Okay, so El Guapo said to himself that his last post was going to be the last bitchy post because the internets are already too full of that crap. But HOLY SHIT, Sony just sent me a broken PS3 to replace my broken PS3. Honestly, how fucking incompetent can you be? It can't even load a disc, which is to say no disc can be inserted into the drive, that shit is defective! I am officially cursed.

Okay, this is getting so ridiculous I'm almost laughing. So with my PS3 still waiting for its coffin to arrive via UPS I have been playing me some 360. Not having purchased an original Xbox I decided to try out Fable for a measly 1200 points on the Marketplace. But oh, turns out Microsoft couldn't be bothered to port a working copy of the game because it froze on me multiple times including seconds after the final battle. Motherbitch.

So I decided enough is enough and, after a quick Google search to make sure other people are having this problem, which they are, I called up those a-holes. After I dispatched with "Max" with a quick succession of 0's I got a guy who had no idea he even worked for Microsoft. I told him my problem with the "Xbox Original" title and he thought I bought an "Original Xbox". When I tried to explain it was a game purchased over Marketplace he asked me if they sent me a disc in the mail or if it was a download. Wow.

Anyway, my friend eventually told me that the system for refunds was "down for two or three hours" and that I could call back. Anyone else go through this? I'm wondering if this is just a ploy to try and get me to forget about it. Maybe I should just sell all my current generation of consoles and stick to playing SNES for the rest of my days since it seems to be the only thing I can't break. Well, at least I know what my talent is.

Look at me, I’m a statistical improbability. But instead of winning the lottery or some other fun shit, I have bricked three consoles. I’ve seen the RROD twice and now I’m down a PS3. What the hell?

Before you go and say some shit like it’s my environment or something I am doing, you should know that I am ridiculously careful with my electronics, especially after my first red ring. Also, making me positive it isn’t the place I live/keep my systems I moved houses in between the bricking of my 360s and the recent death of my PS3. Every one of my systems has been well ventilated, never left on overnight, etc.

I have a problem that is prevalent enough to be on Sony’s support page. My PS3 now refuses to play any and all discs. Yes, not only the Blu-Ray but DVD, and CDs too! A Google search pulls up others who have had the same problem (the sound goes out on the game you’re playing, you restart and, goodbye). Anyone else experienced this?

I guess I’m just unlucky. However, all this has prompted me to wonder, why am I supposed to be happy that all they are doing is fixing the damn thing for free? I mean, it is not a huge inconvenience to me. Yet, why I paid for the damn thing to play games on it, and I’m going to get a new one in a week. No big deal right? Except how come that’s all I get, what I should have had all along? It’s not like Sony lacks the funds to just ship me a new one before I ship the old one back. That’s what happened with my DS. Oh yeah, the DS, I almost forgot about that. I had a dead space in the corner of my touch screen, maybe two weeks before the warranty ran out. Nintendo customer service took my credit card info and sent me a new one. All I had to do was send the broken one back and they never charged me a thing. This is the one area where I would love to see Microsoft and Sony emulate those crazies.

So now a Sunday afternoon that was supposed to be lazily spent playing games now finds me too damn pissed off to pick up a controller. What would you do? Just say “oh well” and play some 360? Demand free shit from Sony? Paint your fingernails black, dye your hair and cry? Bah.

In an ill-advised fit of extravagance I recently bought a PSP. I won't go into the reasons because they were really stupid, but suffice it to say I wanted to own as many of the current systems as possible and was too damned impatient to try and get a Wii. Yeah, and I've noticed that the DS screens really make my head hurt. Oh how I rue that decision with Brawl looming on the horizon. However, I'm sure once one is available I'll be able to con myself into coughing up more cash I don't have.

Anyway, so I bought the PSP and one of the first things I have played is the Patapon demo, which is a blast. I have known for some time that I lack rhythm and this game only reinforced that. However, I have found that I still really enjoy the thing despite sucking, sometimes horribly. I have found that being crap at a game doesn't always translate into hating it. I know the hardcore philosophy often translates into beating the crap out of every game, attaining every achievement and all that crap. Yet, that kind of sucks the fun out of the experience for me. I certainly do not identify myself as a casual gamer, that's almost an insult to me. I love gaming and it is a huge part of my life, I game every day and I keep current with sites like this one. In addition to the 360 I also own a working NES (the updated one), a yellowed with age SNES, an N64, multiple iterations of the Gameboy, and so on. So I guess all this gaming community stuff has given me a bit of a gamer identity crisis. I have always beat the snot out of all my gamer friends when we play together but likewise I have never gone online and not had the snot beaten out of me. So I guess what I'm asking is, if I don't play any game long enough to be that good, am I any less a gamer? Does playing games primarily for fun (I am not immune to beating a game because I just have to) castrate me as a gamer?