The 6 Pack Economist

So my alienware computer is now a paper weight in addition I have a feeling my 160gb Ipod is also a paper weight.  So 2600 plus 400 is 3000 thrown down the toilet. 

 I guess I should have stuck with my philosophy on computers get just what you need and throw it out in 3 years when nothing will run on it.  But I thought that for once I will go and get something really really nice.  I play games a lot and most are of the strategy variety and do not really push the graphics too much so I figured that if get something really good now if should last me about 5 years.  In which case the investment would have paid off. Well the first time I really spend money on a piece of electronics it dies in two years.  I did not buy the extended warrenty since I never really had hardware problems that either did not show up in the first year or did not give me trouble till I was ready to replace the thing anyway. 

 So the great alienware turns out to be an overheating piece of junk.  Sure it was able to max out every game I had but now it’s a paper weight because the mother board is shot.  I would buy another motherboard and replace it (it’s a laptop) but these bastards don’t sell them to the regular public.  I have to send it in.   So I am out like 500 bucks and a computer for a month.  And if their message board is any indication of quality of work it will happen again or they will mis-diagnosis the problem.

 As for the ipod I am not sure what is wrong.  I tried to sync it up after a month of not syncing it up and it just froze.  The screen is on but nothing happens.  Will wonders never cease.  And yes I played with the lock and unlock button.  But wonderful apple does not allow anyone to have access to a failsafe on/off button so that is all I can do.

 So I guess I could sell designer Paper Weights on Ebay. 

To see the crap I had to do deal with apples in my life go to here.  If you just want to hear about the ipod crap then read on.

So after a few years of everyone having an Ipod, I finally get one for Christmas.  Mainly my wife wanted something big and so she needed to get me something big.  I would have been happy with a few pairs of pants and an Xbox game or two. 

So I have my brand spanking new 160gb Ipod.  I have two computer with music scattered on both.  Well itunes will only accept songs from one computer if you hook it up to another computer any songs on the ipod that are not on the new computer are deleted.  In addition if you try to use the ipod as a mobile harddrive.  Who has a 160gb of songs anyway.  It craps out.  It must reinstall the os and rewrite the songs to the ipod.  WTF!!!!

I figured it out eventually. I just use the ipod to move all the songs to one computer.  Let it reset and behappy. 

Well the first computer died,  the one with all the songs.  Now I have to move everything over to the back up computer before itunes tries to delete everything.

In addition the ipod has just turned into a 400 paper weight because it is frozen with the screen on.  None of the buttons work and there is no easy way to do a hard reboot of it.  So an old megadeth song is stuck at 13 seconds left to play.  And yes I tried to lock and unlock it, plug it into the wall, plug it into the computer.  Still nothing.

What a great weekend.