24th October 2013 - Bad luck

It looks like I am in for some bad luck. My phone is now also acting up. I went to the Pavillions in Swords today to get it checked out and to enquire about upgrades as my contract is up soon. The last time I went in I was told to come around November to look into upgrades. I was hoping today to already start the process of getting a new phone. It turned out that:

1. My phone does not have a two-year warranty- thanks to the company producing it.
2. My phone upgrade would mean spending €200 on a new phone - and I just paid for my motor tax which was for the same amount - new phone = motor tax for 1 year
3. My mobile phone service provider has changed their price bands due to the 4G roll-out, meaning I have to either pay more for the same package or get less service (in this case mobile broadband) for my phone at the current price I am paying.

This p***** me off and I thought it was worth writing a post about it. As the warranty has expired, I decided to go for a repair. I am having problems charging it and I have the bad feeling it's the charger unit in the phone that's broken - which means it's more expensive to get it replaced than a new battery. With my current streak of bad luck (see Xbox post from 20th October) it's both.

I left my office number with the shop, as they promised to give me a call tomorrow.

I've decided to keep my current phone. The upgrade fee is just not worth it at the moment.

So, end of my ranting.

Liebe Oma,

eine Karte ist auf dem Weg zu dir. Ich wünsche dir alles Liebe nachträglich zum Geburtstag.

Habe dich sehr lieb.

Nadine

20th October 2013 - I think she is dying

A couple of minutes ago, my xBox started having issues again after getting her fixed a while back. First I had black spots all over the screen. Thought, I just give her a reboot - did that - Error 74. Had a bit of a google on this. Funnily enough, I left her switched of for a couple of minutes, now she seems back fine again. However, some people say that once these things start, it doesn't stop.

I got her fixed a couple of weeks ago: firstly the graphics chip went last year (which explains the *puff* noise I heart when playing Mass Effect 2 - middle of the Miranda mission, was close to tears). When I got her back, she worked fine through the rest of ME 2. When I was finished I started part III of the Mass Effect triology (wanted to find out what happens with Garrus anyway and half my crew in the game didn't survive part 2). First time I saw these black spots showing up. Gave her back for repair. This time it was something with the main cable connection.

I am just writing this post to more or less remind myself that my beloved xBox 360, almost age 6, bought back around 30th October 2007 (that was about a month prior to the Assassin's Creed 1 release), is indeed on her deathbed. Sounds terrible coming from a human being, sobbing after a piece of hardware, a toy - but still, we shared some good times.

Now that she is back online, I might just give a go again. Only started playing Bioshock and it actually is a quite an interesting game. Still don't want to know what's going on in that creative brain that developed that game.