I want my damn MP3 player back!!

The BBQ Pit
1

This is going to sink like a stone, but I need to vent.

I work in a lab. I have one or two coworkers I don’t mind talking to, but most of the time I’m on my own or surrounded by people who irritate me. That’s why I bought my Cowan iAudio X5L MP3 player, which I love. Love love love love. I spend my days at work listening to British radio comedy, audio books, documentaries…all kinds of interesting stuff. It makes my day go so much faster and quite handily represses the nonstop urges to kill.

Until, that is, early August of this year. One day I grabbed my player after break and tried to turn it on, and it didn’t respond. It IGNORED me, the hussy! “Hmm,” I thought, “that’s odd.” A few minutes later it turned on just fine and all was well, and I forgot about it. Until it happened again. And again. And again and again and again! It got worse and worse, until finally it almost never turned on.

I contacted the company, who, although it was out of warranty, told me how to send it in to get repaired. It was a difficult separation for me, but I managed to let it go and send it off. Sniff It was like sending your firstborn child off to camp. Or something.

Anyway, they kept it FOREVER. It was two weeks before I heard anything back, and the first communication I got was “It’s on its way back. Here’s the tracking number.” Two days later, I was all aquiver with anticipation. My hands shook and my heart pounded as I opened that sweet brown box on my doorstep. I gently removed my player from the packaging, and nervously reached for the “ON” switch. Nothing. It was dead. FUC…hang on, maybe it just needs to be recharged. So I plug it in. When it’s working right, plugging it in causes the screen to light up and a happy little “CHARGING” display to pop up. This time…nothing. They had fixed absolutely nothing! It had the same damn problem still!! FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!!

I hopped online and sent a, I’m sorry to say, not-very-polite message to Cowan people. Of course, this was a Friday afternoon, so I didn’t hear anything until Monday. To their credit, they were polite and apologetic, and sent me a UPS label so I didn’t have to pay to ship it back the second time. I sent it off again.

They received my baby on September 9th. It is now the 25th. I have heard NOTHING from them, with one exception. I wrote last week asking for an update, and the guy just said, “They’re working on it. These things take time.” Yeah, well, great. Thanks. In the meantime, I have gotten incredibly grouchy at work. When I don’t have anything to focus my mind on (and don’t say I should focus on work, because I hit auto-pilot mode years ago), it tends to find the most recent crap in my life and dwell on it. Over and over and over. It drives me nuts. Gah!

The point is, I’ve been without my MP3 player for WAY too long and I want it back! NOW! GIMME!!

2

I hate to give helpful suggestions in the Pit, but… Have you considered buying yourself a cheap-ass little backup MP3 player, to have for times such as these?

3

Seconded. They sell little 128 or 256mb (can’t remember which) ones in the convenience store by me for $19.95. Granted it’s probably not the greatest, but it would get you through until you get your baby back.

I feel for you. I don’t know how I would ever get through a run or even housework without my little buddy.

4

I hate to bring up a GQ topic in the Pit, but is it true that everytime you masturbate God kills an mp3 player?

5

No, no. It’s “everytime you download an MP3, God masturbates with a kitten.”

6

But if God can do anything can even he masturbate so much that even the kitten gets tired of it?

7

I believe it’s “Every time you download God, a kitten watches you masturbate.”

8

Specifically, this guy.

9

Hey, there’s a nice Asian chick on that site. Don’t let BBS know.

10

The PSNI have had mine since January, how fricking long does it take to dust it for prints, the twat who broke into my car for it is probably out on the streets again :rolleyes:

11

I hate to instigate a philosophical debate in the Pit, but can God create an MP3 file at so low a bit rate that He Himself cannot understand the recording?

12

I’m just about to that point. I’m stressed out beyond belief right now: Our workload has increased literally 500% in the last two years, we’ve added a grand total of ONE new person in that time, and most of that increased stress has fallen on me; I recently got married and acquired a teenage stepson, who, we’ve just discovered, has decided that school doesn’t matter…at ALL; and I’m attempting to cram six years of college back into my head so I can take the GRE subject exam and convince people at some of the best universities in the country that I should be allowed to become one of them.

So, yeah. I could use some soothing at work. I probably would have gone tonight and bought one, but then we remembered that it was parent-teacher conference night. It reduced my wife to tears, and now, three hours later, we’re just about ready to go to bed.

I’ve had better days. Thank Og for the Pit. I needed a good vent.

13

Goodness. You deserve your mp3 player back.

14

Confiscate the stepson’s mp3 player.

15

Then you can pit the stepson’s shitty taste in music.

16

The stepson left his brand new iPod shuffle, which we bought him for his birthday, in his pants pocket when he took his pants down to the laundry. That was last month’s big drama. My wife pulled a disintegrated pair of ear buds out of the dryer and started swearing.

Incidentally, I’m much better now. My baby is being mailed home today, a mere 20 days after they received it. Of course, it remains to be see if it has actually been fixed…

17

That’s what I thought. I mean, you can get half-decent ones now for $50. I wouldn’t even have bothered mailing the thing anywhere to get repaired. They’re practically disposeable already.

18

Dude, I’ve got a Cowon D2 (love it, love it, love it!) and you’re making me nervous with this kind of news

19

For the record, I had to send in my 5 GB Creative Zen Micro in for service. I had it (actually, a 6GB replacement) back within a week. Cowan really does suck in comparison.

20

Well, it’s back. It works. Or, I should say, worked. I dropped it this evening. It won’t boot up any more.