The difference is amazing.

The pads are crazy sensitive, so you don't have to hit them so hard (vs the stock Rock Band 2 drums, where if you put silencer pads on, the extra 10% harder you have to hit wears you out and causes you to miss a few beats if you don't hit hard enough).

Note: I play Rock Band 3 and the game works 100%.

It's also very configurable, so you can arrange the pads side by side or in a square like an oven top (or anything in between), angle the pads at various angles, the frame itself adjusts by swiveling into various positions. So you can really customize it to your preference. Took about 45 minutes to assemble it.

In reviews people rip on the pedal - but I think they're a **huge** improvement over the stock pedal. With the stock pedal I can't keep up with the fast double hits (let alone the triple) for long, the resistance is way too high. But with the ION one on the first round I unleashed some Dave Grohl action on myself by way of hard level Foo Fighters and got the double beats no problem.

I was thinking of needing to also get something like the Omega / Destroyer / Rock Pedal to fully complete my set after reading what people were writing about the ION pedal. Which I might still do at some point as there is room for improvement. But going from the stock pedal to the ION pedal is like going from a Honda Fit to a BMW 328i which is a significant jump. And going to a Omega / Destroyer / Rock Pedal is like upgrading to a BMW M3, which is still a big jump, but not as drastic.

What's also neat is you can unplug the XBOX controller module, and plug in the regular drum module (aka the Alesis DM6) and hook it up to an amp, headphones, or computer.

]]> Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:50:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=588 products http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=572 All racing games, the only chance of taking the lead is if the leader makes a mistake.

What I like about Blur is even if you're last there's still things you can actively do to catch up.

There are these lightning bolt things and homing missle things - they go after the leader. So if you're in a 20 person race, you have 19 other players that are shooting those things at the leader.

And if yer the guy behind, you can lay down these spikes on the road...so the first person to hit them will be the leader as he loops onto the next lap.

Granted, it is more of an arcade game vs. driving simulator when it comes to physics. PGR, NFS:Shift, Forza... a 1% precision difference in taking a corner can make a major impact. Blur, being more on the arcade side is more forgiving. ]]> Sat, 15 May 2010 22:53:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=572 products http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=565 So here are my golden rules of MW2 to live by.

1. Unless you're one of those superhuman players... don't play death match. That kind of game is pure shooting skill. Stick to strategy games, where the goal is for the team to win vs. just you, and strategy and other non-shooting things are just as important.
2. If you?re getting shot at ? duck or run immediately. Don?t turn to see where it?s coming from in order to try shooting back. Whoever is shooting already has the advantage, so you need to train yourself to instantly react w/o thinking to duck or run.
3. Train yourself to react if you come face to face with a person to knife instead of shooting.
4. Don?t run in the open. Stick to walls, stay inside buildings as much as possible...
5. Be sneaky. When going around a corner, do what you see in cop movies where they take a brief look around a corner and then pull back to see if anyone shoots. You need to expose people?s positions.
6. Be sneaky. Ninja + Cold Blooded + Silencer. Ninja + Cold Blooded + Thermal is also acceptable.
7. Be sneaky. If you?re hunkered in a spot and you take a guy out, it?s a good bet that guy is gonna come running back to get you. Change your position assuming he?s going to go where you last were..you can peg him off again knowing where he?s going to go.
8. Be sneaky. Use a claymore to protect your back.
9. Be sneaky. If you?re not using silencer, you need to change your position after your last shot. Cuz the enemy will assume you?re still at where you last shot (you can use that to trick people btw).
10. Shoot in bursts. Your accuracy goes to hell if you just hold down the button. It?s hard to fight the instinct to keep shooting until you see the guy fall. But odds wise you?re better doing 1 sec burst + fraction of a sec pause + 1 sec burst.
11. Your accuracy drops if you?re moving. So if someone is running directly away from you (vs. to the side) it?ll take less bullets to shoot him.
12. Be patient. Wait for good opportunities. If you see two guys running towards you, but they don?t see you... wait till you?re behind them. Cuz if you shoot early, you might get one, but the other will get you.
13. Use a Flash grenade attack. You see a guy, he doesn?t see you, throw a Flash then shoot. You drastically reduce the chance of him being able to shoot back.
14. Play a lot. It takes tons of trial and error to find good safe spots.
15. In Domination/CTF...don?t stand in a spot where you have the flag in plain sight. The enemy anticipates that and will probably throw a grenade in the general area to flush people out. You need to be hiding somewhere else protected (e.g. adjacent building), and if you see the flag glowing (being captured) then you run out and shoot.
16. If your team?s UAV isn?t up... you?re blind. You have no idea where the other team is... so you have to be ULTRA paranoid on no UAV. And if you don?t have Cold Blooded... you need to assume every bad guy is coming after you. Hence... why I always try to shoot down UAV?s, it?s strategically too advantageous for the other team to have it.

And I was telling some friends who don?t have proper sound set up... if you?re playing with no sound, you?re as good as a deadman. So if you're not playing in 5.1 surround sound, at least get a gaming headset like this.

The moment I hear footsteps? I can hear what direction it's coming from, and what they?re walking on (wooden planks, grass, etc?). Like if I?m looking out a window camping and I hear footsteps I turn around immediately to check if it?s someone coming at me. ]]> Thu, 21 Jan 2010 21:45:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=564 cod http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=558 Likewise, the official unemployment rate in California is a staggering 12.6%. Nationwide the number of job seekers to open job positions ratio is 6 to 1.

Yet, the recession is officially over - meaning that it's not contracting anymore. And signs of that are evident in the beaten down auto-industry, and the housing market (prices nationwide rose in Sept by 1.5%, and in California they've increased by 2.6%). Though housing prices are still down 46%+ from their peak at 2006.

My buddies in the real estate industry are telling me they're starting to get multiple offers on homes now (albeit the cheaper homes), so there is buying activity starting to resume again.

Perfect time to invest! You don't want to wait till it's all happy news, that's the point at which the boat as sailed, when it's all doom and gloom you've hit rock bottom. Ya, who knows if it'll go down even further, but we've gone down for awhile now - I'd say we're pretty much there. If there's ever a time to buy real estate, now would be it.

It'll definitely be a jobless recovery - companies are growing by learning to by hyper efficient and ultra productive. But eventually to stay ahead of competition they'll need more man power... once the jobs come back, and people start buying, stocks will rise again. Here's a mixture of stocks that I keep my eye on:

• ADBE $32.68
• CSCO $23.30
• DLTR $48.17
• DRI $36.15
• EBAY $23.87
• ECA $57.68
• ENDP $22.82
• FWLT $31.69
• HD $26.83
• NKTR $9.79
• NVDA $14.56
• OSUR $2.99
• TEVA $51.19
• VRTX $37.79

I really wish DirecTV maintained their relationship with Tivo. I have an older DirecTivo, and it still works awesome (and thankfully is acting as backup for critical shows). Also thankfully, all the major networks post the shows online. ]]> Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:39:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=542 products http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=541 It?s totally a TV series borrowed from the concept of Command and Conquer. C&C has Goliath tanks as the show has, and the ?Gath? are basically the Botherhood of NOD.

I like it so far. ]]> Mon, 16 Mar 2009 09:13:00 PST http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=541 dj http://www.dopejam.com/shownewsitem.cfm?NewsID=540 Here?s my next one: We?re going to have unprecedented back to back recessions.

This current stimulus package may work ? it's basically like you cashing out everything you own, borrowing the full amount of your life insurance (naming the lender as the beneficiary), and then going to Vegas and playing roulette by placing one bet on one number. It may work...

To give you the magnitude of that stimulus package... it's bigger than the last 27 years of borrowing COMBINED by the Gov't.

It's a drastic and bold move to kick start the economy. What's different about this recession vs. prior recessions is this one was 100.0% man made.

Usually the economy goes up and down in natural cycles.

• During a recession the weak get destroyed, leaving the healthy companies to survive (much like lions do zebras a favor by wiping out the weak in the herd).
• The healthy ones out of necessity become lean, mean, and productive.
• This productivity eventually leads to growth?
• To be ahead of the growth you need to support it with more people, infrastructure, etc?
• Overtime this leads to inefficiencies. E.g. going from 1 programmer to 2 in a Development team is a huge increase in output, but going from 10 to 20 doesn?t scale as efficiently due to logistics and complexity.
• Eventually companies get bloated and the bottom falls out from under them. Because it takes time to ramp up new staff and all that, you?re trying to stay ahead of growth, so if that growth suddenly stops you have way too much capacity and need to shed weight.
• That results in a recession forming as things contract.

• Govt's turned a blind eye to oversight and regulations (they were raking in the huge tax revenues ? why let that stop).
• Lenders felt it was worth taking on 10X more risk for 0.1% more yield, because the math models said theoretically it?s sound.
• Credit Rating and Investment Rating organizations were rating everything Triple A status.
• Rampant fraud was going on. Investment Firms were shorting the same investments they were recommending.
• Consumers were spending like they knew they were going to die tomorrow. Spending all their income (0% savings rate, historically society was at 5-10% previously), borrowing on lines of equity to spend even more.

So here?s what?s going to happen next:

• The economy will recover by 2011.
• The weak will survive from the bailouts.
• The U.S by nature will move one step further towards socialism as the Gov?t through the bailout has it hands in everything.
• The amount of new cash infused into the economy from the stimulus package needs to be destroyed.
• This is unlikely to happen.
• It will lead to a huge devaluation of the currency (if they doubled the amount of dollar bills out there, it makes each existing bill worth half).
• With so much extra cash? it will also lead to huge inflation.
• The U.S doesn?t make stuff anymore...
• With a worthless currency, it?ll cost a ton to buy stuff from countries that do make stuff?
• This will cause even more inflation.
• The gov?t will need to lay down some serious interest rates to control it.
• This will cause another recession in 2012.

• From now to 2010
• Buy stocks like there?s no tomorrow.
• Buy 50% into companies that society can?t live without. Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor and Gamble, etc? any company that you trust as bullet proof.
• The other 50%, go with bullet proof technology.
• In June 2011, sell everything.
• From June 2011 and on? save EVERYTHING you got.
• The second recession will end in 2015.