What a day. First the casing surrounding the lower left hand side of my laptop screen separates, making it impossible to open or close my laptop properly. Instead, my laptop lies there, half-open, bleeding little invisible laptop atoms into the air and my heart. (Okay, I lie, this happened 2 nights ago, but I really only had to deal with it today. But I
am really attached to my laptop – it's not only a work tool, but also a companion. Half my life's on it! Sad, I know.)
Then I haul myself out of bed to work on an assignment for a 9 a.m. class. I run to get to aforementioned class on time, waiting for a taxi in a miserable drizzle and spending close to $10 in the process, only to find out when I get there that class has been cancelled because the instructor has called in sick. (Can we say, "Aaaargh?") So five of us go have breakfast at McDonald's and I persuade two of my classmates to go back to D's with me. When we get there, I realize I've left my keycard in the apartment. I trek up seven flights of steps, but can't find the key. Taking the lift down again, I report the bad news and they, lovely girls that they are, suggest that we all walk up. Fortunately, we run into the cleaning lady on the third floor, and she very kindly cards us up the the apartment.
Then D's laptop which I was using in place of my own (cracked hinge, remember?) goes all wonky. When I get back into the apartment, with classmates in tow, I try to boot up the laptop, only to see the bottom two-thirds of the screen faded and covered in horizontal lines. Aaaaargh. Then my own laptop starts to fall apart at the hinge, and quite spectacularly so.
After a few frantic phone calls to D and father, and backing up class assignment files to my iPod, I make the trek down to the HP Service Centre. I'm told that it will cost something like $169 to repair the hinge of the laptop. "Definitely less than $200," I'm told. >sigh< Okay. Apparently replacing the screen, which had developed white pressure spots somewhere in the past year or so, would have cost about $400, so I said to skip it. Then I call my father, who works for HP, and give him the case number so he can ask the customer service people to rush things through. (Hey, I have deadlines all this week through Oct 11!)
Rushing back to the apartment, I bolt lunch and we head back to campus for a 4 p.m. seminar, where the speaker keeps pronouncing 'film' as 'flim'. I get a call from my father after the seminar, where he tells me that the repair would have cost $870. Say WHAT? How did $169 balloon to nearly $900? Apparently the entire LCD had to be replaced, because the hinge is integral to it. >boggle< So I'm doing the math: $200+$400 gives you... $600. Where's the extra $300 coming from?
Fortunately my father managed to wangle a waiver of charges for the repair. Apparently this weakness in the hinge is a known issue in an identical model meant for business use (same specs, different name for different market). Well, that just blows. Not that I got the charges waived — yay! — but that somewhere out there someone, or several someones, is/are getting charged for a repair for damage that effectively isn't their fault. I guess most people who buy consumer models aren't quite as hard on their laptops as I am (my laptop's been on a dive boat, at least 3 different continents, and all sorts of funny places), but still. On a purely selfish level though, thank god my father works for HP!
Oh, and to top it all off, the bus I took home died a sudden death. Smoke started billowing out and it began to give off a funny pungent burning smell shortly before I was due to arrive at my stop. So we had to alight and take the next bus. Could have been worse; at least we got a free transfer on the next bus.
Actually, it hasn't been
all bad. At least I didn't have to pay for the repair. And got a free transfer. And my rabbit was cute. :)
Non sequitur. Today's Mike's birthday. I sent him an email, but didn't dare to call because I don't know if the phone number's still current... hang on. I just got an email from him. He sounds happy. Well, as far as I can tell from the short email. Hmmm. He responded immediately: my email was sent 9.09 his time, and his reply is stamped 9.12. Somehow, that makes up for the knowledge that he now has a girlfriend.
Non sequitur two. Watch out for snails on sidewalks after heavy rains. It's so sad to see all the crushed shells. Shuffle a bit after the rains, willya?
