the continuing saga of my mac repair

I called the computer store today, and they're like, yes, we have your mac.
"How long have you had it?"
"Oh, I don't know, I'd have to check the paperwork."
"Were you planning to call me?"
"We had some trouble finding you."

Hmm. Okay, even if all of the phone numbers I gave them didn't work, then, how about just looking up my name in the brown directory? I gave them my legal name, which, indeed, is what's in the brown directory.

Anyways -- so now I've got a brand new, clean-as-a-whisper powerbook G4. What shall I put on it? Firefox, of course -- that's my first download. What should I use for blogging? I think I'll go back to Mail for mail. I liked Mail.

Also, it seems that I remember linear algebra well enough to debug a vector/3d math library. Who knew?

I miss my mac.

I miss my mac. Since it started going flaky this summer, I've been using this Toshiba Tablet PC as my everyday, everywhere communications device. I just hate how its rules for powering up are different depending on whether it's plugged in, or not, or how long I've let it sit without using it. I open it up and I have to give it a few seconds to see if it's going to wake up on its own, or if I'm going to have to hit the power button. If I hit the power button when its already waking up, it might reboot. Or it might not. And then it might get on my wireless network, or I might have to wait a while, or I might have to go hit the connect button manually. And for all this, it doesn't have an integrated cd/dvd drive, even though it's barely lighter than my powerbook. And the built-in speakers suck.

Please, Apple repair gods, put my mac back together and make it wonderful again. I wonder if they'll just replace the entire machine... probably not though. Just please fix it properly.

the kittycats

Here are some things you might want to know:

The cats only like to sit close together occasionally. I guess they have to be in the right mood. The pattern often goes like this: one of them sits somewhere nice. Somewhere nice might be my lap, the papasan chair, or the couch. Or the right-hand top corner of my bed. The other one will sit somewhere else... and then eventually decide that she wants to sit where the first one is sitting. She'll jump up there (although Isabel's approximation of a jump is pretty pathetic) and just sit down. The other one will get up and leave resentfully.

Isabel always gets to eat first. Darling waits.

They can tolerate the other one sitting on the back of the couch at the same time, but usually they face in different directions.

Isabel spends all day in the winter lying on my bed. I usually have one of my big down pillows under all the covers, and she curls up on top of the covers on top of the pillow. It's about 5 degrees colder in the bedroom than in the living room, but I guess she really likes the pillows.

Darling wants to sit on my lap almost all the time and is sort of pathetically sad if I don't want her in my lap -- which is only when I'm using the computer. She'll jump up, I'll push her away, she'll jump up, I'll push her away... We'll repeat this maybe five or six times before she gets the idea.

Isabel loves catnip; Darling is not particularly interested.

Darling sometimes does a little stretch where she crosses her paws over her chest and squeezes.

Isabel sometimes tucks her nose under her paws or her tail.

Every time Isabel wants to jump onto the couch, she sits and stares at it for thirty seconds or so, gathering her courage to jump up. She couldn't jump much higher than the couch or the bed. Normal cats can jump to shoulder-height or so. Darling can jump to table tops, if she goes via a chair. Isabel can, but doesn't often; I think it scares her.

That scene in Shrek 2 where Puss In Boots makes his eyes all big? Isabel does that constantly.

When I come home, Darling comes to the door to greet me. Isabel stays on the bed. I go in to greet her and she stretches and says "meep" or "mrowr" and rolls over on her back so her tummy is up in the air. She then squirms around until I pet her. She is fairly irresistible when she does this.

I maintain that Zeb's first word was "ittykat." No one else believes this. Before he could talk, he learned some signs -- "milk," "all done," things like that. He also picked up the sign for "kitty come here," which is pat-pat-pat on the couch next to you. His pat-pat-pat was always rather more energetic than the cats liked, and I don't think they came when he called them. I'm not sure about now, though; they've probably learned that he is another person-who-can-pet-cats, so when they want love (which is pretty much always) they probably go to Zeb.

they didn't *lose* my computer

Well, my computer isn't lost. The technicans at the Brown Bookstore have it. Nooooo!
Let me explain this slowly:
there is a hardware problem. Not a software problem. A problem with the hard drive and/or the PMU. It's covered by AppleCare. When I dropped it off, I said, "Please send this to Apple for me so Apple can service it." And they said "okay."
So today I'm on the phone and I'm explaining that I brought it to the Brown Computer Store to be shipped to Apple for repairs, and the guy says, "Why didn't you just ship it to Apple yourself then?" Arrrg. Because the Brown Computer Store is a Licensed Apple Reseller and will ship it to Apple for free and in good packaging, whereas I don't have any packaging in which to ship it, and it would cost me a lot of money. Arg. They claim to be an Apple Authorized Service Location, but jesus: they have so far failed to order my computer succesfully, or to process a simple return to manufacturerr for me. I don't trust fuck-all that they do to my computer. As far as I'm concerened, it's a pile of metal and silicon until Apple themselves check it out, fix it, and bless it.
Have I mentioned that I'm angry about this?

paperwork

I don't have that piece of paper from the Brown Computer Store saying that they received my computer. It might be in the cave somewhere, but I doubt it, and even if it was I'd never find it. So now I have to just hope that they have some record of it at the computer store, or that my powerbook is in fact just sitting somewhere in the back of the store waiting to be looked for, found, and sent to apple for repairs.
Arrg. I just implemented about half of Getting Things Done, but that was a few days after dropping off my mac at the computer store. So that receipt is one of the last pieces of paper I'm going to lose... Arg.