Tuesday, September 12, 2006

My Own Little 9/11 Hell

Yesterday night, as on many nights, I found myself winding down with a little XBOX 360. I was playing Madden 07 when there was this horrible audio glitch and then the screen froze with vertical lines across the madden game background. I rebooted my system twice and two more times, after a little Madden, vertical lines and a screen freeze. I put in my favorite racing game Project Gotham 3 and played for a bit. All the sudden mid race, vertical lines and a screen freeze.

I called Microsoft's XBOX customer support this morning, and it was the most surreal customer service call ever. We tried different configurations of my hardware and then he had me remove the external 20 gig hard drive. He said, "Would you pop in Madden and play a little while we chat and see if the problem occurs again?" I did. And the problem occurred again as well. I did tell the CSR that this was the coolest and most surreal CS call ever. I also asked if he handled utilities and cell phones. No one has ever asked me to play video games on a CS call ever.

The result of my problem is that my unit is under warranty. They are sending me prepaid shipping boxes and I will send them my unit. They will fix it within 2 days of receiving it and ship it back. Total time about 2 week. My warranty runs out in October. He let me know that I can purchase an extended warranty for $29 for a year or $49 for two years. To have my $400 unit protected I think I will. I would recommend that all who have a unit get the extended warranty. It was explained like this, you protect your $400 investment, but more importantly you have purchased games at $60 a piece, they are worthless without the console. I have purchased a lot of games at $60 a piece and I would hate to see them sit and collect dust.

Not having my console for two weeks puts smile on the wife's face, but to me it's like quitting my two pack a day cigarette smoking cold turkey. So, if I bite your head off, or snap like a rabid dog, I apologize in advance. If you have a console and would like to help me with my jones, feel free to contact me, I'll bring the beers.
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