I am about to enter the final week of an almost month long business trip to Oregon. That’s one month without Xbox Live. As sad as it sounds, I actually brought my 360 with me on the trip! Sadly, that wasn’t enough to get me online. Here is my (slightly boring) story.

I looked up the hotel I’m staying out and found out they have flatscreens in the room. I got excited. Since my wife and I just moved into a new place, and have yet to purchase a projector/TV for the Xbox, I knew she wouldn’t be using it (She’s a Guitar Hero goddess. Seriously.), I decided to take it with me. That, and I bought her Pokemon Diamond for her birthday, so I’m sure she’ll be occupied with that for the next, oh… several years.

So I got to my hotel room to find a 30″ screen - with HD inputs on the back! Hooked up my 360, and to my utter dismay, found out the output button didn’t work! I’m thinking that maybe it was just defective, so I asked the front desk. “Actually, we get the TVs without an input button directly from the factory because it’s cheaper.” HUH!? Having an input button costs more money? Like 2 cents?! Ok ok, so my gears started turning… maybe it’s just the BUTTON that’s gone, but what if I buy a universal remote? One $30 trip to Radio Shack later, I had the remote. I tuned it to the TV, hit input, and NOTHING.

At this point I’m more than disappointed. So as a last ditch effort I whipped out my iPhone and did a search for Best Buy… there’s one 2 miles away! Success! 45 minutes later, and I had myself a 20″ sharp flat screen hooked up to my Xbox, and it worked! Oh wait… one more problem… the network test won’t pass the MTU setting!!! After hours of work and trying to hack into the hotel router to change that one stupid number, I resorted to playing an hour or so of Castle Crashers before losing interest.

I haven’t played the 360 since. I am now realizing how important Xbox Live is to my gaming experience. I really don’t enjoy playing games anymore by myself. The last non-Halo game I remember playing all the way through was probably Psychonaughts (bought it from XBL… awesome game). Anyone else out there with me? I play with friends and family online so much, that when XBL isn’t available I feel kinda empty and lame playing on my own. Just some thoughts for you 4 people who will read this.

Oh yeah, and the flatscreen? I’ll certainly be returning it to BestBuy within 30 days, because the ghosting is just too much to handle. Yeah that’s it…