I powered on my Xbox 360 last night, only to find that it wasn't a happy camper. I was hankering for some Bomberman Live. I had to settle for my PlayStation 2 instead… I've had it since Christmas and treated it well. It froze a couple times (Lost Planet caused it several problems), but otherwise has worked just fine. I hadn't fired it up in a while, so it was surprising that it went from fine to dead without being used.

So I packed it up, took it to Best Buy and attempted to exchange it. But the little trickster decided to work fine there. So maybe I didn't do something right. Got it home and it booted up once, froze, crashed, made strange noises, and then it was back to the 3 blinking lights (the ones that mean hardware failure). So tonight, it goes in for good, because I have games to review and this is just not cutting it.

The moral of this story? None really, since I always treat my equipment well. Technology just doesn't always work, so it's nice to know that a company such as Microsoft is covering its users. Sure I have the extended warranty with Best Buy, but for those who don't, a 3 year warranty against the dreaded blinking lights problem is a fine way to handle things (and a needed acknowledge of a serious problem). I'm glad I don't have to send it in, simply because I've got lots to play on it over the next month.

I've killed very few consoles in my 20+ years of gaming, a couple Dreamcasts, a Sega CD model 2 (the model 1 is still chugging along), my original Xbox, and that poor original Gameboy I dropped down the stairs the same freaking day I got it (it worked for a while after, but had lines on both sides). Guess I can add one more to the list. Let's just hope there's nothing wrong with the harddrive… Hopefully tonight, I'll get to play some Bomberman!!!