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action-packed weekend
Meanwhile, I headed out to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ralphmelton and
lorimelton's traditional holiday party last night,
where much fun was had. I had thought they were going to go
light on the baking, what with job stress and stuff, but they
went into overdrive again. Anyone who went home from that party
hungry did it to himself; there was a great variety of very
tasty food. I spent time chatting with a bunch of past
coworkers from Claritech, met some of Lori's coworkers, and
saw some other folks I know. A few of the usual suspects
weren't there this year, but there were other people who were
new to me so it all worked out.
However, that was clearly too much fun and could not be permitted without a balancing force. Today it became abundantly clear that the computer that has been in gradual decline has picked up some acceleration. So today after brunch we made what was supposed to be a quick stop at CompUSA. (I'd already priced mail-order options.) I figured it would be worth it, if the prices were comparable, to drive home with a machine instead of waiting for one to be shipped during the busy season. I'd already given up on my preferred operating system, and if the default sound card isn't good enough for the music I do I can upgrade it later, so off we went.
It turns out that the computer I wanted was cheaper with the monitor and printer than without. I failed to immediately notice the six-point text that said "after rebates". But ok, whatever -- I can probably find someone who could use the monitor, and I haven't made any decision yet on the printer. (I have a laser printer that I'm happy with. It might be worth having a photo-quality color inkjet on hand, maybe connected to the file server or something. Low priority.)
It only took about ten minutes to identify the desired machine and get someone to initiate paperwork. Paperwork took a while. Then we got to the register, where the person there had a great deal of trouble getting things to ring up at the right price. And, after all of this, we discovered the problem with the rebates.
The coupons printing from the register were coming up as expired, even though this sale started today. Then someone went to the back room to get me new ones, and came back later with two of the three. (I was owed $250 in rebates; he was short $100.) We spent the better part of an hour in the "just a few more minutes" state, as various people and their managers wandered around waving papers and, repeatedly, absconding with my receipt.
If the problem had come up earlier, I would have told them to just void the sale and walked out. (If it had come up immediately, I would have just bought a different computer.) After I'd invested time, though, I was damn well going to get the computer at the advertised price, while making sure that other customers who might be responding to that ad knew to check their paperwork carefully or be overcharged. ("No thanks; I'd rather stand here than take a seat in the back room.") Once I discovered that the problem was a CompUSA rebate, not a manufacturer one, I tried to get them to just give me the $100. No luck there -- I didn't expect it to work with employees of a large company, though a businessman acting under his own authority probably would have done so instantly. (Ok, he probably wouldn't be playing the rebate game to begin with, but whatever.)
But I did finally get the rebate paperwork and my computer, and as I write this I'm installing OS and antivirus updates. I can't seem to get my old machine visible on the network reliably, so I'm using an external hard drive to transfer files, but oh well. (And in unrelated news, I can't seem to get VNC to be happy right now either.)
One downside of the new machine is that I'm now running XP instead of Windows 2000. I've fixed the most egregious look-and-feel problems but haven't managed to get all the crap off my start menu yet. I got caps-lock and control switched as Stallman intended. But I can't be too happy about running the OS everyone loves to hack; Win2k at least hasn't been an explicit target for some time.
Ok, the OS updates are taking a long time and a few other pieces of software are waiting for a reboot, so off to do something else for a while.
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I don't know about the quality of the inkjet that you got, but my experience has been that the modern inkjet printers are really nothing more than vehicles for selling you expensive ink cartridges. And somehow I've had worse printing from the inkjet that I got a couple of years ago than from the good ol' StyleWriter II I got back when I was in grad school. I think it might be because I don't print often; when I do, more often than not some of the nozzles are clogged, so it looks gross. Of course, I could clean the print heads, but that uses up even more of the ink...
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Or be willing to live with lousy printouts. For my home use, that's what I've been doing... I usually only print B&W, and there are some glitches, but I usually can live with it. The color heads are so clogged that it doesn't print out some colors at all... but, of course, the printer won't print Black and White if the color ink cartridge is missing or empty. I didn't pay anything for the printer, but I've probably spent about $100 or so on ink cartridges over the last two years...
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