This past 4th of July festivities brought the much anticipated (and much needed) 3-day weekend. It almost made watching the boring fireworks spectacle bearable. Ok, I’m kidding. I only had to watch 5 minutes of it on my roof and then moseyed back down to my apartment. Definitely the way to go.

Anyway, I was really looking forward to the three day weekend because I had a shit of work to do. You know, video games, NBA Sim, music, Netflix: important stuff. Unfortunately, I had a mini scare! I had just settled down Saturday afternoon to put in a little time with my new copy of Ninja Gaiden Sigma (infamous for being one of the hardest games programmed in the past decade) when my PS3 just shut off! Instead of watching my ninja character stealthily decapitate foes, I was suddenly staring at a “cable disconnected” error on my tv.

After some research online I discovered it was, indeed, the dreaded YLoD (yellow light of death) ! I’m guessing that it was an overheating problem as the last couple months the machine was running really loudly … good thing I didn’t think to do anything about that! Plus, it was on the ground and Tito’s fur was probably clogging up vents. I was beside myself – what would I now do with multiple days free and no video games to play?!

My options seemed terrible. Basically, I would have to pay $150 if I was going to attempt to get my broken console fixed by Sony and it would take about a month to get it back. There was no way I was going to wait that long! I could try getting it fixed at a third party location, but that would require a ton of research plus a wait and cost that were comparable to getting it fixed by Sony. Then, I figured, if I could find an awesome deal on a new PS3 … one at a hair more money than the $150 fix fee, than it seemed like a good buy.

So I started scrambling. Within hours of the dead machine I had e-commerce sites up, eBay and Amazon a-runnin’, and began to scour craigslist for a replacement. An hour later I had my man: a guy right on the Upper East Side was selling off his brand new PS3 and 2 games (Resident Evil 5 and Army of Two) for $300. I told him I’d pay for the PS3 but wasn’t interested the game and offered $275 to take everything off his hands. The fool fell for it!

We made the exchange at a Starbucks in-between us and now I’m the proud papa of a spankin’ new PS3 120GB slim! This baby runs cooler, is smaller in size and larger in capacity than my old beast. Plus, I’m going to sell one of the games that I have no intention of playing for 100% pure profit! And the other game, which is on my vast list of games to play, I essentially bought for $12.50! The guy obviously didn’t care about his PS3 as he left all the online games, music, and movies that he purchased with his online account still on the machine so I am also the proud owner of a lot of bad rap and action movies!

Huzzah!

Current Mood: Awesome