken nuggets based of said movie? Or maybe I'm just trying to avoid thinking of a hilarious caption for the picture of batman? Probably the third option. Anyway... here is the back or maybe front.

Front? Back? Who knows? I think this side is more appealing as batman is swinging on a rope. I'm sure he is playing Spiderman. 'Alfred, you have to be Dr Octopus and I get to beat you'. You'd think that being a billionaire and all he'd be able to afford a Spiderman costume and not just have to wear his work clothes. Hmm... I bought these with the ulterior motive of writing about them and I can't think of anything decent to say. And I've had these pictures taken for three weeks so it's not like I haven't had time. I think I would be easier if they put more interesting pictures and the like on them. They'd be better with a campy sixties batman or being called 'bat-nuggets' or something.

Here is a bunch of them after sitting in the over for an appropriate length of time. The shapes aren't nearly as well defined as the ones on the box and by 'aren't nearly as defined' I mean they look like three lumps joined together by slightly smaller lumps. There should be a law stating that all pictures of food must be taken of the actual product, not one that has been airbrushed and photoshoped to look perfect. It doesn't send a healthy message to teenage food if they think they have to look like that to succeed. Although I guess close-up pictures of processed food are not very appetising.