Minimally Exceptional

I recently picked up an acer laptop from someone at work. The hard drive failed, and he was in the market to buy a new computer anyway, so he passed it along to me.

I just happened to have an extra 2.5″ hard drive, so I plugged it in, tracked down the recovery disc, and fired it up.

Turns out acer doesn’t give you a factory restore disc. Instead, they put the restore data on a recovery partition and have the user burn their own recovery disc.

It’s a cost cutting measure, I guess. Doesn’t sound like too evil of an idea, but as always there is a catch. What if your hard drive fails? No problem. Put in a new drive and restore from your burned recovery disc.

The thing about burned media is that consumer grade writable media is more unstable than a pressed cd or DVD. As a result, burned discs can have reliability issues when it comes to using them for backup and recovery. Needless to say, the burned recovery disc has failed, so there is no way to get the original drivers and OS reinstalled.

A quick review of acers website shows that there is a twenty four hour help desk. I fire off an email with my problem and get a relatively personalty-free answer in a few hours. This email told me two things: I was dealing with an automated help system (A ROBOT), and I could purchase a new recovery disc directly from acer.

Great! I click the link, enter the serial number, and… get an error code. I report the error code to the help desk rep who then tells me that acer is no longer able to produce my recovery disk because this is a “legacy machine” that is no longer supported. A legacy machine? Come on. This laptop is 20 months old. If it was a work machine we would still be depreciating the bastard. His (its) advice to me? Purchase a retail operating system, install it, and track down drivers for hardware on the Internet.

I don’t know about you, but I do not have extra cash lying around than I can burn on another copy of an operating system that I already own a legitimate license for. Acer should be embarassed that this is “the best [they] can do” for customers who spend a grand (or more) on a computer and accessories and need help less than two years later.

There is no way that I am the only person in this situation, which means there is likely a small but angry group of acer owners with effectively bricked units, and the way I see it there are three options:

1) shell out a bunch of money for a copy of an OS that they already own a license for,

2) switch to a free OS that they likely don’t want, or

3) get over the fact that their laptop is now a large and expensive paperweight.

None of those opitions are good ones. It’s no wonder people pirate software. I don’t know what I’ll be doing, but I can tell you with pretty solid confidence where my next laptop will NOT be coming from.

Oh, sorry – did I say “paperweight”? I meant “Legacy Paperweight”.

Last night, Laura and I watched the Grammys, the only award show that I have any interested in. Honestly, I’m only even interested in the Grammys because of the performances and collaborations, which can range from fantastic (Foo Fighters with Chick Corea, Times Like These) to boring (Dave Matthews Band, The Space Between) to the bizarre (Katy Perry’s plastic fruit motif).

So in no particular order, here’s what I think about last night’s performances (or, at least the ones that stand out in my mind):

U2 – I’m trying hard to reserve judgment on the new album until I get a chance to give it an in depth listen, but… I just don’t like the new single. I don’t know what it is about it, but I just don’t care for it yet. Even if it grows on me, I don’t know that last night’s performance ever will. Bono wearing eye shadow? A giant screen with the lyrics as Bono sings them? It just didn’t feel like the usual awesomeness I expect from U2.

Stevie Wonder & the Jonas Brothers – This sounded OK. What I mean by that is this: If I closed my eyes and only listened to the performance, it would have been OK. I don’t know who had the idea to pair them up with Stevie Wonder, but for some reason it really irked me that every time Stevie played or sang something, one of the Jonas Brothers would shout into the mic “Take it away, Stevie!” or “Yeah, Stevie!” or some shit like that. Boys – let’s make sure we’re clear on something here: It’s Mr. Wonder to you. Also, I thought I saw something odd last night during their performance, and other folks on the internet seem to have noticed it too: The Jonas Brother playing the white guitar and occasionally singing doesn’t really play his guitar. He carries it on stage like he’s going to play it, he moves his hands up and down the frets, and he moves his right hand up and down like he’s strumming, but… not only does his guitar not make any discernible sound or noise, but his strumming hand doesn’t strum in time with the music that you do hear, and his left hand slides up and down the fretboard without making any actual chords. Maybe I’m nuts, and maybe the other people who noticed it are nuts too, but… something is not quite right there. And how come every time Stevie Wonder was on screen, these three kids had to run over there and get in the shot with him like they belonged there?

Speaking of people who didn’t really play the guitar: Kenny Chesney. Sat on a bar stool and sang while playing a 6 string guitar and his backup band performed. My first problem here is similar to what I mentioned above: His strumming/picking hand movements didn’t at all match the sounds coming from his guitar. My second problem is that Kenny played a 6 string, which was nowhere to be found in the mix. The only acoustic that could be heard in the mix was a 12 string, presumably being played by someone in his band. Musically, this was OK, I guess. Not really my genre.

Al Green, Justin Timberlake, Keith Urban, Boys II Men: Awesome, awesome, awesome. They all sounded great. I thought Al and Justin sounded great together, and Keith had a nice solo somewhere. Didn’t really notice the presence of Boys II Men, though. Were they just backup?

Coldplay & Jay-Z: Again, this was pretty neat. I’m not a huge coldplay fan, but Viva la Vida is a pretty great all around album, and this was neat performance. I didn’t know until later that there is actually a studio cut of Lost with Jay-Z on the iTunes extended version of the album.

Kid Rock: What the fuck is he still doing on TV, at the grammys, or in the spotlight in general? Rock and Roll Jesus? And that stupid song based on Werewolves of London? That’s all it takes to get on TV now?

Taylor Swift & Miley Cyrus: I had no idea that Taylor Swift could sing that well. I don’t know anything about her, but I thought her voice sounded great.

Katy Perry: Seriously? What the hell was with the fruit? I don’t really care for her single, and that performance didn’t really do anything to change my mind.

Paul McCartney/Dave Grohl: Paul is a Beatle, and sounded like a Beatle playing a Beatles song. He sounded good. Dave Grohl was a monster. He wasn’t flashy and didn’t show off, he just sat behind the kit and rocked the fuck out.

Radiohead: This kicked so much more ass than I thought it would. I was genuinely impressed at the end of their performance. The USC marching band was a pretty fantastic addition.

Neil Diamond: I like Sweet Caroline, but Neil has an old white guy singing habit that I hate: talking through the song, instead of singing. It’s not a spoken word piece, it’s a song. Quit doing the Shatner thing and sing the damn song.

Mayer/BB King/Buddy Guy/Keith Urban: Quite the consortium of guitars on stage. A cool collaboration, although if you told me what the lineup was going to be before the performance, I never would have guessed that BB King would be the one that shone the least out of that group (although I am glad to see that he still plays). I didn’t even recognize Buddy Guy, I had to look it up to see who he was. I’m a little embarrassed by that.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: There may be a lot of merit in their work together, and they may be doing really great stuff, but for some reason I just can’t get into it. Admittedly, I haven’t heard the whole Raising Sand album. While the handful of tracks I have heard are pretty good, I just can’t get into it. It’s almost kind of… boring? Maybe I’m biased because I want him to give this other shit a rest and do the Zeppelin reunion tour. That must be it. Good to see that Robert Plant still comes off like an egotistical prick, though.

So that’s my long winded summary of the performances last night. If I have to sum up this year in one line, then I guess this is my glowing review: For me, there were more really neat and interesting moments than there were WTF bizarro moments. Great sales pitch, right?

It’s tax season again, and this is our first year of filing married and having the house, so I’m anxious to get everything filed to see how it all shakes out.

Naturally, this means that somehow our forms are going to get fouled up. Sure enough, today I received the 1098 from Countrywide, and something doesn’t seem quite right – box 5, which is normally used for reporting property tax paid, is blank.

I called countrywide to ask about this – we paid almost two thousand dollars in taxes and at least part of this is deductible. After navigating one of the most frustrating automated menus that I’ve ever experienced, I finally talked to a real person. This person explained that they did report my tax paid to the IRS, but they don’t print it on the 1098 because “almost no one uses that on their return”. She also gave me the amount and told me that I should just be able to write it down and tell it to my tax person.

So… Property tax paid is tax deductible on federal income tax returns, and you are telling me that “almost no one uses that”?

Horseshit. Hopefully the person that does our taxes will be able to work with me using the information we have.

Countrywide – F+

I managed to get a speeding ticket back in early November. The ticket says that I can pay the ticket after fifteen days, which would be November 25th.

The ticket also says that I have thirty days from that date to pay the ticket – that makes my payment due by no later than Christmas day.

Well, if you are paying attention, you may have noticed that today is February 2nd. As of right now, I have not paid my ticket. I don’t even know how much I’m supposed to pay.

Within two days of getting the ticket, I gave it to a friend of mine who is a lawyer and can get the ticket reduced to a non moving violation. He wasn’t able to fix it right away because it was a handwritten ticket and some clerk hadn’t entered it into the system yet. In fact, it was January 7th before the ticket was in the system, and the county assigned me a court date of February 4th.

Today, we called to make sure everything was ok for our court date, and we found out from the clerk that they THINK they have received the request to change the ticket, but they aren’t sure where it is and they haven’t entered it in the system yet.

Guys? The fucking court date is WEDNESDAY. Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, you should process that request before the court date so that we can get the new charges and PAY THE FUCKING THING? It’s been three months. Three!

It’s no wonder that all things government are bankrupt and broken.

I never really thought of myself as a grammar nazi, but some of the folks I work seem to disagree. Now that I think about it, I guess I do have a lot a gripes about stupid language things. I’m going to bitch about two of them for a minute – these two bug me a lot, and it seems like I hear them more and more lately:

1) ‘I could care less.’ It gets the point across, I guess, but what you’re really looking for here is ‘I couldn’t care less. If you could care less, then you have to somewhat care in the first place. If, on the other hand, you couldn’t care less, then you absolutely, positively, don’t give a shit about whatever it is being discussed.

2) ‘Oh, for God sakes’ I’m not really sure where this one came from. It’s not even a matter of not understanding the words that you’re saying, it’s a matter of not even listening to yourself when you talk. Basically, here you’re using an exclamation made up of words that you don’t know. The right thing to say here is ‘for God’s sake’ or ‘Christ’s sake’ or ‘for fuck’s sake.’ Saying ‘for God sakes’ or ‘for (whatever) sakes’ is just plain stupidity.

The thing that is really irritating to me is that both of these are things that are stupid lazy errors. Just listen to the words that you choose and think about it. Do they make sense? No? Then fix it or find another way to say it. Saying something that doesn’t make sense might just get your point across – and that’s OK – but saying it right might just keep you from looking dumb.