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So there you are, deep in the middle of a Call Of Duty online match, when the Xbox 360 freezes and three red rings light up. You know what's happening because your buddy's Xbox 360 did the same thing and it took him a month to send it in and get it repaired. You don't want to wait that long to get back to playing your favorite games, so what do you do?

Can you fix this problem yourself or are you going to have to go through the long process of sending your console back to Microsoft for a repair?

Before sending it back, there are some methods you can try to get you back up and running. Try these before you do anything else.

Turn your Xbox 360 off and then power it back on. Are the lights green or are they red? If they are green you are good to go, but understand that the issue may come back to haunt you sooner or later.

There are four quadrants of lights that try to point to the problem.

If only one light is red, try unplugging the power and all cables from your unit. Plug them back in and check the lights again.

If the second light is red, it is more than likely an overheating issue. Is your Xbox 360 located in a well-ventilated area? If not, try removing from your entertainment center, let it cool for awhile, and then power it back on again.

If all three lights are red, you are looking at a major hardware failure, one that may require the unit to be shipped back to the manufacturer for repair. The process involves calling Microsoft for a "coffin", a shipping box, to send the unit back. That takes a few days, then you ship the console back and wait for your unit to be shipped back to you, a very laborious and boring process.

Don't fear the red ring of death!

If you don't want to ship your Xbox 360 back, try fixing it yourself with this handy guide:

Xbox 360 Repair Guide

AP - A city of brittle stars off the coast of New Zealand, an Antarctic expressway where octopuses ride along in a flow of extra salty water and a carpet of tiny crustaceans on the Gulf of Mexico sea floor are among the wonders discovered by researchers compiling a massive census of marine life.

Halo 3 strategies. You need them. After a few games online, the normal (i.e. non-retarded) player realizes he can't just run around and chase people. This isn't Call of Duty. Halo requires intelligence. Intelligence means strategy.

A successful strategy decides where the majority of battles take place. It forces fights to occur where you want them to. It does not allow battles to regularly happen outside of comfort zones. It does not cover the entire map, either. Essentially, it downsizes the map to half or a quarter. By covering the whole map, your team will be stretched thin, and it becomes to tough to protect and help your teammates. That only leads to disaster.

Successful Halo 3 strategies do not rely on possessing all of the power weapons, because at that point, a strategy isn't really necessary. Your team could just run around with the power weapons and still win. A good strategy is easy to fall into. Finally, a successful strategy is flexible enough to allow for a few deaths without being rendered useless. It does not rely upon each player playing incredibly good.

Once you find a strategy that works, keep it. However, don't worry if your tactics are not impregnable. All the great strategies are, but the other team is very limited in its choices. Also, the strategy is not the dogma of a map. There will be times when, because you've fallen behind, posting up with the strategy will not work as the other team can just hang back. In these cases, disregard the strategy, and form a coordinated attack by rushing and flanking.

As the teams become better, the more complexities are added to the map, simultaneously altering a strategy, if only slightly. For example, if a team has a very skilled sniper, you and your teammates cannot stay in the open for long. You'll be forced to play more conservatively. Just feel comfortable in doing so. Another thing to consider is game variants. The map will obviously play different if the start weapon is BR's instead of assault rifles. And MLG rules totally change the map. Keep this is in mind before applying a strategy. Finally, you need to ask yourself: Is it adaptable? Does it require outrageous skill? Does it make the enemies play at my tempo? These are all important. To see a list of my own Halo 3 strategies, go here

Brendan McCaffery runs a premiere Halo website: Halo Go Pro. It hosts tournaments and contests, and provides expert Halo tips, strategies, and cheats.

AP - China unveiled a $586 billion stimulus package Sunday in its biggest move to inoculate the world's fourth-largest economy against the global financial crisis.

Many of the various bowling information sources suggest that practice will help you improve your bowling game and help you raise your bowling average. They are right, concentrated practice will improve your game.

The kicker is that bowling requires a lot of equipment in order to practice effectively. First you need a bowling lane and pins, a few bowling balls, bowling shoes, etc. Not things available in the typical home.

There is however a readily obtainable way to hone your swing mechanics, spare shooting angles, and strategies without leaving the comfort of your living room.

Enter the Nintendo Wii, one of the newest electronic home game systems on the market and the sports pack of games that comes with it. Included are a few bowling games that can actually give immediate quality feedback for a variety of bowling skills.

Now before you get really excited, this would not be a substitute for learning the game of bowling, you will still need a real bowling alley to learn the basics.

The movements involved with the Wii controller are very close to the actual moves involved in the release of the actual bowling ball, wrist movement is very similar, in order to make a good delivery in the game you have to "release" the ball at the bottom of your swing, this is identical to real bowling. In my opinion the more you play the Wii bowling game, the more smooth and accurate your swing mechanics will become, you will learn more about spare angles and how ball speed and hook affect how the ball hits the pins. These are skills that are transferable to actual bowling.

The scoring functions for the game are accurate and exact, so you get the added benefit of learning how to keep score. Yes I know that most bowling centers offer computerized scoring, however there are times the computers are not working, there are also instances when they are not accurate, knowing how to keep score is still important. You can "bowl" by yourself or against up to 3 other players

Featured in the Wii bowling suite of games is a "billiards" game that has you shooting at a 1 pin spare, then a 2 pin spare, followed by a 3 pin spare and so on, this game does make you think about spare angles, and how the ball hooks and hits the pins. Planning how you are going to make these spares is identical to the planning and ball movement in actual bowling. Also included are an obstacles game and another game that adds a row of pins to each additional frame, getting up to really ridiculous numbers, these 2 game while entertaining do not really depict real world ball movements and are not much use as training devices.

The Wii system, because the controller senses actual body movement is very popular with the younger crowd and is also becoming very popular with older people, now being used in many retirement or nursing homes as a way to keep seniors active.

Jim Newell is the publisher of http://www.BowlingInfo101.com "Start here...To Improve your Game!"

More expert information about the sport of ten pin bowling on our website http://www.BowlingInfo101.com

AP - Gov. Sarah Palin denounced anonymous criticisms leveled at her by former John McCain aides as lies, including allegations that Republican lawyers were traveling to Alaska to reclaim her high-priced wardrobe and that she didn't know Africa was a continent.