I feel a little bad, but I really shouldn’t.

In June I ordered a new hard drive and an external case for it to shift all my music onto. The case was $95. I bought it off eBay (new, from a retailer) and it was shipped from somewhere near Sydney.

Three months later, the thing turned off and refused to turn on again. These cases are notoriously bad quality, supplied with (what I assume) is a cheap or inappropriate power supply unit. I packaged it up and sent it back with a note requesting a refund, explaining the problem.

It wasn’t until a week later, after an inquisitive email that I finally hear confirmation that it arrived at the store. The person who emailed me described very vaguely (and slightly contradictory) that it was going to be checked over and then sent on (or something…). But I asked for a refund? Oh, well, as long as I get a replacement. When that one dies, then I’ll kick up a stink.

This all happened the same time I my MacBook was in Apple Purgatory, so I didn’t think much of it, focusing my anger on Apple. A month passed and I emailed again, but didn’t receive a reply. A few more emails were sent, but never got any reply. The second last email I sent said something to the effect of “Before I take this further…”. Still, nothing. Do they need to hear the words? Obviously, yes.

Today I sent off a fax and email at the same time, outlining very clearly my rights to a refund, and stating explictly the magic words in any customer relations battle… Department of Fair Trading. I also said I was sorry it had come to this, but they had given me no choice (hrm, maybe a little too Ian Roberts)

What do you know, just now an email has come through with word of a PayPal payment of $95. Shame they hadn’t just replied to a few emails and saved themselves the loss.

Don’t forget to watch Naomi tomorrow night for the full story.

This evening I was lamenting my dire photographic situation to Jake. Firstly, without my mac, my iPhoto library is useless, so I’m on photographic hiatus for the time being. Secondly, my trusted camera, the Canon A60 (rating in at a now embarassing 2 megapixels), is on it’s last legs, giving me the dreaded E18 error more often, and inserting some pretty impressive streaking effects across my photos. Lastly, my Flickr account has only hours left of retaining it’s ‘Pro’ status before it is so harshly demoted to a mere resource-sucking leech. It has been a great year with Flickr, but I will remain an unpaid user until I have some spare monies, and frankly there are more important things to put my money towards at the moment (uh, like a new camera?). The down side is almost half of my photos will disappear come the 28th of September according to whatever clock Flickr uses.

I did have a moment of artistic soap-boxing, however, telling myself that art doesn’t need the latest technology. Often, the best art comes in spite of technology. With that spurt of under-researched wisdom, I searched the house top to bottom to find my old Polaroid instant camera. I managed to find everything but the machine that would spit out overly yellow squares, including an Advantix camera (expensive film!), an old digital camera (i’m talking pre-1 megapixel), and old SLR (which took a strange type of film), and about a hundred old mobile phones (what are we supposed to do with these again?). I searched every box and every drawer I have stuffed full of my childhood things, but the camera doesn’t seem to be with me anymore. I have a vague recollection of lending it to someone, possibly family. I also have a vague memory of playing with it not all that long ago. I’m very afraid it ended up in the wrong box when we moved and is now the town hall for a city of rats in landfill somewhere.

Ultimately, I realise, the thing is simply too expensive to use on a regular basis, and would probably be a nightmare to find good cartridges for. I guess there is also eBay. It might have even brought me $10 closer to a new camera.

Okay, this is what I need.

I need someone to come over here and start shouting numbers at me until my brain can no longer remember all the numbers it needs to get into my netbanking. Actually, no, that won’t work. The whole process is so ingrained in my fingers, just like how they teach those monkeys to type or something.

Okay, this is what I need.

I need someone to come over here and crush my fingers in such a way that it would become the top hit on Youtube for a week and a half.

I have gone eBay mad. Some of the stuff, I don’t even want that much, I just get attached to the item as it is described or shown in the picture. It’s all DVDs. At least it’s resellable. That’s what I keep telling myself. I can just sell it again, I say. But I could never part with this stuff. It serves the collector obsession part of my O.C.D. Or should that be O*C*D. Someone stop me bidding on Season 8 of M*A*S*H, QUICKLY!

I’m actually thinking of dismantling my TV recording PC and selling off the tuner card. I’ve barely had a moment to watch any of the things I’ve recorded, and I’m not that captivated by it anymore. It’s quite possible the TV/PC was just another thing I had to conquer and now that I have, I’m not that interested anymore.

I really have scored some bargains on eBay though. Although it will likely increase my lifetime risk of heart failure, I’m going to recount my purchases here, in one list. It’s kind of like an auto-intervention.

That’s in the past two days. None of it particularly expensive though. There, that’s not too bad. Deep breaths.

Oh, if anyone is planning on coming around to brainwash me or dismantle my finger bone structure, can you wait a few days? I’ve got a bid going on some Ren and Stimpy DVDs…

It wasn’t until I was listing a couple of James Bond DVDs on eBay (Goldeneye, Thunderball and Diamonds Are Forever) that I realised Charles Gray played Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever, but also 007’s short-lived Japanese resident ally in You Only Live Twice (one of my faves in the series).

I’m selling off the DVDs because I’ll eventually get the new box set that comes out in a couple of weeks. Maybe I should pre-order it to get a discount? Hrm, yes, that excuse will do nicely.

New Macbook

My new expensive toy arrived around lunch time on Monday, so I’ve been spending time setting it up and getting it all nice and personalised. It’s a wonderful machine, feels very powerful and solid as a brick, not to mention the very elegantly designed special features like the built in camera and Front Row application with remote control. I currently have 2 gigs of RAM on their merry way from Hong Kong, so once those arrive, this machine will be absolutely unstoppable.

This is my second Mac and I love it even more than my first iBook. Whenever I’m forced to spend 10 minutes with a PC again I want to rip my hair out with how unstable they are. These MacBooks are as beautiful to use as they are to look at. Check out my Flickr stream to see a picture of it in action.