knomat?

Here I sit, sipping on a bottle of water, listening to Neil Young on my record player, wondering where my life has gone so far in the big Oh Five. Well, that’s a question that will remain unanswered for now because I honestly don’t know where the past month has gone. Many things have been a changin’ … certain doors have closed, others have opened. I think there’s a saying about that but I’m not big on sayings, unless they’re from Office Space or Anchorman. I digress. I contemplated giving up this blog thing again. I’m not entirely convinced that anyone reads it. I’m not entirely convinced that it has a point. But I guess that’s the beauty of it - the lack of a point - just a place to vent. HHWhatever.

Marissa and I went to the D of C this past weekend to partake in the entertainment of Bright Eyes and The Arcade Fire. The Bright Eyes show was ok. It wasn’t the best show I’ve ever seen, but it was good music. I guess I went into the show with higher expectations because every bloody indie rock mag has had a cover story on Bright Eyes in the past few months raving about the kid. Hell, even the New York Times had a feature in the Arts section about him … calling him the best new folk singer/songwriter and really talking up his music. I hesitate to say it was a let down, but it really wasn’t … just not what I was expecting I guess. It was funny though because the next day I was reading an article in Magnet about the band ‘…And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead’ and they quoted the lead singer’s rant about him being sick of whiny middle class white kids bitching about how rough their life has been.

Now, the Arcade Fire Show on the other hand … great grandmother’s spatula, it was good!!! This one ranks up there with my liking of the Coheed and Cambria performances I’ve seen. They have an even more amazing sound in concert than what’s on their album … and their album is a pretty damn amazing sound. I snapped some pics for you to enjoy.

So Cookson and I ordered pizza and breadsticks from Domino’s. On my way into the apartment, I happened to meet the man delivering the pizza at my door. Upon entering I said to him, just a second I have to get my roommate, he’s got the money. Realizing what I said, I jokingly told the guy, “This oddly sounds like a drug deal.” He laughed and didn’t say anything and at that point I was pretty sure he though I was a jackass. But, when he handed us the goods, he said, “I put some of that ’special’ seasoning on your breadsticks,” as he looked at me with a big grin on his face. Hilarity ensued.

I’m glad the pizza man understands me.

If you haven’t read my post about my initial contact with Shitachi, read this before you read this post.

So, I managed to find a “regular” laptop to test this craptacular hard drive on. I installed Shitachi’s “regular” drive fitness test software and went to town.

Basic test results - “FAILURE CODE 0×70 - DEFECTIVE DEVICE”

No surprise there.

Advanced test results after deep level format - “FAILURE CODE 0×75 - DEFECTIVE DEVICE: COMPONENT FAILURE”

Excellent. So, I gave old Shitachi a call back. Guess who my tech support rep is. Yep. That guy.

I gave him my information.

SR: “What’s your issue?”
Me: “I’ve got failure code 0×75 Defective Device, Component Failure.”
[I didn’t even grace him with a description of the problem. He didn’t deserve it.]
SR: “How old is your drive?”
Me: “Two weeks.”
SR: “Where’d you get it from?”
Me: “Macsolutions.com”
[silence]
SR: “Seems as though it’s defective.”
[WHERE DO THEY FIND THESE PEOPLE?!?!]
Me: “Yeah. I gathered that.”
SR: “Do you know how to go through our RMA process?”
Me: “No. Is it on your website?”
SR: “Yeah.”
Me: “I’ll figure it out. Thanks for your time.”

If I can give you a word of advice, don’t by a hard drive from Hitachi. ESPECIALLY if you have a Mac. They don’t know a damn thing about Macs and they’ll tell you you’re irregular for using one and make you buy things to determine further that it doesn’t work. Even though you already know that.

Now, I’ve got to pack this POS up and ship it back using their “approved shipping method” and send it to them at MY OWN EXPENSE. Fantastic. If I were rich and didn’t care about the $200 I just dropped on this thing, I’d use their god forsaken RMA return process and ship them back a picture of me giving them the finger.

So it’s like this. I bought a bigger hard drive for my Powerbook. Because I wanted to, ok? When said hard drive arrives, I installed it using the most caution and proper procedures. As the installation process of the Operating System is completing … BLAMMO … “The installation was stopped due to an unknown error.” Ohhhh, right! That ever so popular unknown error! I know exactly what to do … um … reboot and try again. So I did, only this time … BLAMMO … hex codes all over the place … panic errors … no drivers for this hard drive … kernel this kernel that … you’re screwed. So I reboot, and try again … no go. Same jargon. Same me having no clue what the F is going on. So, rather than F things up any more, I decide to call Hitachi, the maker of my drive which hereafter will be referred to as Shitachi. The following transcript is my closest recollection of what was said. I remember my smart ass comments all too well - don’t worry

Shitachi Rep: “Thank you for calling Shitachi … etc etc etc … what is your issue?”
Me: “Hi, I bought one of your Travelstar hard drives and I’m getting numerous errors when I try to initialize the disk.”
SR: “What kind of computer do you have?”
Me: “A Macintosh G4 Powerbook.”
SR: “Can you hold please?”
[time passes]
SR: “How old is your G book?”
[This is my first clue that this dude has no idea what a Mac is and is going to be of no help to me whatsoever. At this point, I stay on the line for the sheer humor.]
Me: “My what?”
SR: “You said you had a Macintosh G Book.”
Me: “Um. I have a Powerbook. It’s a little over a year old.”
SR: “It should work with that system.”
Me: “I know.”
[silence]
SR: “Hold please.”
[time passes]
SR: “Do you have any regular laptops you can test that drive on?”
Me: “What exactly do you mean by ‘regular laptop?’”
SR: “Like a ThinkPad or something.”
[w. t. f.]
Me: “No, I’ve only got an irregular Mac.”
[silence]
SR: “Hold please.”
[time passes]
SR: “I couldn’t find anything on the internet about this problem.”
[Are you kidding me? This dude freakin’ Google’d my problem! A major storage media manfucturer tech support representive SURFED THE INTERNET FOR THE ANSWER TO MY PROBLEM.”]
Me: …… I had nothing … I said nothing … I was speechless.
SR: “It must be a compatibility issue.”
Me: “That’s interesting. You just told me not 10 minutes ago that this drive should work with my system.”
SR: “Maybe there’s a setting in the BIOS that needs to be changed.”
[non computer nerds - the BIOS is an acronym for Basic Input Output System - which is basically just a program coded in memory that lets your PC’s hardware talk to the software. Mac’s don’t have this … they have firmware.”
Me: “G Books don’t have a BIOS.”
[Yes. I said it. Yes. I’m an ass. Can you blame me though? I mean seriously.]
SR: “Well, the only thing we can do is try to run the drive fitness test software on it that you can download from our site”
Me: “How am i going to get that on my non functional laptop”
SR: “Do you have a desktop PC?”
Me: “Yes.”
SR: “You can go to your local electronic store and buy an adapter for the hard drive to connect it to that PC and then download our drive test software”
[I become silent … and am quite pissed off at this point]
Me: “So, let me get this straight. your company sold me a dysfunctional hard drive and now you want me to waste more of my time and money by buying an adapter for this hard drive just so i can hook it up to a pc and tell you again that it doesn’t work?”
SR: “If you’re worried about the cost, it’s only about $25″
Me: “You’re kidding, right?”
SR: “What do you mean?”
Me: “I mean I’ve got a hard drive that doesn’t work and is under warranty and you want me to go spend more money to determine that it still doesn’t work?’
SR: “Well that’s about the only option.”
Me: “Well doesn’t the warranty mean anything? Can’t I get a new drive?”
SR: “You could do that, but we would have to send you a refurbished drive.”
[freaking out ensues]
Me: “So you’re telling me that I just paid $200 for a brand new hard drive. it doesn’t work. you’ll replace it … with a USED hard drive?”
Tim: “Yes.”
Me: “That’s unbelievable.”

The conversation ended here. I told him I’d figure something out. I will be calling Shitachi tomorrow and speaking with a supervisor. I will have a new hard drive that works if it’s the last thing I do.

Unfrickinbelievable.

In the spirit of Dave’s “Meme: Random 10 Songs” posts (clicky clicky), I decided to do my own … only I’ll pick 11 because I’m not a copycat Here ya go folks - a brief glimpse into the music that is part of my twisted life.