Dustin and I dressed up for a NaNoWriMo midnight write-in as “The Doctors Horrible.”  Yes, we both dressed up as Dr. Horrible for Halloween.  I made the coats and we bought the rest at Harbor Freight.  We couldn’t find white rubber boots so we did without.

It turned out pretty good except that the vast majority of people we talked to during the day didn’t get the reference.   “Dr. Who?”  “No, Dr. Horrible.  Yes, it has Doogie Howser in it.  Yes, it’s funny, I promise.”

The write-in was at Dragon’s Lair, a local comic book/game store and I’m happy to report that the people there are much cooler (they recognized us).  These are my people.  :)

A pic:

The Doctors Horrible

You’ll notice that I’m missing the pocket.  I made it, I was just too lazy to sew it on last minute.

So our XBox 360 decided that last night was its last night.  After locking up a few times, it went kaput.  Yes, the infamous Red Ring of Death has visited us.  Again.  Argh!!

The tally so far is three years, two failed XBoxes.  The good news is that this XBox lasted just over two years (and died just outside of our Best Buy warranty period, boo!) where our last one lasted about a year.  Assuming this trend continues, we can expect four years from the refurb Microsoft sends us.  Hopefully.

This is a huge PITA for us because it means our XBox will now have to be sent into the void that is Microsoft.  The current estimate for repair time on their site is fourteen to twenty-one days.  Are you kidding me?  While this is better than the six weeks it was going to take back in 2007, it’s still crazy.

I’ve read the failure rate is something like fifty percent.  FIFTY PERCENT!  They should have this down to an art at this point.  If you include shipping time, it means we’ll be without an XBox for a month, right when we want to play Halo ODST.

It’s just so damn frustrating.  We love the XBox–the games, online play, and extras are fantastic.  However, we HATE the hardware.  Last time it was a freaking nightmare to get it setup so I could still play the games and expansions we had bought with Dustin’s account.  This time that won’t be the issue, but I’m sure something else will come up.  It’s bad enough that we’re about ready to jump ship and buy a PS3.

A picture for posterity:

NaNoWriMo, which stands for National Novel Writing Month, is a crazy event that happens every November.  The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month.  This was the ten year anniversary of the event, though it’s the first year I heard about it.

I decided to participate this year because I’ve been thinking about writing a novel for a while.  It was a bit difficult since I started November 1st with just a vague idea for a story and no outline, but I managed.  I had to average 1667 words per day to get all 50,000 finished by the end of Novemeber.  I did it, I won!

My badge of honor:

Here’s an excerpt from the not at all edited and not even quite finished novel:

I was shocked awake by a hellacious pounding on the window next to my head. I jumped out of bed, brandishing the wakizashi like a baseball bat. I’m not quite sure how my addled brain remembered to grab it at all. The first thing I noticed was the sunlight streaming through the window. The second was a livid Nicolae burning holes into me with his eyes right outside said window. I shrank back, even though his eyes weren’t glowing red anymore they were just as scary this morning.

He motioned toward the front door and stalked off. I hesitantly unlocked my bedroom door and limped to the front door. My right knee was stiff this morning and my arm was still a bit sore as well. I unlocked and opened it to find a still furious man standing right in front of me.

“You revoked my invitation,” he gritted out.

I stood stunned that my silly idea had actually worked. “You mean that actually works?” I asked. “Vampires or evil or whatever,” I waved in his direction, “can’t enter without an invitation?”

“Yes, now if you would kindly invite me in, I would appreciate it.” The words were bitten off in anger.

I looked at him. I’m not sure inviting a furious vampire into my one sanctuary was such a good idea. He must have seen the hesitation on my face as I felt his power build, though I couldn’t actually feel any of it seeping into the house.

“So help me, Ava McKenzie, if you do not invite me back into my own house I will forget about all promises and you will be fair game just as soon as you step a single toe outside. And since I know how much food is in the house, that will be sooner rather than later.” His smile was absolutely demonic.

I backed away, watching him carefully. I figured now was not a good time to point out that this was technically my house now.

So there you have it.  Let me know if you’d be tempted to read the rest of it based on that snippet.  :)

…IKEA is the only place smart enough to put four casters on shopping carts instead of two? Being able to slide your cart sideways (and spin it in a circle, and push it forward at a 45 degree angle) is awesome! You’d think someone else would have figured this out by now, but maybe they think the average customer isn’t up to the task of handling a cart that can move easily in any direction. Wouldn’t want to convenience anyone, now would we?

Seriously though, you should check it out if you have an IKEA nearby. The novelty just doesn’t get old. :)

So, I’ve scoffed at all the reports of Xbox 360 failures. I mean, ours has worked perfectly for over a year, surely we couldn’t be the exception? Well, it turns out, I scoffed prematurely. We, indeed, are not the exception, as we have now been graced with the red rings of death.

Due to Microsoft’s stupid DRM scheme, if we get a new Xbox, I will no longer be able to use any of the content Dustin downloaded with his account, because I have the secondary Xbox live account.

Also, since we plan to return it with the Best Buy warranty we purchased rather than waiting four to six weeks for a repair from Microsoft, we’re going to have to do something about all of our saved games. Thanks, Microsoft.

Dustin scowling with the ring:

Closeup of the red ring: