Kickin' Back

I don't know how much I'll be posting over the next several days. I'm taking a vacation from work, and although I'll be hanging out at home during most of it, I may not bother much with my computer. I'll be gone this weekend at Cheeseburger B-Fest in Oak Park. We'll be lounging around Cheeseburger's house watching crappy movies on her new projector TV and eating meat and Hostess products. The weekend after that is my annual trip to Wizard World Chicago, where I'll be sifting through rows of comic books and other nerdy stuff with my brother and many friends.

In between, I'll be spending money on something not as cool as crappy movies or comic books. I've got to send my Toshiba RD-XS32 DVD recorder in for repairing. I've been having lots of trouble getting it to burn discs for several weeks now. Toshiba sent me a firmware upgrade disc, hoping that would solve the problem, but it refused to load on my machine. I have had no problems loading discs, but for some reason it will not read one from Toshiba itself. They even sent a second disc, and that one also refused to load.

So it looks as though I have to mail it to Toshiba, who will either fix it or send me a replacement unit. For a mere $139.95. Shit. What's annoying is that it's $139.95, even though they don't know what's wrong with it or how to fix it. It might cost $12 to fix it, how do they know without even looking at it? Bastards. But I don't really have much choice. The bright side is that I saved the original box the DVD recorder came in, so it will be little trouble to pack it up snugly and mail it. Toshiba says they'll start repair within three days of their receiving it, and they'll ship it back to me free of charge. I'll still be without my unit for at least a couple of weeks, which is a drag. Also, I have several programs on the hard drive that I have been unable to burn to DVD-R, and there's no guarantee they'll still be there when I get it back. Let's wish for the best.