The Death of a Wii

I am so totally pissed right now. I come back from the beach, pick my daughter up and after we eat she wants to play the Wii. I only bought it a month ago but it's been a constant source of fun for me and my girls (and parents and brothers). I go to turn the thing on and nothing. No lights, no nothing. I asked my dad if we had any power outages over the weekend and he did say that the power went out three times Saturday. I'm guessing it was a power surge that did it in.

Normally I don't buy the "extended warranties" they offer at places like the big box stores, but this time I did. Now granted Nintendo already offers a one year warranty, but I haven't checked to see what all it covers...I do know that the blue and yellow place does cover replacement on power surges. Good news. Bad news...now I have to box the thing back up, take it to the store, stand in line and then probably be told that it will be a few days before anything can be done. Better than sending it off to Nintendo? Yes, but still frustrating, especially since I bought it to help keep the kids entertained this summer when I have them (and this is the first week they're out of school). Then I have to wonder...even though I have an SD card in the Wii, I'm betting that most of the stuff I've created and downloaded is on the Wii's hard drive.

I can guarantee you one thing...next one I get will stay unplugged when not in use. This old house has a tendency to have power issues even on the calmest of days. I'm just really going to be pissed if I have to re-download the virtual console games and internet application...and pay for them again.