Sunday, February 12, 2006

EA Blames

Me: "Officer, I'd like to turn myself in. My computer thinks that I'm a pirate."

LEO: "Huh? A software pirate?"

Me: "Uh, yeah. I recently added a VoIP interface and, because Microsoft didn't recognize the card, EA Games's copy protection thought that I was doing something evil. Now I can't run any EA Games products, even after removing the TDM-400 card and trying to re-install everything. Even the OS."

LEO: "How many systems did you install it on?"

Me: "Just that one. Of course, I've had to re-install a number of times over the past few years as it periodically eats itself."

LEO: "Eats itself?"

Me: "Yeah, causes hard disk errors. At one point, re-installation was almost a monthly thing. Now even re-installing the software doesn't work. All of my other software still works."

LEO: "Did you steal any of that software?"

Me: "Nope. Bought all of it."

LEO: "Well, if your computer thinks you're a criminal... You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be..."

Methinks that there's more to the registration process than EA lets on as none of my EA Games software works now. If anyone in the EA complaint department is reading this, you'll be hearing from me shortly, just as soon as I bulk up on carbs (it helps support extended whining).

Update: The world is coming apart! Add the following to the EA games problem:

  • the garbage grinder quit sometime last night
  • took a late morning nap and woke up to a gradually colder house. I think the cause is the relay for the outside heat pump. It smells funny (as in burnt-funny).
  • my niece has connectivity problems (her father's computer can surf, she can't but can view the config page on the router)(a really old one)(something that's next to impossible to troubleshoot over the phone)(I'm cheating and mailing them a new router.)
  • I still can't get the NSLU2/MVP setup to stream more than 15 seconds of video.

I guess I'm having one of those days. I swear, if one more thing breaks today, I'm going back to bed and pulling the covers up over my head. On the up-side, I was successful in replacing some of the firmware on a second-hand ZipIt at about 3 a.m., this morning.

Update (19FEB06):And here is one of the reasons why I don't want to join EA's mailing lists just so's I can submit a complaint. I'm so pissed about this!

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