My parts came in yesterday to start the modding i talked about a few weeks ago, but while playing a little GTAIV, i got into an epic police chase and bam:

3rd time. 4th if you count my first 'box.

Alls i can say is, thank god i finished MGS4 last weekend. Had this happened with the final Act left uncompleted, i would most likely be blogging a suicide note right now.

2.40; Sony's new firmware. Supposedly adds awesome new Trophy and XMB support to flesh out PSN's feature set. Not for me, sadly. My room mate downloaded the update earlier, and for lord knows whatever reason, our PS3 is now completely dead. It simply starts up, gets to the fancy wavy lines stage, and then... well, keeps up the fancy wavy lines. Indefinately. We called Sony up but they dont seem to have any answers now. They reassured me, however, that 2.4 is no longer available and thus this wont happen to other users. Yay?

I just hope they can fix it with a download or something, so i dont have to get it repaired. My PSP bricked thanks to a firmware update and they actually wanted me to pay to get it fixed.

RIP, Playstation 3. For now, at least.

The Xbox 360. Sure, it's nice enough. Certainly it's a heck of a lot nicer looking than the giant black box that was microsoft's original outing into the console business. It's definately a machine of the iPod years however, designed just as widespread love for apple's cool, shiny, glossy white gadgets was at its peak. Nowadays, big, white boxes dont really look so great under modern, black, flat-screen HDTVs.

But i'm not willing to upgrade to an Elite just because i dont like the look of a big white box. So i figured, with my exams being over and me having literally nothing to do until the end of september, i'd give modding my 360 myself a try. I expect to make a mess of it, but i've already found plenty of sites selling the plain standard case so i can always just replace it if i screw it up too badly.

I'm not planning anything crazy or elaborate, as that pretty much ruins the whole idea of not liking a big, garish white box in the first place. So i've decided it'll be getting a black paint job, but hopefully something more metallic rather than the fingerprint magnet of the PS3, or the dull matt colour of the Elite. I'm also going to tool around on the inside and see if i can fit an extra four USB ports in there, so i dont have to use the hub when playing games like Rock Band. If all goes well, i may even add some swanky LEDs.

I'll post pics of the remains of a perfectly good 360 when i'm done.