The curse of the AndiTails...

Can I please have some good luck please? I'm getting mighty sick of this...

Playing my '360 last night to have it lock-up on me. A little odd I thought. Reboot, "Error 67, Please contact Xbox Support". Oh great.
Knowing what they're gonna ask me, I unplug everything, wait, plug everything back in. Turn on. Same error. Whip off the hard-drive, reboot... ta'da! Back in the Dashboard. Put it back on, reboot, crash.

So, I'm on my second Xbox 360, and the hard-drive has now crashed on me. Loosing the 2gig+ of downloads I'd made from Xbox Live, plus my rather sexy garage I had in PGR3 (3 Ferraris, including the F50 GT, plus my Merc McLaren SLR drift machine). *sigh*

It's at this point where I again cannot praise enough the intelligent people in my local Gamestation store. Microsoft insisted on sending the whole thing back to them (no chance) but just spoken with the Manager at Gamestation, and he suggested bringing in the dodgy hard-drive - they'll test it on their machine to make sure its dead, then also try out the hard-drive from my old machine they are yet to return (which wouldn't even turn on - regardless of the hard-drive being attached) to see if that's good. If it works, I get an immediate swap and I just have a few hours on PGR3 to catch up on!

I'll update tomorrow as I will go en route to work - but blimey, they've excelled themselves again if I can pull this one off!

In other news...
The Creative Zen Vision:M is rather fandabidosey still. Still on the original battery charge, though it has just popped up letting me know its getting low. Oh, and you can even plug it directly into the Xbox 360's USB port to stream your music thru' the 360 whilst playing Games. Now that rules :) Can't do that with your iPod and its propeitry software... Plus I have a wrath of accessories bought off ebay on the cheap winging their way to me. Coolio!

Influenza Update 2006: Cold is on its way out I think. Snot is still a problem, but the skin around my nose is recovering, and I'm now torturred with a razor-blade sore throat. One day I will be well again.

Better finish up here before I break something else.... (",)

Ok ok ok ok... I'm back!!!

...so you can stop sending me abusive emails about my lack of updates, ok?

Has a month gone by already? Blimey.
Right, what you missed?

I'm still sodding ill. Managed to eventually shake off the cold I had to start on a brand new one a couple of days later. Nose now looks like its gonna fall off and I have a small family of sea-lions living in my chest who like to bark about every 2 mins - day or night.
Which, curiously, has giving me a bout of insomnia which I haven't had for years... yesterday I turned in at 3am and was bright and breezy (and coughing and sneezey) at 8am. Doubt I'll be quite so late tonight, but we'll see how the twilight hours unfold.

Can't remember if I mentionned this (and can't be bothered to look) but I tracked that Carphone had been unpaying for the past 6 months - as well as diddling me out of 4.5 days holiday. Needless to say, I've got the holiday back and a very nice lump sum mid-month. With said lump I have purchased myself a Creative Zen Vision:M (Video iPod clone - but plays DivX etc and no annoying iTunes) and I've finally got my hands on a Xbox 360 Premium.
I had only been looking casually for a 360, and over the past couple of weeks ended up settling for ringing the local Gamestation to see if they got a Premium pack in. Wednesday I was shocked to here the "yes sir, we have 3 in stock" as a response, and as I was already at work, I sent Jen in (she's on a week off) to go get my new toy. Managed to work like a daemon and got out of the office 45 mins early to have a play.
Unpacked like a kid at Christmas, and plugged in the HiDef cable to my HDTV (it's first proper use at 1080i as the Xbox v1, although I had a HiDef cable, wasn't true HD) to be greeted by three quarters of the 'Ring of Light' flashing red. Followed the procedures, fiddled, and decided yes, Andi Taylor's luck had struck again. One dead 360. Rang Microsoft to have it confirmed, and alas no PGR3 for me that night ("n)
Rang Gamestation first thing this morning to relay the bad news and see if I could do a swap-out (rather than a 14-day repair with M$) - and of course, none in stock.

But then maybe today I would be a bit more lucky.
Just before lunch (which was free - thanks boss!) I get a call "Hi Andi, its Gamestation. We have a Premium 360 in for you." Rock on!
Dodged out of work early again (!) and got there just as they're closing to do the swap (I had dumped the 360 in my boot juuuust in case). And my MP3 player turned up today too (although a day late). And its all working beautifully! (",)

Anyway, so that's the boring bit done.
Bit of a back date - Valentines.
Was eventful in 2 ways - not really sure I can blog either though, so let's just leave it at that. Though can quite safely say my best V-Day ever...

Corrado update: slow-puncture front right. It's currently flat at the mo. Had to rush to Gamestation with it flat too - handling wasn't too great!
Will have to get that pumped up in the morning! :)

Right - that lot should keep you buggers happy for a little bit. Sorry its a bit long and boring. Will come up with some more witty stuff when I feel a bit better. All sympathy welcome!

AndiTails, out.