Deadbox 360

There are many topics I should be writing about on this important blog, but I'm going to push those aside today and concentrate on what really matters most. The US Armed Services may have their "army of one", but I have an audience of none which is arguably more powerful. This frees me from any constraints and self-regulations that come from knowing people are reading what you write and lets you blow-hard as much as possible.

Religion, anti-politics, organic food, alternative medicine and hippies are all good ranting topics, but today I have something else on the ol' mental chopping board, my xbox 360.

Recently I purchased the game Fallout 3. Having spent large portions of my youth playing Fallout 1 & 2 I had been looking forward to Fallout 3 ever since it was officially announced 3-4 years ago and like a 14 year old boy with his first secret Playboy magazine I drooled over the intitial trailers and screenshots of the game. I read with anticipation about the developmental hurdles the game went through, the changing of ownership from Interplay to Betheseda, and I waited with the rest of the fans hoping that Fallout 3 would not simply be Oblivion with guns. Well, a couple weeks ago my wait was over and on the second day of its release I purchased Fallout 3 for my xbox 360 and I began playing. and playing. and playing even more. For the first time in years I had a game that truly capitvated my senses; I would rush home from work, drop my bike on the floor, change clothes into sweatpants and an old t-shirts, grab a few beers from the fridge and indulge myself without even breaking to eat or pee for 5 to 6 hours on end in front of my xbox 360. I indulged every moment of exploration in the game's world, taking my sweet time walking around and endeavoring to accomplish even the most minor quests. I was not rushing this game. No, I was savoring it like a pint of Godiva ice cream.

Then, it happened. I got the Power Armour training... oh how I had waited for that moment to be a walking tank in the wastelands. I knew what to do next, I knew who I wanted to fight now that I was ready. I knew where it was... The behemoth supermutant in front of the radio building. I traveled slowly through the ruins, peaking over piles of rubble, watching my back, making sure my weapons were loaded and in good condition until finally I arrived and from a distance I saw my foe. 30 feet tall he stood, holding a street light as a mace angrily cocking his head to and fro. I aimed my weapon and fired a volley of bullets but they landed on thick skin, almost no damage done! The behemoth turned and saw me! I panicked a little, armed my rocket launcher and....

.....

....

...

..

.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

deep breath

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

RROD. Red Rings of Death. At the worst possible time ever. To the uninformed the RROD signify an internal hardware problem in the xbox 360, a problem that can only be fixed by shipping the system to Microsoft for repairs. I was speechless, this is something you read about happening to other people, but you think that you are exempt, that you will be the one person in the history of Xbox 360s to escape the inevtiable fate. But man, you were wrong. Oh. so. wrong.

So like a retarted kid trying to get that last french-fry from the bottom of the Happy Meal box I packed up my xbox, tossed on the pre-paid shipping label I printed from Microsoft's website and headed out into the dark night of Bellingham to find a UPS dropbox. After biking in circles for a few miles I found one, right next to a group of crackheads. Awesome luck I thought to myself as I wedged the package into the UPS box, getting it partially stuck in the process. As I biked home I was sure the crackheads would pry my xbox out and try to smoke it, sending my Fallout 3 dreams up in puffs of acrylic smoke. However they didn't. Even now I am tracking my xbox's progress, it should be at Microsoft tommorow morning, and in 10 days back in my hands, and then, ONLY then will me and the Super Mutant behemoth finish our struggle.