Most of the "hacking" is done via social engineering, not at some server farm chipping away at your password until it reveals it's actually "password" or "asdf." Xbox Live chat and customer support reps are just as efficient hacking methods. Fortunately, Hsu's loss and aggravation is your gain. He provide seven handy tips for shielding your account from hacker harm, a must read if you're new to the Xbox Live subscription game.

Hacked on Xbox 360: A Victim's Tale [IGN]

His darkest moments included emergency surgery on his tail bone (I'm not making that up), a computer freaking out on him at E3 and a power-outage at the Game Developers Conference.

Check it out, it gives you a taste of the life of luxury that is the solo game reporter's lot. Oh and he even hat tips my horrid E3 experience:

The next day, I trucked my tale of woe back to E3. Kotaku's Brian Crecente nodded and smiled. He told me that on the Gates day, he left a pen on his laptop keyboard, then slammed his computer shut. His screen cracked and he had to buy a new machine. I stopped telling people my story. He won.

Brian Crecente

Multiplayer: The Year's Darkest Moments Of Video Game Reporting [MTV]