I've been superstitiously refusing to talk about my luck with my Xbox 360 because I don't like saying "My Xbox 360 has treated me well, knock on wood."

"Knock on wood" is such a stupid, superstitious expression that makes no sense at all when you consider its roots in the occult. Anyway, I haven't been wanting to say that and so I haven't talked about how lucky I'd been with the Xbox 360.

Today, that luck ended. I was playing through the opening tutorial in Operation Darkness and the game froze. My first thought was "Wow, this isn't a very polished game if it freezes in a tutorial." My second thought upon booting it back up was "Oh, crap. Four red rings!" My second thought was wrong, though. It's actually three red rings, which apparently is even worse.

And so it is that I'm now talking about my Xbox 360 and its red rings. I knew I'd dodged the bullet for a long time, since it seems like everyone who buys an Xbox 360 eventually has those red rings, but I thought maybe I would remain forever one of the lucky ones.

Alas, it was not to be. I've contacted Microsoft by e-mail (since I literally can't afford to call them on the phone) and hopefully they will take care of this at minimal or no cost to me. It's just... this is some seriously bad timing for me. If the system is still covered then it's better timing than it could be, but if I have to pay for anything other than gas to drive it to the post office--and even that's a stretch--I'm screwed.

Dang it! Why couldn't Microsoft have made a system that wouldn't DO this crap?