Riveting News
Mar. 22nd, 2021 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogAs Mondays go, this one went reasonably quickly and pretty well. Only one appointment in the office- that kind of sparse scheduling will be the theme this week except tomorrow, which is loaded like a TGIFriday's sour cream and chive baked potato- and I started the day with a firm avoidance of trouble.
A call came in late last week from a potential client referred from an I Don't Know source- Kelsey? Chelsea? Admiral Halsey?- that I got around to returning this morning. After my wonderful experience with the ClusteRedacted that ran into early last week, I heard all the bells go off this time. Prior lawyer dissatisfied with? Check. Two different cases with major fires in need of out-putting? Three alarms. Knows legal terms that I do but probably 50 percent of the lawyers in this town don't know or at least don't understand? Bing! I declined it. The caller still kept going- butbutbutbut this that and the other notevenredactingwedidntgetthatfar. Finally, I cut it off, gave some recommendations of agencies to contact, and sent the nonrepresentation letter my malpractice insurer wants me to send every time but I reserve for when my Redacted sense gets tingling. Priority mail, even, so I was out eight bucks before I even turned the computer on this morning.
----
Ah, computers. They're so naughty and complicated. I could just pinch them.
After cranking out an hour or so of actual work after that, the mail came. One check, making up for the eight bucks down. One adverse court decision. Plus a box containing the keyboard to the other laptop- the one I impressed both wife and kid with last week by getting up the gumption to try to repair myself.
It's a Lenovo Ideapad 330, and the keyboard on this thing has gradually gone on strike. Office Desperate, who sold it to me, wanted over 300 bucks for the repair. The part was 20 bucks. After it arrived and I brought the Dell home for instructional videos and the Lenovo on the desk upside down, I began to follow the instructions.
Shall We Play A Game?
First, though, shall we watch a Grammarly ad? I must've tried a dozen different sites with similar "easy" demos, and almost every one had Chicky On The Cell Phone getting her sentences fixed before my keyboard would be able to type anything again:P
(Don't click that. It's just a screenshot. Plus I Mordored her and redacted her in they're Dempster.)
This, though, you can click:
It's one of the stable of video options when you have a problem like mine (Eleanor runs into the same issues on home repair how-to vids) - and each sucks in its own unique way. This one at least does not have a bass-booming instrumental under the whole thing. There are actual words. I can't understand a one of them, but there their. (Sorry, still trying to piss off the Grammarly chicky.)
Many had no words at all. One had a SUBSCRIBE TO OUR VIDEOS banner permanently above the top quarter of the screen which prevented you from seeing what Mr. Hands was up to up at the top. The most useful one I found was at least honest about the design-deviltry of this whole process. for every step began with the words "REMOVE SCREWS."
Gwon. Watch it. You'll be unscrewing more than your father's 35mm stag reel of Deep Throat running backward at slow speed.
I was at least prepared for this. The most valuable advice from the RIT Graduate Kid was, DON'T LOSE THE SCREWS. So I had duly labeled Ziplocs for each step. The dozenish that came out of the back panel. The several holding down the battery (located once I aircanned a bunch of pet hair off it.) The one holding down the hard drive. The couple of them bolting the fan (another popular source of Remembrances of Evil Cat Past blown away by the canned air). But then, in the general vicinity of a lotta soldering, REMOVE SCREWS prefaced the removal of the motherboard.
I got only as far as that mother******board after diving down that far trying to get it out. They had one screw I DID find covered with a Lenovo sticky (probably the FACTORY SANITIZED FOR YOUR PROTECTION AND BTW YOU JUST VOIDED YOUR WARRANTY one). But even accounting for that, this thing seemed destined to break in two or more like a slice of matzoh, and me, nowhere near Kosher for Passover yet.
It was time to give up.
There's an iRepair joint down the street that's been good with broken screen protectors for us, but we're talking Broken Windows here. I decided to wait for day's end to figure out my next step and went to Wegmans and for gas, and what to my wondering eyes appeared across Niagara Falls Boulevard from both but a place called, wait for it,
I pulled in. For 79 bucks they can finish the job. Like, tomorrow. Gee, wonder why the place that SOLD me the laptop, and amazingly still sells newer laptops, came up with a cost three times that much?
Only problem was, I didn't have it with me. I quickly solved that problem by returning home, and I put the packed-up package in my car, threw the dog in so she could get her first dog park visit in months since it's just up the Boulevard from there, and brought it in.
The laptop, not the dog.
They quickly identified a problem I hadn't even gotten to in the Best Exotic Grammarly Budapest Hotel film playing before my video. Even after all that digging to get to the buried treasure, I still would never have gotten it out, because Lenovo, in its infinite wisdom, RIVITED THE FUCKING THING IN. This requires melting those parts to get the old one out and the new one in. Which, seeing how it's the most heavily user-interacted piece of the entire product, might have been designed a little more easily to get to that part. Like, maybe from the top? Remove screws. Take out frame around keyboard. Remove funny bone. Careful, if you touch the side, BZZZZZZ! Remove more screws. Pull up on unriveted keyboard, unplug in back and replace with $20 part. Replace screws. Take out wrenched ankle. A winner! HA! HA! HA!
What an Operation:P
Amazingly, this obstacle did not increase the price, merely the turnaround time. Meh, I said, I'm away tomorrow anyway. So we'll see what happens. Meanwhile, I'm just hoping I don't die before I wake and have St. Peter telling me, Welcome to heaven, oh good and faithful servant. Want to enter the gate? REMOVE SCREWS.
----
It ultimately went about that well at the Parp!
We’d never heard of a dog park closed on the second day of spring before, so with tears in our eyes, we drove off into the sunset, looking for a place to dump the half a ton of poop.
Walked, more like it. The Erie Canalway Trail runs right outside that entrance, and we could've made it all the way to the Hudson to dump her dumplings if we'd had the time. Wound up turning back before even crossing the Boulevard, but it was lovely and warm out and the adjacent grass filled with new flavors to sample: Bichon Frise 2018. Hints of almond butter, strawberry jam and whatever else Scooby rolled in last night that sure did stink!
----
Other randomnesses to end this with:
- I am guaranteed my Learned League goal of finishing at least .500, for I know, without even the announcement, that I won or tied in LL today. The only way to know that is to have answered all six questions correctly, as I did for the first time all year (and maybe the fifth time ever:) In LLingo, this is known as "a beer," as in grabbing a six-pack.
- This came across my Facebooking today, and I immediately supplemented it:
♫Judas gonna give you up, Peter gonna let you down, Pilate gonna wash his hands and then hang you, Herod gonna make you cry, Mary gonna say goodbye,....♫
uh oh, better stop before I piss some Xtian off. I did that last week when I countered an Amazing Grace meme with my greater love of her science-believing brother, Curious George.
- Other fun with lyrics: Eleanor brought the paper in yesterday because she needed to make dropcloths out of the adverts, and she accidentally bogarted the Sunday comics, really the only reason I still get the one-day delivery anymore. But I'd already seen the day's Pearls Before Swine, which has been short on its Punny Dreadfulness of late- until yesterday:
I thereupon added to the Sumner's Tale:
No more breaths you'll take,
I'll attend your wake,
In your heart a stake,
Deep in hell you'll bake,
No more punning, you:P
More tomorrow. Assuming I'm not unscrewed, hit by a rat with a baseball bat, or fired by anyone before I can fire them first:P
A call came in late last week from a potential client referred from an I Don't Know source- Kelsey? Chelsea? Admiral Halsey?- that I got around to returning this morning. After my wonderful experience with the ClusteRedacted that ran into early last week, I heard all the bells go off this time. Prior lawyer dissatisfied with? Check. Two different cases with major fires in need of out-putting? Three alarms. Knows legal terms that I do but probably 50 percent of the lawyers in this town don't know or at least don't understand? Bing! I declined it. The caller still kept going- butbutbutbut this that and the other notevenredactingwedidntgetthatfar. Finally, I cut it off, gave some recommendations of agencies to contact, and sent the nonrepresentation letter my malpractice insurer wants me to send every time but I reserve for when my Redacted sense gets tingling. Priority mail, even, so I was out eight bucks before I even turned the computer on this morning.
----
Ah, computers. They're so naughty and complicated. I could just pinch them.
After cranking out an hour or so of actual work after that, the mail came. One check, making up for the eight bucks down. One adverse court decision. Plus a box containing the keyboard to the other laptop- the one I impressed both wife and kid with last week by getting up the gumption to try to repair myself.
It's a Lenovo Ideapad 330, and the keyboard on this thing has gradually gone on strike. Office Desperate, who sold it to me, wanted over 300 bucks for the repair. The part was 20 bucks. After it arrived and I brought the Dell home for instructional videos and the Lenovo on the desk upside down, I began to follow the instructions.
Shall We Play A Game?
First, though, shall we watch a Grammarly ad? I must've tried a dozen different sites with similar "easy" demos, and almost every one had Chicky On The Cell Phone getting her sentences fixed before my keyboard would be able to type anything again:P
(Don't click that. It's just a screenshot. Plus I Mordored her and redacted her in they're Dempster.)
This, though, you can click:
It's one of the stable of video options when you have a problem like mine (Eleanor runs into the same issues on home repair how-to vids) - and each sucks in its own unique way. This one at least does not have a bass-booming instrumental under the whole thing. There are actual words. I can't understand a one of them, but there their. (Sorry, still trying to piss off the Grammarly chicky.)
Many had no words at all. One had a SUBSCRIBE TO OUR VIDEOS banner permanently above the top quarter of the screen which prevented you from seeing what Mr. Hands was up to up at the top. The most useful one I found was at least honest about the design-deviltry of this whole process. for every step began with the words "REMOVE SCREWS."
Gwon. Watch it. You'll be unscrewing more than your father's 35mm stag reel of Deep Throat running backward at slow speed.
I was at least prepared for this. The most valuable advice from the RIT Graduate Kid was, DON'T LOSE THE SCREWS. So I had duly labeled Ziplocs for each step. The dozenish that came out of the back panel. The several holding down the battery (located once I aircanned a bunch of pet hair off it.) The one holding down the hard drive. The couple of them bolting the fan (another popular source of Remembrances of Evil Cat Past blown away by the canned air). But then, in the general vicinity of a lotta soldering, REMOVE SCREWS prefaced the removal of the motherboard.
I got only as far as that mother******board after diving down that far trying to get it out. They had one screw I DID find covered with a Lenovo sticky (probably the FACTORY SANITIZED FOR YOUR PROTECTION AND BTW YOU JUST VOIDED YOUR WARRANTY one). But even accounting for that, this thing seemed destined to break in two or more like a slice of matzoh, and me, nowhere near Kosher for Passover yet.
It was time to give up.
There's an iRepair joint down the street that's been good with broken screen protectors for us, but we're talking Broken Windows here. I decided to wait for day's end to figure out my next step and went to Wegmans and for gas, and what to my wondering eyes appeared across Niagara Falls Boulevard from both but a place called, wait for it,
I pulled in. For 79 bucks they can finish the job. Like, tomorrow. Gee, wonder why the place that SOLD me the laptop, and amazingly still sells newer laptops, came up with a cost three times that much?
Only problem was, I didn't have it with me. I quickly solved that problem by returning home, and I put the packed-up package in my car, threw the dog in so she could get her first dog park visit in months since it's just up the Boulevard from there, and brought it in.
The laptop, not the dog.
They quickly identified a problem I hadn't even gotten to in the Best Exotic Grammarly Budapest Hotel film playing before my video. Even after all that digging to get to the buried treasure, I still would never have gotten it out, because Lenovo, in its infinite wisdom, RIVITED THE FUCKING THING IN. This requires melting those parts to get the old one out and the new one in. Which, seeing how it's the most heavily user-interacted piece of the entire product, might have been designed a little more easily to get to that part. Like, maybe from the top? Remove screws. Take out frame around keyboard. Remove funny bone. Careful, if you touch the side, BZZZZZZ! Remove more screws. Pull up on unriveted keyboard, unplug in back and replace with $20 part. Replace screws. Take out wrenched ankle. A winner! HA! HA! HA!
What an Operation:P
Amazingly, this obstacle did not increase the price, merely the turnaround time. Meh, I said, I'm away tomorrow anyway. So we'll see what happens. Meanwhile, I'm just hoping I don't die before I wake and have St. Peter telling me, Welcome to heaven, oh good and faithful servant. Want to enter the gate? REMOVE SCREWS.
----
It ultimately went about that well at the Parp!
We’d never heard of a dog park closed on the second day of spring before, so with tears in our eyes, we drove off into the sunset, looking for a place to dump the half a ton of poop.
Walked, more like it. The Erie Canalway Trail runs right outside that entrance, and we could've made it all the way to the Hudson to dump her dumplings if we'd had the time. Wound up turning back before even crossing the Boulevard, but it was lovely and warm out and the adjacent grass filled with new flavors to sample: Bichon Frise 2018. Hints of almond butter, strawberry jam and whatever else Scooby rolled in last night that sure did stink!
----
Other randomnesses to end this with:
- I am guaranteed my Learned League goal of finishing at least .500, for I know, without even the announcement, that I won or tied in LL today. The only way to know that is to have answered all six questions correctly, as I did for the first time all year (and maybe the fifth time ever:) In LLingo, this is known as "a beer," as in grabbing a six-pack.
- This came across my Facebooking today, and I immediately supplemented it:
♫Judas gonna give you up, Peter gonna let you down, Pilate gonna wash his hands and then hang you, Herod gonna make you cry, Mary gonna say goodbye,....♫
uh oh, better stop before I piss some Xtian off. I did that last week when I countered an Amazing Grace meme with my greater love of her science-believing brother, Curious George.
- Other fun with lyrics: Eleanor brought the paper in yesterday because she needed to make dropcloths out of the adverts, and she accidentally bogarted the Sunday comics, really the only reason I still get the one-day delivery anymore. But I'd already seen the day's Pearls Before Swine, which has been short on its Punny Dreadfulness of late- until yesterday:
I thereupon added to the Sumner's Tale:
No more breaths you'll take,
I'll attend your wake,
In your heart a stake,
Deep in hell you'll bake,
No more punning, you:P
More tomorrow. Assuming I'm not unscrewed, hit by a rat with a baseball bat, or fired by anyone before I can fire them first:P