Mafia Wars, FarmVille, Cafe World, Dragon Wars, Vampire Wars, FishVille. Just some of the games whose notifications are overwhelming the home pages of even the most socially awkward of Facebook users. A quick walk through any college library will reveal scores of screens with the tell-tale signs of various farm animals, waiters and roller-coasters lighting up the area for all to see. Even the most casual of Facebook users find it difficult to escape from the clutches of the ongoing Social Game revolution and quite a few have found themselves in a perpetual cycle that consists of moments of pure therapeutic goodness, swiftly followed by spells of inconsolable guilt as you realise that you’ve planned an entire day around your harvesting cycle / cooking times. You solider on though. You’re forced to, lest a friend leapfrog you in the leaderboards.

It can’t just be me.

In fact, I know it’s not just me. I’ve invested (read as: pissed away) days into these games. In Mafia Wars I was a latecomer and was trying to play catch up on those trendy early adapters whose lives had already changed for the worse. The final nail in the coffin of my Gangsta’ career came when I stumbled in the door one night and found myself without any energy to complete Bank Jobs and the like. Out came the credit card. As a complete degenerate gambler (certainly when drunk anyway), I’m not unaccustomed to taking out the credit card at 4am and having a desperate punt on anything from the X-Factor – which I don’t watch – to 40 game accumulators across every sport on offer. I’ve never woken up feeling as guilty after losing money on ludicrous betting as I did after spending €70 on Gold Coins! I wouldn’t mind but the eventual effect it had on my character was akin to upgrading the engine in a Mini… that’s in a race against a F16 fighter jet. I vowed never to play a game on Facebook again and I admit that I briefly felt somewhat superior to those I could see in the libraries feverishly clicking away their lives because I had the good sense to break the addiction.

Then Cafe World came along.

I happen to work in the hospitality industry so I justified my first foray into the world of restaurant ownership as an investigation to see if it was “authentic”. Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel for excuses! Much to my delight, the game was about as authentic as an autographed photo of Jesus. I had hoped for micro-management of costs and the freedom to create your own meals but instead I was given cartoon characters that flipped burgers on a moldy old stove every 5 minutes. There seemed to be nothing going for the game – which was good, given that I was desperately hoping that I wouldn’t get sucked into a world of misery for a second time. I was just about to abandon ship and return to normality when I spotted the leaderboard at the bottom of the screen. What followed was something that could only be described as the most peculiar time of my life as my online existence deteriorated into trying my utmost to try win what was to develop into a bitter feud between two restaurateurs.

There was no prize. Not even pride was on the line as I didn’t know the person I was entangled with that particularly well. For some reason the mere sight of a big number was enough to motivate us to plough hours and hours into slicing and dicing day in, day out. At some point, the process of roasting and toasting various meals was no longer fun. My restaurant started to look more like a factory than an eatery as I tried to make my formerly beloved creation more efficient in a desperate attempt to hold onto my lead. My moves were quickly matched. It can’t have been much fun for my competitor either given that I was starting to plan my “cooking” around my day of lectures and work. I’m ashamed to admit, but I will, that I was once asked to go into work because someone called in sick but I declined purely on the basis that my 6 Roast Beefs would be spoilt and I’d surrender my lead. It had to stop. For the love of God it HAD to stop!!

And then I got word. “I surrender” was the gist of it. I was skeptical though. I was only too aware of the possibility of being tricked into leaving my guard down and being left helpless as they rode off with the prize (which was what again?). It turns out that they weren’t that sick and twisted though (had they done that I would have been positively bouncing off the walls for weeks!). I could return to my normal life i.e. the one that didn’t involve logging into Facebook at every available opportunity to see if I could better utilise my fictitious cafe.

Never again.

I’m writing this post in the comforts of Rosslare Port of all places. Saying that it’s from the comforts of the place is probably a bit too generous though given that they’re still proudly displaying that they were the best port back in 1990 and the decor bears all the hallmarks of a place that hasn’t since a lick of paint since that year. Having finished work in Dublin, I decided to really prove myself a point and try make it into college for my first lecture. The only available bus sees me stop off at Rosslare first and it now looks as if my bus was 30 minutes early. Of course I have no concept of time on the bus having spent every five minutes of the journey testing the toughness of the glass… and my face.

It looks very likely that I won’t get any more sleep before college and I probably have a day of vegetation and snapping out of sleep deprived trances to look forward to. I may not take in a single word that a lecturer says (not that I usually do) but I will go home tonight being awfully proud of myself because last year when I finished working in Dublin for the weekend, I didn’t go into college for a week – and that was to collect my grant cheque!

Of course I’ll only be proud of myself until I get home and have the smug grin melt from my face (a possible fun hallucination perhaps?) when it registers with me that I’m also working this evening. I may very well plough through it having demolished the proverbial wall a long time a go… or I’ll die trying. But first I’d better make this fucking bus lest I be stuck in the 90s for another few hours!!

In years gone by, I’ve eagerly anticipated Oxegen each Summer, purely for the experience. This is the third year in a row that I have a ticket but it will also be only my first time ever attending it. Be it friends dropping out, getting an offer of twice the face value of the ticket or being in a financial vice grip the week before the event, things just haven’t ever gone as planned. With about 11 hours left before I scurry down to the bus station, I just hope there’s no proverbial spanner thrown into the works!

I’m due to get a bus to New Ross and from there I’ll get a lift up to Punchestown with a friend… in a full car. MCD, the promoters, have been really pushing the whole idea of “Car Pooling” this year but I think that whoever had the brainwave of getting 4 people to stuff themselves into a car along with rucksacks, tents and slabs upon slabs of beer should be shot! I’m trying my best to pack light, but even still, I think I’ll have to bring all my childhood Tetris skills to the table if I don’t want to find myself in a position that even a contortionist would be proud of.

The Oxegen forums were the first place I looked to for advice on what to bring. Some people have even made checklists of essentials and you have to pity the poor women who have made lists which are about quadruple the size of that of the guys. I wouldn’t even bring some of the things that have been suggested if I was moving country, let alone going away for a weekend. I’ve even seen a full-sized mirror being suggested! I eventually found a somewhat realistic list of bare essentials and made my way down to Tesco to try and stock up.

Ranking highly in my list of essentials is alcohol. I’ve decided to go down the route of drinking Buckfast. It doesn’t really cover myself in glory given it’s reputation, but on the other hand I don’t want to polish off a bottle of cheap vodka and end up covering myself in something that’s certainly not glory (but very chunky and full of carrot like bits) on one or more of the nights. Next on my list was Duck Tape. When someone comes flying through my tent and tears the arse out of it, I want to be able to have some chance of being able to go into MacGyver mode and fix it. I then went looking condoms.

This is where I got a bit apprehensive about throwing all these items into the one basket and buying them in my local shop. Buckfast, Duck Tape and Condoms. Riiiiight. There’s nothing I could possibly do to change the very blunt statement that those three items sitting beside each other make. I debated with myself for a few seconds before deciding to leave the Durex for later as I quite like being able to shop in the City!

I am going for the music though. Honest.

Heatwaves always take the entire Irish population by complete surprise! I mean, we’d consider a good day to be one that involves, at most, 15 minutes of sustained sunshine before it fucks back behind grey clouds and proceeds to piss on us for the rest of the day. Although in these past few days, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Ireland was undergoing an accelerated process of continental drift and was now located somewhere beside Africa.

So with the sun shining down on us, we excitedly root around in our wardrobes for that pair of shorts that we all know is there somewhere. We then look for the suncream that we’ve probably had in the house since 1996, although trying to get anything out of the bottle sounds like some unfortunate soul whose just had a curry that’s been spiked with industrial strength laxatives!

We then feel as if we’re ready to strut our stuff and show our faces in public, complete with the Factor 50 still very visible on our noses! Sure we need factor 50… and lots of it, otherwise the mere talk of sunshine would be enough to bring out the freckles in us. Not only are we proudly showing off our white noses, but we all brandish legs that look more like milk bottles than limbs. All our foreign friends may be sniggering at us but we can at the very least boast that it takes us less time to get dressed in the morning as they’re still wearing about 17 layers of clothes!

The question of what we can do in this glorious weather soon pops up. After all, Ireland isn’t exactly known for its vast array of sunshine activities. This does make it relatively easy for us to make up our mind though and soon enough half the country is flocking to the nearest beach with plastic bags full of beer and snacks – everything we could possibly need to enjoy the day (and what’s left of our suncream of course!). We might be at the beach, but there isn’t a hope in hell that we’ll be going swimming. Oh no, no, no. Swimming is only meant to be done in temperature controlled pools that are laced with chlorine. Although in fairness, swimming in the Irish sea isn’t all that pleasant as there’s this ever-present fear that you’ll swallow some nuclear waste from Sellafield or at the very least get a mouthful of sewage that was just released from that well thought out drain that’s placed at the end of the strand.

The next morning we wake up at like 7am because it’s so fucking bright in the room. By some kind of miracle, the sun is still shining! Never in a million years would we have entertained the suggestion of the possibility of two days of sunshine. We’re not prepared though. We look onto the floor and we can make out the sweat patches on our only pair of shorts from across the room. A trip into the shops is on the cards after it becomes all too apparent that we don’t even have enough suncream left to protect our beloved noses! Of course shopping for suncream is pretty much alien to us. We know we can buy it in Boots because we’ve seen ad’s for it on British Television, but we don’t have a clue where exactly it is. So we carefully walk around the nearest store, going down every aisle and meticulously look at everything to be sure you don’t miss it. After a while you notice not the suncream, but the weird looks you’re getting from the old women around you. You’re a bit miffed at first but soon realise that you’ve accidently wandered down the Pregnancy test aisle.

It’s only after you leave the store having found and paid an extortionate amount of money for the suncream that you start to wonder what the fuck were 60 year olds doing down the Pregnancy Test aisles!

Once again we go to the beach, because after all there’s fuck all else to do. Actually, let me rephrase that. There’s fuck all else you can justify doing. You can justify playing the Xbox for the better part of the day when it’s pissing raining outside, but it’s harder to convince yourself that you’re making the best use of your time doing that when the sun is splitting the rocks.

This time when we get to the beach, all of our jaws drop. The beach is in a state. Instead of treading on sand, we’re tripping over beer cans! Immediately we call the radio stations and complain. “Why can’t the City Council clean all this up?” we all wonder. We point out that when we last went to the beach it was perfectly clean. We fail to mention that we last went to the beach a year a go and even then we left behind all of our rubbish. It wasn’t Liam in the luminous green City Council jacket that cleaned up our mess on that occasion though, it was the ocean.

Heatwaves. In Africa they kill people. In Ireland they just make us realise that we’re filthy animals who expect someone else to clean our mess.

Gulp.

That heading almost makes me quake in my boots. I’ve now reached the tender age of 20. For some it’s a milestone, a time when they reflect on what they’ve already achieved in life and look forward to what the future has in store for them. For me though, turning 20 is nothing short of most pronounced and unmistakeable wake up call I’ve ever experienced.

If we rewind a few years back in time, I can see myself as this enthusiastic and promising teenager. Sure, I spent more time off the rails than I did on them, but I always had potential. And dreams of splendour. If I didn’t make it as a professional footballer, then I’d always have a prolific writing career to fall back on. I felt that the world was indeed my oyster. But fast forward past those all too brief moments of teenage adolescence and as well as wondering where the hell the time went, I can’t help but think bluntly to myself; “Right Adam. That plan didn’t work out so well. Fuck…”

On the other hand, so what?! I’m sure that no one emerges from their teenage years smelling of roses and free of regret. Although suffice to say, my proudest achievement is surviving my turbulent years of adolescence without getting my face kicked in! If I can keep that up for another 20 years I’d be very impressed with myself!

No really, I am. Wednesday saw the start of the madness with the M.A.D Ball taking place in the Forum, Waterford. Where most college societies have black-tie balls in hotels, the Media and Design society elect to have a giant fancy dress party instead. I’m not in the Media and Design society, in fact I’m not sure if there even is such a society but when the words fancy dress, not optional and forum are all in the one sentence you can be pretty certain that I’ll be there somewhere.

I had decided to go as a Gorilla, the Cadbury’s Gorilla at that. I collected the costume on the day and bought a few fistfuls of Cadbury’s chocolate to stick into an mountaineers satchel that I found in the house. I found my Guitar Hero drum sticks and the look wad complete. I wasn’t able to try it on before the ball because I was meant to be in work. I really wish I did though. Actually, I really wish I thought the whole thing through!

It really only dawned on me when I got there that I was going to be like a lobster in a pot for the entire night! The suit itself was made out of 100% acrylic, which isn’t exactly the best fabric to allow for air to flow around. I only realised just how dire my situation was when I started drinking as I’m pretty sure I was sweating out the alcohol on the spot. I had about 6 drinks and nothing but sweat pouring out of me to show for it and even that was concealed under layers of synthetic fur! Being able to actually drink was an achievement in itself though as I struggled for a good 5 minutes trying to maneuver the glass into my mouth without snagging my mask and having it spill all over me. I then remembered that there’s such things called straws. I was Method acting. Obviously….

People soon caught onto the fact that I was like a portable patio heater and if they were cold after coming up from the smoking area they’d just latch onto me for a minute to warm up. I didn’t mind though because after all, you don’t dress up as a gorilla to go unnoticed! With alcohol sweating out of me at a ridiculous rate, I decided to really go for it and get some doubles in the hope that at least some of it would be absorbed into my body and not my costume! Also, the possibility (however slight) of actually being able to say I had Drunken Monkey sex was something I had to shoot for! I had just bought another drink when someone comes up behind me and wraps their arms around me. Gorilla hands aren’t the best at holding onto glasses. The girl apologised, but that honestly didn’t stop me from wanting to go all gorilla on her ass!

I took that as a sign that alcohol just wasn’t going to work for me for the rest of the night so from then on I just drank water which I suppose did ensure that I wasn’t going to collapse in a dehydrated mess on some street corner on my walk home.

I did get some free bananas in Centra though. That makes it all worth it!

Cadburys Gorilla

On the subject of being mad, I spoke to my course leader during the week about the possibility of repeating second year of Marketing in September. I’ve been all over the place with college this year and put simply am in dire need of divine intervention so to speak! I have two realistic options available to me. I can either go hell for leather between now and the repeats in August in an attempt to try pass the 10 or so subjects I’ll have to do. I can fail up to 2 of those and carry them over to third year. The advantage of doing this is that if I am successful, I can go into 3rd year and not waste a year. The downside is that in order to give myself any chance of passing them, I’d have to sacrifice working for a good chunk of the Summer.

Unfortunately work equals money, money that I’d need to be able to pay to repeat should I fail more than 2 exams. My other option is to just write off this year and focus on September. Major downside to that is it’ll cost the bones of €5k to repeat and I’d also lose my grant for the year. Now if the prospect of a degree and a job aren’t enough to motivate me then surely having my entire net worth invested in my education should be enough to make me put in the work second time around!

I think it’s worth mentioning that I can avoid the fees altogether if I register for exams only. Say if I give it welly between now and August and manage to fail 3 subjects then that means I have to repeat just those 3 subjects next year. If I go that route it means I can’t officially attend any lectures which would effectively mean I’d spend a second year running without going to classes. I don’t really want to do that because I feel that if I’m off the wagon for too long, I’ll never get back on.

Am I crazy, mad even, for preferring to repeat the entire year over every other option available to me? Am I crazy, mad even, for thinking that this option is the only one that allows me to finally do things right and not stumble and struggle forward having to carry subjects and repeat exams every semester? Is paying €5k my only chance at a clean slate?

One sure fire way of knowing for certain that Summer has arrived, or at least when mother nature thinks it has, is when you see me running down the street with my head darting in all directions and my arms flailing. No, I’m not on fire – I’ve seen a bee. Or a wasp. Or pretty much anything that can fly and sting me! I can’t fly, or sting people for that matter and that’s why bees – but especially wasps – terrify me to the point that I’m comfortable running down the street looking like a mental home escapee.

It all started when I was 5. I had used all my smarts that I’d developed at the time to craftily trap a wasp behind some curtains. I was still at the age (or at least at the mental age) where you find the sound of bugs being squashed to be hugely entertaining, so I wasn’t going to pass up this opportunity. I didn’t know it at the time, but the wasp had material science on its side and my planned attack had an Achilles heel that would scar me for life!

I carefully lined up the wasp with my thumb and bit down on my tongue to improve my concentration and ensure I wouldn’t miss and give my prey the opportunity to flee… or attack and kill me. Just at the right moment, I pounced.

I’ll never forget the pain.

It was as if my thumb was being dropped in and out of a bed of nettles whilst simultaneously being hit with a hammer! As I mentioned though, my plan was doomed to failure. The curtains were net curtains which are about as thick as a single sheet of rationed World War II toilet paper and as I found out on that fateful day, are no good at stopping small needles with sacs of venom from finding their way through and into my beloved thumb!

The sting only took a few days to clear up but from that moment on I felt as if every wasp I saw was planning on avenging their distant cousins death. I wasn’t so scared of bees though and I think it’s easy to explain why when I compare the two creatures to minority groups. The bees are the Jews – hard working and if they’re targeted for something they generally don’t retaliate and move out to some desert somewhere and at worst whimper about being a cursed, persecuted race or some nonsense like that. The wasps on the other hand are the Italian-Americans – feisty and aggressive and if you hurt one of them you can be sure that his family and friends will be after you like flies on shit and sooner or later you’ll find yourself tied up in the back of a car that belongs to someone called Antonio who happens to be involved in “Waste Disposal”. In other words, you don’t fuck with wasps… or Italians!

I haven’t been stung by a wasp since. Once bitten, twice shy and all that jazz. The fear is still omni-present though and once a wasp gets into my “personal space”, I freak out and bolt down the road. If a wasp gets in my face, I see no possible way of getting it to fuck off without being reminded of the nettle-hammer combo all those years a go!

So while many people are donning shorts in this spell of good weather, I’m holed up, praying for rain, sleet and snow so all those flying, venomous freaks will freeze and starve. Maybe then I can actually enjoy a Summer for once without spending it running through streets!

Trips to Cork are always fun. In this case however, calling it fun might be pushing it just a bit! It was Jamie’s birthday so I felt obliged to make the €20 trip down to the Peoples Republic to take part in a special blend of session – Guitar Hero combined with copious amounts of alcohol. I can’t think of a single downside to that type of session which is probably why the more conservative among you think I have a problem!

Guitar Hero makes time fly by and it’s an entertaining side game in itself to see who can reach for their bottle the most times during their brief moments of respite during the RSI-inducing songs while still trying to keep their combo’s going! There were a few close shaves which saw me revisit my toddler years with dribble running down my chin followed by an innocent giggle. Only I assume that those times of bliss all those years a go didn’t involve Miller Genuine Draft. Time flew so quickly that it felt like one minute we were being told that a taxi was going to take 15 minutes to arrive and the next we were being hurried outside to an impatient driver. I was later to discover that this wasn’t actually Guitar Hero warping time and in fact it did only take a minute for the taxi to arrive! This posed quite a few problems for the people still getting ready but more importantly I was left with a full bottle of Buckfast to chug off in record time. It was probably for the best that I didn’t quite finish it!

I had €40 in my wallet and was worried that it might not be enough. I mean in Waterford that gets you into a club, 3 drinks and some food. In Cork though, €40 gets you 13 drinks with some change left over for a Rubber Patty Hamburger at the end of the night. Forgetting about Cork’s drinks offers until the very last minute proved to be a very pleasant surprise at the time but wreaked havoc given my dirty habit of longing to spend every penny in my wallet on a night out!

I would describe the night as being “messy”, a word I’ve noticed myself attach to a lot of nights out as of late, and this is where my blog starts jumping back and forth between the realms of fact and fiction as I struggle to piece together my night after about 1 am. I originally thought that only about 5 minutes of the night were “hazy” but I now realise that I’m being particularly ambitious with the 5 minutes of “haziness” and it’s more like a blank canvas with the occassionally blob of indeterminable paint thrown on every once in a while. Translation: I was absolutely rat-arsed!

I remember buying drinks. I remember dancing. I remember getting my coat. I remember talking about whores to Patrick. I remember buying chicken. I remember trying to eat a chicken wing whole. I remember coughing up chicken bones. I remember getting a taxi. I remember a mug of tea. I remember a burnt hand. Mine .

My phone started going crazy at this stage and I was going crazy too because I can’t answer the thing since I dropped it in a puddle last week. That’s 3 phones in as many weeks for me, but that’s a story for another day! I was no longer with the birthday boy and the group I was out with and instead found myself having my neck attacked. I knew it was going to be bad as my entire left side of my neck felt as if it was set on fire with jet fuel or something. I naturally repaid the favour (although I could have the order of events mixed up there ).

A quick look in the mirror when I woke up those morning confirmed my fears. It’s fucking big! In the past I’ve been able to write them off as being shaving rashes but in this case I’ll probably have to stop short of saying that it’s malaria! Or I could tell work the truth……….

So for the next 4-12 days, I’m a redneck . Great night though!

The beginning of my night started in a not so pleasant manner. My appointment with the good old Dr. Jameson lasted longer than I had originally expected. Before I knew it, I had an empty bottle beside me and a phone that was buzzing like it was some kind of sex toy. Not an ideal situation when I was expected to be on my merry way up to the Forum whilst finding myself wearing nothing but a gown and still in dire need of a shower. I anticipated a quick dash into the shower and to be on the road within minutes. That was before I picked up the menthol shampoo!

In the mad rush that I was in, I managed to get the shampoo not only in my hair but also into every part of my eyes! Now had I been using a normal shampoo, it would have hurt somewhat, but when you introduce menthol shampoo into the equation, it changes the situation. To say the least. Menthol shampoo boasts the unique characteristic of leaving this warm and fuzzy feeling wherever it goes. It feels great and it leaves you feeling as if you’re full of energy. Until you get it in the eyes!

One second I was singing along to the brilliant Modest Mouse (I’ve included a song below), the next I was pretty much blind! Talk about being reminded about how fast things can change!! From absolute bliss, to absolute agony. Just like that! My natural reaction was to just turn the shower head towards me. Usually this would be fine, but I just happened to have it on full power and for a brief few seconds I felt as if I was trying to knock my eye socket back in time!

Am I being melodramatic? How about you get some mentol shampoo in your eyes and see how YOU react! “But I’m not that retarded” I hear you say.

True. I’m quite special!

I’m not afraid to admit that I’ve been bitten by the Guitar Hero bug that’s caught hold of so many other people before me! While it’s mostly a party game to throw on when you have people around for beers and what not, some practice in your spare time doesn’t go astray! Let’s face it, none of us want to be that person who can’t even complete a song on Easy!

I was rocking out to Muse’s Knights of Cidonia, desperately trying to get my hand through what could well be considered a decent proposal for the “Finger Olympics”. All was going well, and I was really getting into it (banish all imagery of me alone and jumping up and down in my room from your minds please). All WAS going well until I experienced a sound that almost convinced me that I had just stood on the tails of a thousand cats!

I looked around… no cats. I looked back at the TV and the solo that I was well on my way to nailing had paused on my screen. And still there was the screeching! I assumed it was just one of your average system crashes so I put down the guitar for a moment and restarted the Xbox. Nothing. Nothing but a flashing beam of red light that is. I nearly didn’t want to have a closer look, afraid of what I was going to see. I suspect that I felt the same way a driver feels during those few seconds when they realise they’ve just hit a dog only my own experience was going to be far less gory to face – but just as painful!

Sure enough, 3 flashing red lights greeted me when I turned around the Xbox to have a look. I wasn’t quite sure what the 3 red lights meant exactly beyond the fairly obvious fact that it was fucked! Luckily for me, 360s have a three year warranty to cover this very problem. Unluckily for me, or perhaps appropriate for me, I’m cheap and bought the 360 second hand and now I didn’t know where I stood with it. An afternoon of calling Microsoft and Gamestop didn’t really appeal to me but I knew that I had to, otherwise I’d just leave it on the long finger – a solution that I’ve grown far too fond of despite realising that it’s not really a solution at all!

That was two months a go.

In the two months that my 360 has been “resting” beside my TV gathering dust, I’ve learnt that GameStop won’t accept any responsibility because it’s past their own warranty. Not having a receipt doesn’t really help my case either and Microsoft refuse to even acknowledge that there’s a problem as the 360 is registered in someone elses name and for all they know, is stolen! They won’t do anything unless I can send them a picture of me, the xbox and the receipt – together, like one happy and broken family! Now I couldn’t even tell you where my Birth Cert is, let alone a receipt for something I bought nearly 2 years a go. I could check my bank statements to see when I bought it and then go into GameStop and ask for a copy of the receipt for be printed out but I need to enter in a code from my own secure code card to access my statements. A secure code card? Sounds important. Also sounds like something I’d lose as soon I get it!

So to bring you up to speed (and to remind myself of the hoops I have to jump through), I have to ring AIB to ask for a new Code Card. Fast forward a week and I’ll hopefully be able to check my statements online and discover when exactly I bought it. I can then get a receipt from GameStop and then send off all the documentation to Microsoft who’ll probably take a week to respond with something like “too blurry, send again”. When I finally get the all clear from Microsoft, I can ask them to send me out a box. When that arrives, I put my expensive brick into it and send it off to Germany where some technician is going to blow some air into it and declare it as being as good as new. Some weeks later, the courier will arrive at my door with the resurrected xbox and all order will be restored!

In reading back over that, it all sounds like an awful lot of effort to go through. I’ll even speculate that the prolonged exposure to red tape and bureaucracy could make me violently ill! It’s only a 360 for Christ’s sake. On the one hand, I shouldn’t be worrying about it too much, but on the other, I shouldn’t have to jump through more hoops than there are at Crufts just to get a replacement!

Fuck it, I’ll just get a new one.

Problem solved.

Now have a song.