Safety Fork, the

Two things:

1. The worst thing about being sick alone is that there is no one around to beg to go out and get that applesauce I really need.
2. Applesauce tastes really good.

In a don’t-think-just-twitch mood on Monday, I was playing Counter-Strike. I took a break from being pnwd for a while to have lunch and when I came back, the screen was blank. Strange, I thought, I didn’t think that power-saving mode activated while a game was running. Then I noticed that the power light was solid, not blinking. The monitor wasn’t in power-saving mode, but rather its backlight had burned out, popped, taken this job and shoved it, or whatever it is that backlights do when they stop, you know, lighting the back of the screen.

I was tempted to run out and buy something new and shiny and as big as possible, but my four cooler heads prevailed. Instead, I decided to see if I could find a new backlight. The first page that google turned up, though, had something notable to say: Warranty: Parts: 3 years, Labor: 3 years. This had not occurred to me, as I assumed I had received only the usual pathetic 1-year warranty and that it had gasped its last a year and a half ago.

My initial forays into obtaining service were not promising. The first time through Samsung’s website (using Safari), the page that should have told me whether my request was received failed to load. Switching to Firefox, I got all the way through, but even though the site clearly told me that my warranty was good until June, 2006, I was informed that my monitor was out of warranty, that I would have to pay for service, and that the nearest authorized service center is helpfully located in nearby New Jersey. So perhaps you can understand that I harbored some trepidation toward subjecting myself to my last and least favored resort, the telephone.

I called, navigated about three touch-tone menus—thankfully they weren’t voice-recognition menus, which always seem to be both slower and less accurate—and waited on hold for maybe ten minutes (could have been much worse). I told the operator that I needed warranty service, that the website hadn’t worked, and what my problem was. She paused for a moment and said, “Yes, we’ll have to replace that.” I blinked.

I hung up with a ticket number and a promise that a new (well, refurbished; probably someone else’s sent in to have the backlight replaced) monitor would be shipped to the nearest UPS Store (only two blocks away) in one–two weeks and that they would do the exchange and ship my old one back. It came today and I’m writing this on an effectively new screen (without even the one dead subpixel my first had developed) delivered much sooner than promised without hassle, aside from a website that didn’t exactly work. I’m rather pleased, because it could have been much, much worse.