I am extremely sorry for my extreme lack of posting, but I’ll do my best to catch up, so here is an out-of-schedule rage post. Yay.

Microsoft. A huge company that has been my best friend for many years. I have trusted Microsoft, i have stood up for Microsoft in arguments with Mac OS users, but a recent event has made me lose all respect for them.

Two weeks ago, a very enthusiastic Mads decided to get an Xbox 360, and on the 5th of December, I finally had an opportunity to go to my local Radioshack to buy one. I stood in line for 15 minutes on this oddly busy day, before I reached the counter where I with a big smile on my face asked “do you have an Xbox 360 for sale?”. To my joy, I was answered with a question about which version I wanted. As an exchange student, i have no opportunity to get a job, so I don’t have eternal amounts of money, so I chose to get the Pro version with a 60 gig hard drive for 249$

Later that evening I arrived at my house really exited to go play Borderlands. I ran to my TV giggling like a 10 year old, and hooked it up. I slowly moved closer to the power button, adrenaline was rushing through the body, Pressed the button, and *Click* (……)  *Chirp Chirp, Chirp Chirp*. Nothing. Not even the 4RROD. After “intense” Google-ing, I diagnosed the console as dead.

This whole event resulted in me paying 50$ more to get the black elite version, that actually worked.

I also got an Xbox Live Gold membership, which leads me to my next event.

With my Xbox, i bought 4000 Microsoft points that gave me the message “Invalid code”. I assumed that I was unlucky and got a bad code, so today, I bought another 4000 Microsoft points, and guess what? They gave me the same freaking message! After yet another Google-ing session it turns out that Microsoft points are also region code based. What the heck? Are they afraid that we are going to gray market Microsoft points? Greedy paranoid MORONS. The reason this really annoys me is that, since I am Norwegian, it is in my nature to write in the sign up form that I am Norwegian. The Xbox then assumes that it is located in Norway. First of all, with the region code based games, this is really stupid, since it’s two different region codes between the European PAL region code, aka region code 2 and the American region code 1.

<- This is how the region codes are set up

I thought that an easy setting had to be made, to make it understand it’s geographical location, but Microsoft has decided that if an item is in one location, it cannot move, so it is impossible to change the location! MICROSOFT! IT IS POSSIBLE TO MOVE AROUND.

This resulted in me sitting here now with 8000 Microsoft point’s i can’t use, waiting for a reply from the Microsoft support team, that won’t answer their phone.

Merry freaking Christmas to me from Microsoft.

>Mads