Twisted Straight - XBoxes cause hell to freeze over

Disgruntled users have filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft for releasing XBoxes that consistently froze due to overheating. "It's annoying - I'll be right about to win the golden chalice of Smeagol when zap - my system would freeze up completely," said Poindexter Vegamer of Halo, Nevada. "It only takes a few hours for the system to overheat and cause the freeze."

The Association of Science Teachers of America have filed a brief in the lawsuit as well, stating that the XBox has set back science education by decades. "How do you expect us to teach that cooling causes freezing and heating causes burning when Microsoft is irresponsibly shipping a machine where heating causes freezing?" said attorneys for the association.

Reports that numerous fires have been started by burning XBoxes have been vehemently denied by Microsoft spokesmen. "There is no evidence at all that there have been any cases of radiation leaking from the small nuclear reactor in each XBox," stated Ed Wagstrom from Microsoft's public relations firm. Shortly thereafter Mr. Wagstrom was fired and replaced by a new spokesman who stated "There is no evidence at all that there is a small nuclear reactor in each XBox, or that XBoxes overheat, or that the XBox has anything to do with recent events in the netherworld."


	Rare photo of an XBox belonging to a sixth degree demon in the process of freezing over due to the burning fires of hell.

The final observation is believed to be in reference to reports among clergy of all faiths who have begun to report on a major upheaval in hell. "Hell has frozen over," announced the Reverent Joyce N. Rapture of Faith, Arkansas. "We are convinced that this has occurred entirely because of defects in the thousands of XBox machines that were shipped to Hell, which as any Windows users knows is one of Microsoft's major customers and, in fact, the location of one of their major software development centers. Those machines, when operated for several hours in the intense heat of the underworld, froze so rapidly and so intensely that the effects spread until everything in sight was frozen solid."

Scientists world wide refused to dismiss out of hand the possibility that this has occurred. "How else can we explain the unusual events in recent days?" said Arthur Carty, National Science Advisor for Canada. "The arrival of the Hindenberg and Titanic, Visits from alien beings whose sole intent is to hand out chocolate cupcakes, and the discovery of a huge cache of nuclear weapons in Iraq - these could not have possibly happened had hell not frozen over."

Many individuals have expressed concern that these events might lead to the rise of Satan and his domination over the entire world, however the media, clergy and government were quick to address their fears by releasing the following official statement from Satan:"I wish to assure the people of earth that I have absolutely no interest in returning or in any way dominating earth. Earth domination is already being handled perfectly well by my friends at Microsoft, and I am confident in their ability to continue with their fine work."

Commentary

Managing heat dissipation is one of the less exciting but critical design issues in any computer system (and the XBox 360 is certainly a computer system). Did Microsoft cut corners in this area, or is this just the typical failure rate common in any complex technology product? We may never know. What we do know is that if Microsoft has any sense at all they will immediately offer replacement machines to anyone who runs into what they believe to be this problem. If they don't, they may end up giving the product a black eye it will never recover from.