Bill Gates' keynote presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show didn't quite go according to plan: glitches, including a dreaded "Blue Screen of Death," interrupted the show several times.

Microsoft's chairman, who shared the stage with late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien, kept his cool when Microsoft Media Center crashed during the presentation, and an Xbox displayed the blue screen of death.

As the Xbox went down for the count, the Microsoft executive running that part of the presentation, Garrett Young, said, "This is a little bit of demo karma, sorry, I'm out of system memory apparently. Yeah, so just imagine, if you will, that I was customizing my car and doing some really cool stuff."

O'Brien played to the crowd during the crashes with lines like "right now nine people are being fired," and "Who's in charge of Microsoft? Oh."