what a day

first, and most important - my brother got into columbia!!!!!!!!!!

now he needs a place to live. does anyone know of a place in the UWS, anywhere from 70th, i guess, til 115th, i guess. (making these numbers up, haven't really asked him, but they sound good to me)? he's a great guy, v cool, easy to get along with. etc.

2nd order of business. the pissants @ HP have succeeded in really pissing me off. enough to a) make me cry and b) make me jump up and down in frustration.

i sent my laptop in 2 months ago to have them fix the pin for the AC adapter. you know, the socket where the plug goes in to juice your machine. it was broken, and they fixed it and sent it back. happy dani. then last week it went bollocks on me again, and i sent it to them. couldn't back up the data cause i couldn't access the data cause THE BLOODY MACHINE HAD NO POWER LEFT TO IT. brilliant. anyhow, i called, spoke to the Lady who took down my info, etc. sent in the machine, got it back today.

they decided that to fix a very external piece of hardware, they needed to re-image my hard drive. to those of you who don't know what that means, they wiped it, and re-installed XP. why did they do this? presumably to test the machine (bloody wankers). the note i got with my comp said that they'd repaired/upgraded my BIOS and modem. um. thanks. i could have updated the BIOS myself, and the modem, well, i don't use it. they've got this brilliant new invention called a wireless network card. so the question becomes - what did they do?

let's see. i originally paid them $285 to have them replace my motherboard, which they did a pretty shoddy job of, seeing as within 2 months it was busted again. and the piece that was broken, where it melted in the back? still melted. the adapter that gets so hot to the touch i've red marks on my arms and thighs for a few hours after? sent back the same bloody one. the fan that overheats and doesn't cool off the processor? they didn't even check it.

and to run all these diagnostics? the stupid pervs WIPED my hard drive.

so i call HP. i get another lady, this time in india, i think. first i'm told that there's nothing they can do. then i ask to speak to a supervisor, hit the voice mail wall, and hang up to try again.

call back. get some girl who has no clue what i'm talking about, at least she speaks english... she connects me to somewhere... 10 minutes of dead air-ing it later, i hang up and try again.

round 3: i get some kid who tells me there's nothing they can do. i ask to speak to his supervisor. now i'm on the phone with eric. hi eric! eric can't help me, because i was supposed to back up the data. eric has a bad haabit of talking like i'm an idiot. i tell eric i couldn't back up the data, and i told this to the nice Lady who i filed the report with originally. eric tells me it's standard procedure to wipe the hard drive. poppy cock. i sent in my laptop before, they didn't do it then. i tell eric that my entire portfolio for my writing degree has now been cleaned off of my computer by his company and i'm screwed, and i need him to explain to me why they did that. eric says "it's standard procedure", then proceeded to really screw HP:

apparently this has been a problem, and they have a new script where they're supposed to ask you "if your hard drive has to be re-imaged, do you want us to do it?" i have the right to refuse that. Lady never asked me that. apparently i also didn't have to send in my hard drive, as i was v snottily informed. Lady didn't tell me that either. then eric said the stupid thing. he said "it happened to me too once,..." and started telling me his horror story. eric - i care not. but to back track for a moment - if i didn't need to send in my hard drive, then they obviously didn't need to do anything to my hard drive to fix the pin. even if they needed to check the processor and such, they didn't need to touch my hard drive.

i have calls into numerous companied who specialize in hard drive restoration. so far, best i can tell, it will cost between $300 and $1500 to get it done. guess who's paying that bill? (hint: not me.)