When it rains, it pours.
Okay, so I’m mixing rain metaphors, but so what? They’re both appropriate for what I’m going to write.
And seriously, the fact that I’m actually writing should offset any gripes. ^.^
In my last post (two weeks ago?!? Damn, I am slipping!) I bitched about the idiocy of my ISP. This post isn’t going to be as bitchy, but it is going to have a bit of a “god dammit! What’s gonna go wrong next?” ring to it.
I’m hoping it won’t sound too whiny.
With the previously mentioned ISP woes taken care of, it seemed everything was going well. I’d gotten caught up on the shows I’d missed in my 3 weeks of offline living, downloaded some new games, gotten some new music. Life, in general, was good.
Until last Wednesday.
That was the night I turned on my projector and it made odd noises. Bad, evil, clickery noises. Not only was it making bad noises, but the image was much dimmer than it had been on Tuesday.
Fuck.
My first thought was that the lamp was going bad. but the handy “Replace Lamp” light wasn’t coming on, so I ruled that out. My next guess was dirty air filters, so I swapped out the rear one and cleaned the front one. I even ran the built-in cleaning function.
No change.
Not wanting to screw with things too much, I let it be. It’s still under warranty, and I’ve got all the paperwork to prove that it is, so I arranged to take it into Bic Camera and see what they could do for me. Steve graciously agreed to come along and serve as my translator for the process.We met up at the Bic in Shinjuku (where I’d bought the projector back in February) and headed up to the service counter. A short wait and then we were being helped by a perky little clerk. She asked what was wrong and Steve explained. She plugged it in and powered it up, but was unable to hear the previously mentioned clickery sound.
Probably because we were right underneath a howling air vent.
I pointed this out to Steve (he’d not heard the noise personally, so I explained there was no way this chick was going to hear anything without placing her ear right on the projector housing) and he explained things to the clerk. She got it and went about filling out the paperwork.
Then came the bad news.
She went into this long explanation of service times and holiday seasons and whatnot. All I was able to pick up was “2-3 weeks” which she’d written on a scrap of paper. Not too bad, and I’d probably have it back around the time my vacation kicked off.
If only.
No, it seems that time frame only applied under optimal circumstances. What she’d said was that given the busy time of year, things tended to run slower. Oh, and the first week of January is generally a holiday thing, so don’t expect any speedy results. The bottom line?
At least a month before I get it back.
How’s that for a bucket of suck? Yeah, I can watch stuff I download on my laptop, so that’s not a big deal, but gaming is right out the fucking window. The only possible way I could do any PS2 or Xbox gaming would be to get a VGA upscan converter and hook my systems up to the LCD monitor I’ve been using with the Mac mini.
But do I really want to game on a 15″ screen after using an 80″ one?
Not really. I may still do that if I just have to get my fix, but it looks like it’ll just be PSP and DS for the next month or so.
And then came yesterday’s other rude discovery.
After finally getting an ISO (downloaded game file) to run on my PSP, I plugged it in to charge it up for some commuter gaming. Mmmmm. Dig-Dug on the go!
Or not.
Yes, it seems that in the time I’d not been using it, the PSP’s battery decided it had reached the end of its life. It would not charge.
Shit.
I hadn’t planned on buying a new battery for it, and was kind of hoping to put the points on my Bic card towards an Xbox 360 next weekend.
But with no projector, there’s no point to buying a new console – is there?
So after dealing with the service counter at Bic (and thanking Steve for his help), I went upstairs to the game section and got a new battery. Not that big a deal.
If only the projector situation could be resolved that quickly….