Mighty Forces

After waiting a month, my repaired Xbox 360 finally came back on Friday.

"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."

-Spock, "Amok Time"

After ending up having to wait two weeks for the box to ship my dead Xbox 360 back to Microsoft, I took the (now filled) box to the UPS Store this afternoon. Even though Microsoft makes you use the plain unmarked white box to ship the console - supposedly to combat theft - the guy behind the counter took one look at the box in my hands and smiled, saying, "Xbox, huh?"

"Yes," I said. "Do you get a lot of these in here?"

"Yeah - about three or four a day," he said.

Three or four a day, at one UPS store in one town. Wow. Meanwhile, thousands of copies of GTA IV sit on store shelves, mocking me.

After years of laughing at all the people whose Xbox 360s got the "red ring of death," mine is now dead too, right at the release of GTA IV. Yes, I am a tragic figure.