It was around that time that my Xbox 360 froze, during a cut scene. I figured it was a fluke. My 360 is getting up there in years, and Dragon Age is a fairly meaty game.

I restarted the game from a save point 3 minute prior, and everything was fine. It then froze again, slightly later in the cut scene. Again, this was worrisome, but the system restarted fine.

This morning, I went to take Dragon Age from the system, and I was greeted by those three dreaded red lights, indicating total system failure.

Well, shit.

My Xbox has crapped the bed before. Two years ago, almost exactly. It was three weeks prior to the release of Rock Band, and the thought of not having my system for the launch of that game was somewhat devastating. Fortunately, I sent it off immediately, and got it back just in the nick of time.

This time, I’m not so lucky. As an early adopter (read: beta tester for faulty hardware), I purchased my 360 at launch. That was just about four years ago… Again, almost to the day.

For comparison, let me tell you the story of my Playstation 2. I scrimped and saved to buy it in the summer of 2000, the same year that Onimusha came out. Since then, it’s served me without complaint through three Final Fantasy games, four Silent Hill games, and countless other masterpieces. That’s 9 years without failure, remarkable for a system that was also plagued by astronomical failure rates.

Microsoft, in response to pending lawsuits, extended their warranty coverage for the Red Ring issue. For the first failure, I was safely under that umbrella. This time? Not so much.

What annoys me isn’t that the system failed. Yes, it was a preventable manufacturing flaw that left millions of faithful consumers in the lurch. BUT, Microsoft went above and beyond to make things right with those whose systems bricked.

No, what annoys me is that the system is so damned good, despite its frailty. If I hadn’t enjoyed playing it, I wouldn’t have purchased several games and made it the center of my multimedia setup.

As it stands, those games are being held hostage.

So, I’ll have to buy a new one. That’s disappointing, because every dollar I spend replacing this failed Xbox is a dollar I can’t spend on another system, or more games to review on the show.

I don’t know why I’m writing up an entry about this. At the top, you noticed that I linked to Amazon a couple of times. This is an effort to make some scratch off of their associate program. This money will go toward maintaining the site and covering hardware failures such as this one. Maybe this is my way of sneaking in more ads. If the presence of Amazon affiliate links bothers you, let me know in the comments. It seemed like a more noble alternative to putting up a beggar’s Paypal link.

I’ll have a new Xbox 360, complete with the seemingly infallible Jasper chipset, soon enough. In the meantime, I have to start digging through my PS2 and Wii backlog again.

On the plus side, I actually have games to talk about next week!

First off, Jason Mahoney is a killer co-host. I think there’s a reason that the show he was on (along with Ben Merkel) was nominated. He brings a lot to the table for the video game side of things, and we have a great time in the studio. It’s always a pleasure to have you out, Jason.

He drove me home from the studio, and gave me a bottle of Wild Blue, which is brewed by Anheuser-Busch in NY. It’s a pretty tasty beer, for being kind of a novelty. The blueberry flavor is overwhelming, but I could see myself being in the mood for it again. That said, its 8% alcohol content makes it a solid kick in the gut for being such a fruity drink.

The show tonight went very well, in my estimation. I tried my best to cover the local election results, which were mostly favorable. In short, I’m happy about Issue 9 being voted down. This opens up the doors for serious passenger rail proposals in the area, without conservative interests hamstringing the process. More pleasant was the call-in from Travis Estell from Explore Cincinnati. He was at the No On 9 party, and it sounded like they were having a good time. Certainly, I recommend that you listen to his show tomorrow (Nov. 4) from 4-6pm… And then every week thereafter. Also, subscribe to his podcast in iTunes.

There won’t be a show next week (November 10) due to some important meetings I have to be at, which will likely overrun my prep time for the show. Expect last week’s, and this week’s, podcasts to be up on Friday, and I may produce something for next week outside of the studio.

Orange Juice and Biscuits, you’re going down.

If you listened to this season’s first episode, then you know that Stand Under the Don’t Tree and Riddle Me This has been nominated for a 2009 Student Production Award, through College Broadcasters, Inc.

I’m one of four shows competing in the category of “Best Regularly Scheduled Programming.” This was the only category vague enough to apply to my show. I’m in good company, too. Other contenders include shows run out of UC-Berkeley and Columbia College. In fact, in all categories, I’m the only nominee from an Ohio college.

It’s an unexpected honor. I discovered my nomination while I was in New York City this past summer. On one of my weekends away from interning at As the World Turns, I decided to visit the United Nations. Unfortunately, the tours for that day were filled up, so I decided to kill some time before heading up to the MoMA to watch a screening of Blade Runner. Sitting in the UN’s cafe/gift shop, I checked Twitter, only to find a notice of my nomination posted on the Bearcast twitter page.

I proceeded to shit my pants, and call everyone I know.

To mark this occasion, Bearcast and UC are sending me to Austin, TX to attend the CBI conference and check out the awards ceremony.

I don’t know what my chances of winning are, but being nominated is honor enough. Plus, I get the chance to check out Austin, which is a thoroughly cool city by all accounts. Any town which can spawn both Okkervil River and Shearwater has earned my respect.

I’ll be at the conference from Oct. 29 to Oct. 31, so keep an eye on this page, and my twitter for more details.

Basic image, created as a general promotional shot. Foreground and background are separated by color temperature, to create some depth in the monochrome image.

Here, I switched their faces.

A little artsy.

Ukulele is serious business.

I hope you enjoyed this brief interlude.

I approached with caution, and my bat (“Louie”), but found that it was only Jordan, co-host of the Don’t Tree. After a few whacks with Louie, I asked Jordan what was so funny.

He told me a long and boring story, as he often does, but it went something like this:

There is a revered brewery in Belgium called Huyghe Brewery, which has been around since dirt was the newest fad (soon to be toppled by “wetdirt,” which we now call “mud”). This brewery is responsible for award winning offerings such as “Delirium Tremens.”

Jordan was on their website, which is of Geocities quality, looking at their offerings. The whole thing is written in moonspeak, so there was nothing but the pictures to entertain him. When he reached the bottom of this page, he found something amazing:

Your eyes, they do not deceive you. There does, in fact, exist a sexiest of all lagers. LA SEXY LAGER.

The story gets better.

After deciding that we simply had to have an item as ridiculous as this, we attempted a google search, seeing if the beer was available for sale in the U.S. Our search was almost fruitless, except for this article, which revealed that England does not appreciate seductive brew. (LINK IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK).

Why would Britain do this? Take a closer look at the labels shown above. Not only do the ladies appear to be from the 1980′s (“Every one of those labels looks like the last-known photo of a model…”), but their bikinis have a very flat, matte appearance… Well, the article reveals the secret of these monochrome skivvies… They are scratch-off. Except instead of concealing the words “FREE TICKET,” they hide breasts.

I feel the need to explain myself at this point. Jordan said it appropriately: “This is the beer that Borat would make.” I’m no more lascivious than the next man, meaning that I have my limits when it comes to weird stuff like this. However, LA SEXY LAGER rests right at the edge of that limit, making it an obsession for me. The beer’s name alone sold me on it, the scratch-off bikinis are just icing on the cake.

Jordan and I then proceeded to call Party Source, a liquor supermart in Newport, KY, known for their wide array of obscure beers and liquors. They patched us through to their beer specialist, who thought we were joking when we asked for “Sexy Lager,” but strangely only laughed when we told him that we weren’t kidding around.

Our supplier at Party Source is currently seeing about getting some imported to the U.S. It might be a lengthy process, but what’s more worth fighting for? Lager? Or Sexy Lager?

Being able to legally purchase alcohol? That sounds pretty sweet. I’m glad I’m too poor to ever become a drunk, though.

Not so sweet? The fact that all of my friends are going to try and kill me.

To properly keep you aware of my situation, I’m going to be liveblogging my adventures tomorrow night. That is, if I can remember to do so.

Keep track of this at my twitter, which can be found at http://www.twitter.com/zap1120.

God help me.