Red Light District

Just a few days ago, I was a happy go lucky gamer, annoying my wife on a regular basis with late night drumming on the Rock Band kit and with shouts to my teammates over the Rainbow Six Vegas gunfire.  Now, I'm annoying her by sitting at the computer writing a blog entry and shining a flashlight through the side of my now dead XBox 360.   The RROD, the name I've come to hate, has paid me a visit, and despite taking every precaution to avoid it, I now have multiple weeks to mourn the loss of my sterling electronics maintenance record.

No pity, please.  There are greater tragedies, and I'd bet that a good number of you on this board have suffered the same fate - maybe even multiple times.  It's just amazing to think that this is such the epidemic that terms like "RROD'"and "coffin" are part of the lexicon.  It's amazing to think that people have to walk into the video game store and study the box of each console just to increase their odds of getting a system that might not crap out, just when things are getting fun.  It's amazing to think that those same people will then take their new console home, and before turning it on, they'll sit there with a flashlight, trying to line up the holes just right so they can see if they've got "the good stuff" in their box.

I'll await my "coffin", I'll swing by the UPS store to bid it farewaell, I'll bide my time (perhaps shake the winter rust off the golf swing), and I'll pray that I don't visit "refurb hell".  But you can guarantee that when this PC becomes outdated, my butt is going to the Apple Store.