We bought a new telly back in February at Brandsmart USA (I never know whether the name is Brand Smart, or Brands Mart, or if the name is meant to be deliberately ambiguous that way)–our first leap into the HDTV water. It was a Samsung thirty-inch CRT.

When I first turned it on, a loud buzz emitted from it, lasting about a second. It was annoying, but once the picture came up, everything was fine. I should have taken this to be a warning.

A month or so ago, we lost stabilization on the horizontal sweep, resulting in wavy sides. Fortunately, this was one of those rare occasions on which we actually bought an extended warranty (it was past the ninety days from the manufacturer). After several days, we got a service call (about a week and a half ago, before I went to California). The serviceman took one look, and said that it was a bad power supply. He also told me that the noise at startup wasn’t normal, and was also a bad supply, or perhaps a flyback transformer. If we’d reported it initially, we would have just gotten a new teevee.

But since it was past the ninety days, he was going to have to repair it. He told me that he’d have to order a new power supply from Samsung.

I called this morning (Monday), and they still didn’t have it in, and wouldn’t be able to even tell me when they would, unless I call them again on Wednesday (with the usual waits on hold through two different departments), and which time they could tell me.

How is it, in this day and age, that a major Korean electronics manufacturer can not only not have a part delivered to a major metropolitan area within a couple days, but not even know, after a week and a half, when they will?