The Japahawaiian, I am gonna assume your in Hawaii, and I will also assume your on Road Runner Cable Internet right? That may be your main problem right there, have you ever played a FPS and looked at your ping times? ( i have 2 personal friends that live over there and they sometimes lag out, at the same time, and they live on opposite sides of the island) Firstly call them up and have them check everything out, then look in to other options for internet.
Now for the chance it isn't your internet access try going in to your dash board and changing your DNS numbers to:
4.2.2.1
4.2.2.2
Then if you tried that and your still having problems try to connect your xbox directly to your modem (should have had you do that first).
Now if you lag out then you know its not you, its your ISP and (the way I see it), and you pay them every month and they should come and fix it.
Tell them that your having high packet loss, High pings over 150MS and they should at least to a truck role, DO NOT TAKE "Oh well your signals look good" because that is them saying "F**K YOU WE GOT YOUR MONEY HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
Lastly if you do file sharing you may be caped so there is something for you to keep in mind.
P.S. if you want to try port forwarding then go here.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908874
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Neoistheone on 2008-03-14 11:58 ]</font>