enamoured | Zunepocalypse? Z2K9? Zunicide?

About an hour ago there were a few articles on Google News about the meltdown. Now there's a ton of 'em.

30GB Zune apocalypse arrives as devices enter digital coma (Updated)

Around midnight Pacific time last night, 30GB Zunes began restarting and locking up at their boot screens. Reports have swamped official forums and fan sites, and Microsoft has yet to officially comment on the reason for this pre-New-Year's Zune apocalypse.

As reported by hundreds of owners in forum threads at Zune.net and other sites, one of which already has over 1,000 replies, the 30GB model of Microsoft's Zune digital media player—and apparently only the 30GB model—entered a coma last night. Whether a Zune was sitting idle or was in the middle of playing a song, users report that the device either shut itself off or restarted and then locked up at its boot screen.

"i was on the computer my zune was hooked up charging all of the sudden it reset it self and froze on the zune loading logo screen !!!" said ISUZU RODEO on the Zune.net forums. "Same thing just happened to me!" replied momogirl. "Except mine wasn't hooked up to the computer, I was playing music and all of sudden the music stopped and it shut off. I turned the Zune back on and it loaded to 100% but then froze and none of the reset combinations are working."

The thread they are referencing is the one that made me realize that what happened with mine wasn't an isolated incident. But then that article gets really interesting:

Some accounts claim that this does not happen on 30GB Zunes that run firmware previous to the 3.1 release in November, but one such Zune with 3.0 firmware in the Ars Orbiting HQ has locked up like the rest. Another staff member with an 80GB Zune, however, is still rocking out to the social, and a third staffer has no problems with either 120GB or 8GB models.

Hrrrrrrm. Gizmodo talks about it here.

Arrrrrrgh. LIKE 2008 HASN'T SUCKED ENOUGH, ONE LAST THING HAS TO SNEAK IN TO BE FURTHER SUCKTACULAR.