Borg-funded hate campaign continues

Now they’ve ginned up some story about an iPod Touch exploding in Liverpool, England, hot on the heels of this alarming investigative report from that Seattle TV station. As far as we can tell, what happened in England is some buffoon presented us with a smashed-up, burnt-up iPod Touch that may or may not have actually even belonged to him, and demanded money from us, claiming the iPod had tried to kill him. Our ruthless lawyers cock-blocked him, so now he’s gone to the press claiming that we’re running some huge cover-up. The British hacks are all over this story because a) the Borg is one of their biggest advertisers and we don’t buy any ads at all; and b) they think it’s some huge scandal like the Perfumo Affair and they’re all going to win the Booker Prize for investigative journalism. What’s especially rich is how they’ve changed the story to claim that the iPod Touch Burning Man Edition belonged not to Mr. Chav himself (who’s “self-employed,” ahem, and works in “electronic security” — I’ll let you translate that yourself) but to his charming 11-year-old daughter Ellie (above). I guess they realized that getting a look at old Dad himself (check out this photo of himself that he sent to me, attached to one of his barely literate threatening emails, which began with the phrase, “Look, bruv”) wasn’t going to generate much sympathy. Nor would a peek at the family’s older daughter, Vicky. But yeah. These are the people we’re dealing with. Here’s the money quote from the article:

Ken Stanborough, 47, from Liverpool, dropped his 11-year-old daughter Ellie’s iPod Touch last month. “It made a hissing noise,” he said. “I could feel it getting hotter in my hand, and I thought I could see vapour”. Mr Stanborough said he threw the device out of his back door, where “within 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10ft in the air”.

Nota bene, as they say in Greek: The guy says this all began when he dropped the iPod Touch. He admits this. Um, hello? This is like someone saying they stuck their hand in a blender and they’re upset because it cut their fingers off. I mean, it says right there in the non-existent manual: These things are not supposed to be dropped. That’s not how you use them. Okay? For what it’s worth, some other usage methods that are not recommended include: smashing your iPod Touch with rocks and hammers; setting your iPod Touch on fire with a cigarette lighter; storing your iPod Touch in a bowl of water, or in your freezer; cooking your iPod Touch in an oven, either conventional or microwave; throwing your iPod Touch to a friend, who hits it with a baseball bat. If you do any of those things we will not refund your money or replace your device. Okay, you moronic chavs? Still think you can handle these frightening 21st-century electronics?

Well, the Borg is having a field day with this crap. Luckily there’s no way they’ll ever take a dent out of our iPod business, because there’s no amount of bad publicity that can undo the mass hypnosis that we’ve spread upon the world. Also, frankly, you need to keep this “quality control” issue in perspective. Just remember: these things are assembled by seven-year-old children in China. It’s a miracle that any of them work at all. (Much love to Brinke for the tip.)