I had my empeg stolen yesterday. I left it in the dash of my car outside my apartment. I normally keep the doors on my car locked, but I apparently forgot to lock them back after getting my laundry. A few hours later, when I came back to get the rest of the stuff out of my car (including my empeg), I discovered that someone had stolen it and two CD cases containing approximately 100 computer games. I doubt the police are going to do anything about this, so I want to go to the local pawn shops, etc.

I can't do a whole lot to recover it on my own without a serial number though. Apparently, I lost the list that I had it written down on, and I believe the box it came in is gone. Is there any way I could get the serial number from sonicblue?

I ordered Rio Car 20 GB Blue Screen 495156293812 from sonicblue's website Dec. 27, 2001
Customer number: 20745338
Order number: 42181869

The poor Indian chap I talked to on the phone (sales) didn't have the slightest clue how to go about finding a serial number. I got disconnected from the guy I talked to in technical support before he could give me an answer. I just racked up 2 hours in cell phone minutes and went nowhere.

If anyone has any advice, I would be most appreciative.

-Biscuits

BTW, your flashing "Read the FAQ" ad is giving me a headache.

I guess the good thing is, if I can't find it, insurance should cover it minus $200 deductible. I'm not sure if the price they pay will be the original price ($300) or the current asking price ($700+) though.

The CDs aren't covered by my car insurance, but items stolen from my car are covered under homeowner's insurance (minus $500 deductible). Unfortunately, it appear that they specifically exclude games from compensation, though I cannot fathom the justification.

-Biscuits

Unfortunately the US eStore didn't keep a record of serial numbers, so you'd not have had much luck with them anyway and the central support office isn't familiar with the car player.

If you entered your serial number when you installed emplode, have a look in the about box. I think this only applies if you still have a 1.0 series emplode installed - I don't think 2.0 works the same way.

If you do find out the serial number, email it to me.

Man. my condolences. Been there done that... it sucks. My insurance covered mine for the original purchase price ($1300) which was damn nice... despite the fact that i told them it could be had for half that now. Thievin' bastards. Did they get your sled too?

They took the sled with it, but they left the tuner and all the cables I had to buy to hook it up, as well as the remote...

Whoever it was left in an extreme hurry, possibly after being interrupted. Is there any possible way I could (legally) identify it? I have a list of the songs that I have stored on it and its a rare item... When I asked the police, they just shrugged. I don't think their pawn shop database would flag it without a serial number.

If I do have to claim insurance, I hope they give me market value instead of the firesale price I bought it for (minus deductible). $300 - $200 = not enough to replace it.

-Biscuits

Still got your empeg? You know what some fucker did to it the other day? What? Fuckin´ keyed it. Oh man, that´s f.ucked up. Tell me about it. I had the goddamn thing in storage three years. It´s out five fuckin´ days-five days, and some dickless piece of s.hit fucks with it. They should be fuckin´ killed. No trail, no jury, straight to execution. I just wish I caught ´em doin´ it, ya know? Oh man, I´d give anything to catch ´en doin´ it. It´a been worth him doin´ it, if I coulda just caught ´em, you know what I mean? What a fucker! It´s chicken s.hit. You don´t f.uck another man´s empeg. YOU DON´T DO IT. It´s just against the rules.

Woah, calm down. Have you considered one of those covers to protect it? When you leave your empeg sitting in the middle of a parking lot, people might be less likely to key it. Just a thought.

Seriously though, I've had my car keyed a few times, once I even thought I knew who did it. I also parked my car downtown once last year. Came back and found somebody had done $1500 vandalizing it. They took a rock and beat on the hood, windshield, and a few of the side panels. I'm not sure which is worse, having your stuff vandalized or stolen.... Especially if it is something as dear as an Empeg. I know I would likely have ended up in jail if I had caught them either time.

> Is there any possible way I could (legally) identify it?

If you filled in your details in the player configuration dialog in emplode, then you just need to go to the about box and scroll down. This is assuming the thief hasn't deleted them.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that I did I suppose. But without the serial number, the pawn database won't pick up on the item. It'll be entirely up to me to find it. The guy at tech support said something about it being in or on the box?

The box your empeg came in may have a small serial number sticker on it. Not the shipping box, but the empeg box.

do you know how Marsellus Wallace looks like?

I _thought_ that sounded familiar.

-Zeke

me too.

I kept waiting for someone to get the "Pulp Fiction" connection, apparently it took two clues.

Hehe, here I am not knowing what that quote is from. I'm thinking, "Damn, 303, you got your empeg keyed AGAIN?! And how the F does an empeg get keyed in the first place?" Hahaha.

I understood the quote. I used to work at a movie theater when pulp fiction came out. the first night it was there was my day off and i think i saw it around 3-4 times.

[soapbox]

it's intresting how movie houses make their money. they make over 85% of their cash on concessions. so the next time you bitch about the price of a movie remember the price is inflated because of the movie studios. for example lets take spiderman. the studio will let us "rent" the movie for $75K. of the money we collect at the box office, the movie house only gets to keep 5-10%, depends on the contract written up. the contract changes on a week to week basis. so on like the 28th week spiderman has been in the theater we get to keep a bigger % of the box. so, all in all theaters don't make much, if any, off of the movies. the only time they make money off of a movie is if it is a movie like "Pulp Fiction". Not much hype and not from a very big movie company, lets face it, Miramax was put on the map because of pulp fiction. These companies want as many theaters as possible to play their movies so they will give a bigger % of the box office take, like 15 - 25%. which means if a movie like Pulp Fiction takes off like it did, the movie house can pay back the rental fee of the movie rather quickly and begin to collect nothing but profit from the ticket sales. so the summary of my drunken rant is that if you blame moviehouses for the extreme prices of tickets ($7.50 - $10.00) don't be so quick to judge them. The reason they charge so much is because, in rare cases, they hope to break even. If you really want to support a movie house use a 2-for1 coupon or a free pass and buy popcorn and soda. because they will reap the most benefits from the concession sales.

[/soapbox]

*steps back up on soapbox*

remember theaters also "eat it" on a regular basis. I remember when we got Stewart Saves His Family. We rented the movie for around $12K - $15K. It came in on a thursday and left before saturday. lets do the math. 5 shows a day, because of matinee prices an average of $5 a ticket, an average of 4 people attending a show. that means the theater gained a total of $200 in ticket sales, but as i mentioned befor they spent $12-$15K for the movie. that means my theater just flushed $14K down the toilet. should of stayed at home and rented some movies.

average of $5 a ticket, an average of 4 people attending a show. that means the theater gained a total of $200 in ticket sales, but as i mentioned befor they spent $12-$15K for the movie. that means my theater just flushed $14K down the toilet

Yeah, but that's not including concession sales.


But seriously, that must have been a really terrible movie. Only 4 people per show?

I've been to movies during the day on weekdays in the UK and seen less than 4 people watching the show.

If you really want to support a movie house...

Wow. You must live near nicer movie theaters than I do. I'm always trying to figure out ways to put most of them out of business. Poor maintenance, burning projector bulbs too dimly (I saw Maid in Manhattan last night -- looked more like Se7en), incompetent employees, no control over rude patrons, etc. I don't even go to Carmike theaters any more.

Of course, our local art house chain is quite good and I usually buy concessions there anyway, especially since they've got the best popcorn and they sell beer.

Yes, people that havn't exerienced good movie theaters don't know what they're missing Since moving to a real city, i've become a theater snob and won't go anywhere without stadium seating and clean carpet. It's well worth it for me to spend the extra dolloar fifty and have a good moviegoing experience at the Metreon or other decent movie theater.

Back when I was in high school I had a cinema teacher who would drive an hour to get to the nearest movie theater he considered acceptable. I never undersood till I started going to real movie theaters...

Matthew

PS: I just noticed the title of this thread is Empeg Stolen. How did we get to movie theaters?

Props out to theaters which pick up movies every other theater is getting rid of. How do they make out, starting to show movies which other theaters are just getting rid of? Hey, it's cheap and it's a movie. So the theater may be old, but hey, it's a cheap movie! I'll wait for it.

You know what they call a movie theater in England? A cinema.

Clearly visible from the windows of the Sonic Blue office in Santa Clara, California, is the sign on the side of the local "AMC Theatres" (sic). I've always wondered whether that's just a 3-foot-high misprint, and, if not, why they bothered using the British spelling "theatre" when the British word for a place that shows films (as opposed to plays) is quite universally "cinema".

Peter

Back on topic.....

If you have ever used the findempeg program you might find your empegs serial number listed in your hosts file.

C.

<dropping out of pulp-fiction-reference mode>

Something I've seen in the US sometimes is a misguided attempt to make something look "high class" simply by using an English-style spelling to describe it.

<dropping out of pulp-fiction-reference mode>

[whoosh] of original reference going straight over my head -- I haven't seen the film, sorry.

Something I've seen in the US sometimes is a misguided attempt to make something look "high class" simply by using an English-style spelling to describe it.

While we're on, is anyone else disconcerted when people from the US refer to late-nineteenth-century American stuff (houses, say) as "Victorian"? Do other monarchy-based terms (Edwardian, Georgian, Regency, Elizabethan, Tudor) get used in the rest of the world too?

Peter

Hey, you guys lost the war -- all of your "cool" spellings and terms for things were fair game.

Ah like the "Ye Olde Business Centre"

why they bothered using the British spelling "theatre" when the British word for a place that shows films (as opposed to plays) is quite universally "cinema"

Even better AMC stands for American Multi-Cinema, Inc

Most insurance companies will cover what the receipt says you paid for it. My mom's house got broken into recently and I got about 15 years of complete set mint baseball cards stolen, They covered them at $29.95 each. One set had McGuire's rookie card, among many other current superstars' rookie cards. The sets are worth over $2000 now.

I believe that with most companies for things of value you can have a rider put on your policy for the current value of certain items. You pay extra for it but it's not much. I have them for a few things around the house, maybe I should check into one for the empegs.

While we're on, is anyone else disconcerted when people from the US refer to late-nineteenth-century American stuff (houses, say) as "Victorian"?

Nope.

Specifically, Victorian architecture is a very specific style. Turrets, mansard roofs, lots of gingerbread work, large outdoor porches, tall, multiple stories, patterned scalloped shingled siding, generally. The Angel of the Sea B&B is a good example. (Although it's a hotel, it's representative of single-family houses of the same time, too.) My home town, Raleigh, NC, became prosperous around that period and there is a good collection of nice Victorian homes downtown, some traditional, some modified, including the North Carolina Governor's Mansion.

Non-specifically, Merriam-Webster defines Victorian as ``of, relating to, or characteristic of the reign of Queen Victoria of England or the art, letters, or tastes of her time''. And, for whatever reason, the US around that time was heavily influenced by England of the time.

Do other monarchy-based terms (Edwardian, Georgian, Regency, Elizabethan, Tudor) get used in the rest of the world too?

Yes, at least in the US, but much less often. I'd say that Georgian and Edwardian are used occasionally, but usually in a few specific contexts. Regency less often, also in a few specific contexts. Most of these contexts are style-related (furniture, dress, etc.). Very seldom Tudor or Elizabethan outside a discussion of history.

I'm not sure I'm familiar with the Findempeg program. My memory is poor though, so I might have used it at some time in the past... I have archives copies of the hosts file for the last few years (I use it for ad-blocking), but I couldn't find anything listed as empeg or similar. Anyone have any other ideas where the serial number could be on my computer?

I've searched all the files on my hdd and the entire windows registry, but no luck.

-Biscuits

As far as giving me the value that I paid for items, I have a list of the 100 video games that I lost. I have the boxes of every game I've ever bought and the price stickers are on 80% or so of those. Apparently, insurance does not specifically exclude game cds, only music cds, so I might be in luck.

Its entirely their decision whether they give me original price, or replacement cost. I'll consider it fair if they give me replacement cost, but if they insist on original price, it'll cost them an extra $1500 or so.

Game purchase price: $4000-5000
Game replacement cost: $1500-3000

Empeg purchase price: $300
Empeg replacement cost: $700-800

-Biscuits