My Xbox 360 just arrived at the repair center in Mesquite TX this evening. I came home from vacation Sunday, started it up and got one red blinking light (hardware failure) and an "E 73" error (the ethernet port). According to my pet sitter it first happened last week when she started the Xbox; the next day it worked fine, then it always gave the error. I had unplugged the ethernet cable before I left. This Xbox was a Falcon Elite manufactured October 23, 2007 and purchased (new) December 28, 2007. Less than 300 days of casual usage, it's dead.

A while back I bought a second Elite to get my wife off of my Xbox, so I was still able to play the last three acts of Gears of War (first time for me) with Sithisis (more about that later).

Mesquite! That's rather close to me and I drive through a part of it on the way to work. Bummer your Box had to visit there though.

That James guy is all about the Gears. You best watch out for him though, he makes funny decisions.

Man, that sucks.  At least you had a spare one to use.  Hope yours is running again soon.  I'm on my second system now.  It's lasted over a year now and I play it quite a bit.  Crossing my fingers!

Did you like Gears?  I'm not all that into it.

@jimb0: I just ripped through Mesquite twice in the last two weeks on my way from Austin to East Tennessee. The repair center (or at least the receiving location) is here BTW.

I played Gears all by myself initially, and then what seemed like several years later, I played the first few acts with James and that was a lot more fun, even though I'm still not a fan of the game.  I don't like any kind of competitve multiplayer so my experience with that in Gears was not fun at all.