well thanks for your mostly supportive comments. I have to be able to play my ps3 games, during my month off from school, before I go back to studying all day every day. Dark souls and Skyrim are calling to me, I guess its off to Best Buy to get a new one.

But first, how do you get a game out of a ps3 that has YLOD? Skyrim is being held hostage inside.

I saw this promotion. Seems like a good deal if you are willing to wait a bit to play

http://www.goozernation.com/video-games/index.php/news/1245-trade-in-your-broken-ps3-for-and-upgrade-to-a-120gb-ps3-for-99

Well if you plan on throwing that PS3 away after you get the game the answer is simple.

Rip that PS3 in half and forcibly take Skyrim away from it and then burn it or something because that's what your supposed to do with consoles that are worthless and have the audacity to die on you.

well I did the responsible thing and took Sony's deal. They are going to send me a new 160GB for $99, instead of just going out and buying a new one for $250. It sucks though I'm going to miss two weeks of prime video game time, when I don't have any classes. I still curse skyrim for killing one of the few launch 60GB left,(even though I'm still going to play it for hundreds of hours). You will be missed!!

I think its like $150 to send it to Sony and get it fixed.(but it could get the YLOD again in a few months)
$99 for a new Slim.

A smart person would choose the $99 slim.(I'm not smart.)

it is impossible for a game to break a console.
the only way this is possible is if the game tells your PS3 or other console to overwork itself, the only way this could happen is if the disk is differnt from the others
the PS3 and all other consoles is designed to have a auto-shut down in the case of over heating
the game did NOT break your ps3, your ps3 was going to break anyway or was on its last leg, or the fan could have been jammed or bad airflow.

in case people quote the 360 RROD, its not overheating exactly. RROD was the motherboard not being bolted properly, when the motherboard got hot it would expand, then it would cool down and contract, this broke circuits in the motherboard, thus hardware failure that is why the fix for RROD includes bolting the motherboard to the metal case of the xbox.

However Skyrim has been causing problems on many people's PS3.

For example lagging and freezing and no game does that on the PS3.

Well that's not even remotely true at all.

skyrim lags on PS3 because of the poor ram architecture of the PS3. in fact, many of the issues plaguing the PS3 are because of its design in general.
why do you think the original xbox was such a hit when it released with developers? it was easy to make good games. the 360 followed this path, PS3 got worse.
this is one of the reasons the wii-u MIGHT have good 3rd party support it is supposed to be the most dev-friendly console ever created.

NiKKoM, dude I'm laughing my ass off right now. Sorry the OP's loss, thankful for the humorous NiKKoM post.