Some newbie Xbox 360 questions.?

[tim Yong]

So I've owned a PS3 Slim for a year now, and I plan on getting a Xbox 360 Slim 250gb.

I wanna know what's the difference between the normal and elite version? (Is there even an elite version for the slim? lol)

I've heard of the "Red Ring of Death", does it overheat that bad that it kills the 360?

And if I put my 360 vertical, won't the disc fall? I mean how do they make the disc "stick" to the slider?

Also I wanna know more about the Xbox Live subscription. Do I just pay every year to play online? Or is there other more features to it?

Does everything come in the package? Or do I need to buy additional stuffs like cables, etc. (I know HDMI doesn't come with it). What else do I need?

I guess that's about it, do tell more about the Xbox that I might not know about.
Any info is much appreciated and sorry if my english is bad.

No fanboy answers please, I love my PS3 a lot, just wanna try out the 360.

(I asked this in Consumer Electronics but it doesn't seem very active there.)