I went and saw Babel tonight. It was an interesting film, but not very entertaining (that came later, when I got home and watched Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle on DVD again). I also bought Barack Obama's book The Audacity of Hope to read on the plane for my upcoming trip. I liked his first book, Dreams from My Father, and have enjoyed every interview and appearance of his that I've seen, so I'm looking forward to it.
Most importantly, however, I had a Veggie sub at Quiznos for dinner. Since people are telling me that ketchup and pizza sauce don't count a vegetables, I figured this would make everybody happy. My sandwich totally had lettuce, tomato, olives, and everything!
But going to Quiznos always raises a question. Am I the only one who sees Quiznos Bread Bowls and thinks of skeet shooting?
PULL!
Bread Bowl Skeet Shooting would be totally sweet!
Lastly, in sadder news... for the past couple of days, my MacBook Pro's hard drive has been making crackling noises. I assumed this was a bad thing, and immediately backed up all my data. Then this morning half my files were inaccessible and the hard drive was grinding. Time to call Apple for some help.
What a difference good support makes...
Unlike my absolutely horrible experience with HP earlier this week, calling Apple for support is wonderful. It was so pleasant, that I almost forgot that my laptop was near death. My experience with AppleCare is absolutely everything customer support should be, which just makes me all the more enraged at HP. Let's compare...
| AppleCare | HP "Support" | |
| Respectful, sympathetic, and apologetic customer service agents. | Customer "non-service" agents who laugh at you. | |
| People who do everything they can to make sure you are taken care of. | People who blame their customers for their mistakes, then do nothing to help you. | |
| Knowlegeable reps who take care of your problems directly. | Uncaring reps who keep transferring you from supervisor to supervisor... none of whom take care of anything. | |
| Phone time to handle a major hardware malfunction and hang up completely satisfied: 12 minutes. | Phone time to handle a minor product return that THEY mistakenly sold me: I gave up after 5 hours. | |
| Total projected time to resolve said major hardware malfunction: 3 days. | Total actual time to resolve said minor return: 4 MONTHS and counting... still unresolved. | |
| Chance of buying another Apple product: 100% | Chance of buying another HP product: not a fucking chance in hell. |
The nice thing is that the AppleCare guy promised that they would do everything possible to return my MacBook before I leave for Germany. And I totally believe him. I know... know that if it doesn't make it back in time, that it wasn't for lack of trying on Apple's part. I've never received anything but five-star support from them, and have come to expect nothing less.
Apple loves me and takes care of me. It's not hard to love them back.
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this is the kind of lovefest i really like with a happy ending!
The Audacity of Hope is pretty good – I bought the audio version on iTunes and I enjoyed it. The man is a gifted orator.
I’m still waiting for a(nother) recall on the logic boards on the g4 ibooks…but it probably won’t happen…bastards.
I’ve been wondering about Babel, especially since it won the Golden Globe. I’m waiting for the Oscar nominations to be announced Tuesday before I decide if I have to see it now or if it can wait for DVD.
I recently rewatched Harold and Kumar, and I’d totally forgotten how awesome Neil Patrick Harris was in it. The scene with him oing lines off the strippers ass is priceless.
I normally love Apple, too. But I’ve been getting the run around and the typical script reading and all I need done is to replace the ‘palmrest area’ on my white MacBook. If you can pull strings for me, I’ll let you love Apple for me.
lol The bread bowl skeet shooting graphic looks like the kind of thing i expect to see on smooth moves.
Well good luck with AppleCare – over in the US they seem to have better service than around here in Europe (incompetent liars in my experience).
Only recently have I been happy with their service and that is because they just scrapped all the AppleCare crap and allow local dealers to handle computer problems. With the guys in the local store luckily being helpful and competent.
I thought Babel was brilliant, btw.
Don’t talk to me about Apple. They’re like that long lost love who moves away and gets married that you’ll just never have….Atleast in my world. *Woah* 🙁
I didn’t realize skeet shooting was done with a pistol! I love bread bowls and soup, so I’d never think of something as sacrilegious as shooting them!
Nice. Every time I’ve had a problem with one of my Macs, they’ve always taken care of me. The keyboard had to be be replaced on my new MacBook Pro and the part came in the day before I left for MN. I told them I needed it for my trip the next day and they had it ready in a about an hour.
Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside……
I was totally thinking of you last night when MAD TV did a sketch about the iPhone and Steve Jobs….he had everyone under his spell. It was quite amusing.
In the 15 years I was the only Mac person at work, I maintained a network of 192 Macs (from the SE vintage on up throughout the years). Whenever there was a problem, we had service within 24 hours, sometimes less. We also had 8 IBM-compatibles. Something went wrong with them? MAYBE next week they could send someone out.
I loved the Macs. No doubt. The only issue I ever had with them was the operating system. But this was back a long time ago. By the time the year 1998 rolled around, they seemed to have their “conflicting extensions” problems worked out. But to be honest, I don’t think it was ever really a Mac operating system problem, it was the third party folks who couldn’t seem to get their software to jive completely when converting to an Apple operating system.
I wish I had a Mac. But, alas … I’m finding it’s cheaper to build my own computers. And being retired now that’s a main issue … money.
Obama’s podcasts on iTunes are quite good, too. Most are only 5 minutes or so and they help give one an idea of what is going on in Washington without all the double talk.
I’m right there with you on the Apple love. But you know that. Haven’t had a chance to test their support, though.
I also saw Babel on Saturday night. I think i could have used a viewing of Harold and Kumar after it as well, as Babel depressed me to no end…
I’m pretty sure Reagan had ketchup classified as a vegetable.
Maybe it only counted if you were homeless and poor.
Heh. AppleCare. I only got satisfaction from them courtesy of an aggressive person at the Burlingame Genius Bar. My sickly iBook is on its third motherboard, all due to (acknowledged) design problems. I’m glad you had a good experience, but my personal experience is that Apple’s hardware is beautiful, but not all that reliable, and that the service is (grudgingly) merely adequate.