So I just dropped off my XBOX 360 at UPS today to be shipped back to Microsoft for repair or replacement. I'm kind of hoping they end up giving me a new version of the 360 as a replacement. The new chips run cooler and of course with the new ones, you get HDMI output as well. Looking at it from a business standpoint it makes sense as well. The new systems have a lower failure rate which would mean having to replace fewer systems. It's gotta be cheaper then sending out more of the 1st gen 360s that are said to have as high as a 30% failure rate.

Either way, it does kind of suck and I'm hoping I get mine back soon, I want to play some Vegas, COD4, and I definitely want to start up Mass Effect. In the meantime though I have plenty of other options. I still need to beat Uncharted and of course Super Mario Galaxy, and of course World of Warcraft. But even outside of gaming world, I got other stuff I would like to work on. I'm looking into redoing my blog manager for this site, I just sstarted setting up my media database and web portal for my games, movies, music, etc. I decided for that I'm going to use ASP.NET and Microsoft SQL Server to switch things up as well as delve more into the technology. I'm also going to be delving a bit into game design so even without the 360, I'll have plenty to do.

Tags: thoughts, xbox, rrod, projects

I've been keeping busy over the last couple weeks doing this and that. Last thursday was the normal poker night which went well, ended up breaking even so I can't complain about that. Was a big turnout too...6 people, Bailey, Kat, Brian, Rachael, Cass, me. I had a good time so I can't complain about that. I'm hoping I can sort things out with Steve, had a little squabble with him over a game of poker a couple weeks ago. It sucks but in the end, I still feel I was right and I have corroborated that as well.

Weekend was rather lazy, sadly I got the Red Rings of Death for my 360 which sucks, but I can survive for a couple weeks without my XBOX. I look at it this way, it will give me time to play other games, as well as working on other things that I've been putting off. On another note, if you have a PS3, make sure you pick up Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The game is amazing, graphics-wise, gameplay-wise, and story-wise.

Monday night I went to the scout meeting, helped their fire building competition. Went well, I'm glad I'm getting more involved in it. I know I'm going camping this weekend so that should be a good time. Eric's running it too so it'll be fun to see what he can do.

I found a bunch of tutorials on game design so I think I'll spend some time reading over those and see if I can't get something started. I think I have an idea of what I want to do, so hopefully the tutorials could help me out. Here's the link if anyone's interested: http://gpwiki.org/. Not sure how good they are just yet, but so far it seems to be a good start.

I got my subversion repository set up on my server for my code for my website and should be able to use it for anything else as well. I created a new tree last night for a version 3 of my site, not sure when that's going to get any real progress. I know what I want to do, just trying to figure out how to do it. Will have to read up on things to get it done.

Tags: poker, xbox360, uncharted, rrod

So I got the dreaded Red Rings of Death last night which sucks. My XBOX 360 decided for whatever reason it didn't want to work anymore. After leaving it unplugged for about an hour and plugging it back in, it does seem to be working right now, but I don't know how much I trust it, so I'll be sending it in anyway. Two plus years after buying it and Microsoft still covers it...sweet.

It's the 2nd time that my XBOX 360 has done this, which is kinda annoying, but at least Microsoft is good about it. My first experience with 360 problems went very well. Microsoft tech support for it helped me out a lot. First they thought it was the hard drive so within two days I got a new hard drive for my 360. Well it turns out, that the hard drive was not the problem. I called them back and it was deemed neccessary to send the console in. Two days later I got the empty box, and 2 weeks later I had a new 360 console. The console failing rate shouldn't be so high, but at the same time, the way Microsoft has been with fixing the consoles that do break is admirable. Tech support was very good in helping me out both times, and the response and pickup times to actually talk with a human being was also good, I think I waited like 2-3 minutes before a human picked up. Compared to my experiences with AT&T and various other tech support calls, 2-3 minutes is pretty damned good.

So for like 2-3 weeks, I'll be without my XBOX 360 which should give me time to work on other projects I have on my plate.

Tags: xbox, xbox360, microsoft, rrod, blah, life