Appliance Deathwatch 2007 continues. If anyone doubted that there is some kind of electronic mutiny going on here in the Harriet household, I give you yet another exhibit: The TV has bitten the dust.

This brings the total of assorted household electronica attempting suicide over the last 2.5 weeks to 5. Here�s the rundown:

1 & 2. Two printers died first, one from an inherent bug, the other from unknown causes but probably because the cat likes to sleep on it. Status: Deceased. Cost of medical attention: $0. After reading assorted internet sources, it became clear that I just had a couple of crappy printers and fixing them was not worth my time or money. Cost of new appliance: $200 in new printer and backup toner cartridges. The new printer works beautifully and is compatible with the wireless internet, so that both of us can share a printer. If both of us have working computers, that is. Score one for Dr. Geek, who helped me pick it out.

3. The washing machine. This is, thus far, the only machine to make a full recovery. Status: Fully recovered. Cost: $22 part plus $90 in labor. Labor, I might add, which took all of 15 minutes. Clearly I am in the wrong line of work. In my next life, I�ll be a plumber or electrician.

4. The computer, which is (I think) about 4 years old -- I believe I started this blog shortly after getting it, because it was the first time I hadn�t had to share a computer in a while. I was assuming I�d need a new one in a year or so. I�ve been an Apple/Mac user since the early 1980s when my dad came home from work one day with an Apple II+. Over the years I�ve owned two desktops (my first was a Mac SE, and the one on which I am typing right now is a Power Mac G3) and three laptops. In my experience, Mac laptops have always had durability problems, although this may just be a problem with laptops in general. I know I�m not particularly easy on them. The reason I buy laptops is because I need to take them everywhere. I use them for many hours a day. I haul them around in all kinds of weather. They get banged around on public transportation and hooked up to strange machines at conferences. I have them loaded up with music and photos and music-writing software. This computer has performed well for me. I bought it with fellowship money and maxed out its memory capacity up front.. All previous problems with it -- power cord, Combo drive -- were covered by warranty and were quickly repaired. It�s been the most stable Mac I�ve used in a while.I know in my heart that it makes more sense to buy new than to repair old. I suspect I�d only be buying myself 6 months or so. But it�s expensive. Status: comatose. Health costs: 2 hours of my time for a visit to the Apple store. Prognosis: uncertain. Total costs: Either $350 for a new hard drive or $1500 for a new computer.

5. The television. 4 years old Philips, 27 inch. Won�t power up and smells vaguely burnt. AJ had his pacman game, one of those plug and play models hooked up to it yesterday and the color started to look funny. We took Pacman off and it was fine. But then apparently it wasn�t. Sometime after we turned off the TV, it stopped working. We don�t know why. A little online research shows us that this is a common problem for this brand. I�m irritated with Philips, of course, but I�m really irritated at Consumer Reports, on whose recommendation I bought this TV in the first place. Cost: Far too many brain cells, my peace of mind, and no doubt more dollars than I have. Ironically, in the absence of this TV, we�re using the 13 inch Sony purchased by my dad in 1979 instead. They don�t make �em like they used to.

On the plus side, we same to be gaining a little ground. After vacuuming about a cubic foot of dust from the inside of our long abandoned desktop computer, it is working. Unfortunately, It has an ancient OS and therefore ancient browsers, which make everything internet related slow and weird looking. But it�s better than nothing. Oh, and the monitor dates from 1988 and is still chugging along just fine. (I will probably pay for that comment later).

And now, I must head to the electronics store to do some research. This is not the kind of research I had in mind for today. And given my appliance karma of late, if the electronics store has any sense at all, they'll lock all the doors when they see me coming.

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