Be warned, Gears of War freaks: Xbox Live will be a no-go for about 14 hours starting (very) early tomorrow morning, shortly after midnight.  The absence of service will continue until at least 2pm the next day, meaning you might as well go about looking for a job. 

All official times are Pacific, meaning east coasters can expect the fixes to take place between 3am and 5pm the next afternoon.

Why the blackout?

Don’t worry, it’s all planned.  According to Microsoft, the 14 hour delay has been scheduled to make necessary upgrades to the Xbox Live service. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound as if anything will be drastically improved for the end user, so far as added features.  Although Live’s director of programming Larry Hryb (otherwise known as “Major Nelson”) has indicated that a new dashboard system will be implemented sometime this spring – the immediate 14 hour online multiplayer purgatory isn’t it.