Amid the other problems I'm having with my Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, this morning I seemed unable to recover my gamertag. When I did the network diagnostic, I found that the NAT settings came up as "Moderate" (on the Xbox Live scale of "Strict," "Moderate," and "Open," you really need that to say "Open").

To make it read "Open," you need to forward the following ports through your router to your Xbox (which means you'll also need a static IP address on your Xbox):

• UDP 88
• UDP 3074
• TCP 3074

Lucky for me, PortForward.com has some great free how-to articles on setting up just that. Here's the guide to setting up a static IP address on your Xbox 360 and the guide for Xbox Live port forwarding on a Linksys WRT54G.

Interestingly enough, after futzing around with this and getting it to a situation where I couoldn't even connect to Xbox Live at all, I put all my settings back the way they were (remember they were "Moderate?") and suddenly it was seen as "Open." I guess you never can tell.

I've uncovered some issues with CR_Documentor where the context menu doesn't appear when you upgrade your DXCore to version 3.0.5. I will do my best to resolve this issue and any other known defects in the next release, which, I assure you, is forthcoming... just sort of slowly. But it's coming!

I've posted the list of known issues on the CR_Documentor page for now.

Another year come and gone, so it's time again to throw up a bit of a retrospective of highlights for the past 365. (For reference, here's last year's retrospective.)

In January, I put out version 2.1 of my DHTML tooltips for Amazon links (which are sort of obsolete now since Amazon has all that set up from their site in a much richer format). I did a review of various clipboard management software and ended up with ClipX as the winner of that showdown. I also pumped out a little command-line GUID generator and a custom NAnt task assembly with some helpful stuff in it.

In February, we got a new little terrorist cat named Jack. I published some tips on disaster recovery and trouble-free continuous integration. We all got a little sick of hearing about FizzBuzz toward the end of the month.

March got me trying to get people to switch their blogs to use inline styling when including code snippets because they don't format right in RSS otherwise. I'm still fighting that one. I got Media Center working with my Xbox 360 in a test environment (but I'm still trying to determine the right way to go to serve up DVDs and meet all of my requirements).

In April I had electronics and DRM issues. The lifespan of my 3G iPod sort of reached a logical limit as I hit the 1418 error and found that the iPod must be plugged into the wall while charging synchronizing as of iTunes 7. I got a Red Ring of Death on my second Xbox 360 (which hit me with some bad DRM juju) and bought a new DVD player because of bad Sony DRM. I also got into the design for testability vs. design for usability debate with respect to static helper utilities. Oh, and I attended MIX07, which I blogged a lot about [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10].

May saw CheckFree acquiring Corillian. It also saw TypeMock publishing a nice case study of its usage inside Corillian. I tried to figure out how you'd detect through reflection if two object types can be added together, but never did get an answer. Just at the end of the month, I posted the EmbeddedPageHandlerFactory - a way to serve up ASP.NET 1.1 from embedded resources.

In June The Sopranos ended with a whimper and I migrated my blog to Subtext. I preordered GTA4 (which still hasn't shipped), posted a CodeSmith template for generating generic KeyedCollection derivatives and solved the Guitar Hero controller loose whammy bar problem with some o-rings.

In July I did a fireworks show in Walla Walla, WA, gave away some code to convert an Outlook message into a task, and made a bookmarklet to automatically copy an Amazon Associates URL to your clipboard while browsing Amazon. I published the EmbeddedResourcePathProvider - a way to serve up ASP.NET 2.0 from embedded resources. Oh, and I turned 31.

I started August out by showing you how to mock a page request lifecycle with TypeMock. I started getting laser hair removal on my face (which I've continued to do: 1, 2, 3, 4). I also posted some tips for non-programmers who want to learn how to program.

In September my Xbox got tanked by a dashboard update so I got to send it in for repair, making this the third time I've had to get things fixed. I found an odd issue where ISAPI filters were causing problems with .NET and showed you how to optimize your TortoiseSVN cache for better disk I/O.

In October I celebrated my first wedding anniversary. I ran into a problem where I found that .NET assemblies store enum values, not references to the original enum, which caused some havoc. I got hit by some changes in the Xbox Live DRM model, which, two months later, I'm still fighting. I also posted a program to help you copy iTunes track metadata from one track to another.

In November I went to the Microsoft Patterns and Practices Summit (Days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and met Lutz Roeder while up there. I posted some tips on writing good XML doc comments in your code. I participated in the One Laptop Per Child program (which I later unboxed for you). I installed VS 2008 and the install was the worst. I rounded up some "Command Prompt Here" utilities for you and learned, via Rock Band, that I might just suck as a drummer. Finally, I showed you how to use ParseControl to combine ASP.NET skins and localization effectively.

December saw CheckFree getting acquired by Fiserv. Xbox DRM continues to eat my lunch so I posted some maintenance secrets that might help you avoid a call to Xbox Support. I posted UrlAbsolutifierModule - an HttpModule that helps you convert URLs from relative to absolute format in ASP.NET. I watched the sixth season of 24 all in one day, found that FxCop 1.35 uses Office 2003 for its spell checker, and showed you how to move your iTunes music library.

That pretty much brings us to current. It's been a heck of a year - I got acquired twice, went to some great conferences (and met some cool people), and posted some [hopefully helpful] stuff for folks. Here's to a great upcoming 2008!

I bought a new laptop and I want to sync my iPod from the laptop now, not from the desktop in the other room. Unfortunately, moving your iTunes library around is kind of difficult. You can copy the library file (.itl file) over and fire up iTunes on the new computer, but it's still going to look in the old location for the files and it's not going to find them.

I tried the iTunes COM SDK but it turns out the physical location of a file is a read-only property.  Luckily, I found an article that talks about how you can manage your library and move things around by using the "Consolidate Library" feature.  I already have my music on an external drive, but I want to get it to a different drive that's shared on the network, so here's what I did:

1. Install iTunes on the new laptop.
2. Start iTunes so the initial iTunes library files are created and I can get past the setup bits.
3. Copy the iTunes library files (both the .itl and .xml) over the top of the new ones on the new laptop.
4. Plug the old external drive into the laptop. Make sure the drive letter on the new laptop is the same as it was on the old computer. In my case, this is the "F:" drive.
5. Open iTunes on the new laptop and verify all the songs are found.
6. Update the new iTunes settings - change the location of the iTunes library folder to the place you want the music files to be, tell iTunes to automatically manage your collection, and tell it to copy any new files into your iTunes library folder.
7. In the new installation of iTunes, select Advanced -> Consolidate Library. This will copy the music from the old location to the new location and update the database with the appropriate new locations.

The only downside to this is that if you have a large collection (as I do), it's not a very fast process and it takes up a lot of disk space - you'll end up with two copies of your music collection. That said, once the consolidation is complete, you can delete the old copy of the collection and free up your disk space.

I really wish the iTunes COM SDK allowed me to just change the file location. It'd have been so much easier just to script the move.

Friday night, the 21st, Jenn and I ventured into town for a wonderful live performance of Jesus Christ Superstar. It's possibly my favorite Andrew Lloyd Webber musical (more because I've listened to it since I was very, very small so there's a lot of sentimental attachment than anything else) and this was my third time seeing it.

It was Jenn's first time not only seeing it, but hearing it, so there was a small amount of confusion at first, especially since they ran out of programs as we were walking in so she didn't have a cast or set list. I tried to explain who was singing and such, but it took until the second half when we were able to find a program that she started getting into it.

It was a really good show to catch. Ted Neeley, who was Jesus in the motion picture version, played Jesus here, too. Amazing range on that guy, and I'm really glad we were able to make it because this is apparently his national farewell tour in the role. Corey Glover, lead singer of Living Colour, played Judas and also did a fantastic job.

The only real complaint I could issue had nothing to do with the show - it was my seats. When I bought them, the seating chart looked like I had some really great seats four rows from the front. When I got there, it turns out that the seating chart was broken up such that I didn't see the entire front half of the auditorium sitting in front of me. I wasn't four rows back, I was 30 rows back. Oh, and I got to sit next to a guy who decided it was his day to go on a smoking and drinking binge, so not ony did he stink to high heaven, but I had to repeatedly remind him not to sing along.

Other than that, it was a great show and I'm glad we made it. I couldn't think of a better way to start the holiday season than a great show with some somewhat relevant subject matter. Good times.

XO Laptop Unbox

Yesterday I received my XO laptop from the One Laptop Per Child "Get One, Give One" program.  I got some pictures of the laptop being unboxed and booted up for the first time so you can check those out if you're interested.

It doesn't ship with much in the way of instructions - it relies on you either connecting to their web site to get started or "exploring" the interface to see what things do.  That actually brought me to my first problem - connecting to the Internet.

The way the networking on the thing works, you visit a "neighborhood" page that displays a graphical representation of the wireless access points available to you as well as mesh networks and other XOs that you can connect to.  That was my first stumbling block: It only displays wireless access points that broadcast their SSID (mine didn't).

It runs a flavor of Linux, so I suppose if you're a Linux person you could do some manual configuration and get it to connect that way.  I'm a Windows person, and while I have run Linux before, I'm not really that knowledgeable about it, so the best I could do was try their manual wireless network association steps to see if that worked.  It did... for as long as I was in that terminal session.  But as soon as I rebooted, the connection was lost and I was back to square one.  So, rather than fight that beast, I just turned SSID broadcast on.  Hey, that wasn't really stopping the malicious folks out there anyway.

It won't connect to WPA networks (yet), which isn't a problem for me since I'm still in the stone age using WEP.  After some trouble getting the security on it set up, I finally got connected.  Honestly, I don't know how kids are supposed to do this, but maybe they assume that school wireless access points are just open without any security or something.  Maybe that's how it really is.

The only other real problem I had with it was that the initial setup (when you first boot up) asks you your name and what colors you want your little computer icon to be.  (Your icon represents you on the network.)  Once you've set them, though... there's no control panel applet or anything to change them with.  It took me a while, but I found that they have a command-line interface to change these things called "sugar-control-panel."  Got my stuff all customized up and now I'm set.

The interface is primarily graphically-driven.  There's very little text, which is good for its purpose (kids, developing countries, etc.), but not so accessible until you've really explored the thing and learned what it all means and does.  Applications are referred to as "activities" and it ships with several pre-installed ones including a web browser, an RSS reader, a paint program, and a Python programming environment.  There's no email program, but there is a Gmail activity currently under development (right now it just launches the browser).

All in all, I think it's a pretty great tool.  If they'd had this in school instead of ye olde Apple IIe, I'd maybe have learned something more than the BASIC code that runs the cannons and castles game.  On the other hand, I've found already that I've interfaced a lot with a Bash prompt (the "terminal" activity) already and, without any instruction, I'm not sure how kids are going to know what to do with some of the stuff.  From "I've never seen a computer" to "I'm programming in Python" is a pretty steep learning curve.  I think the real good stuff will be from the additional activities you can download as well as coupling this with a teacher's curriculum.

Now they just need to get a Mono activity.  Awww yeaaah.  (Luckily, it looks like someone's thought of this.)

If you're interested in learning more about the One Laptop Per Child charity, how to give, or how to use the XO laptop, check out www.laptop.org.

One of my co-workers, Peter Wong, came across this issue and struggled for quite some time to figure it out.

For some reason, running the product build on his development machine would pass all of the FxCop rules, but when other team members ran it, the FxCop spelling rules for identifiers would fail.

Turns out FxCop 1.35 uses the Office 2003 spell checker to do its work.  The rules were failing on machines that have Office 2003 installed and passing on machines without Office because they weren't actually running.  It only works with Office 2003 - you'll see the same rules-not-running behavior if all you have is Office 2007.  Apparently, we're not the only ones who have noticed this.  I sure never saw anything about it in the docs, but I guess I never really looked, either.

They're working towards fixing this problem in newer versions of FxCop.  Visual Studio 2008 code analysis tools have spelling rules built in and support custom dictionaries (won't help folks without Team Foundation Server - it's a policy you can configure).  FxCop 1.36, which just came out in beta, ships the spell checker built in so you don't need to have Office installed.

Friday morning was my fifth laser hair removal treatment.  In the first treatment, I tried the MedioStar laser on my neck and it was just far too intense for me, so the subsequent treatments I'd been using the Dermo Flash IPL.

When I went in this time, the technician, Liz, took a look at my chart and my face and said, "You know... for the amount of time you've been coming in, you're not getting a lot of result."  And it was true - the Dermo Flash has worked a bit, and there were a few small hair-free patches, but it's slow going.  My hair is thinner, but it's admittedly sort of hard to tell if you don't know what you're looking for.

"So would you like to try the MedioStar again?"

Oooo.  Now, I've got a pretty low pain tolerance, and last time I tried that... well, it was just too intense.  But she was right - it was slow going, and it might be time to get results.  So I said we could try it again as long as we could stop if it was too much.  She agreed.

Turns out MedioStar, while very, very painful, is much less intense the less hair you have.  The Dermo Flash, having reduced the overall volume of hair, actually helped in that - the MedioStar was now still painful but not so bad I was utterly unable to handle it.  The upside of that is that I was able to do my whole face using the MedioStar.

For reference, Liz did say that she's talked to other people who've had this done and that everyone seems to agree getting a tattoo on your face is far less painful and intense than MedioStar.  Think about this: MedioStar is so intense that it's not uncommon for hairs to literally pop out of their follicles after being zapped.  It happened during my appointment.

To manage the intensity of it all, here's what worked for me:

• Between one and four laser pulses at a time, max.  In really dense hair areas, like the point of my chin, one pulse is just insanely painful and is all I can take without a break.  In less dense areas, like on my neck, I can take up to four.  That fourth pulse is the edge of my pain threshold.
• Ignore the ice pack.  It's just a distraction and doesn't help any.
• Take advantage of air cooling.  They have this hose that blows super-cool air that they can use to chill the skin prior to using the laser.  Before and after getting zapped, cool things waaaay down with that cold air hose.
• Get one stress ball for each hand.  Something to squeeze is helpful.
• Breathe.  Seriously.  I darn close to passed out from tensing up and holding my breath.

All told, it took the full hour appointment to do my face, but we did it.  By the time it was over, tears were running, I could barely speak, I was shaking, and I had sweated clean through the back of my shirt such that I had to go home and change before coming back to work, but we did it.  Today, three days later, I feel like I have a bad case of razor burn and my face is red and sort of bumpy/irritated, but you can already see some difference.  In two weeks, when the irritation has subsided, I think it'll be much more obvious how much difference was made.

As painful as it was, I think I'll probably do MedioStar next time, too.  I need to start seeing some real change and knowing that the intensity gets reduced as hair disappears, it sounds like next time will be easier than this one.

Saturday marked the fifth annual 24 marathon at my house, this year for season six.  We started at 8:00a and ran non-stop, no credits, no "last-time-on," no breaks.  The show ended at 1:00a Sunday morning, and it was a hell of a ride.

My dad and I were the only ones who lasted the whole thing.  Jenn missed the last few episodes, being unable to stay awake, and our friend K came for the morning but wasn't able to stay for the whole marathon.

I've found that the secret to the last couple of episodes is to drink an energy drink or two and to stand up.  After sitting for most of the day, standing up really energizes you.

Once again, Jack Bauer saved the day, lasting through torture in a Chinese prison, a nuclear attack, and an air strike.  I still think my favorite season was season two, but I can't say I was disappointed here.  A good time was had by all, and we'll plan to see season seven (assuming Kiefer can get his ass out of jail and film the damn thing) next year.

So here's the problem:

You're running your web site or blog and you've got an image you want to put up.  You put in the HTML something like this:

<img src="/images/myimage.gif" />

No problem - you load up the site and it looks great.  You check your RSS feed and it looks good.  And why wouldn't it?  When a browser hits your page or a reader looks at your feed, it's all coming from http://yoursite.com, so the site-relative URL gets translated to http://yoursite.com/images/myimage.gif.  No problemo.

Then you decide you want the benefits of a syndication site like FeedBurner - it reduces your bandwidth usage and has some other value added features.  Good times.  You sign up, get your feed cranking through it, and go check it out.  It looks horrible - all of your image links are broken!  What's going on?

The problem is the relative URL - now that the feed is coming from http://feeds.feedburner.com/yoursite, the relative image URL gets translated to http://feeds.feedburner.com/images/myimage.gif, which is plainly wrong.  Whatcha gonna do, brother, whatcha gonna do?

If you have an ASP.NET-based site, I created an answer:  The UrlAbsolutifierModule.  It's an HttpModule that filters through content and converts URLs in HTML tags from relative to absolute.  You can even configure it to only process certain pages or handlers, so you only process, say, your RSS feed.

Note: I wrote it to be pretty aggressive - anything that looks like HTML (encoded/embedded in XML, straight HTML, a code snippet you might have embedded in a blog entry, etc.) will be updated if it's run through this filter.  If you use it, you will definitely want to be selective about which pages it processes and not just throw it carte blanche on your site.  By that same token, if it's not HTML (like if it's your RSS feed and the URL is in the channel/link element of your feed XML), it won't be looked at.

Included in the compiled package:

• The UrlAbsolutifierModule assembly.
• XML class documentation.
• A readme explaining how to use it with an example showing how to configure it for use with Subtext, my blog of choice.

Included in the source package:

• Source for the UrlAbsolutifierModule assembly.
• Unit tests and a demonstration web site showing it in action.
• The very same readme explaining how to use it.

Want it? Need it? Come and get it. Yours, free, at (of course) your own risk.

[Download UrlAbsolutifierModule 1.0.0.0 Compiled]
[Download UrlAbsolutifierModule 1.0.0.0 Source]

Version History:
1.0.0.0: First release.

I've got screen protectors on my PSP, my new iPod Classic, and various PDAs.  I've tried several different brands, but I have to say my favorite is, by far, Martin Fields.  Easy to apply and you can't even tell you've got anything on there.  Not only that, but their scratch resistance is amazing and they're washable and reusable.  Replace your iPod?  Move the screen protector to the new one.

They're not too expensive, either.  At the time of this writing, both the PSP and the iPod Classic protectors are $12.99.

Interestingly, I always forget the name of the place, then I go research whenever I get a new device and end up getting one of these.  I figured I'd blog it so I can remember for next time.

After a long, heated discussion with an Xbox Live support technician last night, it turns out that my latest issue - where I'm unable to get the latest dashboard update so I can't log into Xbox Live - is actually pretty common.  According to the technician, they've been getting hammered with calls from people who are having the exact same problem.  These problems are coupled with the fact that the update has caused some unexpected new load on the Xbox Live servers (undoubtedly the use of the new Friends of Friends feature coupled) and that seems to be coupled with the unexplained issue that there are several folks like me who are just plain "locked out."

They're going to send me a DVD with the last dashboard update on it (not the Fall 2007 one, but the Spring 2007 one) and that's supposed to at least unlock things long enough for me to recover my profile so I can play... well, anything.  Can't do much without your profile.  As for being "unlocked," the answer was just to "keep trying to take the update - when you can take it, you know it's fixed."  No ETA on that, by the way.

I'm surprised no gaming sites have reported this issue, but then, I'm sure this crap happens on every dashboard update.

UPDATE: The problem was corruption on my hard drive. They ended up sending me a new hard drive.

Well, maybe not secrets, but lesser known troubleshooting steps and help for Xbox 360.  I'm learning way too much about this lately.

• Clearing your update cache:  This clears out the cache of dashboard, system, and other updates in case something gets glitched and you can't update.  Go to the System blade, then select "Memory."  From that screen, select your hard drive, then hit "Y" to get to "Device Options."  From there, use the controller to enter: X, X, LB, RB, X, X.  You'll get a message asking if you want to perform maintenance on the device - select Yes.  This didn't do anything for my latest problem, but it's worked for some people.
• Manually update the dashboard:  Deep in the bowels of the Xbox Support site they have instructions on how to download and burn your own dashboard update CD.  I tried this but was never able to get it to work; that said, I already had the update the disc contained, so maybe it didn't try to re-apply.  Xbox Support will recommend this to you if you're having trouble taking an update over the network.

Way, way back on September 21, my third Xbox 360 crapped out on me and I had to get it repaired.  They sent me a fourth Xbox and I got to face the Xbox Live DRM beast for the third time.

Let me recap the DRM problem for posterity:

When you purchase an Xbox Live Arcade game (or a theme, or some gamer pics, or video, or whatever), the content gets licensed to two things: your Xbox Live gamer profile and the console that you originally purchased the content on.  That means that I can buy Pac Man and my wife can fire up the Xbox and play without me being logged in, even though I was the one who bought it.  This is key since I might buy us a game we both want to play and I sometimes take my profile to friends' houses to play so I'm not there to log in.

When you get your console repaired and they send you a new console, the content is only licensed to your gamer profile.  Further, because of that, you need to be logged in to Xbox Live in order to use it - you can't use it offline.  What this translates to is that if I buy Pac Man and my wife wants to play it, she has to log in, then she has to start up a second controller and log me in so the game is activated and she can play.  This breaks down if the network is down, if Xbox Live is down, or if I've taken my profile elsewhere.

This latest time around, they changed up the process so now, rather than getting "points after repair" to re-purchase your stuff, you have to have them flip some bits on their end to let you delete and re-download your content.  Hypothetically, you should be able to delete and re-download and it will fix the need for your profile to be connected to Xbox Live (so you could play things offline) but it doesn't re-license the console.

Regardless, none of this worked for me.  I couldn't play anything offline and I couldn't get my console re-licensed.

Following their process, I opened a call with them to get this resolved.  On October 27, it was "escalated to Microsoft Support" and there should have been a resolution in 30 days.  I've called back a few times after the 30 day mark and get a lot of "we'll call you back in 5 business days" extensions, but no one ever calls.  Needless to say, I'm pissed.

This compounded with the latest dashboard update that was released last week.  I tried logging in on Friday and was told that there was a dashboard update to take before I could connect to Xbox Live.

No problem - I told it to take the update.  Instantly I got a "can't download this update" message.

Huh?  I tested the network connection and got success (up until the Xbox Live portion of the test, which won't connect to Xbox Live unless you take the update, which is my problem.)

So I called Xbox Live Support.  I ran them through my existing issue (still waiting on the DRM solution) before explaining that now I have an all new issue.

Normally I am reasonably tolerant of their support.  They walk you through some basic troubleshooting steps and get you a supervisor if they can't resolve it.  Not this time.  Oh, no, not this time.

This time the guy, who barely spoke intelligible English, started with some basic troubleshooting - test the network connection, etc. - then went into "more drastic measures" mode.  First he tried to convince me that changing my home network around so I connect the Xbox directly to the cable modem would solve it.  No, I don't think I'm going to do that because I'm pretty sure the network connection test passed.  Then he said I needed to "delete all of my game data."

Whoa, whoa, whoa.  What?

Yeah, "delete all of my game data."  That includes arcade games, saved game data, everything.  I prompted the guy, asking him, "um, wouldn't it be OK if I just moved it to a memory card?"  "Oh, yeah," he said, "you could do that, too."  Brilliance.

So I start moving all of my saved games over to my 64MB memory card while I'm on hold and he's researching things.  I quickly realize that I have a lot of saved games - some to games I don't even own anymore - so I do some housekeeping, too.  I delete the arcade games I know I can re-download anyway and start moving my important saved games over to the memory card.  I got about halfway in when I actually found a saved game that refused to be moved, and that was about the time when the support guy came back on the phone.  I asked him what to do.

"You mean the saved game won't let you move it to a new device?"  No, that's the problem.  "Wow... uh... can you copy it?"  Sure, copying works, but will that affect anything?  "Um... uh... How far have you gotten in copying your data?"  Not far.  "Do you have a memory card that will hold all of your data?"  No - I have 2.2GB of data and a 64MB memory card.  You do the math.  "Hmmm... uh, well, before you finish doing that, I have something else to try."

An alternative?  Okay, let's do it.

"Delete your profile.  When it asks you to delete profile and items, just say to delete the profile only.  We're going to do a profile recovery and see if that fixes things."  Are you sure?  I've tried getting this update with five different profiles here and it's not working.  I'm pretty sure it's not my profile.  "Yeah, just go ahead and do that."

So I did.  Deleted my profile.  I've had to recover my profile before, so I didn't think it'd be a big deal...

...except that you have to connect to Xbox Live to recover your profile and I can't connect to Xbox Live because I can't take the new dashboard update.

Well, shit.

See, now my Xbox is pretty effectively bricked.  I don't have my profile and I can't recover it.  Jenn can't play any of the arcade games we have because you have to have my profile logged in for them to work.  I can't move my remaining saved game data off the hard drive because you have to be logged in to do that, so I can't finish testing the guy's "saved game data" theory.

This was the point where I lost my cool.  I didn't cuss the guy out because, well, that's not terribly productive.  But I did tell him that we've entered the realm of "you guys need to compensate me for this crap because, through no fault of my own, I've now got a doorstop sitting in the middle of my home theater and service that I've paid for is not being rendered to me."

The support guy, ever apologetic, agreed.

And now this call has been escalated to "Microsoft Support" and I should hear back sometime today.  Forgive me if I don't have a lot of confidence in that, seeing as how the last call that got escalated has somehow been lost in the ether.

Good going, Xbox DRM people.  Thanks for everything.

UPDATE: The problem was corruption on my hard drive. They ended up sending me a new hard drive.

The new GTA4 trailer (#3) is out and it is awesome.  I can hardly wait for this thing to come out.  As soon as they have a date, I'll have to schedule my time off.

Seems like not long ago, Corillian was acquired by CheckFree.  Now CheckFree's been acquired by Fiserv.  (The deal closed today.)

Good thing I didn't order new business cards.

We put the [fake] Christmas tree up yesterday and decorated the house a bit.  It sort of got that nice, cozy holiday feel to it.

Both of the cats started promptly chewing on the limbs they could reach, in many cases actually swallowing the nylon needles they were able to extract.  While my cat seems more interested in the act of chewing than the actual extraction of needles, Jenn's little wild man seems hell bent on a combination of destruction and consumption.

Woke up this morning and found about eight cat puke spots in various places throughout the house.  Most had nylon tree needles, I'm sure from both cats getting their fill.  Awesome.

To top it off, Jenn's cat decided that it was time, finally, to pee on the new couch we just bought at Ikea.  We know without a doubt it was Jenn's cat this time because there is no way my female cat could have peed all the way up the arm of the couch quite like that.  We had thought that he was just doing that to furniture that didn't smell like him or something, but it seems to be... well, fairly arbitrary.  Again, awesome.

So things are pretty well coming together for a great holiday season.  Granted, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert was a big plus to the start of the season, but now that the good stuff's out of the way, we're getting settled in for a good old-fashioned Griswold family Christmas.  Where's the Tylenol?

Yesterday we went to the Rose Garden to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra in their 2007 tour.

Wow.

I mean, I've seen my share of concerts, but these guys really do it up right.  Lights.  Set pieces.  Fire.  Lasers.  Freaking snow.  Oh, yeah.

Best known for their rock and roll arrangements of classic Christmas music (you've most likely heard "Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24"), TSO puts on a really awesome two-part show.

The first part of the show is their Christmas fare.  They use their music to tell the story of an angel crossing the world looking for something that represents Christmas.  Some of the music is the well-known stuff you've heard on the radio and some of it is original music and lyrics.  I won't lie; I'm not as into the original stuff as I am with the updated arrangements on old standards, but it's all really well done and the story is told very well.

The second part of the show is what they refer to as "play time."  They break away from Christmas music and play other pieces, mainly rock and roll arrangements of other classical tunes.

Let me tell you something:  You have never heard "O Fortuna" or Beethoven's Fifth until you've heard them done by Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  The standard arrangements are, of course, classics, but the TSO versions are invigorating.  Life gets brought back to these pieces in a way it's hard to describe.

What really made the show is that you could tell every one of the performers lives to do this.  They looked like they were having the time of their lives up there on stage, making music, having fun.  You wouldn't imagine you could rock a violin, but Anna Phoebe, their violinist, does it.  Duelling electric guitarists show each other up on stage, the loser slumping his shoulders and pouting his way off stage.  A medley of fast-and-furious piano solos ends up with Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy."  Heads bang, hair is flipped, musicians charge through the audience.  The energy is high and every single one of the performers is almost literally glowing with the fun they're having.

It's a hell of a show.

If you get a chance to check them out, definitely do.  The music on CD is good, but it's nothing compared to the live production.  I'll be there again next year, no question about it.