It's not me, it's you, @Dell!

I have been a loyal Dell consumer since 2003. My first Dell computer was a desktop named Lola.

This is what I imagined she would look like as a person. 

I killed Lola in only a few months by accidentally pouring a ginger ale in the back of her while trying to fix my router. That was totally my fault. I immediately purchased a replacement Dell, a standard tower, no frills, and I salvaged what I could from Lola and pieced together my new computer, Frankenlola.

Personification of Frankenlola. I was doing a lot of pinups at the time. 

Frankenlola lasted for many years with no incidents. I eventually passed her down to my husband and bought my first Dell laptop for $1400 with money I earned as a research assistant at the University of Florida in 2005. Her name was Lucille. I played a lot of Sims 2 on Lucille, and when I replaced her in 2009, she was literally falling apart. Unfortunately, Lucille’s replacement, whose name I can’t recall, likely because of the trouble I had with her, was the beginning of a downward trend. On November 16, 2010, less than a year old, the hard drive on that laptop died.

http://cheeseblarg.blogspot.com/2010/11/ill-be-back.html 

After much arguing and complaining, Dell honored their warranty and replaced the hard drive in their depot.

A few months later, to treat my husband, since Frankenlola was getting mighty slow, I bought him a new Dell desktop (he doesn’t bother to name his possessions).

After the fight I had then with getting the hard drive replaced (because it was close to the end of the warranty period), the computer only lasted 2.5 years, until July 5, 2013.

On Feb, 8th, 2014, I bought yet another Dell laptop. This one was named the S.S. Lil’ Mare after my friend Mary who worked at Dell and helped me pick out the system.


In May of 2017, I bought another Dell (this time refurbished) for my husband when the hard drive on his desktop failed right before finals, and 2 months later we had to replace the replacement, when its hard drive also failed. Thankfully, the seller of that computer on Amazon happily refunded the price and another Dell desktop was purchased for an additional fee. When the Lil’ Mare died on July 11th of last year, having had to buy 2 computers for my husband, leaving us no extra funds, I saved up until November to buy my current computer, Ernestine, on Thanksgiving morning. My saga with Ernestine has been so horrific that I really never want to deal with Dell, ever again.

When Ernestine broke two weeks into my ownership, I asked Dell to replace it. They insisted on trying to fix it. Fixing it was a whole ordeal. I asked them, please, I’ve only had this for two weeks, just replace the computer. At one point, as I waited with no word from the repairman, they agreed to replace the computer over the phone, but were only willing to offer a refurbished unit. For some reason, they didn’t think I deserved a new one. Desperate, I agreed. Moments later they rescinded, saying the repairman would be there shortly.

The hard drive was replaced on my kitchen table as my cat looked on and it worked poorly for January and February, and then died again, with a catastrophic hard drive failure yet again on March 8th. I asked them to replace the computer once again. They insisted it be repaired and sent a repairman to my home again when I refused to send it in to their depot. Being a writer by trade, I am not pleased with losing my computer for weeks at a time and wanted it done in a timely manner. Forty-five minutes after the repairman left, the computer broke again, this time shutting itself off moments after booting it, repeatedly. After complaining bitterly on Twitter, Dell called me and attempted the third repair, which did, to use a colorful turn of phrase, fuck all.

As a person with processing issues from a chronic illness, talking on the phone is difficult. I can hear but I can’t process speech in real time, often times. I watch TV with subtitles because my brain can’t keep up with the sounds I hear. Having to follow directions from a person with a heavily accented voice in a noisy environment on a staticy phone when I was stressed to begin with was absolute torture, and I was not willing to try again when, predictably, my computer was still broken and I was told I was not eligible to have the unit replaced. After expressing my dismay on Twitter, completely distraught, they convinced me to send the computer into their depot, where it would be fixed once and for all, completely perfect and in tip top shape. I was told the turn around would be very quick. It took 5 days just to get there. And then there was a 5 day wait to get parts to fix it.

After 15 days, I was pleased as punch to have my computer back. I am in the middle of a manuscript for a novel I am excited about that I started in May of 2017, right before the S.S. Lil’ Mare died and am anxious to get back to writing, which I cannot do on my smartphone. Imagine my dismay, reading the documentation that came with my computer explaining that my computer had been carefully fixed and tested, when my newly “repaired” computer, shut itself off within 2 minutes of booting the system to Windows.

I am absolutely livid with Dell. The computer should have been replaced the very first time that there was a problem in the first two weeks I had it. Their bait and switch behavior feels like a scam, and it is making me physically sick. That previously mentioned chronic illness is an autoimmune disease and it is highly reactive to stress. I am currently on a month long course of steroids because my immune system was attacking my joints and internal organs to the point that the low dose chemotherapy I regularly take couldn’t do the job of suppressing it as it should, and my liver was being damaged by the attack.

Over the past day, Dell has offered to send another repairman to “fix my computer right in front of me,” as if this was some sort of treat. If they couldn’t fix it in their depot that is presumably a clean room, how in the hell were they going to fix it in my cat hair filled home? Upon asking that question, they thoughtfully offered to have me send it back to the depot if I didn’t want it fixed in my home. And for that matter, what the hell were they doing with it while it was in the depot in the first place? It was supposedly tested, and yet, Windows wasn’t reinstalled when I turned it on fresh out of the box, and it persisted in the behavior the moment it was fully booted. It seems clear that they didn’t test it and that the computer cannot be fixed.

What I would really like is to be able to buy a different brand of computer so I never have to deal with Dell again, but unfortunately, I am chronically ill and my husband and I depend upon student loans and my writing and art to survive. When I don’t have my computer, I don’t have a way to work, and his loans are solely for his education and must be carefully budgeted to get us through each semester. I would love to have an i Mac or anything, actually, reliable and sturdy enough for process intensive digital art and film making. But regardless, I honestly believe that Dell needs to make this right and that seems very far off.

As it stands, they have passed my case on to an escalation specialist. I was told they would call within 24-36 hours. They called way sooner while I was out assisting my husband with a photography project for his semester final. I was told there would be a call back number direct to the specialist should they be unable to reach me. Predictably, there wasn’t a direct line. I had to answer 20 questions to be patched through to a number where I was promptly hung up on. Mr. Christopher’s phone doesn’t have voicemail, and while he assured me he would be available until 6 pm, their system wouldn’t put the call through because it shuts down at 5 pm.

Over the past 15 years, I have been incredibly loyal to Dell. As the family computer specialist, I have instructed all of my family members to purchase Dells. I have told coworkers and students and friends. I want my computer replaced. I want a machine that works and that I can work with, with the same or better specs and I don’t want another damned platitude where I am told that being frustrated is understandable but their hands are tied. This is a shitty way to do business and it would take a monumental response to rectify the damage done to the relationship. At this point, I’m just assuming even if I am able to harangue a replacement computer out of them, I will forever be disappointed and will spend the rest of my excess energy warning people away from the brand because the treatment I have received and the difficulty I have faced is something no paying customer should ever subject themselves to.

Safety Net, More Like Safety NOT.

I have been contacted by at least 4 of my 5 current medical providers in the past week chastising me for being an irresponsible jerk. The problem is, I am totally responsible and also, that kind of judgment is super bad for my health, guys, stop it.

As I've said before, I'm poor. Yes, we have the sweet sweet financial aid currently, that makes life so much more enjoyable, but since that is a gift from the government (that they expect to get back someday), and it only goes for basic living stuff, we still receive bare minimum safety net services, like Medicaid (Thanks, Obama), and when you have social services, there is a whole lot of hoop jumping that comes along with it.

And I'm not even complaining. I'm getting something incredibly valuable for free, basically. I mean, I paid into the system for a decade before coming to need these services, but I am almost entirely fine with having to fill out endless paperwork and report my every change to these agencies, because basically they are keeping me alive, and for that, I would do an assload of paperwork, man.

The problem is, I did my paperwork. A week after I moved. I went onto their website like their paperwork instructed me to, and I changed my Primary Care Provider, like they told me to, and I waited a month until my new coverage kicked in to make any doctor's appointments, like a super responsible girl, even though I desperately needed to see those doctors then, only to find out that the website we were all told to use, doesn't seem to be attached to anything!

Even worse, after getting the situation squared away by calling their hotline, I asked to make a complaint about the website not working and here's what I was told:

We know that there's a problem. We are working diligently to fix the issue that is making it so that the website collects data, tells you it registered you, but then spits the information out into the ether. It's a particular problem with the medical center that serves your area. Unfortunately, we can't tell those providers that this is an issue we're having so they stop chastising you because we have no way of knowing that you actually tried to sign up, you could be making it up and this whole problem could just be that you people are liars. This problem... that we've been trying to deal with for at least 3 months now... that countless people have complained about. Have you tried not being poor?

I might be paraphrasing slightly. Anyway, it's frustrating enough that I've written this novella about it. There's the whole myth of the Welfare Queen living high on benefits from the government, but being humiliated on a regular basis because technology is hard for the government doesn't feel very royal to me. All I'd really like is for Montana Medicaid's IT department to contact my providers and tell them there's an issue with the website and that their clients aren't just sitting around eating bonbons and laughing in the face of responsibility. Okay, maybe I would like some bonbons too, but I would really like them to take responsibility for their errors, instead of putting it all on the poor people who are trying to do the right thing on a broken system.

buy me bonbons!

This is not about Google, the bastards.

My doctor prescribed new Fibromyalgia medication. I just titrated* up to two a day. They make me feel like this. Almost.

*My dictionary doesn't know the word "titrated." Clearly, it doesn't have any sort of medical issues. Checking that it is correct via google** and waiting a really long time for everything to load is really beyond my scope of patience right now. But I did it anyway, for you. But my computer is really slow. It doesn't seem to be made for my new drawing program, or maybe it is because I never restart it, because I don't have the patience to wait for shit to load when I do. I want a new computer.

** My dictionary also doesn't know the word "google" which is pretty fucking stupid since I have the "Ask Google for Suggestions" option check.  You would think that Google would suggest that google was fucking correct. Oh, it wants to be capitalized. Well, fuck you Google, you should know that you are now a verb and not a proper verb (is there such thing as a proper verb?) so you don't get to be capitalized when I am verbing you***.  You are just so vain. You probably think this post is about you. Well, it's not. It is about me being stoned because Tylenol makes me sleepy, so Neurontin is making me fly on a pink sparkly pega-narwhal, so fuck you, Google.

***Oh, wait, my bad. I wasn't verbing you, was I? I blame the drugs for that outburst. I'm sorry. I love you Google.

Now Make Like a Tree and Get Out of Here.

I don't know what kind of internet shitbowl thinks it is awesome to try to trick people into thinking that TODAY is the day that Marty McFly time traveled into the future.

I've covered this before in my ranty Back to the Future post entitled "Great Scott" but I'll say it again:

Marty McFly visited October 21, 2015.

I told someone that today when he claimed that today, my 13th wedding anniversary is the day "Marty Went To." In response to my correction, he linked me to this:

• First of all, that is a picture of Marty McFly in 1955.
• Second of all, YOU'RE A STUPID ASSHOLE. I just TOLD YOU what day Marty McFly went to. I even doubled checked by going to a Back to the Future Wiki because you shouldn't correct people when you are not right. 
• Lastly, you need to have your internets taken away permanently, because you don't know how they work.

The point is, I could likely make that time circuit readout read "YOUR MOM" and it wouldn't mean that Marty McFly traveled to your mom. It means that people on the internet are shit strainers and like to trick people into making me angry.

This image is photoshopped. Marty McFly never went to your mom.

Down low, too slow!

I hate high fiving. A lot.

High fiving humans...
I will high five the shit out of animals.
Except birds, fuck birds, but I will high five any hamster that puts its creepy little alien paw up for me to gently tap with my palm (because it is a tiny cute hamster and full on high five might hurt it).

High fiving humans holds no interest for me because they judge you when you are awkward and your hand isn't a fucking physics major, so you kinda miss their hand on the forward trajectory, not hitting it right on, and then they know you have spacial issues, and they don't say anything but you can see it in the way that they avoid your eyes.

Or you go for the high five and they do the mercy hand position and there you are, slightly horrified, looking like you are defending yourself again a bully who wants to break your wrists and they are clutching at your hands, jumping up and down, excited, and you are just receding to your happy place until this stranger danger is over.

And it is stranger danger, because anyone who really knows me knows I don't want to touch their hands. They also probably know that they don't want to touch my hands (see the post about my activities on road trips). I'd rather most people put their genitals on me than their grubby dirty hands.


That job I had, the one that I got fired from, they were staunch believers in high fives.  My soul died a little every time I was forced to partake in their bizarre hand touching ritual. Thankfully they fired me though, so I didn't have to come up with bizarre reasons to dodge being touched.  I had already considered "leprosy from an armadillo bite" and "mail order ebola that accidentally got shipped to me instead of my terrorist next door neighbors."  They probably would have just gotten hazmat suits for everyone and upped the "up highs" to boost my morale.

ANIMAL HIGH FIVE CHALLENGE! 

The best ones will be posted later this week with a link to your blog. Draw them up and send them to my email (cheeseblarg at live dot com). You have until Wednesday, 11:59pm my time.

 p.s. Your drawings don't have to be drawings if you'd like to work in another medium, but it has to be self made.

                                     

I selected this post to be featured on my blog’s page at Humor Blogs.

Why the long face?

Sometimes, really cheerful people say really inanely stupid things when they should probably not talk.

VIRUS WARNING! QUICK! GIVE ME MONEY!

While I am entirely against violence and revenge, people who create those viruses that pretend to be virus warnings that try to trick computards, like my sister and her husband, who don't have anti-virus programs on their family's laptop (because WHO NEEDS ANTI-VIRUS!? YAY! THE INTERNETS! OOH WHAT'S THAT!? CLICK CLICK CLICK!

)

into paying said virus makers to remove the virus on their site that pretends to be "Window's Helpful Security Tool"... those people, they should have acupuncture needles inserted into their peeholes. I'm just saying. I don't condone violence*, but they kinda deserve it.

*This statement, the result of 11 hours of wrestling with a fake security warning virus out of the goodness of my heart, which kept me up until 6am, running and rerunning two different malware removers and spybot s&d, to try to get my sister's computer usable for her work trip (which she told me about last night at 7pm), only to find that the virus keeps me from being able to finish the last step to remove it (installing an actual anti-virus program) so that the whole hard drive needs to be wiped, though the backup OS disk has been lost of course, is not representative of my usual feelings or intentions towards hackers, who really should DIAF until I get more than 4 hours of sleep. Really, die.

<3, JRose

Urine big trouble, bladder!

I was planning on writing something so entertaining today that people would have DIED laughing, but I'm hella tired and I went to the doctor today and peed on my own hand, so the death by laughter will have to wait.

Here are the events leading up to my awesome day:

And... I'll find out in two days what the hell my jerk pee maker's problem is. In the meantime, thank goodness for AZO and cranberry juice.

Stirring the Pot

This is going to be an obscenity laden rant regarding something about which I am impassioned. In not so fancy terms, OMG PISSED!

So, I had an argument this morning, it was a petty silly thing but, seriously... I have very little money. It seems that most humor blarggers are in the same rickety boat.  So, the argument happened because I became enraged when it was suggested that my household needed a Robostir. If you are unfamiliar with the Robostir, it is a "robot" that you put in a pot, and it stirs it for you.

It stirs a fucking pot... for 17-24 dollars.

But, it is not even a robot.  It doesn't have any AI.  It doesn't like, use lasers to stir. It isn't connected to Skynet.  It is just a motor, with a whisk attached to it, on 3 stupid legs that you plunk into your soup pot.  If I'm promised a robot, I want an actual gawddamned robot.

I'm so em-effing tired of gadgets that do things that people don't need help doing.  The average person is perfectly able to crack an egg without a gadget, or cut brownies into suitable squares...(if you don't like them being slightly uneven, don't eat one, asshole!)... or OMG, A BUTTER PLUNGER!?!? TWENTY TWO DOLLARS TO MAKE A RIBBON OF BUTTER! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!?! Sorry, I was just looking for examples at a website where you can buy all these idiotic gadgets.

And don't get me started on the Topsy Turvy. "Tired of having to bend over to pick up tomatoes that have fallen off the plant?"  Why, does the thing come equipped with an anti-gravity force field that keeps the tomatoes from falling? Because it seems to me that if you hang the plant upside down 6 feet from the ground, the tomatoes would be MORE likely to fall (that pesky potential energy and all) and, instead of being happy and whole, they would die a miserable, squashy, death.

But don't get me wrong, I am not against gadgets all together. I had a Ronco Showtime Rotisserie that I absolutely loved (made the best sausage EVAR). I just hate things that assume I'm a blathering idiot who is incapable of gross motor skills.


So, no, I don't want a Robostir because you know what else stirs a pot really well?! Your hand and a wood spoon, and that's like, virtually free. If stirring a pot is such a bloody problem, call me-- I can do it for you for $2.15.

Plus Shipping & Handling

Ode to State Taxes

Montana, I would like to pay you taxes on all of our income, but you won't give me any information ANYWHERE on your website on where to list OTHER FREAKING INCOME on ANY OF YOUR TAX FORMS!!!!! Or maybe you do, but the fact is that I can not find it anywhere by looking in the booklets of ALL of the different tax forms, or the forms themselves (using ctrl-f), or by searching your website, or by sacrificing virgins on your digital alter in the hopes that maybe you will have some freaking mercy on me. Because we are talking about a $1000 discrepancy. A THOUSAND DOLLARS that is on a 1099-misc which you don't have space for anywhere... so I can just assume you don't want me to count that money, but I am guessing you probably would like the additional 20 bucks of tax money from me on that, and I would REALLY like to avoid being audited or corrected again like last year, or whatever, and I am certainly not paying 30 bucks to have H&R Block do it. . .


I just have to say, the state of Montana is very lucky that I am filing electronically or I would be rubbing the tax forms all over my ass before sending them out!

Fine, damn it, I called and talked to Tax Man Brian and I found out where to put the damned thing, but in this day and age I should not have to interact with actual humans to get information!