Last week we became alarmed by Nine’s abysmal coverage of the Rugby World Cup. The ABC’s Drum site has gone so far as to compare Nine’s behaviour to the phone hacking scandal in terms of the scope of the outrage.
By Saturday I became convinced something special was taking place and I was missing out.
But what to do? Spend the next month in the pub (expensive and bad for my health? Try and get Foxtel installed at this late date and then be locked into a long term contract?
Che informed me of an alternative.
If one has an xbox, and and xbox live gold account, and a fast internet connection one can take on a no obligation, low cost foxtel contract, bump in the sports package and get dedicated 24/7 world cup coverage.
So with the conclusion of the Australia/Italy game I headed into the Canberra Centre to get an xbox. (I had been thinking of getting a current console for some time).
EB wanted to sell me an xbox next week when they had better stock in store.
In JB Hifi the staff were too busy being cool to explain the packages to me.
In Dick Smith there appeared to be no staff at all aside from a cute girl standing by the door smiling at the customers entering and leaving without purchase having been unable to get service.
Finally the “Game” store next to Aldi had staff who actually wanted to sell me stuff.
They did a good job too and by the time I had the xbox, a copy of “Space Marine” (brutally murder scum with lower class accents to boost your health!), a controller charger, and a bonus game to go with the kinect camera thingie I was lighter by $650 that other stores apparently had no desire for.
Getting it all back home I discovered the one thing they hadn’t sold me was the HDMI cable needed to connect an xbox to my housemates’ new TV.
Approaching store closing time I raced back into Civic and procured the cable for the best part of $40.
Getting home I entered a twilight land of logins, credit card details, and account setup.
If you don’t have a hotmail account then you’ll need to get one (over a decade after I abandoned my old one when Microsoft bought them out), this has to be done on a computer.
In fact throughout the process I was flipping between tablet and xbox. You will need a computer you can operate in front of the blighter.
There were setbacks and reverses. It is not a simple process. (if you already have an xbox and a live gold account set up already it will be much simpler).
But then it all clicked! There was the USA scoring their solo try against Ireland live!
(The foxtel with sport worked out around the $30 mark)
Frankly to watch Morne Steyn be transformed into a speed bump by Jamie Roberts (South Africa v. Wales) last night was totally worth all the time and money.
The picture looks like good TV, the buffering carried it through the obligatory ADSL dropout.
And now I don’t need to miss a game.
Plus I can now hack orcs into little bleeding, writhing, screaming pieces on Space Marine and also feel more invested in Zero Punctuation webisodes.
The plan is to turn off the foxtel subscription once the cup is over and then fire it up again next year when the Brumbies’ season kicks off.
Well done Nine, you’ve driven me into pay tv land. Bad luck WIN, no ads for you.
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