Xbox burn - the power cord recall

this story made me think of my recent burn: "Microsoft recalls Xbox console cords Fire risk cited in recall covering 14 million machines "

I may not have been affected by this power cord issues, but I have been burned lately. I would have had to have replaced my xbox cord -- except... it was stolen.

my wife and I recently went snowboarding on whistler mountain. when we returned, we were shocked to find that our apartment had been burglarized. although it sucks, it could have been far worse; we were fortunate for two reasons:

1. I had just seen a news story about robberies. the program featured a montage of cops saying over and over again, "you need to record your serial numbers". because of this program, I had the serial numbers of the stolen items. this is key because the police recover a great deal of stolen property but they frequently have no way to place the goods.

2. the thief - possibly scared off by our alarm -- actually didn't take very much. most of the stolen items were xbox accessories.

we were confused when we looked around the apartment and found items that we would expect to have been taken. for example, my wife's palm was in plain view. however, when we spoke to the police, we learned that the people who commit these smash and grab B&Es are a strange lot. there have even been cases where they have left behind cash.

there were some sentimental things stolen -- that's the most frustrating part. even after the $1500 insurance claim, we can't just replace everything. the xbox taken was a 'ship gift' from MS. our team received them when i worked on microsoft content management server (mcms). it had been signed by the mcms team and the xbox.com web team.

so the moral of this story is record all your serial numbers. it also helps to keep your receipts and take pictures so that you can file a straightforward insurance claim.