fbpx

Tech Curse

I have a curse upon me.

No really, I do.

I’m not sure when it started, I’m not sure why I was chosen, but a curse I do have and it is something I expect to continue for the foreseeable future. It’s not all that bad actually, and it’s consistent, so I know what to expect.

You see, whenever I buy something that is techy (TV, PC Parts, Cameras, Audio gear, you name it) I will end up, if it exists, with the one defective item in stock.

I first noticed the curse when I started building computers in 1995. Every order would have something that would need to be RMA’d. A hard drive with bad sectors, RAM that would fail burn-in, video cards that would arrive DOA, you can get the point. Back then I was building a new machine every 12-15 months, so I became intimately familiar with the RMA department at the place I would buy from.

At first I thought it was just bad practice on my part, but after buying consumer electronics I started to see the same pattern. Things would be broken, in sometimes odd and obscure ways. Items would fail within days forcing me to make a return. It was, almost, random, but a pattern started to emerge.

Being a guy grounded in critical thinking ideas I devised a method to test this. I had my wife (at the time) buy everything electronic for us instead. Nothing failed.

Not a single thing.

After we split up I was promptly hit with the curse again. Video cards, bike computers, and a 46″ TV (half the screen was shaded green). I was back in the habit of keeping boxes and receipts for the length of a warranty. Just in case.

And today I find the latest thing to be hit by the curse. I recently picked up a new camera, a Canon SL1, and upon closer inspection I noticed a little itty bitty mark deep inside on one of the elements in the zoom lens. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be there or not, it was almost dead center and looked like an arrow, but I wanted to be sure. The curse and all. Turns out it’s bad and they replaced it no questions asked.

It’s probably time to get Iris to buy all the gadgets now.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.