Once upon a time...

<true story/happened yesterday>

There was an IT manager who had a really long week at work and come Thursday evening was more than ready to spend the evening veggin' and playin' R6 with his pals.  Kids were gonna go to bed early, wife was gonna run errands.  It was the perfect weekly arrangement.

So when the IT manager got home around 5:30 that day, he fired up his 360 to see who was online and what was going on.  Everything seemed fine at first.  The power brick lit green, the 360 came alive, the green status lights were going round and then....THREE RED BLINKING LIGHTS!   :-X <gasp...heart stops>.  "THIS CAN'T BE!" he exclaimed.  So he quickly shut it off.  Pondered it for a second.  "Maybe the cables aren't seated correctly, yeah, that's it..." he thought to himself.  So he quickly undid all the cables and re-seated them.  Turned the 360 back on....wait....wait....wait....AHHHHHH!!!!!   NOOOOOOOOO!  The 360 was dead.

The IT manager grabbed his cell phone and proceeded to call XBOX support.  1-8-0-0-4-m-y-x-b-o-x.  "Hi this is Max, thanks for calling XBOX support.  I can help you get started.  If you know what you are calling about please say the following...." the voice said on the other end.  The IT Manager had called before and knew if you said "AGENT" you could skip all of this.  "AGENT" he said firmly.  "Thank you, I will see if someone is available..." AWESOME! "but first I need to ask you a few things" BUMMER!

So finally Jerry answers the phone.  Now Jerry is a pretty normal name, wouldn't call it popular, but well known.  Now the funny think about Jerry was he didn't sound like a Jerry.  And had an accent that I couldn't place - Ner Jersey...NO.  Atlanta...NO.  Hmmm..."Jerry" you don't sound like you are from around these parts. ;)

Jerry was pleasant and walked the sad 360 owner through some more steps and quickly realized what the caller already knew.  So Jerry proceeded to start the process of sending out the "coffin".  "Well Mr. "Smith", let's see about getting this fixed under warranty for you" he said.  Whoa, Mr. "Smith" didn't have a warranty.  SWEET!  Having a first run 360 (born on date Oct 8th, 2005 might pay off).  [-o<  "Oh I'm sorry Mr. "Smith" but your 360 went out of warranty 6 weeks ago."  HUH!  What the heck?!  The caller didn't even know he had a warranty but now that he had one it is now of no worth. :(

So the now dispondant :doubt: caller asks "Jerry" - "So what's it gonna take to get this fixed?"  Jerry doesn't even hesitate "$139.90 plus shipping Mr. "Smith"".  AHHHHHHHHH!!!  That's half a new 360 basic unit.  "Are you kidding me?!" Mr. "Smith" exclaimed.  "This is rediculous!  I was just talkingto my friends how we have Super Nintendos that are 15 years old and still work like their new and I have a 14 month old $400 unit and it can't last 2 years!  Are you serious?!" 
"Yes, Mr. "Smith", all out of warranty boxes are covered by this fee and will be..." <blah>, <blah>, <blah> is all Mr. "Smith" hears.  He can feel the tears welling up but he'll be strong!  HE MUST! :)

So Mr. "Smith" decides to play hard ball.  After a few minutes, Jerry caves and gasp....offers free shipping. :lol: Man, I like Jerry.  Good guy.  NOT ACCEPTABLE!  Try again please.  Jerry and Mr. Smith keep talking and Jerry offers $104.99 plus shipping.  Well that's better but STILL!  NOT ACCEPTABLE!  Jerry then softens up and sees that our caller is obviously not happy.  So he decides to really help out and offer FREE SHIPPING again.  LOL - This Jerry guy cracks me up.  NOT!  "Can I speak to a manager please?"  Mr. "Smith" asks as politely as possible.

Well after a few minutes "Jerry's" supervisor "Joel" gets on the phone.  Joel...  NOw that's a nice strong American name.  "Hello Mr. "Smith", how I can help you?"  Whoa, wait, I thought your name was Joel?  NOT WITH THAT ACCENT! LOL :lol:

So after a few minutes of Mr. "Smith" pouring out his heart, Joel decides to offer him a break.  "Mr. "Smith" I can offer you a one time 50% off with free shipping.  We can fix your box and get it back to you for a flat fee of $69.95."  Mr. "Smith" ponders for a moment.  "I can accept that."  At some point, you just want it fixes and Mr. Smith wasn't gonna draw this out.  So "Joel" asks to put Mr. "Smith" on hold.  30 seconds later it happens.... <BEEP> cell phone dies and powers down!  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! :evil:   This has just been one of those weeks.

So Mr. "Smith" grabs his black berry / work phone and dials back support.  "AGENT"...."AGENT" dang it Max, just put me through!  GRRRR!  "Hi this is Jeff, how can I help you?"  What is up with all these strange accent people and American "J" names.  Oh well, skip it.  "I was just talking to a supervisor JOEL and we made a deal and my cell phone died and now I don't know I can get back to him or if I can still get that deal and I don't want to have to explain this all over again!"  Mr. "Smith" rambles on and on.  "Jeff" is not phased.  That's ok Mr. "Smith" Joel put all the info in your ticket and I can go ahead and process everything for you.  Phew!  Close one.

Well now that the coffin was on it's way and Mr. "Smith" was left sitting with his empty and lifeless shell of a console, he pondered his next steps.  "So what do I do for the next two weeks?" he thought.  Then his mind wondered to his son's 180 upstairs that he never played.  "Hmmm....SON!  Mind if Dad takes your 180?"  "That's fine pops, haven't been playing it lately" his son replies.  "SWEET!  At least I can play Halo 2" he thinks.

So he runs upstairs and takes the 180, controllers, cables, communicator, and headset from the game room and takes it back downstairs.  He moves all the equipemtn from the 360 shelf over to the other one and starts to run all the 180 cables to his HT receiver and tv.  A small sense of relief creeps in thinking that all won't be lost and some contact with his online "family" won't be lost.  OH CRAP!  I have a H2 tourney tonight, I gotta hop on this!  People will be waiting on me he thinks.

So after a few minutes of setup, the familiar opening sound and logo from the 180 flashes up.  The wireless adaptor has activity and the light where the line plugs in is lit so everything looks good.  "CAN'T CONNECT TO XBL.  PLEASE TRY AGAIN or CHECK YOUR CONFIGURATION" the screen flashes.  "Hmmm...ok, just gotta see what's up".  15 minutes later of tinkering and still no connection.  "Oh boy, this isn't looking good" he thinks.

So thinking he just overlooked something.  He decides to call his pal and fellow family member "Big0ne".  "Hey Big, how are you?"  "I'm good Stryke, what's up?"  "Dude, my 360 died! <fakes crying> "Oh man, are you serious" Big0ne asked.  "Yeah, deader than a doornail, coffin will be here in a few days" he responded.  "So what are you gonna do now"  Stryker explains "I am gonna hook up my son's 180 and run some Halo I guess".  Stryker hears conversation in the background and then Big0ne explains that "Stryker's 360 died".  Oh he is telling his wife, Trinity, what happened.  "Stryke, wife says if you want to use her 360 for a few weeks, she is fine with it, hasn't been playing with it much".  Long paus....   8O Stryker picks himself up off the floor, then snaps back to reality.  Wait, Trin and I are always bantering and joking, this has got to be some cruel joke, right?  "Uhhh Big, I am kind of afraid to even respond to that offer.  Is she being for real?"  "Oh yeah, she wouldn't offer if she didn't mean it, come over and get it"  NO WAY!  SWEET!  WOO HOO!!  OH JOYOUS MOMENT!! :D/

Riding over to Big0ne's seemed like forever...reality is 5 miles. LOL :lol: Benefit of having some of the "family" living close by. :D  Stryker walked in and as Big0ne handed him the 360, he couldn't help but grasp it and hold it.  He promised to treat it well.  Like his own.  (Well maybe better, since his was dead. :) )  After thanking Trinity over and over and proclaiming her angelic status, Stryker ran home to put things back together.

So Stryker gets back home, and puts all the cables in, snaps on the hard drive, and pushes the button.  WOO HOO!  GREEN LIGHTS never looked so good. :D  Boots up and connects... "STRYKER HAS 18 FRIENDS ONLINE"  YAY! :biggrin: Loads up R6 and all is well!

So around 9 pm, Stryker decides to leave R6 so he can join his team, TBAM, in Halo 2 and finish the H2 tourney season with Phreak and LB.  H2 loads up, downloads the update and then "Your downloaded content is corrupted, please re-download"  DANG IT!  I thought I was past all of this.  I guess downloading the udpate AFTER you have maps is a bad thing.  Being that maps on HD and update is in the cache.  So I download them all and finally get into the match 2 minutes late but made it.  We got out butts kicked, I am retired from Halo now, stinks when you used to be good and now never play.  But why play Halo when you can play Rainbow Six?!?!?! :D

In summary....360 died, $70 to get it fixed, Trinity is an ANGEL, and Stryker will remain in business until 360 is returned. :D

P.s. I love this family. :)