Me and My Gadgets

I sometimes wonder if I'm addicted to gadgets. At the end of November, I bought an Inno XM Radio from an XM online offer. I have one in my car, one in my home, and now I figured that it was time that I had one at work. So, I ordered one. I was very happy with the radio. Then one day, the volume selector went dead. The radio would only play full blast. So, I contacted XM radio for a replacement. They told me that the 30 day warranty had expired, and that I would have to contact Pioneer directly. I was a bit annoyed, but whatever...

I called Pioneer. They told me to send the unit back to them with a proof of purchase from XM, and they would mail me a new unit once they determined that I hadn't tampered with it (I love the trust), but whatever...

I sent it back. And three full weeks later, they sent me an email saying that they had determined that the unit had gone bad (DUH!). They would send out a new one (another week!), but whatever...

The new one arrived at home last Friday, and to my absolute horror, it had the SAME PROBLEM with the volume! I thought, this is a sign. Someone is trying to tell me something. I called Pioneer this morning. She asked me to check some things, which included taking the radio out of the charging cradle. When I did that, the volume selector started working. She then said, "You can't work the volume with the radio in the cradle." I thought that was a bit dumb, but whatever...

The weird thing is that I then put the radio back into the cradle, and the volume control continued to work. Anyway, you would think that they would say something about this in the instructions. But I got to thinking. In the time that elapsed between having to send the radio back, and the time I got one back last Friday, I was tracking it's arrival every day on the web. You think I'm just a bit addicted to my gadgets? I sometimes wonder, as I'm watching a western or some movie that took place a hundred or so years ago, what the hell did people do to entertain themselves? No Internet, no radio, no TV, no electricity. Damn, life would suck!

ok.. that's it for my random thoughts. Just happy my radio is back!