Another one bites the dust...

I had every intention of actually blogging about Christmas finally, but I guess I will get to that later. So Bob, my wonderful laptop, has a defective battery. Yeah, just my luck my expensive toy is broken. I've been getting a warning that I need to consider replacing my battery, for whatever reason it would continue to read at 100% after having used it for several hours.

I don't typically purchase extended warranties for products as often they are a ripoff, however for the computer I went ahead and did so. With the warranty Best Buy replaced my battery with a new one that has an extended life, sweet. I haven't used that one yet, because wouldn't you know, the next day after I went in to report the problem, the battery seemed to be working fine again and I had gotten no further errors. I was frustrated and wondered what was going on. In the end I chalked it up to what we call electronics in our home, stupid pieces of junk.

Tonight however, the battery started acting up again. I decided to contact HP customer service as the computer is still under their warranty as well. I was on hold to speak to a tech for twenty minutes, then spent fifteen minutes performing tests and trying to determine what was really wrong. Then another twenty minutes on hold waiting for a hardware tech. Only to find out there was another test that had to be performed or I would be charged for the new battery. In the end I spent over 90 minutes with customer service. The end determination? The battery is defective and needs to be replaced, huh, like the warning that it has been giving me saying to replace the battery, nah, we need tech guys to figure things out.

Oh well, in the end I will have two brand new batteries, and just one of them pays for the extra warranty that I purchased. I guess I made a good call this time.

What really gets us is how often this seems to happen to us, almost any new thing we get we seem to have major problems shortly thereafter.

-X-Box - quit working after 1 month
- James' computer Robby - screeching noise after first day - processor was improperly seated
- Toyota Sienna - defective after two months
- SanDisk MP3 Player - died after 2 weeks
- Microsoft Zune MP3 - severe hardware malfunction after 3 months
- TV - does not respond to remote - have had it fixed three times over four years
- Firewire/USB PCI card - failed on install, USB's worked but Firewire never did
- Robby the computer - motherboard failed and took all data on hardrives with it after three years
- Refrigerator - failed after six years
- Microwave hood - failed after five years
- My laptop Bob- battery failed after two months

I think we must be unlucky!