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2001:
Everything Old Is New
Again
IN MY OPINION
Books Read in 2007 "Cast Off
Day" Flash
version here My Favorite Video Blogs Missbehavens (for others, see Links page)
24:Aqua Teen Hunger Force World of Witchcraft (Jeri should watch this) The Wilhelm Scream History of "The Wilhelm Scream" Introducing "The Book" Cat vs. Cow New on My
Support liberty and justice for all
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SO LET'S TALK CompUSA 1 March 2007 Years and years ago, I spent some time in Houston with my friends Mike and Bill, who used to talk about going to com - PUS - ah It took me awhile to realize that comPUSah was really CompUSA. I still think of it as comPUSah, especially lately. This morning I read in the business section of the paper that CompUSA is closing some 134 stores across the country and I'm beginning to figure out why! Yesterday we were at CompUSA to get a digital camera for Peach and Bob. Peach and I had done research on various cameras that were on sale and which would best meet her needs for the best price. Bob, who admits he will let Peach do all the photographing, questioned whether I had guided her into the "best" choice and so when we got into CompUSA, he started checking out all the other cameras and asking the sales person about them, and I just walked away, figuring I had done all I could and the final decision would have to be up to him. While I was walking around, I found some 1 GIG SD cards on sale for $24, which was the same advertised price I had seen for the local Walgreens, and which I intended to purchase. These weren't just SD cards, but had some sort of "flash" technology that I didn't understand included and I stopped a clerk to ask about them. He said that the flash was used with "a special camera," though the picture on the package showed cell phones. I asked if the SD cards without the "flash" technology would work as a regular SD card and he said yes, so I bought one, figuring it would save me having to try to find a Walgreens. When we left the store (and Bob had decided that the camera I recommended was really what he wanted all along) and went home, I put in the 1 GB SD card and guess what? It won't work in a regular camera. Today I took my mother to her first physical therapy session and then headed back to Davis after I dropped her off at her house. On the way I stopped at my ol' CompUSA to see if the laptop was fixed and first talked with Customer Service about the SD flash. The customer service guy thought it would work in a regular camera too, which tells me the level of professional expertise of CompUSA employees! But they credited my account, so I have now returned it. Next I went to the tech desk. I gave my name and asked if my laptop was finished yet. The guy was gone for a long time and when he came back, he said "it should be finished in a few days." They've now had it three days for this second go-round already. I expressed displeasure and said that it had already been there three days and there were just two simple fixes that needed to be made and that they had already cleared it when I first picked it up, so I didn't see what was taking so long. He called up the account on the computer and looked at it for a v-e-r-y long time, then he disappeared again and finally came back to tell me that they were "waiting for an OK from HP to make the repair." I asked what OK they could possibly need when they supposedly fixed this very problem a week ago and didn't need an OK then. I also asked why I couldn't just trade this computer in on another one. He asked how long I'd had it. I told him less than two months and that technically they had it longer than I did. He promised to "check on it" and give me a call. But I'm not expecting one. They have told me every time that they will call and they have yet to contact me on anything. I am planning on writing a letter to the office manager and to the head of CompUSA. Letters like that used to have some sort of an impact, but now that stores like this are being run by little kids I don't think they give a rat's ass about customer satisfaction. I just want my computer back. I wanted it specifically for the time I was at my mother's, which has now come to an end. I won't need it again, probably, until we go to Santa Barbara in July. I just don't want to have to deal with the old laptop ever, ever again. I timed it last night and I began trying to do four simple things: check e-mail, answer e-mail, post my journal entry, and post a note to the Funny the World yahoo group. It took more than two hours to do that. I wrote ONE e-mail (to myself, copying things from Outlook Express to Google Mail because I can't e-mail from Outlook on that computer), I posted an entry and I (eventually) got onto yahoo groups. What I ended up doing was to start a task and then sit down and read a page of my book, then finish the task, start another, and sit down and read again. It was a horrible way to read a book, and to keep your mind on what you were trying to do on the computer. (Part of this was because of being on a dial-up connection, but not all. Most of it was because the computer won't multi-task any more.) I had one more thing to do when AOL decided to shut down, and I would have had to reboot, so I just decided the hell with it and I would finish when I got home. If there hadn't been three people asleep in the house, I would have screamed. Instead I took a TUMS for the acid in my stomach and tried to shut down the computer, but it was locked in a chronosynclastic infandibulum and would not obey the "shut down" command even after 10 minutes, so I just turned it off, which means I will now get an error message when I next turn it on. But maybe CompUSA will actually get my new laptop operational again. And maybe the moon is made of green cheese after all.
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PHOTO OF THE DAY
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This is entry #2527
