Sick and tired of being sick and tired OR I want you to help me

I suppose it's time to put this here laptop to good use. One of the things I thought that I'd use it for was blogging. It's so much easier to blog when I'm upstairs where it's moderately warmer. In the basement I'd be shivering while my fingers turn blue. Let's do this.

Things have been getting better. If you've been keeping track of me through Facebook, Twitter, and possibly MySpace (I've been having issues with MySpace), then you'd know that I've been feeling like crap recently. Last week I was doing the Santa gig, and I must've caught some bug from one of the little buggers. It all started Saturday when my throat starting hurting. Sunday it moved into a small cough. Monday I lost my voice. Great stuff, right?

Tuesday and Wednesday I was off. Tuesday was pretty much the worst of it. I had virtually no voice and was coughing. I barely takled at all to save what little voice I had left. The good news was that the sore throat went away. I took that as a sign that I was on the upswing. I kept on coughing throughout Friday and Saturday. Work had to find replacements for Santa, because I was not willing to put myself back in front of the kids while I was hacking up mucus. That wouldn't look good for the store, and I didn't want to catch any flack from angry parents. Donning the red, I probably wouldn't have had to take anything from the parents (have you ever seen a parent do anything to Santa?) but it's better this way.

The good thing about not going in for Big Red is that I get my third day off this week. Sunday is, as it has always been intended, a day of rest. I helped my dad BBQ some chicken, and I've watched football. Oh, and I've put my new laptop to use keeping track of my team while the games were going on. (I'm down 116-102) My brother is giving me crap for writing a blog right now. Typical! (lol)

I think I'm starting to get better. The cough is starting to fade and it doesn't seem like something else is taking it's place. Hopefully I'll be all better by tomorrow or Tuesday.

Tomorrow I actually have a small plan, the next phase of my DJ Hero debacle. Allow me to give you the background.

When I first got Rock Band, my guitars were iffy at best. After a couple weeks of playing with the guitars, the whammy bar broke. I followed the instructions that came with the game and was able to get a new guitar. The whammy bar on that one broke, and then I went to their message board and found someone in charge to explain my plight. She shipped me a new guitar right then, no more questions asked. Happily Ever After.

Now for Activision. When Guitar Hero 3 came out, my guitar was busted. Since the store I bought it at had plenty of them, I returned it and got a new one. No need to wait for a claim service if I can get a new one the next day. Besides, it came out of the box bad, that's what most consumers would do. Guitar Hero World Tour. I bought a dual guitar pack that was returned at Walmart. Since it had no box, I got a sweet discount on it. One of those guitars was bad as well, but I didn't want it because it felt akward and paled in comparison to my good ol' Rock Band guitar. I traded those in at GameCrazy and made a good amount of coin on the deal.

Then a month or so back I bought DJ Hero, that really fancy, extra expensive version that came with a carrying case and other things. I enjoyed the game, though the legs for the stand were pretty stuck inside themselves and I made soem cosmetic flaws to it by getting them loose. When I get about halfway through the game, I notice that it seems I'm screwing up without actually screwing up. I track my own actions and determined that I was not at fault. After playing a little more, I realized that the DJ Hero deck was actually faulty and pressing buttons at random times. I confirmed this by spinning the deck on the menu screen and had the controller start advancing me through the menus on it's own.

Now I know I have a busted deck. Since I bought the rare special edition, there aren't any left where I bought it. Only option, warranty claim. It wasn't even a month after I bought it, they are responsible. I look through the manual and see that I need to log onto their website to submit a claim. I go through all their bullcrap and it tells me what I already knew, I needed to make a warranty claim. "Click Next to make a claim." Okay. "You need to call a local service representative, consult your manual for the number." What?

I double check the manual and it only has the website listed for warranty information. I'm getting a little adgitated. But there's got to be some sort of support forum where I can voice my concern and get this ball rolling. I log back onto their website, but get no luck. No message board at all. Not a fan board or anything similar. So I get the bright idea that they might have a Twitter. I've heard of companies patrolling the Twitterverse to try and keep customers happy. I log onto Twitter and actually find an official DJ Hero account! Success! Send out an SOS tweet @ them and I'm bound to get ,at the very least, pointed in the right direction.

A couple of days later, no such luck. So the website tells me to consult my manual for a number, the manual tells me to go to the website. Without any other source, I'm pretty much boned. Time to start asking for help. I go back to the point of sale, GameCrazy, and ask them if they know what to do. He prints out a paper for starting Guitar Hero warranty claims for drums, guitars and the like. "Don't worry, they'll help you out." Alright, cool. I didn't have any time to call them until Wednesday. So I knock out the number and get them on the horn. I tell this guy exactly what the problem is and I'll give you one guess on his response.

"What you need to do is go to (this website) and start a warranty claim." Thanks Captain Obvious, that's what I've been trying to do for the past 2 weeks. I explain to him that the website is not working right and finally, some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. He sets me up with an RMA number and tells me what I'll need to do. Print a shipping label, supply my own box, and ship half of the unit, along with a copy of my reciept, to their claims center.

Awesome, EA didn't need me to ship them a copy of my reciept, and they actually shipped me a box with prepaid (and printed) shipping label on it. But hey, at least I'm getting places. Hopefully, I won't have to pay to get this thing out and on it's way. If I do, then I'm going to be insanely pissed off. And you better bet that I'll fire off an angry letter to some important people.

I just really hope this all works out. I'm hopeful that I can get my replacement before the New Year. You never know, it might make a fun game to play while counting down to 2010.

We shall see.

P.S. Tied up my fantasy football 119-119. GO MERCS!!