WAITING FOR OUR PS3 IN HILO

We took our broken Xbox 360 to GameStop in Hilo this week to trade it in for PS3 credit. Despite it being broken, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console still had trade-in value.

Playing video games is part of our family fun and so we were discouraged by how quickly our Xbox 360 failed with a ring of light on the front of the box flashing red. This apparently unfixable problem of Microsoft’s caused by overheating and poor manufacturing is known as “the red ring of death”. This was a big change from the sturdy original Xbox that outlasted our interest allowing us to give it to another family. Fortunately our investment in Xbox 360 games and peripherals retained some value making it easier for us to switch to Sony’s new PS3 160Gig console.

GameStop has a deal where if you trade in more than 5 games at a time, you get 30% more in trade-in credit. Luckily they had the specific PS3 games we wanted so we traded credit for games.

Now all we need is the PS3 to arrive from Sony, and for Christmas to come, so we can enjoy the latest in graphics and gaming entertainment.

We use to live in Silicon Valley where new techie toys were the rage and often on sale months before the rest of the country saw them in their stores. Now that we live in Hilo we usually order online from places like BestBuy.com and SonyStyle to get computers, games, and hard to find videos.

We use to be big chess players and have long drawn out Magic card games. The drawback was that only one player won those games and the rest of us lost. Games on the computer can be set to play at our level and if it beats us, it won’t brag about it and if we beat it, it won’t be disappointed. Game consoles have reached the point where it feels more like being in a movie with other actors while traversing incredible scenery. With game consoles we can save the world as a team creating a feeling of camaraderie and a happy shared experience.

It might seem odd that laid-back people working toward sustainability would like computer games and game consoles, but we find that the intellectual stimulation of testing our wits against a computer keeps our minds sharp.