I’ve been trying to set up an Xbox account for my mom, but haven’t had any luck. Below is the latest e-mail I’ve sent to support in my mom’s behalf. If anybody has any suggestions as how to fix this problem, please let me know. Obviously, Microsoft’s “finest” lacks the expertise to fix it.

This is my fifth attempt to get this problem resolved. I have been having trouble setting up a new account on XBox Live.

1. I tried to set up an account through the XBox, but I couldn't connect to live. I ran the system test and passed all tests except for the "XBox Live" test.

2. I contacted a support rep who kept asking me for my account information. Since I didn't have an account (because I couldn't connect), I didn't have any information to give him. However, he continued to ask repeatedly, so I hung up.

3. I called again. This rep was more of the same, but eventually I was able to get a little further. In the end, she said she was transferring me to "people who knew more then she did." After 15 minutes of waiting on hold, I hung up.

4. I called a third time. This time the rep told me to set up the account through XBox.com and that the Live service in my area was having some issues. I found this hard to believe since other people I knew in the same area weren't having issues at all. Anyway, the rep told me to set up the account and do a gamertag recovery. I set up the account, but since I can't connect to Live I can't recover the gamertag.

5. I contacted XBox yet again, this time through e-mail. This was on Monday, but I haven't heard anything back yet.

6. I am now paying for a service that I can't use and am highly pissed off. I've been trying to get on Live for over two months now and either the XBox reps aren't willing to help or just don't know how to help. I'm beginning to wonder if any of you people even own your own XBox. The Playstation3 is looking better and better.

7. This is my fifth time contacting your reps. If this situation isn't resolved soon, I'm really going to raise some hell.

Is anyone else having a “Britney Spears Suicide Office Pool?” I have January 31 of this year. Most people don’t think she’ll off herself by then, but really what else is there left for her to do???

 

I’ve learned that job satisfaction doesn’t take the place of ambition.

 

A dog got attacked at the zoo. Since when did zoos become the most dangerous places in the world? And who brings their dog to the zoo anyway? Were the animals there just not good enough? And what was the dog thinking when it jumped into the tiger’s cage? Sounds like a case of natural selection to me.

 

If you don’t want me to buy more then $50 in gas at a time, then lower your gas prices!

 

If T.O. doesn’t play, we’re going to see how mediocre Romo really is. Not that I would mind. I despise the Cowboys and it makes me angry that they have to take up valuable TV time.

 

Miley Cyrus and that Jonas Brother guy broke up. I’m not sure which is sadder: The fact that this makes the news or that I’m aware of it.

 

How come if I tell you “It’s not my job” I’m not being a team player, but if I ask YOU for YOUR help I need to “take care of my own responsibilities?”

 

Iowa and New Hampshire are both screwed in the head.

 

The Patriots are a great team, but as of right now they are the second best team in the playoffs.

 

Why do people working in an emergency room move like there is anything but an emergency going on?

 

I still haven’t cleaned my garage. It seems I’m only motivated to clean it while I’m at work. When I get home that motivation switches to activities that make better use of my time (WoW, Halo, Mass Effect, etc.)

 

My sister got engaged. My future brother-in-law must have the patience of a saint.

 

“Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting.”

--John Russell

 

 

Okay, the title is completely misleading. I don’t really have any random thoughts today other then, “I love hot sauce.”

 

We were playing some custom games last night on Halo and a couple of funny things happened. The game type we were playing was shotguns, but you can only shoot from the back of a mongoose. You can also throw grenades while on the mongoose and you can use any of the equipment. Twice, Rendara had grav lift mishaps. The teams were Malephar and me against Rendara and Skorza. We were on Rat’s Nest and were racing toward Rendara. Rendara was on foot and pretty much defenseless. As we got closer she tossed a grav lift toward us and jumped backward. We hit the grav lift at full throttle and smacked into Rendara. It didn’t kill her, but it took her shields completely down and I was able to finish her off with one shot as she tried to run away. Later on in the same game, Rendara was hiding behind a cement barricade. We were driving around looking for her and she decided to throw a grav lift as we went past. Not only did she throw it way to early, she basically threw it right at her feet. The result was the barricade lifted into the air revealing a crouching Rendara. What made it even funnier is that she tried to crouch walk to get away.

 

After we watched that clip several times, we re-watched an old clip from back when Halo 3 first came out. Rendara was standing at the main lift on Construct and decided to try and throw a sticky grenade down the shaft. The sticky did a loopty-loo inside the lift, came back, and stuck her in the shoulder.

 

Weird story of the day:

It was New Year's Eve, after all, and people may be in altered states where they see lots of strange things. But three groups of San Diegans swear they were sober enough to report seeing strange orange-yellow lights in the sky about 30 minutes after midnight. And the National UFO Reporting Center said Tuesday it got enough "similar reports from across the country" to warrant a follow-up investigation. Ryan Keegan and his wife, Rachael, were leaving a friend's party at their apartment complex in Bay Park about 12:30 a.m. when they saw the unidentified objects. They went in and got their friends and took pictures with a cell-phone camera. "We saw four orange lights in a square and right behind there were three orange lights in a triangle," said Keegan, who is in the home-financing business and whose wife is a kindergarten teacher. "There was no sound, no flashing lights, no vapor trail, just solid lights." They continued to watch the sky and Keegan said the group saw four more lights appear about 12:45 a.m. The lights traveled east to west, then disappeared in the sky over La Jolla. Keegan said he and his friends had been drinking, "but we weren't drunk being that it was Near Year's." About the time same in Pacific Beach, Dustin Gannon, an amateur astronomer, said he and about a dozen friends saw the lights from the backyard of his home.

Gannon described them as nine red dots that traveled across the sky for about seven minutes. About a half-hour later, the group saw four red dots. They captured the images on video. "We're still a little freaked out," he said. "It was really crazy. It wasn't fireworks."

 

Merry belated Christmas and Happy New Year! It was a pretty good Christmas this year. I got my wife a curio cabinet for her knick-knacks she had stored in the garage. She got me a new rug for my man cave and a mini-fridge. My mom got me a laptop. Pretty cool gift considering my desktop computer is seven years old. Just over two years ago I tried playing Warcraft and Guild Wars on my old computer. The lag was just so bad I had to give up playing them both after a couple of months. The last couple of days I’ve loaded both games onto my laptop and they run great, so it looks like I’ll give them both another shot. If I get bored with either one I’ll probably start playing Star Wars galaxies again. I used to play Ultima Online (for about three years), but quit after our guild disbanded. However, I sold the account for a couple of hundred dollars due to the fact I had a cabin on some ocean front property. I had a lot of fun with Ultima, but I think it was mostly because of the group of people I was gaming with. I’m hoping to rediscover that with WoW or Guild Wars. I doubt if I’ll pull any all night gaming sessions like I did with Ultima, but you never know. That’ll depend on if I can get the wife interested in playing. She doesn’t think it looks like any fun, but she used to say the same thing about Halo.