Sweet, Central Time has no outage

No, Central is out for the entire time.

I heard this update will let you play BluRay discs in your HD-DVD Player and replace the Red Ring of Death with an english muffin toaster.

As a matter of fact, you are wrong. The Red Ring of Death has now been updated to cause actual Death to whomever is within reach of it. You've been warned.

That's why you always have to keep an english muffin between you and the machine.

I heard they wanted to get the Fall update out before Halo 3, so this may or may not be it.

I would love to be wrong about this.

I doubt it is the fall update already. Aren't we still technically in Summer anyway? Plus as mentioned, it always leaks beforehand.

This isn't the fall update, it's a server upgrade for Halo 3.

My xbox live gold is about to run out. Any good deals or bundles that you guys know of that are available right now? Suggestions would be much appreciated.

I think buy.com has a deal with GCO.

Looks like my release date 360 is in the process of bricking. Whee...

Now that you mention it I recall hearing Major Nelson talk about that on the last show. I listen to the show at work...it was like 7 am and I'm not a morning person....so I guess the info didn't stick as well as it normally does.

So last night I turned off my 360, and the fan kept running - I realize it's normal to run a few minutes, but it was like 2 hours it had been running after I turned it off (all the front lights were off)- so I turned it on using the button on the 360, and it made a little whiny bitch noise and a red light came on in the lower right of the ring.

I pushed the button to turn it back off, waited a minute, and turned it back on. No problems.

So was this the beginning of the end, or just something wrong that the fan didn't turn off?

I had a red light in the lower right but I also got an e74 message. If you did not get an error message hopefully it was just a fluke that you got the red light. Good luck.

Can I "order" a coffin so I have one when my system invariably dies again? Or will they get bitchy if I order one and don't return it right away?

The fan will turn off quietly if you just unplug the controller. It has something to do with thinking its charging the controller while powered down.

Hmmm, I did have a controller plugged into the play & charge thingy.

If you did then the fan will continue running while the juice is charging your controller.

Huh, never noticed it doing that before...maybe it's just always been closer to fully charged. Not sure why the red light came on.....can I just get a box from MS to have on standby anyways?

They'll try to troubleshoot your console over the phone and probably won't send a coffin if you tell them it's working fine now, you're just worried about future problems. If you do get them to send a coffin (i.e. tell them the troubleshooting isn't fixing the problem), then about a week and a half after you get it, you'll get an e-mail that says "Hey! We sent you a coffin! If you don't send your 360 back, we're going to cancel the ticket!" I know all this because I was having graphics glitches 6 weeks ago that went away on their own and haven't returned (knock on wood).

What I don't know is what will happen if, 3 months from now, your (or my) console bricks and you (or I) call them up and say "No worries -- I already have a coffin, so I'm putting my 360 in the mail today!" I assume a coffin is a coffin is a coffin, and as long as you include the new ticket number and not the old one, you'll be fine. I don't know that for certain, though.

I got 13 months for 30 bucks from buy.com with google checkout $10 off.

When I received the box to return my 360 in, the shipping label had some very specific information... and the shipping/tracking # of the box coming out to me was the same for it going back.

I know I would've loved to have shaved 5 days from the turnaround (I'm still waiting), I'd hate to have the console lost, misplaced, or returned because of a mismatched tracking/shipping info.

Yep. I have an extra coffin at home. I called because of problems, got the coffin, but the console started working again. Some time passed and it did die, called and was told not to use the one I have. The 360 isn't something you want to lose in the mail.