Red Ring of Death

Nope, this isn't a story about a bad curry.

I switched on my 360 on Monday evening to be greeted with a frozen screen and the 3 blinking lights that represent every Xbox owner's nightmare - catastrophic system failure.With winter on the way and a lot of solitary evenings, I was none too happy at the prospect; doubly so as I hadn't played it at all during the summer months, something the caked layer of dust on the controller could clearly attest to.

With little else to do that evening, I decided to read up on the problem. It's shockingly widespread, affecting (depending on which rumor you regard as most credible) anywhere between 20-30% of the early batches. Apprently Microsoft decided to cut a few corners on the chip design, saving a few tens of millions of dollars. The cost of repairing and replacing defective units, however, has cost the company a reported $1 billion. Am sure there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Recognising the prevalence of failure, and not wishing to piss off a loyal and profitable fanbase, Microsoft now guarantee the console for a full 3 years against this specific type of fault. I decided to avail of their newfound generosity and yesterday, a long call to Korean customer support later (God bless my kindly supervisor who had to translate), arranged for a courier to pick up my newest $300 doorstop for replacement. T The new unit should take about a week to get here and then normal service will be restored. The guys are also relieved, as they'll soon be able to carry on the Friday night winter tradition of rocking out to Guitar Hero with minimal disruption.

The summer of '08

Thought for the day: It's hard to think of calendar-specific puns for titles every time.

What, you might ask, has been happening in the world of Tom? Or, then again, you might not. I presume that some of you have actual jobs with deadlines and more productive things to do than sit on the Internets all evening munching  [insert popular local brand] crisps.

It's been a hot, hot, summer in Korea and I've been thankful that, unlike my heatstroked  better half, I have an apartment with air conditioning instead of a concrete oven-sauna.  September has brought a much-welcomed respite from the intense heat, and in a mere matter of months we'll forget it was ever summer as we huddle in our winter jackets and try to stop fingers dropping off. Such is life.

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Ruth and I hopped over to HK and Macau for our summer hols at the end of July, trading the heat and humidity of Seoul for, well, even more heat and humidity. Nevertheless, a change is as good as a rest, and we had a great time sightseeing, shopping, and eating well. We took in the sights- Kowloon, the peak tram, the harbour lightshow - and managed a day-trip to Macau for a taste of casino razzmatazz  and Portuguese influences. I was so taken aback by the scale of the place that I completely forgot to have even a quick flutter on the roulette tables.(though the lure of the myriad culinary delights of the food court and the shopping mall meant the casino moguls still made a few bucks from our patronage.

Highlight of the trip for me wasn't the glitz of the Venetian, or the  Victoria harbour waterfront, or even the pandas in Ocean Park, but rather our quiet Friday evening in Stanley. Stanley is a 'quaint' seafront town on  the south of the island. Looking out over the small harbour, enjoying a dinner of steak and chips, I could almost imagine that we were sitting in a quiet seaside town at home rather than the gateway to all of China.

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The big bike trip looms ever closer. The bikes are currently in the post and winging their way from New Zealand. David has been in possession of his recumbent cycle for a month and has been racking up the miles as he gets used to its unorthodox layout. I've taken steps I swore I never would, investing in some spandex cycle shorts. Lemme tell ya, they might look daft, but the comfort factor (almost) balances it out.

Cycling over the summer has consisted of day trips here and there- Uijeongbu, Ilsan, Anyang and other points around Seoul. I was working extra classes and didn't get much midweek cycling except for my weekly visits to the rock climbing wall. The club, incidentally, has faded into obscurity, with several of the most dedicated members having moved away to pastures new or gone home for good.

I get the feeling that October and November are going to be big biking months. Ruth will be off adventuring round SE Asia with her mate Tracey so, to console myself, I'll be hitting the roads for many miles of bike-based hilarity.

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Finally, our favorite thespian and party thrower, Chris, is currently engineering his imminent return to the RoK, relieving us from the worry of what to do this Halloween. Hurry up, dude! Guitar Hero hasn't been played in months and I still have two cans of your light beer in my fridge !

What's the carbon deficit on 3 air-freighted velocipedes?

I only ask because...the touring bikes are on their way!

Am I excited? Well...

Prepare for unforeseen consequences

As Mike has written over on his blog, the innuendo quotient of of a machine called the Large Hadron Collider (just repeat it a few times slowly if you're stuck) can only be discounted by the humorless or non Anglophones among you.

CERN physicists got to play with their new toy earlier today. However, as I write this, the world hasn't ended. For those of you breathing a sigh of relief, it's worth noting that so far they've just been trying to get a single particle beam to spin round the accelerator track. The potentially black hole-spawning, grab-your-crowbars, apocalypse-generating collisions won't begin until there are two beams spinning in opposite directions, which will be a while yet.

I may even have time to grow another goatee...