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dragonlady7So.
Z got home from work, rather more chipper than I had expected. I did survive the day in the end-- after my disastrous morning attempts to shop, I met him and we went out to lunch and he awkwardly patted me on the head and repeated after me: "You're not a bad person," he said, and I thanked him. I was the one to bring up the fact that perhaps it was hormones on my part. He has been very good lately about not making comments about the time of month. (To my credit, now that I am sans chemical birth control I'm remarkably emotionally stable, if nerve-wrackingly fertile.)
So Z came home, asked what i wanted to do tonight. He often does this, but usually he's trying to get me to come up with something. I was noncommittal, and he asked if I wanted to go to the Apple Store so he could buy a computer.
I'd known this was coming, so I happily went along with it. He's got the money; his old computer's been with him almost as long as I have, and is not aging as gracefully (wireless crapped out, battery crapped out, one of the fans is going; whereas in my case, if my breasts aren't perky, at least they're no less so than they ever were ("having their own gravitational pull" =/= "perky", to my sorrow)).
So, cleverly, I signed up on the Apple Store website to speak to one of their Geniuses tonight. Ironically enough "Concierge" (the Genius Appointment interface) doesn't work well on Firefox. Go figure.
So we went to the Apple Store in the mall. It was fun. Sort of shiny. You know. The usual. Z said, "I'm buying one of your black 13" Macbooks and you're putting a gig of memory in it," and they said "sure" and hopped right to it. Meanwhile I sat on the bench and watched my name climb the queue. (Aside: Z has been to the Apple store there frequently on his employer's behest, so he knows all the Geniuses. Tonight was Blond Muttonchops Man, who's generally known as A Good Egg, as opposed to Redhead Asshole, who was about but not at the Genius Bar, to our relief.)
I was next on the queue when Z came over, looking worried. "How much money is in our joint account?" he asked.
"Not enough," I said. "Why?" I knew he had enough to buy a computer three times over in his own account; he's much less secretive about his money than he was when he didn't have any.
"My card's not working."
"Do you have a daily limit on how much can be debited?"
Realization dawned slowly across Z's face as for the first time ever he appreciated the drawback to a "credit card" that's really just a debit card. "Probably," he said.
Now, my credit card/banking/insurance company are generally good people, but I mean, they're bankers. Thus, weasels. The moment I started having trouble paying my bills and thus carrying a balance on the credit card they... upped my limit. I now have a credit card with which I could get myself into all sorts of trouble, should I suddenly become completely stupid. Also, last week, they enrolled me (without asking) in a rewards scheme with it. I get points for every dollar I spend on the card, but the deadlines on making payments are now sharper.
Points... and a happy Z... and no pouting... and new shiny computer right now? Not much to debate.
"Here," I said, and handed him my credit card.
So, I've just bought my boyfriend a gorgeous, matte-black, sleek Macbook. It has a lot of features I really like. I'm annoyed that the power cable's not compatible with the old ones, as I have several spare power adapters from the old ones, but I must admit, it's a better design-- it's magnetic, so won't break if yanked on, and also won't get squashed flat if walked on. Other stuff is nice. I'm using it at the moment and working hard to keep drool off it.
I really want one. Sadly, Z has promised to pay me back for this one, and in money too (I offered to let him repay me in sexual favors, but, because we are not really a man and a woman but are in fact both aliens*, he begged me to let him just give me the money), so it is not mine.
Anyhow. I went back over to the Genius Bar and it was my turn and the pleasant chap looked at the iBook and said, "Yes, you've diagnosed the problem properly: it is probably a faulty connector in the hinge." Good news: Cheapish to fix. Bad news: might cost more.
Options:
1) Give them approximately $300, and they make the book entirely like new, including the faults it had when I bought it. And there's a 3-month warranty on it during which if anything breaks, it's their problem. Pros: All better. Cons: Given the nature of the problem, it may well not cost anything like that much to fix, it's just a flat fee.
2) Try to fix it myself using the knowledge of the Internet. Pros: Very nearly free. Cons: I might just destroy it.
3) Take it to this place in West Seneca that does repairs. Pros: Might be cheaper than Apple's flat fee. Cons: Might be a whole lot more expensive.
I am still deciding. But one thing I am considering is just giving the thing away free to a good home. Look, one of these (undamaged, but still) will sell on eBay for $500-1000. (It cost me $750 last summer, plus a $100 Airport card I installed.) It's still a very decent computer. (10GB hard drive, wifi, 6-hr. battery life...) If you just pay the $300 for repairs, you're doing pretty damn well, plus it'd have a warranty, which is more than it had when I bought the damn thing from Powermax.
It's served me relatively well for almost a year now. I don't need the money from selling it. Actually I'd consider donating it to a charity. If we can think of a deserving person who needs a laptop, I'd donate it if others would chip in to pay for the repair. (I'm financially better-off than I have been in a long time, but I still can't afford to fix an old computer and also buy a new one. Not quite.)
Mostly I'm just trying to come up with excuses to get rid of my current cumbersome system of two computers, and upgrade to one of these babies. Damn they're shiny. Except actually, they're matte...
*drools*
_______________
* Yes, we are aliens. Have I not mentioned? We mate via a very complicated mind-meld and really, it's best not discussed. But, in short, that 'realistic sex scene' I wrote a couple posts ago is entirely fictional, and is in no way based on my real sex life, and really when it comes to complex mind-melds there's no alien for it like Z. But he certainly couldn't manage $2000 worth of mind-melds before my credit card comes due.
Z got home from work, rather more chipper than I had expected. I did survive the day in the end-- after my disastrous morning attempts to shop, I met him and we went out to lunch and he awkwardly patted me on the head and repeated after me: "You're not a bad person," he said, and I thanked him. I was the one to bring up the fact that perhaps it was hormones on my part. He has been very good lately about not making comments about the time of month. (To my credit, now that I am sans chemical birth control I'm remarkably emotionally stable, if nerve-wrackingly fertile.)
So Z came home, asked what i wanted to do tonight. He often does this, but usually he's trying to get me to come up with something. I was noncommittal, and he asked if I wanted to go to the Apple Store so he could buy a computer.
I'd known this was coming, so I happily went along with it. He's got the money; his old computer's been with him almost as long as I have, and is not aging as gracefully (wireless crapped out, battery crapped out, one of the fans is going; whereas in my case, if my breasts aren't perky, at least they're no less so than they ever were ("having their own gravitational pull" =/= "perky", to my sorrow)).
So, cleverly, I signed up on the Apple Store website to speak to one of their Geniuses tonight. Ironically enough "Concierge" (the Genius Appointment interface) doesn't work well on Firefox. Go figure.
So we went to the Apple Store in the mall. It was fun. Sort of shiny. You know. The usual. Z said, "I'm buying one of your black 13" Macbooks and you're putting a gig of memory in it," and they said "sure" and hopped right to it. Meanwhile I sat on the bench and watched my name climb the queue. (Aside: Z has been to the Apple store there frequently on his employer's behest, so he knows all the Geniuses. Tonight was Blond Muttonchops Man, who's generally known as A Good Egg, as opposed to Redhead Asshole, who was about but not at the Genius Bar, to our relief.)
I was next on the queue when Z came over, looking worried. "How much money is in our joint account?" he asked.
"Not enough," I said. "Why?" I knew he had enough to buy a computer three times over in his own account; he's much less secretive about his money than he was when he didn't have any.
"My card's not working."
"Do you have a daily limit on how much can be debited?"
Realization dawned slowly across Z's face as for the first time ever he appreciated the drawback to a "credit card" that's really just a debit card. "Probably," he said.
Now, my credit card/banking/insurance company are generally good people, but I mean, they're bankers. Thus, weasels. The moment I started having trouble paying my bills and thus carrying a balance on the credit card they... upped my limit. I now have a credit card with which I could get myself into all sorts of trouble, should I suddenly become completely stupid. Also, last week, they enrolled me (without asking) in a rewards scheme with it. I get points for every dollar I spend on the card, but the deadlines on making payments are now sharper.
Points... and a happy Z... and no pouting... and new shiny computer right now? Not much to debate.
"Here," I said, and handed him my credit card.
So, I've just bought my boyfriend a gorgeous, matte-black, sleek Macbook. It has a lot of features I really like. I'm annoyed that the power cable's not compatible with the old ones, as I have several spare power adapters from the old ones, but I must admit, it's a better design-- it's magnetic, so won't break if yanked on, and also won't get squashed flat if walked on. Other stuff is nice. I'm using it at the moment and working hard to keep drool off it.
I really want one. Sadly, Z has promised to pay me back for this one, and in money too (I offered to let him repay me in sexual favors, but, because we are not really a man and a woman but are in fact both aliens*, he begged me to let him just give me the money), so it is not mine.
Anyhow. I went back over to the Genius Bar and it was my turn and the pleasant chap looked at the iBook and said, "Yes, you've diagnosed the problem properly: it is probably a faulty connector in the hinge." Good news: Cheapish to fix. Bad news: might cost more.
Options:
1) Give them approximately $300, and they make the book entirely like new, including the faults it had when I bought it. And there's a 3-month warranty on it during which if anything breaks, it's their problem. Pros: All better. Cons: Given the nature of the problem, it may well not cost anything like that much to fix, it's just a flat fee.
2) Try to fix it myself using the knowledge of the Internet. Pros: Very nearly free. Cons: I might just destroy it.
3) Take it to this place in West Seneca that does repairs. Pros: Might be cheaper than Apple's flat fee. Cons: Might be a whole lot more expensive.
I am still deciding. But one thing I am considering is just giving the thing away free to a good home. Look, one of these (undamaged, but still) will sell on eBay for $500-1000. (It cost me $750 last summer, plus a $100 Airport card I installed.) It's still a very decent computer. (10GB hard drive, wifi, 6-hr. battery life...) If you just pay the $300 for repairs, you're doing pretty damn well, plus it'd have a warranty, which is more than it had when I bought the damn thing from Powermax.
It's served me relatively well for almost a year now. I don't need the money from selling it. Actually I'd consider donating it to a charity. If we can think of a deserving person who needs a laptop, I'd donate it if others would chip in to pay for the repair. (I'm financially better-off than I have been in a long time, but I still can't afford to fix an old computer and also buy a new one. Not quite.)
Mostly I'm just trying to come up with excuses to get rid of my current cumbersome system of two computers, and upgrade to one of these babies. Damn they're shiny. Except actually, they're matte...
*drools*
_______________
* Yes, we are aliens. Have I not mentioned? We mate via a very complicated mind-meld and really, it's best not discussed. But, in short, that 'realistic sex scene' I wrote a couple posts ago is entirely fictional, and is in no way based on my real sex life, and really when it comes to complex mind-melds there's no alien for it like Z. But he certainly couldn't manage $2000 worth of mind-melds before my credit card comes due.
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Date: 2006-05-24 01:00 pm (UTC)