So the following is a long whiney rant about my experiences over the last week with my xbox, ive had one since launch, well, three actually, and it seems to go up and down in terms of fun. But anyways, heres my most recent experience.

Oh boy, so the other day i was feeling particularly like hoping into Gears of War, what with all the hype for Gears 2 and all. It was the first time id played my 360 online in months, let alone Gears which i played royally for months after launch, and i was excited about just sitting down and enjoying an hour of just mindless fun despite being quite rusty.

Minutes later, i was reminded of why i stopped playing online in the first place.

I only managed to get into 2 matches during my break, but during my first it was me and a team of what sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks screaming "n***a and fagget" over and over again like it was going out of fasion. Then all of a sudden it stoped, as a girl on the oposing team said something along the lines of "i hope we can have a good match everyone". Ofcourse this sent all the boys into a frenzy, telling her she was a bitch and she was on her period, along with that her voice made her sound like she was 8, not that they sounded any older. Anyways, i stuck it out for 7 matches and both teams were doing relatively well. I finally got sick of all the shit talking, and opened my mouth and told everyone to shut up, and that we should be focusing on team work and low and behold, i was called a fagget and trator and the 3 left, leaving me to fight off the 4 on the other team. Needless to say i only got one kill out of the remaining 4 matches, but i stuck it out.

By this time i had enough time in my lunch break for one more match, and so match i did. As soon as i got in i was baraged by the host about how if i quit i was going to be reported and the like, i didnt really know what he was talking about, but as more people joined they all seemed to be saying the same thing, so i go and take a look at my rep, and what do you know, my quit rate was listed as 100%. How the hell it got there i have no idea, i can only assume its from back when Halo 3 came out and i was playing on a broken router that booted me randomly, but im not sure that disconnects add to the quit rate. Either way i was a bit shocked by this, but promised the guys i wasnt the quiting type. I was also called a dick head for saying i just play games for fun, which is always a good sign. Anyway, once again it was just the words fagget and n****r tossed back and forth for a while, my team was loosing pretty bad and the other team was urging me to quit, since its apparently what i do best. Anyways, the rest of my team quit, and left me, alone once again. And so here i was with the one kill i had got over the 7 matches we had had so far, and after getting absolutely raped over the next 2 rounds i decided to play it a bit more stealth like rather then the way most people would play Gears, and hey, i killed one guy in the first round a 2 in the next, so what happens?, all of a sudden theyre calling hax and they all quit.

And as i said, now i remember why i stopped playing online in the first place. And also why im ashamed to admit to playing games online. I have no problems telling people about the 200+ hours i put into Oblivion, and no doubt will Fallout 3, or about how excited i am about Dead Space and Resident Evil 5. But i never feel good telling people about my online ventures. I know its a broad sweeping statement, but if i was going to use live as a description of gamers in general, Gamers would be the single biggest group of assholes and morons on the planet. I just want to be able to sit down and have a good time online, but thanks to Gamers and Gamer Culture i cant, so thanks guys, looks like i should just stick to single player games after all...

Anyway, about 4 days after this my Xbox starts shitting its pants, no red ring of death for me, that would be too easy, no instead i just end up with the image either freezing, or the audio visual just cutting out completely, with the fan going berserk. So anyway, i try the usual things, nothing worked, so i call customer support, anyways, im on the phone for an hour and a half to some guy i can barely understand from india, we go over all the things ive already done, clearing the cache and so on. He finally says i can ship it back, he starts giving me the details and the phone goes dead, and im greeted with a message along these lines "Microsoft Customer Service Hours are currently over, please try again tomorrow". Needless to say i was pretty pissed to have to sit there for over an hour going over this shit with a dude i cant understand only to have myself kicked off before any sort of resolution.

This is my xbox experience.

In completely non gaming related news, the freelance job ive been working on with Zekey is going brilliantly, everything seems to finally be coming together. And ontop of that im looking at restarting "The Martian Saga" tho under a new name and format, im calling it Lords of Cydonia at the moment, that will most likely change. And hopefully once this freelance toon is finished ill finally be able to finish off Hush along with a few other little projects ive had in the pipe line for too long.

Also, for anyone in Sydney, im thinking of moving down, just because im weird like that.

So, as a going away present, heres an old cartoon of mine and a new drawing as a reward for reading all that bullshit =D

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