Xbox 360 Repairs – Part Four

My 360 died again. Just six months after Microsoft sent me a replacement for the one that died, the replacement itself has died.

My screen was freezing after playing a game for a few minutes. Suddenly the whole game would just stop, no error message, no lights, no response to the controllers, nothing. I looked the issue up on the support site, tried the suggestions (basically all the common sense stuff like checking the cables and trying different games, and also clearing the hard drive cache), but nothing fixed it.

Finally, I called tech support, who had me try a couple more things, and then while I was on the phone with them, I got the red ring of death. They’re sending me a box to ship them my console, as well as the power cable (which they didn’t take last time).

One funny thing is that this time around, Annie’s almost as upset as I am – playing Carcassonne has become part of her daily routine during Zoe’s naps!

Germfest '08

The decrease in activity at work, which I had hoped would correspond with an increase of activity here on my blog, instead corresponded with a dramatic rise in germs.

Last week there was a minor pink eye outbreak in the creative department, which resulted in an almost comical proliferation of anti-bacterial hand soap dispensers around the office, as everyone scrambled to avoid it.

Then on Thursday night, Zoe started throwing up. It turns out she had a stomach flu that she caught at one of her groups, after which several of her friends got sick, too. Naturally, it spread to Annie, and then to me. I was fine on Friday, when Annie first started getting an upset tummy, and the whole thing cumulated with me puking my guts up Sunday afternoon (for the first time since college). Annie got lucky and never got worse than nauseous, but it made the jump to Sean, who was up and down all Sunday night getting sick.

On Monday, I felt fine, so I went to work, after warning my coworkers to keep washing their hands, and I hoped that would be the end of it. Unfortunately, Zoe caught a cold while recovering from the flu, which means Annie has a cold, too.

I stayed home from work yesterday to take care of them, and now I have it, too. So I’m home sick again, and about to go take a nap. Hopefully, this weekend will let us all get healthy again, because A) I can’t afford to take any more time off from work, and B) Zoe’s birthday party is next weekend.

Zoe is Eleven Months Old

Hey Zoe,
So much happened this month that it really feels like you’re trying to make up for lost time after being sick all through December. This month you’ve started playing several new games, you’re working towards talking and cruising, you started recognizing faces in photos and you are constantly interacting with the people around you, whether it’s your friends at the coffee shop, your grandparents, or random people you charm at the supermarket. More than anything else this month, I will remember that you were constantly laughing and having a good time, even if sometimes you were doing so when your mom and I really wanted you to go to sleep.

Zoe in the backyard

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