Craptastic news! Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom has, on Halloween, released their fall update for the Xbox Live service. These updates usually have visual or firmware improvements – most noticeably in this update: an upgrade to 1080p support for the upcoming HD-DVD add-on drive. That’s cool.

What’s not cool: also in the update, some code to find, detect and “brick” (see definition 6) modded Xbox 360s. However, it seems that the original update also affected systems with a certain hardware and software combination, say a launch system with certain games or updates. What happens when an Xbox 360 is bricked?

This.

And absolutely nothing else. So now I have an expensive paperweight, and I’m waiting for a box to ship from Microsoft to my house so I can ship my paperweight back to them, so then I can wait another two weeks for my paperweight to return to me as a fully-functional, kick-ass game and entertainment system.

When stuff works, it’s awesome. When stuff breaks, it’s a pain in the ass to get repaired. Unless it’s an Apple. Then, it’s a breeze.

And now Microsoft wants to challenge Apple on their own turf with the “iPod Killer”, called the Zune. That’s like the US invading Iraq and wondering why things aren’t going so well. You just don’t do those kind of th… never mind.

So far, the reviews have been decent, but with one caveat: it’s not an iPod. Nothing is, my friends. And your service still blows.

No quotes today – I’m pouting.