Maybe the problem is that I am impatient? I don't take the time to research? But during this Plandemic things have gotten thrown way off...
I have my 2500+ soundboard Grateful Dead bootlegs mp3s and this is a great source of release for me to drive and listen to music.
I mean - are we ever going to go to another LIVE SHOW again? JRAD is not coming to Red Rocks Ampitheater in June as originally planned...maybe in 2121 it looks like. Dark Star Orchestra has no Colorado Shows scheduled at all.
My failing I suppose was that I just thought that all car stereos seemed to look the same and that not much had changed since I bought one in 2010 - a Pioneer from Best Buy, except now they have access to Sirius, Spotify and Pandora and of course Alexa. I just wanted the one with USB port.
All my equipment is old. I have an old Iphone 5s. I have a 5th Generation Ipod. I have a TB of music that I have collected over the years. I don't use Apple Music, I don't think it's cheap to pay $15 a month for Apple Music and I don't have a 256GB phone with Bluetooth - and I don't want any of this SHIT. I want what I had before the drunk driver hit us and totalled my car.
I got the check on March 13, the day before Kent and I went on a 14 day roadtrip to Arizona to visit his dad. I was planning on getting the car stereo when we got back...however when we got back we were met with the SEE VOID SUN Plandemic and all the stores were closed...
So, on May 10 when stores reopened here, I realized that I was about 8 days away from the Mercury Rx Shadow Nightmare that I always go through so I had better get a car stereo. I made an appointment to go to Best Buy which is where "my friends" go for car stereos and met a kid who took me to the car stereo wall and sold me this
little JVC. What I did not recognize was that the wall was not plugged in so I could not test out the car stereos.
This should have alerted me but I did not realize this.
Lesson 1. Always make sure you can thoroughly try out electronics before you buy anything.
Their installation department was not yet open, and thankfully I did not pay up front for an installation. They said they thought mid-June would be when they would open. I bought the stereo with the other equipment and it came to $135 before the installation.
A few days later, I was driving by Cartoys and noticed they were open. I went in and got an estimate on how much it would cost to install - only $5 more than Best Buy, so I made the appointment - May 18 or so.
Once installed the Cartoys guys gave me a very quick tutorial on how to use it- but I missed most of it - and even the manual was impossible to figure anything out. I did not know how to do the search function so it was a huge mess. I hated it and wanted to return it.
I called Best Buy and made an appointment to find out how to return the stereo or how to use it and I put that in the notes for my appointment request.
Lesson #2 - Do Not Put The Substance Of Your Complaint or Need in the Notes. Wait to discuss it in person.
I got a phone call telling me that the Best Buy personnel were not going to be able to help me learn to use the stereo because of the Plandemic and there were no installers in the building and that I just should not come to my appointment. I ignored the call.
When I arrived at the store, the guy who had been so friendly before was so mean - he basically told me "Too Fucking Bad" - he told me that I only had 2 days left on the receipt to get the car stereo back uninstalled to them to swap it out. He told me the receipt was only good for 15 days - even though their installers are not even open yet, he is penalizing me for finding something out I would only know by installing the stereo.
I went back to Cartoys and found out that their next appointment was not until May 31 4 days later, plus it was going to cost me $45 to uninstall the stereo and then it was going to cost another $77 to install the new one - $120 MORE. Fuck. Oh Well.
I went home. I prayed about all this and waited 24 hours. I always have to do this because I have to wait for my immediate fear reaction to dissipate before I can figure out get any intuitive thought on what to do.
The next day, I made a 3rd appointment with Best Buy and did not tell them anything on the online scheduler. I got all the way in to the store and met with an associate and an assistant manager. I asked for an extension on the return date on the receipt. It was then I was told that Jerkoff #1 had told me I had 2 days when actually they had extended the receipt date till the end of the month - this is where I hate these Big Box stores -
liars all liars and the left hand completely has no clue what the right hand is doing. They gave me the store manager's card and told me I would have to get his ok to extend the return date.
The kid who was helping me took me back to the car stereo wall - again they all look the same, and are not turned on. He told me they turned them off to save money during the Plandemic! He told me that they get no training in car stereos and then suggested that I go to Cartoys and let the Cartoys employees work hard at selling me a car stereo and then I should come back there and buy it.
I said "That is theft - you are telling me to let a local guy work his ass off to sell me a product and then I should come buy it at your big corporate store? That is theft of that person's time."
Maybe that was the whole purpose of this fiasco - to tell this kid something he has never heard and never will hear from anyone - The Golden Rule.
Lesson #3 - Only go to specialty stores now - no more big box stores.
After I left the 3rd Best Buy appointment, I went to Cartoys to talk to them. They are a smaller company and the guy came out to my car and looked at the stereo and said that that stereo is not one they recommend and then he took my USB inside the store and he has a whole wall of car stereo's all turned on - I got to stand there and figure out how to use the car stereos for 45 minutes. This is what I should have looked for at Best Buy - but they don't have it and I did not know what to look for.
I took what I learned from the Cartoys wall and was able to figure out how to use my car stereo.
The only thing now that I hated about it was the display. The display is very dim in the daylight - very hard to read.
I called the Store Manager at Best Buy today and told him about how dim the display is and that I want to return the stereo and I want an extension on the receipt. I told him that the car stereo wall is unplugged- he acted like that was not true!!! ASS HAT!!! LIAR!!! OMFG!!! Busted!!! Unless the kid was lying - which I DOUBT! The wall IS turned off and was both times I went in there...motherFUCKERS.
The store manager said I could have an extension on the receipt - do I believe him? NO. He'll probably get fired between the time I get the car stereo removed and bring it over there and then they won't honor it - honestly - Mercury RX Shadow combined with this normal big box bullshit - NO THANK YOU.
I cut out a piece of cardboard and stuck it in the stereo to block the light so I can see the display better. That'll work. Later tonight I realized that the fucking stereo is playing my songs out of ORDER!!!
Unbelievable. The thing with bootleg Grateful Dead Shows is that you cannot play the show songs out of order - they are listed as 1, 2, 3, 4, etc and the car stereo is playing 1, 10, 11, 12, etc!!! If I take the numbers off the files in the computer, the computer reorders the songs by name - what to do???
Lesson #4 - You have to figure everything out for yourself nowadays.
I prayed and I figured out how the songs have to be labeled in order for the deck to play them correctly: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4...2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc. That means that I have to relabel the shows that I want to hear in the deck. It's really not that big of a deal. I thought about getting a batch rename app but I don't think I could get it to make the switch after 9 to 2.0.
I have an appointment set up to take the stereo out on June 4 and return it to Best Buy, but I am hoping I can get this stereo to work for me so that I never have enter the Best Buy store again as long as I live. I am willing to take the loss on the money to have a stereo through Mercury RX and after that I will decide if I am going to go to Cartoys and get a new setup for another $166 and then sell this JVC on Craigslist for $50 which would be the difference I would have to pay at Cartoys.
Total Insanity. This is why I want to move to my property and Homestead. I hate the city. I hate new products. I hate to buy new shit. I want to have a horse and goats and chickens and a garden and a greenhouse and make art out of the clay from the property and not buy any more terrible shit that doesn't work ever again!