my shit ain’t workin
i never used to care about warranties when i bought stuff, because things never broke…maybe i was just lucky, who knows, but i’m starting to think differently now that a bunch of my gadgets are falling apart:
* my sony digital camera was all jacked up after burning man (ok, this one was my fault). playa dust got all over and inside it and i assume that’s not so good for electronic circuitry. it’s still under the Sony warranty so i just took it to an authorized repair center and they fixed it for free. i also bought it with my American Express card, which doubles the manufacturer warranty. i need to sit down and organize all my warranty information.
* the firewire port on my original ipod stopped working. it still works and plays music just fine - i just can’t put new music on it. apparently this is a design defect (like the batteries that wear out after a few years). sent it to an online repair shop (pdasmart.com) to fix for $55.
* the video card on my desktop pc is displaying corrupted video. it was the top-o-the-line card a year or two ago (ATI All-in-Wonder 9700 Pro), and i discovered one day that my computer air vents were totally clogged with dust. something must have fried. it’s taken me literally several days of troubleshooting to figure out if it’s the video card, motherboard, cpu, bios, or drivers that were causing the problem. just mailed it back to ATI - hopefully they’ll fix it for free.
* my dvd burner just up and stopped working. it was a few months old, and i sent it back to newegg.com where i bought it. they’re offering to replace it with a newer model or refund about 2/3 the price. not sure what i’m gonna do, as d* just gave me a new burner for free.
what’s weird is that all this shit is broken NOW (except my dig cam which is fixed).