I don't know what a gamer point is, but how am I supposed to get them when xbox live is always down?

wah wah, cry more, n00b.

(You get them from accomplishing various objectives and challenges in games. They can either be in SP or MP.)

Also, I don't know if anyone has mentioned this so far, but my Xbox 360 came with an ethernet cable. I recall having trouble with my original Xbox when I tried connecting it to other Xboxes with anything but the proprietary Microsoft XBox ethernet cable. Maybe this could be part of your problem (in addition to widespread Xbox Live! lameness)?

That was because directly connecting two xboxes required a crossover cable, which is what the overpriced MS branded one was. Really has nothing to do with his problem (especially since the 360's network port is autosensing).

Well, the games I played through are all on a local (non-xbox-live) user account. Why would I want to use an xbox live user account, so everyone else can see that I beat level 3 of halo 3 or something? Seems really pointless. I seriously don't get this whole xbox live thing, either they're still having problems or I'm a complete idiot, because nothing works right. I got two friends requests and I can't accept them. Isn't this supposed to be brainless am or I missing something? This whole experience makes me want to put linux on my xbox -- damn thing reminds me of why I never use windows anymore.