(* It’s the XBox that is dead, not the owner!)

Sunday 12th July – Today at midday my XBox died.  Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued.  Spent a few hours on the internet trying to work out if I could fix it myself but then gave in and sent off e-mail to Microsoft support.  Watched 2 DVDs and played Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 on the PC for the rest of the day to keep myself occupied.  My roller coasters also broke. Typical.

Monday 13^th July – Got reply back from Microsoft while I was at work but decided to wait until I got home to read it as I’m not supposed to check web e-mail in the office.  Spent extra long in the gym after work as no need to rush home. Tried to use the shoulder press machine but the seat broke when I sat on it.  *Sigh*  Went home and read e-mail from Microsoft and discovered I needed a printer to print out a label, so decided I would have to do it work after all.  Played more Roller Coaster Tycoon.

Tuesday 14^th July – Got into work early and went onto the Xbox website to sort out the repair before other people got in and started asking questions.  Discovered that the website is blocked by my company’s web filter.  Arse.  Decided to do some work instead but then had power cut which meant my computer didn’t work for the rest of the day even though everyone else in the office seemed to be okay.  I’m starting to wonder if I’ve enraged some gypsy women or something.  Back at home I managed to complete the Xbox registration and log my repair request, at which point I discovered that the thing I needed to print would be e-mailed me to, so I could have done that on the Monday night after all.  Ho hum.  Went to football, scored 2 goals (both in the right goal) and didn’t break anything.

Wednesday 15^th July – Got into work and thankfully the UPS website isn’t blocked so I printed out my UPS label.  Discovered that Sam still had the box they sent his Xbox back in so went round after work and pinched that.  When I got home I packaged everything up and then watched “Vicky Christina Barcelona”.  The only thing that broke was my heart when I realised Scarlett Johansen will never go out with me.  Damn that Ryan Reynolds!

Thursday 16^th July – Took my packaged XBox to the UPS depot this morning to drop it off.  Turns out that it was the wrong depot thanks to some dodgy directions from their website.  Finally found the right one, the guy behind the desk took one look at me as I walked in and said “XBox?” So much for Microsoft’s cunning plan of ensuring it remains unrecognisable during transit.  Still, it’s on its way now.  Went to the gym after work again, burnt off another 1000 calories on the cardio machines and then worked the guns.  Went home and watched “Redbelt” which was excellent, thinking about signing up for Jui Jitsu lessons.

Friday 17^th July – Turns out it wasn’t on its way after all.  Checked UPS tracking site this morning and it didn’t leave Crawley until 7.45pm last night, 11 hours after I dropped it off.  An hour and a half later it arrived in Barking.  My geography isn’t great, but isn’t that in the opposite direction to Frankfurt?  It then left Barking at 7.26am this morning and is due to arrive in Frankfurt on, wait for it….  Monday!!  I could go out right now and pinch a bike from the bike sheds and I’d be in Frankfurt before then!!!  Rubbish.  Never mind, I had a very good night at The Glamorgan celebrating Mik’s pre-Stag Do Do.

Saturday 18th July – My head felt a little broken this morning but not enough to stop me from heading off to the Open Air Theatre in Regents Park to see “The Importance Of Being Earnest”.  It was a very good day, with upside down squirrels and rather spicy curries and nothing at all broken.  Result.

Sunday 19th July – Checked the UPS website this morning and they said that my XBox had been delivered to Frankfurt yesterday, 2 days ahead of schedule.  Excellent!  Went onto the Microsoft site and got really excited for a brief moment until I realised that where it said “Your XBox has been fixed and shipped back to you” was just an explanation of the different stages of the process and not the status of mine.  In fact they were still saying that mine hadn’t arrived yet so I’m not sure where UPS have delivered it to.  Decided to play on my PC for a bit only to discover that my DVD ROM drive had, you guessed it, broken!  What is going on in my flat?!?  So I decided to take the opportunity to have a bit of a clean and tidy up and even put up a mirror which I’ve had sitting around for 6 months.  Went round to my Dad’s for lunch and then watched “Get Smart” with Sam and Georgie in the afternoon, which was really nice.  On a tip-off from Sam I sent a text to Colin to see if he had a spare DVD drive lying about which I could buy but sadly he said he hadn’t.  However, later on that day he contacted me again to say that he’d been round to his Dad’s in the afternoon and learnt that he was throwing out his old computer which had a fully functioning DVD re-writer that I could have.  Woo hoo!  Picked it up on my way home and then spent an hour trying to fit it due to a series of mishaps.  First of all the screw holding the old one in sheared off so I couldn’t take it out, so instead I decided to put the new one in a different slot.  Then it turned out that as well as the plastic shielding there was a metal plate across each slot which I had to poke out and for some bizarre reason they had been screwed to the frame in such a way that you couldn’t get to the screws without taking apart the whole case!  Eventually I got there, put it all back together, turned it on and realised I had plugged the old one back in.  D’oh!  At about 10.30pm I finally got there and it seems to be working fine, huzzah.  I wonder what treats the next week will hold.

Stay tuned for further updates.