The Mini Van Soap Box

Our barbecue has come and gone. It was, for the most part, a success. Almost everyone showed up - so we had around 20 folks and 2 kids. Even had a few surprise guests - my younger sister and her husband drove in from South Carolina and our very best friend Robert flew in from Prague. Now, our party was certainly not the reason they came to Virgina - but let's just pretend that they did and they just love us THAT much! Either way, it was a good group of people, we got hit a bit with rain, which actually was a bit welcome given the temperature was almost 100 on Saturday.

We have decided however that we will never do another "barbecue" the way we did this one. We thought it would be clever to really make our burgers choices a bit "gourmet" - So, we cooked each burger to order, and had about every possible combination of burger components you could think of. You want a chili cheese sauerkraut dog?....No problem. You want a medium rare, pepper jack cheese, marinated in zesty Italian marinade burger - You got it. Clever right? Yea - THEY loved it. However, this put me in front of the oven almost the ENTIRE party - and him in front of the grill the whole time. Not a whole lot of time to actually SEE our friends....

And if I'm going to be up at 6:00 AM, prepping, cleaning and such, and then spend the entire party in front of the oven - my "ever so cute - but I might as well be bare foot - sandals" were not the sensible choice of attire. My legs and feet on Sunday were inoperable.

Which leads me to the "Games" portion of the working title of this post. Sunday, after a bit of disaster relief in the kitchen, was spent on our asses in the living room with the 'box of life'. The spawn was exhausted after two big days - so she was even pretty easy to handle.

Around 10:30 or so I worked up the 'oomph' to walk three feet to the tv cabinet and turn on the XBox...and....Got the Red Ring Of Death.

So, seriously - I'm not kidding. This is a term that the entire XBox Community knows. I'll every so often get emails from some online Xbox buddies stating "Got the red ring of death - I'll see you in about a month". Don't believe me? - Look here!! I can't imagine that Microsoft / Xbox likes THAT term associated with their very expensive gaming console. Doesn't make for a great commercial.

So, the damn thing is dead. Had to call Xbox, they'll send a shipping box, I'll send it in - and hopefully in three to four business weeks I'll get it back.

With no Xbox to play - and plenty of "ass sitting" time still ahead of us we fired up the Playstation 2. Wow - does that suck compared to the Xbox. It almost felt like I was playing Dig Dug on the old commodore 64.