Appliance adventures

0810 iron
Originally uploaded by rooruu

Part 1

The picture is the easy one, in recent Adventures in the World of Appliances.

Old iron:thermostat dicky. Result: things melt. Not good. Consequence: need new iron. Thoughts in advance: nonstick surface on iron (old iron had stainless steel) and hmmm, how much is auto cut off, because when you're quilting you sometimes do leave it on a long time and don't always remember....

Solution: toddle off to shopping centre, comparison shop between a department store and two discount department stores, and luck into this one at 50% off in a catalogue sale - with teflon and auto cut off. I do like ludicrous discounts on decent quality items.

The auto cut off is tripped after 30 seconds of horizontal inaction and 15 minutes of vertical inaction. Remains to be seen if that beep becomes an annoyance, but it is safer.

Part 2.

Buy a refurbished iPod nano for carting about in the car and handbag with audiobooks on it. Refurb section of Apple site has confidence-building phrases like "stringently checked" and "quality control" and so forth.

iPod arrives. Connect to computer. Nothing happens. No battery charging, nothing on the screen, nothing at all. Connect to a separate dock. Still nothing.

Ring Apple tech support. Tech support guy suggests three things, none work, pronounces it DOA (that would be Dead On Arrival, they have a readymade term for this when they're selling stringently checked and quality controlled goods?).

Transfer to another phone operator. They expect that someone will be At Home for a whole day for pickup of DOA nano, and At Home for another whole day for delivery of replacement nano. Nope. This holiday's not long enough to be trapped at home for Apple's convenience for two whole days.

Transfer to supervisor for discussion of Plan B, connected to Friday's visit to the city. Plan B is finally worked out, and supervisor throws in a free nano case. O-kay. Supervisor says he will personally check that the replacement works.

Friday: exchange occurs.

Friday night: replacement unit connected to computer. It wants to know if I speak English, but my computer (Windows) doesn't recognise it as any kind of known hardware. Greaaaaaat! Is that steam coming out my ears? Stringent, quality-controlled steam?

Monday: Supervisor says oh, you have a Windows computer? I forgot to check that - I tested it on an Mac. Transferred to technician, who guides me through a restoration of the operating system on the iPod to Windows.

Eventually, iPod works as it should. Sigh. I've had a long term love/hate relationship with Apple and Mac and iPods. When they're good, they are fine, but when they're bad, throwing them at a brick wall is too good for them. The computer I've hated the most, ever, was a Mac (not one that I owned, but one that I had to use at a place where I was doing volunteer work on computer).

Did I tell you that the iron worked just fine, right out of the box?