The Red Ring of Death isn't neccesarily a bad thing

If you're reading this you probably know I'm something of a geek. Not a total, complete, living in Mom's basement, never been kissed geek, not at all, but you know that I have, lets say, some geek elements. I have my Geek Card, as it were.
I love comic books, and I don't have to call them 'graphic novels' to feel good about myself. I could name all of Superman's relatives if I had to. It's possible that I played Dungeons and Dragons once or twice when I was growing up. With regard to movies, I could tell you seven differences between the Raiders of the Lost Ark that was released in 1981 and the version that was released on DVD three years ago. I can hold my end up in most geeky conversations. However, lets face it, when it comes to my geekdom the jewel in the crown is my love of video games.

This is my hobby, and I'm not frightened to admit it. But don't worry - this isn't goping to be a post about how video games are great and people should just, you know, stop trying to ban them and everything (probably because I think I've already done a few posts on that topic already). No, this is going to be a post about how I'm NOT playing video games right now, and how I kind of like that.

It's not a voluntary condition. I got the Red Ring of Death.

Allow me to explain. The Red Ring of Death is not the aftermath of a tick bite or the unfortunate consequence of a two AM drunken binge at Taco Bell. It's an Xbox 360 hardware failiure. You may have heard about it in the mainstream media, even. There's an overheating problem in some of the 360s and Microsoft have to spend a billion dollars fixing them. I'm currently waiting for a special box to arrive and when it does I shall place my console in it and send it off to Redmond, Washington, where a team of geeks will fix it and ship it back to me. Hopefully before Mass Effct, the new role playing game from Bioware, comes out on November 19th.

So here I am, without a games console, which isn't an altogether bad thing. If it was forever, that might be a bad thing, but its not, its only for a month or so. This opens up other options for whatever time I have left after working my job and spending quality time with my beautiful wife and newborn son.

It gives me a chance to read more, which is good. I love reading and there are several books I've been meaning to catch up on - some of them even lack pictures.

It gives me a chance to watch some more tv - I swear, since Jack was born, I've doubled the amount of late night tv I have ever watched. I've also been watching some of the new tv shows this season - I may well post some of my opinions on these.

It also gives me a chance to write, even to update this blog. Thats gotta be a good thing. I have all kinds of opinions about whats going on in pop culture and politics, and it might be fun to dish some out. We'll see.

But hopefully, by November 19th, I'll be back to playing the games.