After two trips to the Apple Store in Roseville, I have to face it: it looks like my iPod mini is dead. After only two years! About a week ago, I plugged it in to let it charge, and it didn't respond. I tried to reboot it, and it didn't react.
As it turns out, Apple doesn't really stand behind its products. They don't really do much as far as repairs go. The folks at the Genius Bar, with all their training from HQ in CA, know how to run all the troubleshooting tips they give you in the user's guide. Other than that, I guess they've been trained to tell people about how Apple doesn't repair damaged products, and prefers to replace them, but it's not worth it unless it's under warranty. I wonder how long it took them to pick up the 'you can use our iPod recycling program and get 10% off of a new one!' sales pitch. Heck, I could work for Apple and fix iPods if that's all that's required.
Perhaps they train them in grief counseling, so that when customers get upset, they can make them feel better enough to be willing to buy another Apple product.
Or perhaps I just tend to exaggerate when I vent like this.
Anyway, I'm kind of skeptical about sending my iPod to an online retailer to be fixed, as the second Genius I spoke to suggested. It's a trust issue, you know? Not that there'd be any incentive to run off with a small, dead, green electronic device. But still.
All I can say is, even though it costs more - GET THE WARRANTY. BUY APPLECARE. I don't think it was even offered to me when we bought my mini, but seek it out. It's worth it.
09 August 2007
02 August 2007
Another Harry Potter dream!
So I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a week and a half ago. Sunday night this week I had some pretty vivid dreams.
The first one was really bad. In it, my parents were getting divorced. It was bizarre, because in real life my parents have the most incredibly stable relationship that I know. In the dream, it wasn't even that they were fighting. They were just getting a divorce. It had this diplomatic tone to it, but it was horrible. So of course, when I woke up around 9:00, I thought 'I can't get up after a dream like that! I must go back to sleep and dream about something else.' So I went back to sleep and dreamed about something else.
My second dream was crazy! It was an alternate ending to the seventh Harry Potter book, and it was really believable at the time. I'll do my best to relate it.
The dream begins during the final battle. However, it was happening at a place that was a cross between the Burrow and Hogwarts - there were several students living there, but it was a house. Oddly enough, it was laid out pretty much exactly like my house, except that my brother's room was a little bigger.
I was Harry. Many witches and wizards were near the garage, where Voldemort was dueling with various people. Ron and I were in the house. The ring was the only Horcrux left to destroy, and we'd known where it was the whole time. I think we were supposed to leave the ring for the end. Dumbledore had told us it was in the house, in this green suitcase (which looks exactly like the one I bought at the United Methodist Resale in Oberlin last fall, hm) in the bedroom that Ron, Neville and I lived in (Seamus and Dean may have lived there, too, I forget). Ron and I ran into the house to get the ring, but it wasn't in the suitcase.
Some more setup:
This bedroom (my brother's) was on the back corner of the house. On the wall there had always been this big rectangular mark; it looked like a large chunk of drywall had been replaced. On the floor along the other outside wall, underneath a window, there were wooden boxes connected to one another, numbered from ten to one. In each box was a different prank from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes (there were ten of one item in box 10, nine of another in 9, and so on).
I stared at the mark on the wall and realized for the first time that it matched up with the location of a window on the outside of the house. Judging by the outside walls, there should have been two windows in the room instead of one. So Ron and I walked over to the mark, and pushed it in. It fell away from the rest of the wall, and exposed a closet-sized space filled with things that clearly belonged to James and his friends when they lived there many years before. It became obvious that the missing ring was somewhere in the closet. I began to look for it, any tried not to get too distracted by my dad's various old belongings and robes.
While I searched, the witches and wizards in the garage needed Ron's help in fending off Voldemort. He proceeded to take pranks from a box, and go use them against Voldemort. In the number 8 box, there were eight little disembodied hands, about the size of maybe an eight year-old's hands. When you threw them at someone, they'd crawl all over that person's body and tickle them.
I really wish I'd been able to see Voldemort being tickled. I don't think he could handle it. I doubt he's ever been tickled in his life. Unfortunately, I was looking for the ring. Also unfortunately, I don't think the dream ended while I was still looking for the ring and Ron was still lobbing Fred and George's creations at the Dark Lord. I'm assuming that we won, somehow.
Then I woke up and it was 12:55 P.M. (story of my life).
- - - Beware: Minor Spoiler Ahead - - -
On a similar note (similar to Voldemort being tickled), while I was reading about the final battle, I thought it would be really funny if Voldemort had been killed because someone chucked a Mandrake at him. I guess it would have been kind of anti-climactic, though.
I also kind of wanted to check in with the Dursleys one last time, but oh well. Other than that it was AWESOME!
The first one was really bad. In it, my parents were getting divorced. It was bizarre, because in real life my parents have the most incredibly stable relationship that I know. In the dream, it wasn't even that they were fighting. They were just getting a divorce. It had this diplomatic tone to it, but it was horrible. So of course, when I woke up around 9:00, I thought 'I can't get up after a dream like that! I must go back to sleep and dream about something else.' So I went back to sleep and dreamed about something else.
My second dream was crazy! It was an alternate ending to the seventh Harry Potter book, and it was really believable at the time. I'll do my best to relate it.
The dream begins during the final battle. However, it was happening at a place that was a cross between the Burrow and Hogwarts - there were several students living there, but it was a house. Oddly enough, it was laid out pretty much exactly like my house, except that my brother's room was a little bigger.
I was Harry. Many witches and wizards were near the garage, where Voldemort was dueling with various people. Ron and I were in the house. The ring was the only Horcrux left to destroy, and we'd known where it was the whole time. I think we were supposed to leave the ring for the end. Dumbledore had told us it was in the house, in this green suitcase (which looks exactly like the one I bought at the United Methodist Resale in Oberlin last fall, hm) in the bedroom that Ron, Neville and I lived in (Seamus and Dean may have lived there, too, I forget). Ron and I ran into the house to get the ring, but it wasn't in the suitcase.
Some more setup:
This bedroom (my brother's) was on the back corner of the house. On the wall there had always been this big rectangular mark; it looked like a large chunk of drywall had been replaced. On the floor along the other outside wall, underneath a window, there were wooden boxes connected to one another, numbered from ten to one. In each box was a different prank from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes (there were ten of one item in box 10, nine of another in 9, and so on).
I stared at the mark on the wall and realized for the first time that it matched up with the location of a window on the outside of the house. Judging by the outside walls, there should have been two windows in the room instead of one. So Ron and I walked over to the mark, and pushed it in. It fell away from the rest of the wall, and exposed a closet-sized space filled with things that clearly belonged to James and his friends when they lived there many years before. It became obvious that the missing ring was somewhere in the closet. I began to look for it, any tried not to get too distracted by my dad's various old belongings and robes.
While I searched, the witches and wizards in the garage needed Ron's help in fending off Voldemort. He proceeded to take pranks from a box, and go use them against Voldemort. In the number 8 box, there were eight little disembodied hands, about the size of maybe an eight year-old's hands. When you threw them at someone, they'd crawl all over that person's body and tickle them.
I really wish I'd been able to see Voldemort being tickled. I don't think he could handle it. I doubt he's ever been tickled in his life. Unfortunately, I was looking for the ring. Also unfortunately, I don't think the dream ended while I was still looking for the ring and Ron was still lobbing Fred and George's creations at the Dark Lord. I'm assuming that we won, somehow.
Then I woke up and it was 12:55 P.M. (story of my life).
- - - Beware: Minor Spoiler Ahead - - -
On a similar note (similar to Voldemort being tickled), while I was reading about the final battle, I thought it would be really funny if Voldemort had been killed because someone chucked a Mandrake at him. I guess it would have been kind of anti-climactic, though.
I also kind of wanted to check in with the Dursleys one last time, but oh well. Other than that it was AWESOME!
35W Collapse - (also posted on FTFDB!)
If you've had access to news coverage, then you probably heard about the collapse of the 35W bridge in Minneapolis at around 6:05 last night, where Intersate 35W crosses the Mississippi River. 35W is one of the main freeways in the Twin Cities; about 50% of the time when I drive, I'm on the chunk of that road that's in the northern suburbs.
I'm okay, as is my family. To the best of my knowledge, everyone I know is safe. I was working at the Metrodome (base/football stadium) during the collapse, and my carpool to work drove over the bridge about 2 hours before it went down. The Metrodome was really close to the site of the collapse, and it sounds like the only reason the game was played at all was to keep the 20-25,000 people off the roads for a few hours.
Fortunately, my parents both work in the suburbs, so they won't have to deal with the extra traffic (there's tons of road construction going on everywhere), but getting to the Metrodome to work at the games in the next few weeks is going to be interesting.
I hope it doesn't take too long to find and identify the people who are still missing. I can't imagine how it would feel to not be able to contact someone who's often on that stretch of road. Also, it appears that this might be drawing the needed attention to older and weaker infrastructure across the country that needs repair. Despite the inconvenience of huge construction projects, this is definitely worse.
It's kind of scary. My dad, brother and I went to the Twins game on Monday night, and we crossed that bridge at around 6:05. If it had been two days earlier, it might have happened to us.
I'm okay, as is my family. To the best of my knowledge, everyone I know is safe. I was working at the Metrodome (base/football stadium) during the collapse, and my carpool to work drove over the bridge about 2 hours before it went down. The Metrodome was really close to the site of the collapse, and it sounds like the only reason the game was played at all was to keep the 20-25,000 people off the roads for a few hours.
Fortunately, my parents both work in the suburbs, so they won't have to deal with the extra traffic (there's tons of road construction going on everywhere), but getting to the Metrodome to work at the games in the next few weeks is going to be interesting.
I hope it doesn't take too long to find and identify the people who are still missing. I can't imagine how it would feel to not be able to contact someone who's often on that stretch of road. Also, it appears that this might be drawing the needed attention to older and weaker infrastructure across the country that needs repair. Despite the inconvenience of huge construction projects, this is definitely worse.
It's kind of scary. My dad, brother and I went to the Twins game on Monday night, and we crossed that bridge at around 6:05. If it had been two days earlier, it might have happened to us.
28 May 2007
I Take It Back!
So for a while I had been saying that I thought it would be really funny in (Harry Potter) book 7, Harry got shot, or something. The idea being that everyone was so concerned about him being killed by Voldemort, and then J.K. Rowling was all, 'Hey, look, Muggles can be a dangerous bunch too. Mostly harmless? Hah!'. Then I had this weird dream the other night.
Ms. Rowling, or someone, was reading from book 7, but it can't have been the night it was released, because we'd have all had our own copies and been driving home. But I was there, I think with my dad. Perhaps it was a few hours before midnight and someone was breaking the rules. Anyway, the location was on this street and in this type of building that seemed like it would fit well on Main St. in Oberlin, near the Feve, maybe. We were crammed in this little room, where there was a little stage set up, where the person was reading from. In the back was this big three story apartment. I went over there to use the bathroom a couple of times, it was really hard to find, involving walking up some steps along the back of the living room, the directions the residents (who I think I knew, it might have been the Slocums, or someone very much like them) gave me were very complex. They had a dog, and I was hanging out in the backyard by this big pond later, but that's another part of the dream that probably didn't make any sense ever. But down to the book. It was being read aloud, I think, but played out in my head like a movie. Harry and Ron had been separated from Hermione. They'd been riding a bus, and for some reason had to get off, but Hermione stayed on. Harry and Ron were wandering around in some woods, and they eventually came to a road. Somehow, they were exposed to the (Muggle) media, and there was a story about how the bus had crashed and several people had died. It never said directly that Hermione had died, but it sure implied it. Then the story stopped, probably because I was really upset about Hermione dying. I shed a couple tears for Cedric every time I read book 4, but man, for Hermione, I sobbed for 10 minutes, straight. My dad seemed to think it was a bit ridiculous, but it wasn't. It was horrible. (Then the backyard stuff with the pond-lake that makes no sense, then I woke up.)
But yeah, I'm sorry I ever thought it would be funny for one of the trio to die. Even in a mundane way like a motor vehicle accident. I take it back.
Ms. Rowling, or someone, was reading from book 7, but it can't have been the night it was released, because we'd have all had our own copies and been driving home. But I was there, I think with my dad. Perhaps it was a few hours before midnight and someone was breaking the rules. Anyway, the location was on this street and in this type of building that seemed like it would fit well on Main St. in Oberlin, near the Feve, maybe. We were crammed in this little room, where there was a little stage set up, where the person was reading from. In the back was this big three story apartment. I went over there to use the bathroom a couple of times, it was really hard to find, involving walking up some steps along the back of the living room, the directions the residents (who I think I knew, it might have been the Slocums, or someone very much like them) gave me were very complex. They had a dog, and I was hanging out in the backyard by this big pond later, but that's another part of the dream that probably didn't make any sense ever. But down to the book. It was being read aloud, I think, but played out in my head like a movie. Harry and Ron had been separated from Hermione. They'd been riding a bus, and for some reason had to get off, but Hermione stayed on. Harry and Ron were wandering around in some woods, and they eventually came to a road. Somehow, they were exposed to the (Muggle) media, and there was a story about how the bus had crashed and several people had died. It never said directly that Hermione had died, but it sure implied it. Then the story stopped, probably because I was really upset about Hermione dying. I shed a couple tears for Cedric every time I read book 4, but man, for Hermione, I sobbed for 10 minutes, straight. My dad seemed to think it was a bit ridiculous, but it wasn't. It was horrible. (Then the backyard stuff with the pond-lake that makes no sense, then I woke up.)
But yeah, I'm sorry I ever thought it would be funny for one of the trio to die. Even in a mundane way like a motor vehicle accident. I take it back.
02 May 2007
Russian Roulette
So in the X Files eXco class I'm taking (a 1 credit class taught by fellow students or community members on almost any subject imaginable), there was a presentation on an episode we watched a couple of weeks ago. The episode is called "Pusher", and it's about this guy with the ability to mentally force his will on others. Late in the episode, he forces Mulder to play Russian Roulette with him, and at one point has Mulder point the loaded gun at Scully instead of at himself.
The presenters mentioned that the Wikipedia article about Russian Roulette involves a really complex formula about one's chances of losing. I was intrigued, so I checked it out. Turns out, it really is complex. There are also several young people who have foolishly played and lost. But there's one instance that kind of makes me laugh/sigh:
The presenters mentioned that the Wikipedia article about Russian Roulette involves a really complex formula about one's chances of losing. I was intrigued, so I checked it out. Turns out, it really is complex. There are also several young people who have foolishly played and lost. But there's one instance that kind of makes me laugh/sigh:
"In 1999, three Cambodian men all got drunk, and decided to play Russian Roulette with a land mine, each taking turns to stamp on the mine. The three died in a great explosion minutes later. They were later posthumously awarded a Darwin Award."I don't know if the Darwin Awards are a good thing or not. They make death seem slightly more humorous to smart people, which includes pretty much everyone I know, but I suppose the recipients end up having their ridiculous, fatal decisions magnified. But, then again, they kind of deserve it. A land mine? Seriously.
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