January 26, 2011. On this tragic day, my Xbox 360, born August 23, 2007, left this world.



Good night, sweet prince.


Now, unlike most people who this happens to, this wasn't a surprise to me. A little backstory is necessary here...


I got this 360 during the same week that the limited Halo 3 360s came out. My second Xbox had crapped out a week earlier, and when I heard news of this new version of the console I figured "Oh, well what perfect timing". So, I picked it up, but it being a 360 and what not, I was always ready to fear the worst. Except, it never really came. A year passed by, things were still great. Two years, still nothing, it ran good as new. A variety of games, dashboard updates, and Xbox Live antics followed, but around the year three mark things started to get a little unsettling. The box began to get louder, hotter, and would freeze up at random intervals. Initially I didn't think much of it, but it began to get more and more prevalent until, eventually, the worst thing possible happened- the dreaded Red Ring Of Death.



AKA that thing I have tattooed on my wrist as a reminder of how many times this has happened to me.


Of course, like any sane gamer would, I began to curse God's name and frantically seek some way to rectify the situation. I realized that I was currently a jobless bum at the time and had no way of replacing it, even if I wound up trading in every last game I owned. However, thanks to a bit of Craigslisting, I found a guy in my area who specialized in 360 repairs, including red rings. Despite hearing nothing but bad things about going down this route, I reluctantly decided it was the best and only way to do anything about it. So, I dropped it off and, to my surprise, within an hour he had it working beautifully. Of course, I went home and dropped hours into Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I was overjoyed, I still had video games in my life!


Fast forward a couple months, to about October. It was the same week as my birthday, ironically. Despite it being my birthday week, things weren't exactly going well. My car broke,I wasn't able to find a job STILL, my laptop broke, some jealous woman almost succeeded in causing my girlfriend of two years to break up with me (We're still together and better than ever thank God), and I got ridiculously drunk on the night of my birthday and wound up dropping my phone in a toilet while giving myself a concussion (Which ultimately led to me having a permanent scar on my forehead...I'm actually kinda proud of that part). It was during this week that my Xbox decided to stop reading disks. I, of course, panicked like I did before. Knowing there was no way I could ship it off thanks to the red ring repair I did over the Summer, and thanks to the fact that I'm STILL FREAKING BROKE (at the time), I decided to attempt fixing it myself. And, holy shit, I did it. I freaking fixed my own Xbox. I felt like a God...but of course, that was short-lived.


See, the thing I learned about disc drive failures is, there doesn't really seem to be a way to 'fix' it...not permanently at least. The only real way to do anything about it would be to just full-on replace the disk drive, or at least that's what the internet told me. Now, the fix that I performed on it, gave it about another month before I had to open it up again. And then a few weeks. And less, and less. Until Saturday, where I had to open it up yet again...this time, it only managed to last a couple days. Turns out, I think the thing is finally done. Gone. Fin. Dead.



Seems like only yesterday that I first bought him.


Now, the big question I've found myself asking is...what do I do about it? I just got laid off a couple weeks ago, so once again I'm in a jobless position. And as sad as it is for me to admit, I really rely on videogames to make my day less...well, shitty. And in the ultimate act of God hating me, it couldn't have come at a worse time. Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 is finally about to arrive, I had rekindled my love of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 after a long absence, I've been getting more and more hooked on playing Xbox Live with Dtoiders, and finally decided to come out of my shell and start being a part of Friday Night Fights. But then, this happens.



It seems so empty without it...


So, sad as it is for me to say, I don't think I'll be playing much games for a while. You may see me logged onto Xbox Live, but unless it's an arcade game, don't expect me to be playing anything. It's weird...what does a gamer even do when he doesn't have a console? Can he call himself a gamer when he literally lacks the ability to play games? I guess there's no point in thinking about it right now...for now, I can look back on the better times. Here's hoping I can remedy the situation soon.



A toast to the fun that we used to have.


Requiescat in pace, old friend.