ON TECHNOLOGY FAILING

Last week, as I was driving, I noticed that the turn signal "clicking" sound stayed on far after I had made my turn. The lights didn't appear to continue, but the sound...well, the sound got a little irritating. Since I didn't want to drain the battery overmuch, I decided to take my car in to be serviced on Saturday morning. Four hundred dollars and three hours later, I was out the door.

Now, I've had my car for five and a half years, and it has been pretty good throughout. Sure, there was the CD player jamming, but the only happened because somehow two CD's got stuck in there together (I honestly don't know how it happened, but that was a long drive home). So I guess to have a car go 48,000 miles over 67 months and only have $400 worth of actual maintenance is pretty good.

Saturday night I had friends over. After watching the special features for "The Dark Knight" and playing a game of "Buzz! Trivia," we tried to play some Rock Band for my Xbox 360. The game froze shortly after we started "Hammerhead." So we tried again. Froze. We tried Guitar Hero: World Tour. Froze. My friends left. Last night, I tried to play some Gears of War 2. Froze. Turned it off, turned it back on...and there is a hardware problem known as the "red ring of death." There was nothing I could do to fix it, other than send it to Microsoft to be repaired.

In the past, I think I would have been really upset at both of these things. But I suppose I've mellowed in my advanced years, and am really "que sera, sera" about the whole mess. Am I happy about spending $400 on my car when I have Christmas presents to buy? No, of course not. Am I happy to be driving it safely? Sure. That's a trade-off that's worth it. Now, on the Xbox, am I frustrated with the company in general? Sure. I behaved myself on the phone with the (Scandinavian?) customer service rep - it's not his fault. And I suppose the silver lining is that I have a new PS3 game and a new Wii game to work through, plus I'll be out of town for a week without my Xbox anyway. And I used the time I was going to play Gears of War 2 to watch "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," which is a very funny movie.

I just wish both didn't happen within such a small time frame.