Classic Moments in Stoopidity, Volume 3: Gamestop

I know, I know. It's been an insanely long time since I've blogged. I could chalk it up to one of the following reasons:

* Insane workload
* Lack of creative inspiration
* Bubonic plague

Instead, let's just be honest and attribute it to laziness (though in fairness, my schedule has been nuts, my creative juices have been nil, and I have a sneaking suspicion my recent bout of Bronchitis is somehow plague-related).

Also, I have to be completely frank here...nobody has really said or done anything incredibly stupid in the past month-and-a-half, which has concurrently rendered me joyed and disheartened. Joyed, because it gave me some hope for the world. Disheartened, because it left me with no blog fodder for almost two months...

Until yesterday.

See, I bought a refurbished XBox from Gamestop.com last week, which included a used copy of Halo. I subsquently learned a very powerful lesson: never buy a refurbished video game system with a used copy of Halo online. Under a delusional fantasy that "refurbished" means "it works now", I quickly discovered quite the opposite to be true. Seven games, three controllers, and 173 obscenities later, it was time to face the harsh reality that this was not one of my wiser purchasing decisions.

So I decided to call said sellers of faulty hardware and ask for a refund. After quickly discovering that Gamestop hires from the same employment pool as Dell and AOL (draw your own conclusions about what that means), I was given a relatively no-hassle solution; I could simply send the XBox back via prepaid FedEx and receive a full refund. But of course, the rep just had to ask me a question that would force me to use valuable work time to blog about it:

"Would you at least like to keep the game?"

Feel free to take a few seconds to process that question. I'll even help you along in your mental journey...

Dan buys XBox and game...
Dan attempts to play XBox with game. No workie...
Dan attempts to play XBox with six other games. Still no workie...
Dan attempts to return XBox, thus no longer necessitating ownership of any XBox games or accessories...
Man from certain Asian country asks Dan if he would like to return XBox, yet keep game that is incompatible with any other system...
Dan's head goes boom...
Dan shares with you...
Your head goes boom.

Now go clean up your cranial mess.

Until next time...
Dan