thinking about it

Purgatory, by Gustave Doré.

the red ring of death

i know there are more important things in the world to be frustrated about, but when you move to a new city and resort to buying an xbox for lack of any friends, after awhile you grow quite attached to it. and when it's not even a year old and it suddenly kaputs, leaving you alone on the couch staring into your wall, potato chips mixing with the drool running down your face, it really sucks. especially when you've lost the receipt.

three red flashing lights on my xbox says that the hard drive is dead.
apparently, microsoft has had this happen so often that they have had to extend their warranty to three years and back-pay everybody who has had to pay for repairs. one guy on the internet has purchased 11 xboxes (nutcase?) and all of them have died.i wouldn't be too worried, but i lost the receipt and i HATE MYSELF for it.

on the flipside, during the time i've not had an xbox, my amount of reading as well as general productivity has upped amazingly. mysterious!
so i'm faced with a dilemma of great moral consequence. do i fix the thing, (because God knows Halo 3 is coming out in a couple of months!!!), or do i cut my losses, time and money, and move on with my life?

live earth concerts

since i can only get AM frequencies in my work van, i've been listening to a lot of talk radio and news during the day. and conservative talk radio at that, since it seems they don't even have "liberal" talk shows airing in these parts, aside from NPR (which is mysteriously elusive on the dial). But i heard an interesting discussion on the live earth concerts the other day which basically reamed the celebrities going out there to "preach global warming" whilst flying in on private jets with crews of 100s, leaving behind their giant energy sucking ranch mansions, garages full of SUVs and Escalades.
I think it is pretty funny that Al Gore chose L.A. and Hollywood to be the face of his campaign for environmental awareness. Maybe that's the best way to get people's attention, but it does seem silly.
I have to post this, though, because i find it hilarious. (Written by a member of the band Mogwai on their official website):

"Live Earth: Everything's OK.

Since the Live Earth concert the other day, everything has changed. In these 2 days since the concert the environment has apparently regenerated up to 68% of the damage done by humans because of the sheer quality of the music played by David Gray and Black Eyed Peas. When Madonna played, the ozone layer hole sealed up, probably to keep the great music from leaking out into space!
Most amazingly of all though, I woke up this morning to find 3 new full grown trees in my back garden with a note from James Blunt which read,"I'm planting trees in your area for the environment's sake, stay beautiful".
How good is that?"

amazing friend

to my utter joy, i returned home yesterday to find an LP sized package at my apartment's front door. it was full of music, with a fantastic note written on the back in Joel's handwriting. whoa. thank you, Joel! music is such a great thing to glue old friendships together over time. shared experiences with people you can't be with. how perfect.
inside was: