// October 13th, 2009 // 8 Comments » // Uncategorized
Dear gadgets,
I don’t know what I did that was so wrong, but it must have been something horrible to make you hate me so. If I could fix it, I would, because nothing compares to the hell you’ve put me through in the last couple of years.
You’ve made me go through one portable cassette player, two portable CD players, one Game Boy Color, an iPod Nano, two iPod Touches, three iPhone 3Gs, and have made me waste countless hours of my life at the Apple Store trying to get my Mac fixed. Not to mention all the wires I’ve broken throughout the years, both internally and externally. Let’s examine these in more detail, shall we?
Let’s start with you, portable cassette player. I adored you, although I still feel slightly guilty about having a hand in your death. Things were going swimmingly between us until I put a mystery tape into you one day. Things started unravelling, and your little door thingy (?) refused to open. For some reason, I can’t remove the tape, and I’m slightly afraid to. After several years, I’ve come to the conclusion that you two belong together, like some twisted Romeo and Juliet. I never heard what that final tape was.
After the portable cassette player came two shining portable CD players. With the first one, it was love at first sight. It served me well, but it failed to tell me that it was not not water-resistant – how can you have a relationship based on lies? It met its end in a puddle outside my school… After it had been raining, I slipped into a dent in the road that I swear wasn’t there before, and water filled my bag. ;_; Nothing I did could ever make it work again.
Trying to get over my grief, another CD player arrived the next day. I believe this one died peacefully, after a secret terminal illness that it just didn’t feel comfortable telling me about. After six months of service, your buttons just stopped responding. I hope your last six months were tolerable, if not pleasant. Cliff Richard on repeat has a way with other people that makes them want to hurt themselves. Now that I think about it, I don’t blame you, second CD player, for dying completely.
After the sound-related gadgets came the the “Atomic Purple” Game Boy Color. This just fizzled out one day, without any warning. I never really played you, as I’m really bad at computer games, but I mourn you all the same. With a little bit of prodding, I guess I could get you working again, but for reasons unknown/reasons involving a cat, the charger ended up being horribly mutilated, and your battery door cannot be prised open due to an unknown sticky substance.
My gadget pain does not end there. After these failed attempts at using entertainment-related gadgets, I decided to stick to one brand, in the hopes that my loyalty would pay off, and the gadgets would finally love me back. This was not to be. Apple is the company that has put me through so much heartache in the last few years. Thankfully, I have a good insurance policy (yay for Argos!) which means I can trade a gadget in as soon as it breaks.
After a long break from anything electronic, I bought an iPod. You were pretty and silver and I loved you. However, I do get a sense that my love was unrequited. As time went on, you lost your shine, became more and more tempermental with me, freezing your screen and refusing to show up when I plugged you into my computer. Then, one day, you gave in completely, and died whilst I was listening to Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. I like to think that Cathy’s spirit in Wuthering Heights was partly responsible, but I should’ve seen the signs. You were breaking up with me, and had been trying to for a long time.
So, doing the only thing I could do, I exchanged my ex-iPod for a younger model, à la Ronnie Wood. Out of all my toys, I think it’s safe to say that the iPod Touch was my one true love. You taught me basic SSHing skills, showed me how to jailbreak/use applications, and made me become an expert at hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots. I never wanted to part from you, but my excessive hacking of your system made your death come all too soon.
There really isn’t much I can say about the iPod Touch I got as a replacement. It certainly was slimmer than its predecessor, and had this posh Nike + iPod thing, but we never really bonded. I was too scared to jailbreak you, but you slowly withered away too. Screen freezes and frequent losses of data that restoring could not fix were what sealed your fate. I believe this iPod had some life left in it, but I shipped it off to my cousin before he could change his mind. It’s your problem now, sucker! ^_^
With two iPod Touches down the drain, I bought an iPhone. My iPhone history is pretty short; I managed to go through three within the space of a year.
The first one suffered from that lovely affliction called “stuck on loading screen” (yes, I restored and restored, but I think I corrupted one of my backups somewhere along the line, because it never worked).
The second? Well, software-wise, it was fine and dandy. The silent button falling off was what made it go into the Apple Store and never come out again.
Currently, I am on my third iPhone, praying that it doesn’t break before April 2010, when I can finally get an upgrade.
Lastly, the biggest problem I’m having gadget-wise is with my Mac. I got this Mac in November 2008, hoping for better things. Alas, it was not to be. “I’m better than a PC”, my ass. Your battery is fairly dodgy, sometimes only charging up to 90%. Your fan is tempermental, makes a stupidly loud buzzing noise, doesn’t work hard enough meaning the computer overheats within 5 minutes, yet behaves when in the company of an Apple Genius. This means I always look stupid when I complain about the “loud” fan. >.> Thankfully, you haven’t died on me yet, but I’m not holding out much hope.
Overall, I think I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’ll never get on with devices of the electronic variety, even though I’ll always love them like a fat kid loves cake.
What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.
