Ben Benner’s Blog

I have logged a fair amount of time on my Xbox360, but not enough to expect Le Cirque Rouge.

Le Cirque Rouge => Red Circle Of Death => Busted Xbox360.

Links:

Urban Dictionary

1UP Article

At 4am this morning we successfully completed a maintenance window. I have been playing Fallout3 a fair amount lately, and figured I could get an hour of gaming in before I needed to go and pass out for a few hours, you know to unwind.

I hit the power button on my controller and didn’t hear the usual sounds that I would expect to hear from my beloved gaming console. So I looked over and saw something that frightened me, three red flashing lights.

The 360 is dead, long live the 360.

I purchased my 360 back in January of 2007, which means that I should be within the 3 year period for them to repair the red circle.

So, I know what I will be doing later today.

Yup, not playing Fallout3.

Ok, I am going to bed now.

Laterz

Quick Update:

I managed to log into my account on xbox.com and request that they send me a box and a prepaid shipping label, so that I can ship my xbox off for “repair”. To be honest, I think I am most concerned that the “repair” might be like when you get your iPod “repaired”, being they just send you a new unit. Therefore, my various saved games will be gone. (and I haven’t read about other people’s experiences, yet.)

Also, I had to get the serial number off the back of my 360, at which point I got a whiff of that wonderful smell of burnt electronics.

bdbenner XBox360, video games disappointment, fail, xbox

I am not sure exactly why, but I felt like using that quote to make the announcement that Gina and I are going to hit up Seattle this year for a real vacation.

We are not sure exactly when, but we want to hit Seattle before July, because well we go home to Michigan in July to lounge on the edge of the lake. We have talked a little bit here and there over the last couple of years about taking a “Real” vacation, a cruise or something. I believe it was on New Years day that I looked at her and said that we should take a real vacation in 2009.

We discussed where we might want to go for a trip, places that we have been wanting to go to. Florida, California, New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Seattle and Alaska were all part of the first round of discussion. We widdled down the list to just three, New York City, Seattle and Chicago.

I have been to Chicago briefly (not including the O’Hare airport) and have never really done anything touristy there, Gina on the other hand has and wanted to go back. I would not mind going there, but in the end Chi-Town didn’t win the race.

Now, Gina has never been to New York City, I have been there several times for business and notably one time where I got to spend the weekend (doing non-business stuff). I love NYC, I wish I could afford to live (comfortably) there. As one might guess, NYC was the most expensive of the three and likely wouldn’t be some place we could visit and enjoy before July. Another one that we will have to hit in the years to come.

That left Seattle. Now, I have spent I believe a total of three days in Washington state. Back in 2001, I flew into Seattle with a couple of sales guys for a trip to the Douglas Country PUD, in Wenatchee, WA. Fun, Fun!

While the business relationship never panned out, that trip showed me some of the most majestically beautiful forest scenes that I can remember, if only the N95 had been around back then I would have some truly stellar pictures, vs the ones I took with my Mavica.

Gina has become quite the fan of Amazon.com lately, for those of you that don’t know she has become addicted to the Kindle E-Reader. She takes it everywhere and can be found reading it whenever she becomes bored (including while standing in line).

So we are going to try to get some sort of visit or tour of Amazon.com. And in a somewhat odd twist, she is excited about visiting the Microsoft campus. The reason this is odd, is that well she has recently become quite the Apple “FanGirl”, because of the brand-new 13.3 inc aluminum MacBook she bought a couple of months back.

I am sure that if we were going to San Francisco (which came up in conversation, as we loved it the last time around) we would be going to the Apple campus.

I want us to rent a car one day and drive out into the country, to try and find this one particular place that I took a picture of along the way. It is this old wooden bridge that when you cross it and look back at the road, it frames up perfectly with the mountain in the background.

That image was the background on my computer desktop for quite, quite a while indeed. Other than that, I want to see some museums, eat some great and extremely fresh seafood, and enjoy the local culture.

I will post updates on the travel plans as things move along.

Laterz.

bdbenner travel, vacation chicago, planning, seattle, vacation, washington state

We finished off most of the salad last night, it was a late dinner instead of a late lunch. I finished off the leftover salad for breakfast, about 50 seconds in the microwave (stirring once in the middle) and it was perfect.

We are going to be heading off to CostCo here shortly, so I gotta go get ready.

I uploaded some new pics to Flickr, check them out.

Laterz.

bdbenner food food, pics, spinach salad

My winter vacation is coming to a close. That is not the saddest part (warning, I am going to whine just a little bit right here) I was sick for a good part of my vacation. Gina was sick around Christmas day, I got sick on like Sunday night.

I felt almost normal on Thursday, still a little off. But Friday, except for some coughing I was OK.

And it was on Thursday whilst still recooperating that I saw my favorite culinary master, Alton Brown pay homage to an American Classic, the Spinach Salad.

We are going to be heading out to the Farmer’s Market (something we haven’t done since last Spring and procure some ingrediants for me to attempt to make this salad for a late lunch.

I need to get ready to go. I will post pics of what it all turns out like. I will be suprises if we fine some smoked bacon at the market, the last time I bought bacon there it was not at all what you would traditionally think of as bacon (it was more like fatty pork).

Later today I will do a reflection post on 2008 and what I believe 2009 will hold.

Laterz.

bdbenner Cooking alton brown, farmers market, popeye, salad, spinach