That’s right, it finally happened. It was bound to happen. I was done wrapping up all the writing I had to do today and was about to plop down for a little fun: stealing cars for Stevie, choosing my next hate crime victim (don’t worry, I’ve killed everyone from blacks to whites to blondes to fat peoples to Asians), cruising in my RMP for hookers to beat down, and shooting pigeons. All in a day’s work as Niko Bellic. Anyway, I turned on my Xbox 360 with the controller and it whirred to life, only to stop dead in its tracks, wheezing along with the disc in its tray. Three quarters of a bright red circle were glowing at me, taunting me. My heart sank. The light was pulsing to its own heartbeat. It finally found me. It was finally in my my living room, staring at me…it was the “dreaded Red Ring of Death“.

I couldn’t believe it. I had heard of all these poor souls with a broken Xbox the first day. Tons of people have complained about it, people of all sorts. I thought I was one of the lucky ones who had a nice well-behaved Xbox. I put it on a wood shelf with lots of room around it. The air inevitably gets warm, but I couldn’t imagine it overheating: I’ve played Oblivion on it for hours on end and it never froze RRoD’d on me. That’s why I was so surprised when quadrants 1, 3, and 4 were pulsating red.And so I did the requisite Google search. I found out that my Xbox 360 console suffered from a mysterious diagnosis, error code 0020, which only a witch doctor could cure. Even with our modern medicine, 0020 cannot be easily cured.Now a mere grainy white husk, my console is going up on eBay or Craigslist for sale. Alternatively, I saw an enterprising eBay seller who will ship out a refurbished console to you for $100 flat upon receipt of your dead console. Not sure what I’m doing yet.

I don’t remember exactly when I got my Xbox 360, but I got it second hand from eBay. I believe I got it two years ago, in April. It was an exciting day when it arrived via UPS. It sure was odd though: the box was an enormous three foot cube. I guess the guy really wanted to make sure it was safe because there was an assload of packing peanuts in there too.

Apparently it was plenty safe because I have been playing games on it since then. I opened it up and modded it a couple of months ago and it’s been playing stably since then as well. I guess it was bound to happen. No matter what, the Red Ring of Death will find us and hunt us down, one by one.

Now, time to go watch The Chronicles of Narnia. It’s three years old, and I’ve been meaning to watch it since it came out in HD. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise.

-UPDATE-
I went to some local electronics shop in the city and got it fixed for fifty bucks.