Sunday, June 28, 2009

Bioshock 2 Hype!!!!2222!!!!









For serious, when this game comes out i'm going to piss all over the inside of my jeans.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Don't waste your hard drive space.

As i type this, metric tonnes of tributes and mixtapes are being put together in the late Michael Jackson's honour. Some will be cheesy, some will be amazing, this is the latter.

Click the picture to take a moonwalk down memory lane with the best to ever did it.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Ghostface Killah concert 101

Because some of you may not be of legal tender or economic efficiency to have seen Ghostface Killah perform at Metro City, i come bearing gifts. I was lucky enough to see his show last night and i'm about to go to the trouble of constructing a breakdown (is that an oxymoron? i still don't know what an oxymoron is) of a typical night in the life of a Metro City patron.

On the eve of the performance, download as much Ghostface Killah as possible. I'm talking albums, mixtapes, b-sides, collaborations and unreleased material so that when it comes to the performance itself, your lip-synching is up to scratch and your peers are completely aware of your knowledge of the artist. You want to be rapping your ass off should Ghostface chance a glance in your direction.
For the pre-celebrations, don't drink any alcohol for several months beforehand and then consume shitloads of beer and drinks originating from Manhattan and/or Staten Island. Rename them 'Manstatens' and high five the shit out of your friends for your spoken genius. Be sure to embrace your youth as the alcohol takes effect a couple of hours before you expected and begin doubting your ability to speak and walk upright. Smoke about eighty cigarettes.

Arrive at the venue and forget any form of i.d. This is essential if you want to fuck up your evening and the evenings of anyone in your proximity early in the night. Fucking bouncers. Those guys were the worst. I know you're a bouncer at Metro City and you've probably seen your fair share of stabbings and routine police identification checks but c'mon, i just wanted to see Ghostface and your face resembled a hurdle that i wanted to kick over. Have your other friend who is clearly over legal club attending tender forget his i.d as well and explain to the bouncers that he has envelopes full of money to give to the promoter of the event and that it's imperative he receives it. The bouncers should start to get a little hot-headed at this point in time due to not being able to calculate the concept of important envelopes full of money for the promoter of the show. You can normally tell a bouncer is angry when he looks at you as oppposed to just straight ahead.

Drive back home to get your i.d. and contemplate staying there. Realise that sitting home drunk by yourself is something to be saved for the twilight years and exit the house. Listen to excessively ignorant rap music really loudly on the way back and heartily laugh out loud at all the suckers that are getting caught for drink driving. Don't they know that it's illegal?
When you get back to the concert, drink in the parking lot for five minutes and receive express post hatred from various ethnicities who just want to hang out in the parking lot with their totally hot cars and not be interrupted by some white kid whose dress sense resembles that of someone who isn't white. Briskly walk past them and imagine all the crazy scenarios in which you could own them to stay focused on your goal.

When you get back to the entrance, make sure you show your i.d to the bouncer that refused you the first time. This is important because if you show it to anyone else, no-one gets owned and the whole driving back home thing was pretty much for nothing. When you get into the venue look straight ahead to avoid provoking the various sub-cultures walking around the venue. This is when things start to get real good. Pick a spot at the bar where all your homies are at and take note of your surroundings.

Homies? Check.
Alcohol? Check.
Uninterested bar staff? Double check!
Group of youths gnawing their own faces off and ready to beat the shit out of eachother at the drop of a hat? Priceless.

So i'm at the bar and of course, fight one breaks out. Something about a tag in the second cubicle of the Oats Street station toilets that got lined out the other day, you know, politics and all that. Have your newly poured beer spilt all over your newly applied clothing and contemplate newly applying a cheeky elbow in the direction of the scuffle. I say scuffle because no one fights these days, they just jump around saying "C'mon! C'mon! What? C'mon!" until the bouncers show up and destroy everyone in sight whilst looking straight ahead the whole time.
Take sips from your remaining beer and restrain the urge to leave the venue because you get pissed off really easily and getting beer spilt all over you by some lobbed up teens wasn't mentioned on the ticket or at the door and was therefore, unappreciated.

Buy beer number two but this time, don't even have a sip from it. Make sure another fight breaks out involving a different group of gentlemen, some of whom you know, and just straight give up on the prospect of ever being able to drink a beer at the venue in question. Let the leader of the Gentlemen's club know that you're appalled by their behaviour and jokingly request the replacement of any forfeited beverages during the disagreement. He'll not only buy you a beer, but he'll smash a couple of shooters with you for your troubles.

The rest of the night is going to be far too laborious to complete in this format but i can definitely tell you that it was a good night from that point onwards. Seeing Ghostface in person really was something else. His presence was completely unfuckwithable, he covered the stage well and was able to singlehandedly make up for the fact that the sound was absolute balls, a feat considered impossible by anyone that has ever played at Metro City. I saw a-lot of people that i haven't seen for a while and probably spent more time letting the alcohol talk for me and smoking darts than i did throwing my W's up.

All of my friends just left the house to get a normal breakfast at a normal cafe but i didn't go because i'm saving myself for Yum Cha later on.
They only have themselves to blame as well. You think i'm going to sit down and eat toast and bacon this weekend after we had tray upon tray of exotic steamed delicacies rushing past our table last weekend?

I'll go by myself as well, i straight don't give a shit like that.
This guy:


Was responsible for all of THIS. Enough said.

Rest in Peace Michael. In honour of your memory i'd like to confess that i stole your dance moves in year 3 to impress the girls. It worked so well that i had to buy a reinforced kevlar chairbag to safely contain all the poorly written love letters.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

No.......you're a towel.

If waiting was a spectator sport, watching me would be like watching the Orlando Magic in the 2009 NBA finals. Heart at the start, holding tight, maintaining little battler status against all odds, back to the wall and then by the end, a bumbling fucking mess. Failure in the face of overwhelming odds dictated by myself and a passion for being impatient. It's like war, there are no winners in waiting, only waiters, and you know what a waiter does? He stands there and waits until he is useful and when the time comes, he hates you for making him wait so long even though it's not only the title of his position, but also the definition of his occupation.

I could never be a waiter but right now i may as well be doing work experience for a spot at that turbo lame 360 revolving restaurant in the city. Who goes to a restaurant to revolve anyway? If i go to a restaurant, i eat. I don't want to pay extra so i can spin around and see how barren my hometown is.

It's been almost two weeks now since i sent my xbox 360 to god knows where it goes to get fixed and i am at the end of wit lane in patience town. I've learned a-lot in that almost two weeks and it's gotten to the point where it's not even about the xbox anymore. It's deeper than that. I feel like i've grown spiritually and i've learned something that i secretly knew i always knew all along.

I absolutely HATE waiting.

I am impatient. I want everything now and i will complain from a proposal's inception to it's conclusion because A) it keeps me occupied in between and B) i seriously don't know any better. This is a problem because it seems that waiting is going to be a part of my life forever. Here are some examples of times where i've had to wait and have nearly doored myself to deal with it.

* Waiting for someone to get out of the car when i'm already out of it.

* Waiting for a McDonald's order to be processed. Specifically the time between the announcement of the last item to the employees announcement of the cost so i can drive to the window. I feel impolite if i drive through before the price has been announced which sucks because i'd choose being polite and waiting that excrutiating extra second over being impolite and being at the first window quicker.

* Waiting for people at the ATM. Adults especially. This morning for example, I had a girl turn around to me twice whilst i waited for her to make a withdrawl because she couldn't figure out the difference between a cash transaction and the resulting balance display on screen or in paper form. The first time i was ok with it because she looked like an idiot but the second time i just looked away until she stopped talking. Had she done it a third time, i probably would have jammed one of her fingers into the cash dispenser and read her balance without permission.

* Lifts. I would donate half my weekly wage every week if it meant i didn't have to deal with Mr. stinky breath and Ms. Congeinality inside that metal cube for more than one second at a time. I once tried to say something on a lift to break the ice and everyone sshhh'd me and pointed to a sign that said "Don't talk on the lift, it's meant to be awkward".

* Old people making decisions on the road. If you've been alive for five times as long as i have you have two options. Be five times better than me at driving and any decision making required as a result of said driving or don't even look at a car unless it's on a television screen from the safety of that chair you always like to sit on.

* My xbox 360. Don't get me started. Actually, aside from the whole increase in social productivity, something good has come from not having an xbox. Health? Nah. Less headaches? Not even close. Increased efficiency at everything? Yeah, but that's a given at any given point in my life.
No. I'm talking about something so mindblowing that i almost banned myself from enjoying it because i didn't enjoy it when it was first introduced to me. Namely, Dragon Quest 8.
When i tell people that i'm playing a game called Dragon Quest 8 their initial reaction is to never hang out with me again. However, while i'm chasing them down the street and telling them all about the game and how much of a shame it is that it signalled the death of the Playstation 2, they want to be friends with me again. It's seriously that good.
Here's a picture:

"But, guy who writes this blog, how can you handle such an awesome looking game and all the quests that lay within it?" i hear you collectively enquire.

It's simple, i just can.

I mean, sometimes it gets difficult coming to terms with the quality of the fully orchestrated soundtrack and the gentle but challenging learning curve and the absolutely gorgeous cel-shaded graphics all at the same time but when you've become an expert at waiting for your xbox 360 and your laptop to be fixed and returned to you, anything's possible. I've totally forgotten the point i was trying to make in this post as well. It was going to eventuate to the systematic break down of a huge conspiracy theory and something about waiting but i don't even care about that anymore. I'm going to play Dragon Quest 8 and virtually wait for some virtual monsters to battle because it's marginally more exciting than waiting for anything in real life.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

I'm just going to the ladies room for a photoshoot.

We're all guilty of a little location advertisement for the betterment of our internet profiles, i'll be the first to admit that. Taking photos of you and your friends to post on the internet is certainly not a crime and a nice way of showing your friends and family what you've been up to, who you associate yourself with and the location at which you were associating with them at.

Having lost a slight interest the two only social networking sites in the whole universe (Facebook and Myspace, there aren't any others) my interest in location updating and friend management followed to the point where i only use either sites to inform people of blog updates as opposed to what i did every single day of this year and who i did it with and who was checking my page and who wasn't commenting me back and who was on the friend request pending list and how my top 8 friend ladder reflected my relationships with those people in real life and who had the hottest profile pics and layout and who was quitting and who was coming back and who could we diss for saying they were going to delete their account and then totally fold and start a new one and then it would confuse everyone and you'd have to spend like, a whole hour sending out all the friend requests when in the back of your mind you knew you shouldn't have deleted your account in the first place. It was only inevitable that i got bored of it all and the trend of not giving a shit about your online life slowly spread to all corners of the internet.

Sleep easy though, for as of last night i witnessed first hand that cam-whoring is still alive and kicking and is even facing a possible resurgence thanks to dedicated groups of girls and their cheap digital/phone cameras. I'm talking about girls whose sole purpose of a night out is not to drink, dance or mate but instead to come home with a full wallet, an empty memory card and a fucking brand spanking new album to slap up on facebook the next day in complete chronological order with dates and everything. You'd seriously think they were receiving some form of facebook income the way their shit is organized.

And it's not even the albums that upset me. If you want to archive your photo albums in alphabetical order with all the correct tags and dates then so be it, there's only so many empty comments from lurkers and potential rapists that you'll receive before you realise there's more to life and you decide to move on to bigger and better things. What does upset me is when i'm walking through the club contracting epilepsy from your little couch photoshoots when all i want to do is stumble around and talk shit to people that i only see whenever i go out. Who buys a row of $20 cocktails only to take twenty thousand photos with them and then leave them at the bar?

Then there's the frustration i get from the witnessing the whole "that one was no good, let's try again" scenario. Fair enough, if someone fucks up a photo by looking uncomfortable when the flash goes off by all means take another one. I swear last night I saw two girls sitting in the same spot for half an hour taking photos of themselves, pouring over them, deleting them, adjusting their hair and pouts, re-taking the photos and repeating the process at least eight times over, all whilst about twenty dudes and no chicks rubbed up against eachother on the dancefloor. And for what? Your facebook update the next day? You know, if you spent less time taking photos of yourself at the bar and more time interacting with people of the opposite sex you could possibly end up with a boyfriend? Heck! You might even one day be able to tick the fabled 'in a relationship' box on your facebook status and be the envy of all your girlfriends! Then you wouldn't have to worry about taking photos at the bar anymore because the guys you were trying to impress on your facebook account suddenly don't matter so much because you met a guy at the bar through not taking photos at the bar for your facebook account! I'm a motherfucking genius!

You gals are really hurting the small bar industry as well as many others as well. You see, bars thrive on drink sales. If you don't drink and spend your evening in the bathrooms taking photos of yourselves pretending to shit (which isn't a good look by the way), the bar doesn't make any money. If you don't get drunk and drift around the venue tripping over your heels and yawning, guys won't think they can get with you and they'll stop going to that venue because they think it's the venue's fault that they can't score. If you don't drink, you're putting the entire birth control industry on hold as well as human evolution as a whole. Why are you doing that? Stop it.

So ladies, put the cameras away, have a drink, unwind, socialise with males and quit living your saturday night through a viewfinder. After all, you don't want to roll up to your school reunions in five years time surrounded by hot and successful pregnant women with nothing to show but a weathered Sony Cybershot and a Photobucket address.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The results are in and i'm not surprised.

The battle continues.
Here's my latest correspondence with George Weston foods.

Dear ####,

Thanks for the response in regards to Reference #2775770. I conducted a poll on my blog to solidify the importance of this matter.

The results were as follows:

35 people voted in total.

29 people said that Tip-Top are well behind the times with their un-sliced rolls.

1 person said they prefer slicing their own rolls.

5 people said that hotdogs are for degenerates and that they prefer tapas and other fancy arrangements.

These results are the product of a 6 day poll conducted with no bias whatsoever. As you can see, there's an overwhelming demand for sliced rolls that you guys could be providing for.

Regards,
#######


To the 29 people that picked the correct answer, you all win! What do you win exactly? How about being one step closer to winning the fight against manual labour? You like that don't you?
Way to win, winner!

To the smartass that voted against sliced rolls, i know why you did it. You were faced with devastating odds and you panicked. Don't worry, you didn't make a difference and i forgive you for your negligence.

To the 5 of you that don't like hotdogs and live on a steady diet of tapas and undeserved self worth, thankyou. Without fancy citizens like you, us lower class hotdog eating motherfuckers wouldn't have something to strive for. Oh how i can't wait for the day when i can eat some fingernail size portions of cured ham and rotten cheese by candlelight whilst discussing the ups and downs of topics i know little about so i appear more worldy to my tapas eating compatriots.

Just kidding, tapas owns. Sometimes it seems to me that people just eat tapas because they like saying it or because they think it's this new hip thing.
"Ooohhh, it's like a meal only miniature! That's so kitsch!"

More to come.

Gordon Ramsay's recipe for a good time.

Being an avid follower of all things just and awesome, i was delighted to hear of Gordon Ramsay's recent tour of Australia and resulting coverage of said tours. I've been a fan of Gordon since the original Hell's Kitchen series and his brand of ruining people's lives and swearing like a sailor with tourettes was the only reason i associated myself with commercial television between 2008 and 2009, ever. He is dashing, classy, heroic, the spearhead of the reality kitchen series movement and above all else, he will kill you.

Everything was going super good for Gordon up until recently. He was charming everyone he came into contact with and then telling them to fuck off, his numerous appearances were met with hysteria and acclaim and he was just running shit as per usual.

Enter Tracy Grimshaw.

Fact: Tracy Grimshaw is a well-known and well respected Australian television presenter who sometimes appears to have a little bit of sand in her vagina when it comes to particular matters.

Fact: Gordon Ramsay is famous not only for his cooking and swearing, but also because of the way he treats women. He straight doesn't give a fuck and everyone eats it up and complains about it at the same time because everyone is stupid.

Fact: If you were to put Tracy Grimshaw and Gordon Ramsay in a room together it would be the mathematical equivalent of letting Clark Gable loose on a Women's rights representative. There would be no survivors, no prisoners and no remorse.

Fact: Channel 9 knew this.

The second Gordon Ramsay entered the Channel 9 studios it was a one way ticket to owned town for everyone that worked there. No one was safe from his scrutiny but at the same time they all knew better than to try and step to him, therefore any resulting hurt feelings were at Channel 9's invitation. Gordon Ramsay was the victim and channel 9 knows it.

Don't believe me? Below is a picture of the exact moment Nick Coe says that Gordon Ramsay is a victim.
If that isn't a face displaying sheer sincerity and appreciation for man's sometimes unappreciative view on women then i don't know what is.

Oh wait, yes i do.
BANG!

So after expectedly attacking make-up and wardrobe for being fat and ugly, Gordon proceeded into Channel 9's interrogation chamber and was grilled by Tracy Grimshaw for a few minutes. Gordon was extremely polite and well behaved aside from a couple of cracks at her appearance.

Enter the Australian media.

Fact: The Australian media likes to blow things out of proportion and stretch scenarios out well beyond their death to postpone the workload of looking for 'actual' news.

Fact: The Australian media protects it's own, especially out of complete ignorance to the tradition of whoever it chooses to document.

Fact: The Australian media was so bored that it followed Gordon Ramsay around like a 5th grader trying to instigate a fight that has nothing to do with him. The Australian media then acts shocked when he reacts in a negative manner to being badgered.

His strength in holding back from unleashing on Channel 9's favourite daughter is something that should be applauded. Channel 9 knew he was going to come in and wreck shop, that's what he does and that's why he's famous and loved as much as he is hated. To mass badger an apology out of him for doing what he does best is no better.
Thank god the only reason he apologized is because his mum told him to. That, in my books, makes him even more fantastic than he was when he single-handedly destroyed channel 9.

Below is footage of what none of his followers ever thought they would see:



And even in the apology, Gordon manages to make a fool out of Tony Jones' intimidation techniques. His reaction when Tony requests that Gordon apologizes to the camera because Tracy is watching it is absolutely hilarious and goes to show that there is no outsmarting someone that is insulting you in his mind while you talk to him.

So here's to Gordon Ramsay and his trip to Australia. No-one learnt anything, Perth missed out on a celebrity visit for the millionth time (which is also hilarious) and Tracy Grimshaw can sleep at night knowing she isn't a lesbian.

*Update: New Poll! The previous Tip-Top poll has been sent to the necessary parties, expect a response and nothing to be done about it in a couple of weeks.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Gnar-Bistro.


If you feel you haven't been living on the edge or pushing your skills to the max lately, i suggest you visit http://www.shredtavern.blogspot.com/

It's packed to the lid with photos full of craze, expressionsism, cutting the lips, kicking the feet to the curb, busting the everlasting tricks for friendship and smashing the naysayers with attitudinal poetry and the art of freedom through shredding.

Having worked on failed projects with Luke and J'aime in the past, i have nothing but the highest expectations for their newest venture and endorse it as much as i do their collective dress senses, which is more than any of you senior citizens or indie fashion conscious douche-teens will ever know.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

:'(

My favorite white martial arts grand master.
Rest In Peace.

Like the deserts miss the rain.

Things i've done without my xbox since it broke.

  • Turned it on and prayed that it will magically work again about 8000 times.
  • Sat there and given it 'the eye'.
  • Shaken it like a disgruntled boyfriend does his incompetent girlfriend.
  • Slapped it around like a suspicious girlfriend does her slimy boyfriend.
  • Accidentally judo chopped my front door open while the neighbours were watching. They already hate me so it doesn't matter. I don't know why they hate me either, if they can't say good morning loud enough for me not to ignore them that's their fault.
  • Almost called Microsoft about having it repaired.
  • Sparked numerous conversations with complete strangers about their core hardware failures and how they dealt with it.
  • Attempted to watch commercial television. It isn't that bad once you switch the television off.
  • Attempted to build a new xbox out of an empty drawer and the insides of an old mobile phone.
  • Attacked people in the street for no reason, always ending the attack with "Ooohhh, sorry i don't have a working xbox 360 you fucking show off!"
  • Held minute long conversations with friends and family without resorting to leaving halfway through and playing xbox.
  • Borrowed a ps3. I refuse to play it until the xbox is out of the house through fear of electrical storms and domestic violence.
  • Sat in my room and written completely pointless blog posts about what i've done since my xbox broke, secretly wishing that when i post it my xbox will realize how unfair it's being and start working again.
I'm going to go make myself a dang quasadilla.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Change has come.

Last week i was hungry as shit so i did what any sane person would do, i went and got the necessary ingredients for some good old American Dogs.

Cheese.
Onion.
Franks.
Sauce.
Mustard.
Coke.
Rolls.

No fancy dressings or queer preparation techniques, i keep it old world around here. Chop onion, unwrap cheese, heat sausages..............slice rolls? I'm sorry, what? I have to slice my own rolls now? When did this start happening?

I thought back over the last 23 years (i had my first hot dog at birth) and discovered that i've been a complete sucker for a good portion of my whole life. It seems as though Tip-Top® brand Hot Dog rolls don't and never have come pre-sliced. How i've been dealing with it up until this point is a miracle that should have been made into an emotionally charged mini series and i realize now that i only put up with it out of absolute necessity and pure unadulterated laziness. On this particular occassion though, i didn't feel like cutting any fucking rolls. I'd already done everything else and i'd had enough. I mean, i just drove to the shops, picked all these ingredients up, diced a whole onion, pre-heated a grill, unwrapped a couple of slices of cheese and now i have to individually separate each roll that i should choose to use? What if i cut one open and decide that i don't want it? THEN WHAT!?

I stopped what i was doing, put my hunger aside and used my last ounce of strength to compose the following email:

Hi Tip-top,

Just wondering why your hotdog rolls don't come pre-sliced? I was making some hotdogs for lunch today and came to realize that i've been slicing my own rolls for beyond a decade now and to be honest, i'm at breaking point. Why you would tarnish an otherwise perfect product with such a minor flaw? I put some numbers together to help you guys get back on top of your game and re-claim bread roll supremacy.

On average, a housewife will make hotdogs once a fortnight for about four people each time. An average serving of hotdogs is two per meal, which equates to eight rolls. A roll takes around 6 seconds to slice. That's 48 seconds every two weeks spent slicing rolls which in turn ends up at around 20 minutes a year and almost 7 hours of a child's life! It doesn't seem like much but imagine if that extra 20 minutes wasn't spent on your product and was instead being put towards teaching their kids about the benefits of wheat products, getting 20 of the recommended 30 minutes of required exercise a day or even taking some time out to watch their favorite television show or listen to their prized Celine Dion greatest hits cd, imagine how much more productive we would all be?

Exactly, 100 times more productive is the correct answer. Please start slicing your rolls or i will be forced to take my business elsewhere, namely sliced bread, which you also produce.


Regards, Me

Reading back over that letter i'm shocked i was even able to compute simple mathematics with the hunger i was experiencing. I crawled back into the kitchen, put the rolls away and proceeded with my hot dogs sans rolls to construct them with.

A week later, when i didn't even care about it anymore and had since eaten a vast range of Tip Top® branded products, i received this letter.

Dear Ben,

I am writing to thank you for your suggestion that George Weston Foods consider the introduction of sliced hot dog rolls.

We appreciate your valuable feedback and your suggestion has been forwarded to our Marketing Manager.

We are glad that you enjoy our product and your suggestion is valuable to us. We are always looking for new ideas and innovations.

Kind Regards,
**** ******.
Pretty much the owner of Tip Top.


See what they did there? Instead of sending my complaint to headquarters or research and development, they sent it to the Manager of Marketing. What's some big wig marketing manager hot shot going to do about getting my rolls sliced?

"Wow, this guy really did a-lot of pointless research on our product. I wonder how i can market this? Oh that's right i can't, lucky i'm the manager of all things marketing and i can just delete this email and no-one will do anything about it".

Not so fast Mr. hot shot big wig extra cheese marketing manager. I have solid (II) proof that you are now in control of the destiny of your rolls and i've posted it up on the internet for about two people to see at any given time. Either send my request through to the necessary departments (research and development prefferably, i want lab coats involved with my revelation) or suffer the wrath of the almighty and forever unforgiving poll that i'll be posting in a matter of moments.

Readers, vote on the right of my page if you're sick of slicing.


Monday, June 1, 2009

King rrod of rrod island.

You know what's really exciting and fun and not the least bit unfair? The 'Red Ring Of Death' yo! Complete emotional stimulation and tolerance metering in one year long exercise!

Don't believe me?

Haven't heard of it?

Fuck you! That's what!

Ok, Let me break it down in a totally easy to understand and extremely rational manner for you, my most precious readers. Basically, you need to go out and spend like, $700 on Microsoft's latest gaming venture, the xbox 360 (or as i like to call it, the tolerance box or XEmotion 180). Lay-by it for an additional sense of accomplishment and even wait outside Harvey Norman before it opens the morning you get it. Buy it, take it home and take pictures of it and post them on your blog to show the internet and the rest of the world how excited and undefiled you are.

Now, this part is important. You need to develop a relationship with the system. I'm talking solid hours, rubbing, cleaning and more blog posts about how much fun you guys have together. You can even write raps about it if you really want. As the precious moments with your system start to accumulate and the relationship begins to gain some momentum, be sure to spend a good portion of your weekly paycheck buying gifts for it that you can both share. Develop a rapport with the suppliers of these gifts and praise them on the internet as well.

If things have been going steady for around a year, test the relationship by spending time with some other systems. I guarantee their inferior graphics and dual channel sound quality will only strengthen your bond and you can start taking things to the next level. Namely, the Red Ring of Death. This is going to be the peak of your relationship and the most intense sensation a man can ever feel for an electronic device.

Make sure you have the day off. Settle in for a sneaky session before you resume with the duties that life tends only to allocate on your day off. Start out how you normally would, switch your system on with the care that a mother shows a sleeping baby, grasp the controller's contours like a latin dancer does his partner and get comfortable the only way that someone who knows how to get comfortable would. Start the game and play for about 20 minutes. This is it. Everything you've put into this relationship is about to be answered for and you are about to experience what millions of gamers before you can speak of with only the highest regard.

Cutscene start. Sound fail. Lines cover screen.
BANG!
System shut down.

It's over and i'll tell you right now it's worth every millisecond of potential heart failure that comes with it. Sit there and stare at the blank screen for a little while and catch your breath. You can even have a cigarette if you like. Once you've composed yourself, try and switch the system back on again and sit there in hypnotic awe as the three red horseman surround the symbol of your kinship in a romantic and powerful display of lost love and spiritual fulfillment.

Congratulations, your xbox 360 is now completely fucked. Call Microsoft, tell them you've already arranged for the collective kidnapping of their babies and and they have exactly one and a half weeks to deliver a new system.
Wait by your front door for a week and a half sobbing violently.

I kept mine.

*UPDATE - My xbox has magically repaired itself and is currently experiencing a second existence. Goes to show that you can't take life for granted.