As previously noted, my poor Xbox 360 went off into the wild and scary world that is the Microsoft repair center in Texas, someone else’s poor, refurbished 360 was sent to me in its place and all should have been well again.

That is, it was mostly well again except for my XBLA titles, which were still tied to the last console.

Fortunately, it only took 17 minutes on the phone to get it straightened out, even though “getting it straightened out” just meant that they walked me through the license reassignment tool that you’re supposed to use when you BUY another 360, and which I don’t think you’re supposed to have to use when you have another 360 given to you by Microsoft.

This was good timing, since Xbox Live is down today – if I’d gotten the whacky urge to boot up Trigger Heart Exelica or Omega Five, I’d have been severely vexed.

Cripes, I played too much Everquest, I keep trying to type that word up there as “vxed”.

And now I’m consumed by the desire to say “keep trying to tipt that word up there as “vxed”.”

I need help.

Anyway, with my refurbished 360, I have been playing something a little out of character.

See, I have this good friend who keeps trying to get me hooked on two genres: Racing games, and tactical shooters.

This hasn’t worked out too well.  I did play through Rainbow Six: Vegas, but honestly that was helped considerably by the ability to put a snake cam under a door, target two or three bad guys, and tell my squad to go kill them all while I cowered in a corner.

Still, it was a good time spent blowing up stuff in Vegas, and I may even get the sequel once it drops to 20 bucks.

Racing games?  Not at all.  I’m not a Car Guy, so I don’t have the “cars-as-porn” thing going, and I have no clue about racing in Real Life, so there’s no attraction there.

I do occasionally buy hovercraft racing games – you know, Wipeout, F-Zero, even Extreme-G.  These have loud techno soundtracks and shiny graphics, which is all I really need for entertainment.

I play them a little bit and put them away.

The same goes for Daytona USA, which I’ve bought three times so far – on the Saturn when it was released, on the Saturn when they released Daytona CCE, and again on the Dreamcast.  I am Not Any Good at Daytona USA, but it’s a Sega-solidarity thing, really.

I’ve also got Ridge Racer for my PSP.  I don’t know WHY I have Ridge Racer for the PSP other than that it was the Game You Have To Buy With Your PSP, If You Already Have Lumines And Wipeout.  I’m going to blame it on Reiko Nagase.

It comes as something of a surprise, then, to find myself putting in “Flatout: Ultimate Carnage” as my “I don’t know what to do with myself, and I have a free half hour” game.

I’ve just unlocked the last three Cups in the Derby mode, which also unlocked a bunch of new cars, I’ve got $36000 in my virtual-car-spending-account, and if I didn’t have work in the morning, I’d be building myself a new set of wheels and getting down to some serious vehicular mayhem / racing.