After over a year of being XBOX-less, I finally have another XBOX, this time better than the one I had before. No, I didn't get an XBOX 360, I just have a regular XBOX again. The nice thing about this is that once again I didn't have to pay for this one.

My first XBOX came right after college graduation. My prof at Hopkins sent me to Seattle for a research conference. At the conference, one of the booths set up had an XBOX  playing Project Gotham Racing. The contest was that by the end of the conference, the fastest time for a given course would win the XBOX. Since the conference was only attended by university professors and industry researchers, I thought I had the contest won. Unfortunately, there was a 12 year old at the conference who was there with his dad. He would sit in front of the XBOX the whole day trying to beat my score. Our scores went back and forth for three days when finally I got an unbeatable time and the XBOX was mine.

However, two years later, this very XBOX would be "misplaced"/"lost"/"stolen?" by a few of the youth at ACC. Though the guys agreed to pay for it. After over half a year of stalling, Scott and I spent an evening performing a shakedown of sorts. Basically, it involved going to their houses and asking for the money. The funny thing is that their parents ended up answering the doors and finding out that this whole scenario had occurred. What followed was the most comedic night that Scott and I have ever had.

Though I was paid for the XBOX, I never ended up buying another one... But a few weeks ago I recieved another one. This one came from my classmate, Emily and her husband who ended up buying a new one when the DVD drive on this one flaked out. Since the DVD drive on the XBOX is one of the more expensive things to replace, it's actually more economical to buy a new one instead. I didn't need one with a working drive, since I was only interested in modding it to play PC videos on the TV.

Bee helped me out a lot by modding it so that it would run off the hard drive. With his help, I was able to put my old games on the hard drive which bypasses the need for the DVD drive. Anyways, fun stuff once again. Now 4 years and counting, I still enjoy these games.

I'm such a child.