2008-09-08
� 6:26 p.m.
Hateway
Me and my new Hateway computer So before I started my new job back in February, I went to Not the Best Buy and bought a new smoking-hot, Gateway FX computer. It�s got a 250gb hard drive, a 512mb graphics card, 3gb of RAM, a 17-inch plasma screen monitor, and basically kicks so much ass that it leaves a trail of smoke when you carry it around. At least, so I thought.
I bought this particular piece of technological mastery because even though I am the consummate professional and you would never know it to look at me, I�m a total fucking nerd and I like to play online games. Yes, it�s true. I got stuck in Israel last year with a computer that would not run World of Warcraft just after the expansion came out, and I could not play. The horror. It made an alcoholic out of me. Well, that and my coworker Woody, who loved to drink. Well, that and the fact that I was already an alcoholic. Shit. Now you made me lose my train of thought. Oh yes, I was talking about my Hateway Fucks Off computer.
So at first, the computer was great. There was a weird thing with Acrobat reader very early on, but I simply reinstalled it from the backup partition and everything was fine. The graphics on the game just fucking rule on this thing, it�s quick, and I also learned to love Office 2007. Best thing? You can close individual Excel spreadsheets using the red �X� in the corner, and it doesn�t try to close the whole program.
So things were moving along swimmingly until suddenly I started getting weird error codes in Norton. Actually this happened almost from the beginning, and I�ve sworn off of Norton forever. Fuck Norton. It got to where I could get about 1/3 of the way through a virus scan and then it would error out. That makes you feel about as safe as bald man at a cue stick convention.
Programs weren�t installing right, downloading right, - just kind of fucking up. I realized that I didn�t have the service pack for Vista installed. So I tried to install it. I had to download all 434 glorious megabytes of the installer on another computer, that�s also messed up, and then transfer it via flash drive. It wouldn�t install. Bugger me.
At this point I took it to some specialists and was pretty much left with no alternative but to reinstall Vista. Which wouldn�t reinstall from the recovery partition on the hard drive, so I lost that too. Bugger me twice. I reinstalled it, installed the service pack, then tried to install Microsoft Office (upgrade) which I had no problem with originally, because the eligible software came with my computer. Well, that software gets wiped out when you reinstall the OS. Bugger me thrice.
Back to the computer specialists to pop in the magic disc, got Office installed, updated, etc. Then the computer sat while I went to Los Angeles for a week on a job. I didn�t take it because the software I need doesn�t have a compatible Vista installer. In retrospect, it�s for the best. I came back, packed up for Kansas City again, and then near the end of the week my computer started giving me trouble again.
Friday Morning it told me that there was a bad (missing or corrupt) file in the start up and I needed to put in the Operating system disc and run the �repair my computer� option. I did this. Same window. Who is corrupting my files? I make pretty good money and take care of my files. Why are they on the take? Are there drugs involved? Why are my start up files doing blow?
Twice more I ran the repair option and it said that it repaired several files. Sweet, it started up normally. So at the end of the day, I shut it down and flew home. Saturday morning, Black Screen of go fuck yourself. Repair my computer runs for 3 hours, repairs 2 files, and one of those two files shits the bed seconds later upon restart. My regular computer guys are closed, and I�m relegated to the geeks at Best Cry. Bugger me 10 times.
So The Geek suspected it was the hard drive and started running tests that would take days. He told me that if, in fact, the hard drive was fucked they didn�t have another one lying round and that it would take 2 weeks or so to fix. WTF!?!?!??! I need a computer for work TOMORROW! Guess what? Yeah, I had to buy a �spare� computer. Fuck.
So I bought a smaller one, that I could still play my game on (of course) and it was 500 bucks cheaper. 2 days later that is, today, The Geeks told me that they could find nothing wrong with my hard drive, but I�m having them do the OS reinstall this time, because even though it will cost me my left nut, 3 toes, and my 3rd child, my time is worth something. I can�t sacrifice yet another of my 40-hour weekends to the sadistic Hateway computer gods. Fuck them.
previous
- next
|