flightless hag

A chronicle of the adventures of birdwoman: a lonely, talentless freak who wanders the internet in search of entertainment.

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Location: Philly

I'm a 40-something married white female, survivor of weight watchers, avid reader of pulp. Dogs (not cats), extreme right (handed, not politics), ENTJ, alto, wanna-be knitter.

October 31, 2005

DO NOT BUY DELL!!

Once upon a time, there was a computer company called Dell. They would do things like sell you a system, and fix it for you when it was broken. They were awesome. Of course, they were more expensive, but for those of us who have no time to begin with, the ability to put our computer in a box, ship it away, and have it come back all better in a few days was TOTALLY worth it.

I purchased a new Dell laptop for my husband (home use) in mid April.

It stopped booting on October 7th. That’s six, count them 6 fricking months. We placed our first call to tech support October 8th.

The tech misdiagnosed the problem – he didn’t even try to diagnose from what I can tell. He didn’t teach John how to boot in safe mode or anything. He just said, paraphrased: “It’s a software issue. We’ll send you an XP disk that we should have shipped with your laptop initially but, whoops, sorry.” (Oh, and they’ve sent a $99 bill to us now, because we’ve called about software problems.)

We waited til Thursday, the 14th, to find out where the disk was. “Whoops, we forgot to send it again. Shucks. It’ll be in the mail next week.”

We got the disk and placed a second tech support call on the 22nd. By this point, I had actually gotten onto the machine in safe mode to find, well, golly friggin gee, the event log says BAD SECTOR all over the place. That sounds like software to me, all right, boyo. NOT!

The second tech agreed. This was a bad sector on the hard drive. And yes, we had paid extra for next-day on-site tech support for hardware failure, but what do you know, if you read the frigging fine print, that doesn’t include something the owner can do himself, like replace or repair a bad hard drive. Yessir. My husband is all over that rebuilding a disk stuff.

So, the 27th comes, and no goddamn hard drive in the mail, and no note from fed ex, ups, or dhl. I decide to take matters into my hands. I totally REAMED the tech support dudes. I mean, I’m sure these guys are going to the temple and calling Shiva’s wrath on my head about now. But goddamn it, they f’ed it up. Big time. They never sent the hard drive. Some Idiot cancelled the order because the tech support dude didn’t get proper “supervisor permissions”. And they NEVER checked to see if the customer (that’s me) was ok.

Oh, and on top of all this, Joseph (at least, that’s what he SAID his name was) had the utter nerve to tell me that he couldn’t do any more for me because the piece of shit he sold me didn’t break in 120 days. Oh, it lasted 177 days. That’s so much more in the life of a laptop.

I swear, if phones came with remote bitch-slap, he’d have two black eyes, a disjointed nose, and ringing in his ears.

We’re still waiting – though DHL says they have a package that’s supposed to come today. Of course, though we have a standard laptop, they won’t image the hard drive for us. Or give us a fake-o tech reason that they won’t image it for us. They’re just going OUT of their way to piss me off to the nth degree.

My lesson is this, in case you’re missing it: Don’t by from Dell. They’re stingy, stupid, greedy, incompetent jackasses who don’t deserve to be in business anymore.

Please feel free to mail a link or this text to anyone you think might ever buy a computer. You’re better off going to best buy – you get the same level of service at ½ the price.


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October 22, 2005

Poor Birdwoman!!

I felt bad for John not having a computer. I want to chuck my own through the window.

They say Spaceley's is only one floor to prevent people from jumping. The last two weeks have been a living testament to that for me.

This is the first time I've been to the internet for almost 2 weeks. I haven't read the news. I haven't seen a single blog. I haven't even read email!! Stupid lack of independent wealth. Stupid jerks in Elbonia writing stupid viruses that make us throw untested patches on systems that then proceed to wreak havoc for weeks...

sigh...

So I logged on to pay bills tonight (see above statement on lack of independent wealth.) and decided to drop a line to my 3 visitors to say, look ma, I'm still alive and kicking.

And I have to go to a 3 day off site ALL FRIGGING DAY LONG MANAGEMENT MEETING this week. Someone, please kill me. It would be the kind thing to do.

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October 10, 2005

Poor Johnny

Our new computer died. Won’t reboot. I’m doing this here blogging from my work computer, which I have at home.

So, anyhow, my husband is going through net withdrawal. It’s a really sad diagnosis. He keeps saying things like, “What other movie was this dude in? Let’s check IMDB…” Then he gets all sad.

So if you see a lack of updates on both our parts… that’s why. And remember the Dirty Bird in your prayers.

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Boys Dust Birds

It’s been a long couple of decades for me - a Coyboys fan (if any football fan at all - I'm not really a sports follower) buried in the heart of Eagles fanaticism.

See, I grew up with a score of older brothers. Well, not a score. But a bunch. One of the ones who picked on me most was (is) a big Cowboys fan. It was a huge stunner when I went to Temple to find that Eagles fans HATE the Cowboys. For the most part, Cowboys fans don’t give a flying crap about the Eagles. But Philly fans continue to call it a “rivalry.”

In the past few years, well, the Boys have kinda stunk. But that’s ok. They’re still the Cowboys.

And last night, they kicked some tail feathers.

Puts a smile on my face, though honestly, it’s mostly because it pisses off the crazy-ass Iggles fans in sout filly. Here’s to you guys who used to scream and party all night when I was trying to study or sleep:


Cowboys 33 Eagles 10

Heh heh heh.

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Here’s To the Father of Genocide

One of the best things about working for Spaceley’s is their wonderful holiday policy. We get all sorts of days off, including Columbus day. Hence, blogging at 6:50 without a care in the world. Until I hear Stinky and the Moth, that is.

Speaking of Columbus, were you aware that over the last couple of decades, many Americans, especially on college campuses, have come to dub him the Father of Genocide?
Here’s a pretty good example of the mindset of the folks who want to cease the celebration of Columbus Day.

Could I go on a tangent, giving counterpoint to each of these arguments? Perhaps. History ain’t my strong suit. However, Columbus day always reminds me of this revisionist view of history… and a wonderful book.

In
an interview, Mary Doria Russell had this to say:


I started writing The Sparrow in 1992, which was the 500th
anniversary of Columbus's landing in the New World. That year, there was a lot
of historical revisionism going on, condemning the Europeans for their terrible
sins and mistakes, as though they had set out from Spain intending to wreck
Indian cultures and destroy whole populations. I thought, "Wait a minute
here--those guys have been dead for 470 years! It's just not fair to hold them
to standards of cultural sensitivity and appreciation for diversity that we only
pay lip-service to at the end of the 20th century."


The Sparrow is a great sci-fi book. It’s also a great philosophy book, for those of us who aren’t so great with philosophy.

I’d love to look through it again today, on Columbus Day, but both the boys are home. And since I’ve started writing this diddy, they’ve decided to arise and challenge the day.

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