January 5 – “Foiled by Adonis”

Well, once again my appalling lack of experience and understanding of all things techie came to light yesterday.  I went to Best Buy and got one of those devices that lets you transfer the images from VHS tapes onto DVD’s by way of your computer.  Gotta say I was pretty excited about it.  We have quite the stash of tapes with home movies and especially basketball games the boys played in over the years.  Some day they will want to prove to their children that they were indeed “athletes extraordinaire.”  We also have some old VHS movies lying around gathering dust.  Most of them are children’s classics like 101 Dalmatians and Dancing in the Clouds with My Little Pony (Yep.  That’s really one of the videos hidden away in our stash.  I have no idea where it came from, unless one of our boys had a secret hankering for a purple unicorn).  I figured it couldn’t be too hard to get them all transferred to a disk and then dole them out to the grandkids in small doses. 

So I checked online for prices and then stopped at Best Buy on my way home from the doctor’s office in Houston.  I’m OK.  It was my regular check-your-blood-levels-to-make-sure-the-drugs-that-are-supposed-to-be-helping-you-are-not-destroying-your-liver visit.  The guy I asked for help (how about that?  I really asked for help.  Not very masculine of me, was it?) pointed me in the direction of the software that I needed, and we found the very one I had seen online.  The price was ten dollars higher than the one I saw, though.  That was when I stumbled into one of my old ploys that I used to use all the time many years ago.  I played the ignorant old guy card.  I told him my son had seen it online at a lower price.  Now why did I do that?  I’m sure any of my sons would have seen it at the lower price had they looked, but I was the one who saw it.  I just thought he would take more pity on me if I presented it that way, I guess.  Really bothered me all the way home.  That’s how bigger deception gets started, you know.  I confessed it and asked God to forgive me.  I’m sure the sales guy wouldn’t care one way or the other, but I did.  So did God. 

So back to the purchase.  He looked it up online at his cash register and found the exact same item on Amazon for fifteen dollars less.  That’s what he charged me.  I had no idea that price matching was one of their sales ploys.  How Miracle on 34^th Street of them.  I got home and went right to work installing.  Or rather, tried to install.  I read through the setup instructions in the box, and put the CD into the computer as instructed.  I followed the instructions on screen, as instructed.  Push here to install setup wizard.  Choose language.  Check here to accept terms of use.  Enter the product key found on the back of the CD sleeve.  Whoops.  That’s as far as I got.  Once I got it entered, the screen said, “Your product key has not been accepted.  Please try again.”  At least it was polite.  It kept saying that, however, no matter how many times I tried.  I switched out letter zeros and number 0’s.  I called the store’s geek squad.  The first girl said, “Did you enter the product key?  That should work.”  Really?  She put me on hold and a second geek came on.  He wasn’t much help, either, but he did say I could bring my computer in and they would see what they could do.  I even went online for some help.  Nothing.  I called the phone number for Roxio on the package.  Their computer told me to go online.  Finally, after a convoluted series of clicks and jumps, I was connected with someone through one of those instant messaging things.  But “Adonis” (yep, really.  Screen name or overly ambitious mother?) said I was at the Corel site and they had nothing to do with Roxio’s products.  Interesting.  According to the website, Corel is the parent company of Roxio.  But who am I to argue with the impeccable logic of a screen artist named Adonis?  Back to square one.  I’ll try one more time this morning to load the CD, but if it doesn’t work this time I guess I’ll be forced to make the exhausting trek clear into Texas to see what the Best Buy geek squad can do about the situation. 

Psalms 53:2 says, “God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.”

Father, here is one who for sure doesn’t understand much.  I do love you though.  That much I know.  Amen.