as of 1035pm January 6, 2008 my XBox is now online! after much promtping from Earl, i got an XBox Live prepaid subscription card that's good for 12 months plus 1 month free. while the purchase of a 360 allows you to access some online content through the XBox Live Silver membership, there are a lot more things you can do with a Gold membership which can be upgraded via credit card or prepaid subscriptions, the latter being cheaper and more convenient.
online games and rankings are only allowed in the Gold membership and that was one of the main reasons i chose the XBox over the Playstation 3, since before the 360 was released, Microsoft has been steadily improving the online content and games usable on their system, the next-generation console allows so much more. you can now download movies in standard-definition or even high-definition, good thing i got the XBox with the 120gig hard drive, my brother Ron also set it up so it can access the download server we have at home so that it can stream movies in high-def without having to copy the files over to the HD media server we have here, its so nice to have an online household.
i was also able to download game demos and trial versions so that i'll know what are worth buying in the future. i got Lumines Live for Rej since she's so into puzzle games and has been playing on my PSP more often than i do.

last night, i had some trouble registering the prepaid subscription card that i bought so i called my 24 hour XBox tech support service Earl, he walked me through the process and by 11pm we were online with some of his friends playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which is so much fun to play against living, breathing, thinking & cursing players heheheh
i also tried Halo 3 online and got second place in a 4 man beginner deathmatch, i'm currently playing the Halo 3 campaign online so anyone can join me in Finishing the Fight.

next-gen consoles and games have so much possibilities that its initially overwhelming when you want to try everything. good thing i can also enjoy the little things like looking down the scope of my rifle and squeezing the trigger then you hear a resounding POP as your online opponent's brains are splattered all over the wall he was hiding behind. stress relief anyone?

P.S.: if anyone out there is on XBox Live, look for my gamertag: TK1330