Just a reminder that come Monday, Live goes dead for 24 hours. Meantime Microsoft is larding up the weekend with a bunch of Play & Win sweepstakes. We've already mentioned the GTA IV Live Weekend, but there's also a raft of prizes being offered for Madden 09, NCAA 09, and NASCAR 09 — and, if I'm reading it right — if you go put some T-Mobile advertisement on your gamer picture and play Lego Batman, you can be entered to win some shit there, too. Then the power outrage strikes at 12:01 AM PDT Monday. This won't deliver the new Xbox Live dashboard, it's just "in preparation" for its arrival.

Calendar of Events — Play & Win [Xbox.com]

Send an email to the author of this post at owen@kotaku.com.