The Ring of Death

Ugh … It was bound to happen. Every friend I have who has owned a 360 for longer than a month has been through this before. EVERY single friend. I knew it even when I was handing over my hard-earned cash to the lady at Circuit City, but I thought to myself “It only happens to everybody else. It won’t happen to me”. WRONG!

Well, It took about a year and a half but it finally happened. My precious 360 crapped out on me with the “ring of death”. What’s even worse is the fact that, even though Halo 3 has been out since September, I had just decided to finish the game on Legendary.

I guess it was the non-stop hours of gameplay that caused the 360 to overheat (or Microsoft just had no idea how to properly build a gaming console). But here’s the thing: it died on me as I started the next-to-last level of Halo 3! AAAAHHHHHH!!!!! How does that happen?!?!?! Do I even need to say how angry I am?

Now … while my Halo teammates like Jason and Poncho are ranking up and collecting all kinds of achievements, I’ll be stuck at home … waiting by the door, like a dog, for the mailman with a fresh new (or repaired) Xbox which could take up to 6 FREAKIN WEEKS!!!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!?!?!

So, how are you going to make it up to me, Microsoft? Huh? Oh … by “fixing” the problem for free while I do without gaming for a month or so? Wow, that makes perfect sense. How does repairing something for free (that shouldnt have needed to be repaired in the first place) going to make up for the probably thousands of times that I closed my eyes, held my breath, and pressed the power button on my 360 … just hoping that this time wasn’t the time that it died?

So, now I wait. I wait for the cardboard coffin of a box to arrive at my place. Stick my 360 in and say “have a nice trip” and hope that I get it back soon. Sure there are other, more productive things I could do since I can’t play Xbox, but that still doesn’t take away the bitterness.

All I know is that there are 2 more levels of evil aliens to rid the world of … and I cannot rest until that happens. Besides … that’s probably what Jesus would do.

 

Guitar Battle III – Battle Royale: Results

So … the results are in. Poncho actually came through this week, appearing ready to rock my socks off. In classic Poncho fashion, he talked the talk … but unfortunately for him, he may still need help learning how to walk.

Here were the ground rules. We were to each pick any 3 songs at any skill level. We would perform the song, then allow the other to do likewise. In the event of a tie-breaker, we would pick one song at random and play it on “hard”. Here’s what happened:

1. Song #1:  Jeremy’s choice on Expert
   • Jeremy rocked 95% of the notes
   • Poncho failed at 3% completion
2. Song #2:  Poncho’s choice on Hard
   • Poncho failed at 15% completion
   • I actually allowed Poncho to move on to his next song (cuz I’m nice like that)
3. Song #3:  Poncho’s choice on Medium
   • Poncho rocked 78% of the notes
   • Jeremy rocked 95% of the notes
4. Song #4:  Jeremy’s choice on Medium
   • Jeremy rocked 98% of the notes
   • Poncho rocked 76% of the notes
5. Song #5:  Poncho’s choice on Medium
   • Poncho rocked 84% of the notes
   • Jeremy rocked 98% of the notes
6. Song #6:  Jeremy’s choice on Hard
   • Jeremy rocked 88% of the notes
   • Poncho failed at 17% completion

The Winner: Jeremy!
Needless to say, this wasn’t even fair. This was an easier thing to do than say … if I were literally taking candy from a baby. I’m sure that I haven’t seen the last of Poncho though so I’m sure we’ll be doing this again real soon.

I tried to take some footage of the event, but Bryan had just filled up my camera with footage from his Israel trip and I wasn’t sure if I could erase any of it … so, here’s all the footage I could take before my camera quit on me. I apologize for the lack of entertainment.

 

Guitar Hero III – Battle Royale

OK … OK … enough is enough. After hearing nothing but trash-talking coming from our dear Mr. Poncho, I have finally challenged him to a Guitar Hero guitar battle to the death. The place: my place. The time: Sunday after church (12/16/07 2:00pm approx.).

We originally were set to battle it out last Sunday (12/9/07) but strangely enough, when church was over, I couldn’t find Poncho anywhere. When I started asking people where he was, I found out that he had just left. Hmmm … I am starting to smell chicken … oh, and it smells good.

I’ll post the results of the battle next week, if Poncha actually shows up. You might even get lucky enough to see some video footage.