Sure, you read about it on the Internet -- but you never expect it to happen to you. Those three red lights flashing at you, a cruel taunt. Your xbox 360 is dead.

Well, my Xbox 360 is dead, anyway. Last night I was interrupted in the middle of a game of Geometry Wars with a system freeze and when I tried to reboot I found that the friendly green ring had been replaced with the cockeyed red one you see in this picture. My 360, it seems, has fallen and cannot get up.

While it's a bummer to me that my system is broken, such an event does make for excellent blog fodder -- and I'll be documenting the experience here. I've fired off my first email to Microsoft support and I'm awaiting a response now. Stay tuned!