Farewell my dear Sennheiser

This is my Sennheiser PC 350 headset.

And it's broken.

Without doubt the Sennheiser headset has been the best of all the headsets I've owned over the years, if for nothing else than the amount of time you can use it without your ears feeling like they've been squashed by a tractor.

Plus, I won them by dancing on stage (the video is out there somewhere should you really wish to see...) which is far better than paying for them.

The Sennheiser headset was a last reminder to a time gone by, when I used to go to LAN parties (where a load of gamers meet up for a long weekend gaming and not sleeping), and I had what at the time was some high end kit - I had a Logitech G15 keyboard, with its own little LED screen, and also my beloved Logitech G5 mouse which was absolutely awesome and lasted almost as long as my headset. I do still have some relatively decent computing gear, but I've not taken any of it to a LAN party or any sort of gaming event, and my gaming now tends to be more the social kind, or an hour or so on Call of Duty, whereas I used to happily sink tens of hours into World of Warcraft.

Sadly now, however, the microphone has died and the headphones are flaky at best - which after seven years isn't too bad really. I've got a cheap headset for the time being but I'll certainly be looking for something more like my old headset for the long term.

Do you have any beloved items possibly past their best that need replacement? Or something now gone that you've never really replaced? Let me know in the comments :)

Happy holidays!

Hello!

Well wherever you are in the world, I hope you had a good Christmas / holiday period.  It's been fairly quiet at mine with lots of unhealthy food, movies, and the odd nap.  I am working my way through Bill Bryson's latest book (The Road to Little Dribbling) and I have to say that I'm really enjoying it, I'm going to be sad when I finish it and I won't have any more of his travel books to read for the first time.  I think Bryson's appeal is in that he is so easy to relate to - I can quite imagine having similar challenges and misadventures if I had the opportunity to travel to new places under my own steam without my wife's steer or the enforced sensibilities of travelling with a family.  (That gives me an idea for a future blog, actually)

I'm very pleased to have done a little bit of DIY to my Sennheiser PC 350 headset that I won several years ago (for the story - and video - click here) - the ear cushions, over the years, have become flatter and flatter until they don't really resemble padding any more and rather just appear to be two plastic ovals with a bit of black fabric hanging off them.

I was expecting them to require superglue or at the very least a screwdriver with an unusual head (to make it more difficult) so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they snap out of place and then the replacements snap into place, and voila, the headset now has lovely thick cushions to envelop my ears during those long gaming sessions.

Today I think it's going to be a slightly busier day as I really need to get some washing done (with the aid of my evil tumble dryer - do anticipate a future blog post on this subject) and perhaps even think about vacuuming.

How has your Christmas been?  Are you still off or back at work?  Let me know in the comments!

I accept the embarrassment.

Something that I did in my past keeps coming back to remind me of how...odd... I can be.  So to deal with the various people thinking that they can embarrass me by referring to it, I decided to blog about it.

About 4 years back now I went to i36, one of the LAN parties organised by Multiplay.  Had a great time (as I always have done at an i-series, get down there)

Now at the opening ceremony, they were dishing out free stuff, t-shirts, lanyards, the usual stuff.

Plus some of these:

These is a Sennheiser PC 350 headset.  A very nice piece of kit, great for gaming, an all round excellent headset.

And not a cheap one.  Even today you'll do well to pick up a pair for less than £100.

Anyway, they threw one set into the crowd, and kept the second back to do something with at the end.

I thought to myself   They're going to make someone do something embarrassing on stage, then give them the headset.

I kind of have an objective when I go to i-series.  The tickets to go cost about £95 now (less if you book early) so I kind of like to try to get free stuff to the same value or more.  This sounds tricky but bearing in mind at another one I also won a Intel Quad-Core processor which I then sold for about £150, it's surprisingly possible if you take part in the various competitions and games (which I always think forms part of the festival experience anyway)

So, I made sure I got my hand up first.

And went on stage.

And did this.

For those unaware, I was attempting to replicate the female night-elf dance from World of Warcraft.  I'm aware that I missed a chunk of it out (you can see it here) and obviously wasn't that good, but at least the crowd (and many people who have seen it on YouTube since - I never thought about it being recorded!) got a good laugh.

Surprisingly to me, I got a lot of positive feedback afterwards, from people impressed that I was willing to do it.

The other thing I get is people asking for a repeat - I always say that if they're willing to give me another £100+ headset for a minutes work I'll consider it!

Am I pleased that I did it?  Ultimately, I guess so.  We're on this planet for such a short time (where we go from here we all have our own views on) that shouldn't we really make the most of it?  I'd rather be considered weird than boring.

And just to put up some pictures of other people doing stuff...

Here's a photo of my dad playing Just Dance 3 on the Nintendo Wii.  With his first attempt ever using a Wii, and using the controller with his other hand (he's left handed) he still did better than me.

And here's my son controlling the touchscreen on my tablet with his nose.