Technically Peckish

It's been a really bad week for me, technology-wise. So I'm feeling peckish about computers and stuff. (Peckish is one of my favorite words; my girlfriend and I tend to use it to describe how we act when we haven't eaten for too long.) Anyway, here's the laundry list:

My Samsung DirecTiVo died. At the same time, DirecTV cut me off because I was 30 days later paying my bill. (Isn't that a nice way to treat one of your best customers, who has been paying the bill regularly for years and recently averaging between $95 and $120 a month, depending on how many pay-per-view movies my son ordered?) So I paid the bill and replaced the Samsung receiver with the Hughes receiver that I wasn't using. And now I have the dreaded Green Screen, which says:

"A severe error has occurred.

Please leave the Receiver plugged in and connected to the phone line for the next three hours while the Receiver attempts to repair itself.

DO NOT UNPLUG OR RESTART THE RECEIVER."

That's the worst of my bad week. I also upgraded my Treo 650 from software version 1.03 to version 1.12. I thought it might take 30 minutes. I followed the instructions precisely, but I still screwed it up and got a white screen. (Do the vendors choose the color of the death screen intentionally? Blue for Microsoft; Green for TiVo; White for Treo?) It took three hours instead, during which time I couldn't use the device as a phone and also during which time I had to call Sprint to get advice about how to unwind my screw-up. The technician who helped was actually helpful and spent some time waxing eloquent about his friend in the electronics business thought that things worked better as separate components and that the industry was making everything harder and more complex by trying to cram everything into little devices (like the very Treo I was trying to upgrade).

And then there's the fact that CDW can't get my brand-new IBM (Lenovo) Thinkpad Z60t from the factory so they can deliver it to me. IBM is behind on making the things. I know I'm supposed to be skeptical, but this computer has EV-DO built in which will mean that I have pretty darn close to wireless broadband connectivity available pretty much anywhere I'm likely to go (except maybe Santa Fe, NM). I really want this computer and I've been waiting for two weeks to get it.

As I say, I'm getting pretty peckish about the goddamned technology industry!