Sony is going to repair my PS2 for free! It’s 6 - 8 months out of warranty, but last night when I called to ask questions about the repair, I learned that this type of Disk Read Error is a very common problem so they're treating it as a ‘fee waived’ repair. They issued a service ticket number for me; all I have to do is fill out a form and ship it to them. I do pay for shipping although Sony will ship it back free, repaired and with a new 90-day warranty. So it turned out as well as could be hoped, although I wish it hadn’t broken at all - I was at a crucial moment in Final Fantasy X. I want to finish FFX so I can start FFX-2; I’ve had FFX-2 since the summer but I’ve only watched the opening sequence. I want to finish part one before I see what happens in part two. And *impatient sigh* now I have to wait for 7 - 10 WHOLE business days AFTER they get it (which will be tomorrow because I sent it FedEx). On the positive side, 10 years or so from now, I'll be able to sneer in a crotchety voice to Nancy's son Anthony, "Eh, sonny, you kids nowadays just don't know how good you've got it. Back in MY day we had to wait seven to ten days to get our Playstations repaired, AND we had to pay for shipping AND shipping took a whole day EACH DIRECTION!"

The security system is fixed. Apparently a squirrel had gnawed through a wire, which explains how it managed to malfunction without anyone touching a thing. I own a ‘squirrelaway’ machine that makes horrible, high-pitched sounds to drive critters away, but I haven’t used it in some time as I haven’t heard or seen any evidence of an infestation. Come to think of it, Cheryl gave Sprocket a squirrel for Christmas - I thought it was a stuffed toy but he’s obviously fooled us and been active while we slumbered. Stupid rodent.

MONTOYA DELENDA EST!