I think my car's CD deck might be broken. The past few weeks, it's been taking a while to load CDs. And more recently, it's been making some grinding noises while loading. Today, for the first time, it took forever to try and load then finally displayed "read error" or "failure" or something like that on the screen.
To most people, I guess this would be a "so what, just replace it" situation, but this deck actually has some sentimental value to me. My parents bought it for me (well, I picked it out, but they paid) as a high school graduation present, and it's been with me ever since then. It's made the jump from my car then to the car I have now. The backlight can change colors, and that has been a sort of conversation piece with some close friends. The deck has been there, quietly playing while I've sat in a parked car and talked with friends for hours on end.
A few years ago my car was broken in to and some things were stolen. The heroin fuckers stole my faceplate (it's detachable) but that didn't stop me. I went on eBay and got another (two, in fact, since the first didn't work). Although the face plate wasn't the original, it looked identical save for the small cigarette burn I had in the original (don't hold a lit cigarette in the same hand you're trying to adjust the volume with). I felt like at least the "heart" of the deck was the same. The first replacement I bought off eBay was actually the whole deck, even though I only needed the faceplate. I believe only the faceplate was broken, so the unit itself might work. Problem with that is, no none of it will be original. And I also don't have high hopes for it working. Even if it's in good condition, I know it's a different revision from the faceplate I have, and I'm not sure that they're compatible.
I feel like I'm losing a friend.
On top of that, I have window shopped decks over the years. They don't seem to make them like they use to. My current deck has a 7 band EQ. All the decks I look at these days only have a basic 3 band EQ. Also, my deck sounds rather good. I'm a border line audiophile, and this deck has kept me from installing a full fledged stereo system in my car. With aftermarket speakers, it can actually get pretty loud (as loud as I'd listen to music since I don't want to deafen myself, nor annoy the people in the car next to me at a traffic light) without distorting. Any newer decks seem to be geared towards iPod and Android phones. They have tons of feature, being able to control them and whatnot. I'm not interested in ANY of that. I like to play CDs.
IDK, I might try and hunt a NOS of the same model I have.
Sorry to go on whining about something so material (first world problems, am I right?) but this thing has been there with me through good time and bad times. I'm not upset to the point that I'm crying over it, but I am rather upset. I'm sure some of my friends will be too.
Since I'm starting to get some pressure from some people about using dip, I'm thinking of swapping to e-smoking of some sort. Sadly, there's hardly any good information on it, its pretty expensive, and I don't really know what kind I want. I'm interested in some of the e-hookah stuff I've seen, which actually fits inside a normal hookah and essentially creates the same experience, but I've wanted to get a normal, portable one up until then.
