MetaChat - Chalk up another one

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03 May 2007

Chalk up another one on the list of "things I have crashed"→[More:]

This time it was my newly-acquired Wii. I was playing Rayman: Raving Rabbids (hilarious, btw) and it froze during the game, emitting this awful high-pitched whine through the speakers. Anyone else have this problem?

On a related note, I think the most creative thing I've seen go down is a gas pump. When I was a kid we took a road trip to Florida, and on the way we stopped for gas at some place with those fancy gas pumps that will take your credit card, etc. The pump asked my father if he wanted a car wash. He thought it asked if he wanted a receipt, so he hit "yes". After realizing his mistake, he hit "cancel" a bunch of times really quickly. All of a sudden, the display went blank, then rebooted.

post by: backseatpilot at: 20:29 | 12 comments

I crashed an ATM once, while working at an ATM company. I called the 'dispense cash' routine at precisely the wrong moment, and the cash dispenser went 'BANG!' and jammed itself. They had to fly (yes, FLY) another one out from California, all the way across the Atlantic. I'm still not quite sure why I wasn't fired for that.

posted by matthewr 03 May | 20:42

With a name like backseatpilot, you possibly should not post a thread entitled "Things I have crashed." :-)

I was very worried there for a moment. Sorry about the wii. Glad you're ok.

posted by occhiblu 03 May | 20:46

I was thinking crashing parties.

posted by rainbaby 03 May | 20:59

Ohhh, I thought this was about cars. I'll pretend it is, anyways.

93 Corolla (on my first driving lesson outside parking lots)*
85 LTD (learned to drive on a Corolla, so I wasn't too good on judging how much room I needed to fit my car down a busy street)
87 Tercel (drunk driver hit me)*
92 Cavalier (hit and run from someone in a stolen SUV with stolen plates who ran a light)*
96 Shadow (week before my wedding, my dad yelled at me and said I should know to at least keep it "shiny side up")**

I do not drive anymore.

*not my fault by any stretch of the imagination
**when the cosmos gives you a sign like that take it

posted by kellydamnit 03 May | 21:01

Once, long ago, on a rare holiday from work, a friend and I planned an entire day of relaxing: breakfast, shoe store, dress shops, record store, antique store, lunch, and so on.

Every single cash register in every single establishment crashed as I tried to pay.

Every single one.

About halfway through the day, we shrugged and decided she would conduct every sale. That worked fine, until a few hours later, we realized how absurd this was, and I tried to pay in a shop.

And the register shut down.

posted by Elsa 03 May | 21:12

Ohhh, I thought this was about cars.

Actually, someone put a nice set of scratches in my rear bumper today. People don't know how to parallel park around here.

I do have to say, the major product of the company I work for is software. It really is like making sausage - you do not want to know what goes in to it. Especially if this thing happens to be in, say, the cockpit of the airplane you're flying, or other mission-critical applications.

There was recently a story about the new F-22 Raptors making their first trans-Pacific flight. They crossed the date line, and BAM! All the avionics crashed. They had to turn around and follow a tanker back to Hawaii. Talk about oversight.

posted by backseatpilot 03 May | 21:19

I was once trying to check out at the local Best Buy when all the cash registers crashed. While they rebooted you could see the banner "Windows NT 4".

Our cable box crashes almost every day, it will just lock up and you have to pull the power plug and put it back in and then wait for two or three minutes while it boots back up.

posted by octothorpe 03 May | 21:19

I crash my Neuros II Mp3 player a few times a week. Mostly a bad purchase that, though I have a certain affection for it. Probably how a Pinto owner felt.

posted by Lentrohamsanin 03 May | 21:53

I crash the BF's blackjack all the time. It uses Windows mobile.

posted by youngergirl44 03 May | 23:07

Hmm, countless bicycles, a few scooters, three motorcycles (well, one twice), a bunch of cars for various reasons and not all of them mine. A couple of boats and skateboards. And far, far too many times on skis, downhill, cross country and telemarking.

Every single computer based system I've ever owned. I have never met an OS I can't freak out.

Mind you, very few of my crashes resulted in any real physical harm, even when I rolled my car over into a swampy ditch one foggy Vermont morning.

posted by fenriq 04 May | 02:58

I used to work at a Target.

Once the computer froze up while I was printing labels, so I rebooted the computer. Unfortunately, that computer controlled every non-register computer system in the store. I figured that they shouldn't have made it "CTRL ALT DEL" easy to reboot the computer.

posted by drezdn 04 May | 08:13

Go find an old pre-OSX macintosh. Attempt to drag the system disk into the trash.

You can't do it, can you?

I'm part of the reason why.

posted by Triode 04 May | 18:31

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