if rains then pours

Tonight, still in a bad mood about my laptop’s poor state, I came home from class and put in Republic Commando, determined to relax. The Xbox kept giving me the damned “disk dirty” error, often found on the early models. Their DVD drives lose alignment easily. As I ejected and reinserted the disk, over and over, I got more and more frustrated and forceful.

Well, now I have no choice but to replace the drive. I really needed to, anyway, but now the unit won’t start. In fact, now the unit is disassembled on the sofa next to me.

So, $50 for a DVD drive just like the ones that get alignment problems. $100 for a better drive. $125ish for a used Xbox, but then I have to either deal with losing my saved games. So, maybe $125 for a used Xbox and then transfer a drive from one unit to the other. No matter what, this is going to suck.

All I wanted was to shoot some damned rebels and relax. I did not want this to become a chore, a money sink, and an item of frustration.

I need several waking hours in a row that are not frustrating.

Written on March 24, 2005