Blog Roundup 11/17; Dell Rant; God Loves Me

I was intending on writing this last night, but I was completely bombed - and it's Dell's fault (partially). Yesterday, I had an auditing midterm and a 6-page literature paper due. Tuesday night, I borrowed a friend's auditing book at about midnight, and was doing other stuff [wink] on the computer until about 2:30 AM. At about 3, I started on the essay - I already had a previous essay I'd written which I could steal a couple pages' worth from, and I was editing and adding when my computer... crashed.

I called Dell. Over the next 4 hours, I would be disconnected six times; get into a 20-minute argument with a technician about what size hard drive I have; and hear a lot of people talking Indian in the background. "Mary" would not believe that I had an 80-GB hard drive in my laptop, because the records she could see showed 40-GB. After much arguing on this point, she had me read her the serial number. After doing so, I asked:

So is it 80-gig?

I'm sorry?

Is it 80-gig?

Yes.

Thank you.

Finally, she agreed to send out a new hard drive - but refused to send a tech to fix my fan, saying I have to first put in the new hard drive. Meanwhile, I stuck in the original hard drive they gave me (the 40GB) before they sent me the 80GB one, and said I can test it with this one. After a couple minutes of discussion on this, we were disconnected. [I should note that I am always civil and polite on these calls. It's not like they're hanging up on me for ranting and raving.]

I called back, and spoke to another tech. "Annie" had me run numerous tests, and since these all take a while, she would ask to leave the phone for a while to: get coffee; take other calls; just to walk around; etc. Unfortunately, after a few minutes of hearing all the techs speaking Indian every time, the phone would just click off. She would call me back and apologize, and continue - but it was pretty annoying. After a couple hours, she said she would send a tech to fix my motherboard - in two days. She took down my info (which she already had on the screen), and it disconnected again. I figured she already had what she needed, and went to sleep at 7AM. She left a message saying they'd come in 2 days - fine.

I got up at about 10:00, and after a few attempts, managed to jury-rig my computer so it would read the hard drive. Currently it's resting on an external floppy drive so it's at about a 15-degree angle.

(When I'd tried this at night it didn't work. But God loves me - everything always manages to work out. My parents wisely named me Eliezer Chaim: Which means, translated very loosely, "God helps me live.")

I finished the essay between 11 and 12:15, and went to school. I returned my friend's book to him - of which I'd only read 15 pages - and tried to figure out how I was going to learn 5 chapters of auditing I'd never read without a book.

My friend did not need his book from 1:15 to 2:45 - so I used it from about 1:30 and gave it back to him. That got me through 2-1/2 chapters (skimming and speed-reading...). At about 3:30, he realized that the library might have old auditing books. They actually had an older (1996?) version of the book we're using - but the chapter I really wanted to read (5) was almost the same. I read most of 5, and wanted to take it with me. Of course, the librarian wouldn't give me the book for 15 minutes, and I only got the book at 4. I took it to Lit class, and read the rest of 5, and skimmed through parts of legal liability in 4.

Took the auditing test at 6 - thank God, it was not bad at all. There are only 3 of us in the class, and the other two thought it was more difficult than I did (they're smart guys) - but the answers I discussed with one he pretty much made similar mistakes. In a class of 3, things we all get wrong tend to be discounted somewhat. :) :::whew:::

Anyways! On to today's roundup:

Jameel lives through a firebomb attack.

LGF announces the opening of Open Source Media (OSM).

Fudge made me smile. Twice.

So did Ze'ev - though it's not really funny.

Batya has been posting Arlene Kushner's From Israel: column lately. And her latest post is a great one, and has a funny picture of Katzav with the Swiss guards of the Vatican.

SoccerDad rips the PA's responses to terror attacks.

Check it out!