This is another post I’m being paid to write. You know what that means: PASS. On to the next blog. It’s Sunday anyway, so why are you reading this? Go call your mom or something.

Today’s lovely sponsor is Warranty Elephant. When I first saw the name, I was all like “OMFG, like, what do elephants have to do with warranties? Is this just an attempt to cash in on the need for every technology site to have an animal icon? Why would I want an elephant reminding me when my warranty runs out?”

But then I remembered that elephants never forget.

Why do elephants never forget? According to Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins, the saying comes from …

… the true story of a British colonial villa which was built across a traditional elephant walk in India. The elephants were confused and enraged to find their way blocked, and every year at the same time, the villa staff would have to defend the villa and deflect the herds around it so they could get from one side of the offending villa in their traditional migration.
Finally the elephants could not be dissuaded, and one year in rage they finally stormed on through the villa, destroying it and killing many of the people

In other words, this web site will remember warranty information for you, even if it means killing anyone who gets in the way.

Here is a review of the service: The web site is ugly, but it’s simple enough to navigate and to set up an account. I’m not sure why it asked for my marital status though; maybe the rampaging elephants kill single people first? I plugged in the info for my iPhone, and now the site will email me 3 months, 1 month, and 1 week before the warranty on it expires.

In a way it’s a solution looking for a problem. I rarely even pay attention to warranties unless there’s a malfunction, in which case it’s not that hard to figure out if I’m still in the warranty period or not. I suppose this would be most useful for extended warranties. You know, the ones they sell you at Best Buy with the line “you can take a hammer to it when the warranty is about to expire, then bring it in and get upgraded to the latest model.”

Also, I agree with Dead Robot that it would be more useful if it automatically imported warranty information based on the product info you input.

Anyway, go check out Warranty Elephant if you blah blah blah etc etc.