daily rantings from the mind of j corey artis

those who know me know that i'm not much for complaining.


okay, yes i am.

backstory: two weeks ago my laptop wouldn't boot up fast enough after a restart. a restart which was caused by microsoft vista (surprise surprise) unable to download and install updated drivers correctly. it for some reason could not download and install any ati drivers worth a damn. why is this important? when the ati device program fails after waking up from sleep or hibernation, wireless internet fails with it. one way to fix that- restart the computer. so i restart the computer. before now, booting had been pretty much instant. now it was suddenly taking 5 minutes. so like a dumbass, i turn off the laptop by holding power, and turn it back on. now vista won't start it has a startup recovery program which has worked before. now? butkiss. startup recovery doesn't work. so you're thinking "why not install the os?". the answer is, i would have, but the disk that came with my laptop doesn't look like an install cd. instead it looks like a can-your-computer-run-vista cd.

so deciding to err on the side of caution, i take it to the local compusa where i had a 2 year warranty. i explain my problem. they take it in. i expect to get it back by tuesday (i had taken it in on sunday morning, there was a line of machines ahead of mine, the earliest they could get to it was monday). so no big deal. i don't have a laptop for a few days, all is well.

i really should stop assuming things.

i take it in on 7-22. i get a call reguarding my computer nearly a WEEK later on saturday. this call isn't about "your computer is ready". no, no. this is a call stating that acer has approved all changes, it has been sent to the repair center. by the way, they tell me this after i drive to the place with my laptop bag expecting it to be there.

huh? did i miss something here? all this is is a just-reinstall-the-os problem. i know that, and i'm not that technically inclined. ok fine, wait some more.

today, i get another call. the woman on the other end is garbled as hell on the answering machine so i call up there and i say point blank is my computer up there right now. she tells me that it is at the repair center. so i drive up there again, thinking that i finally get my computer back after two weeks when all it needed was an os reinstall. again, i take my laptop bag up there. guess what. again i'm told that it isn't here, it has been sent to the repair center. but isn't this the repair center? no it isn't.

something else you should know about me, i am about as emotional as star trek's vulcans- outwardly stoic, interally a raging inferno. i am not happy. so i ask when should i get my computer back. i'm told a week to 10 days. and i'm pretty upset with the on-site repair center. one, they call with updates on my computer when all i want is it back. i don't care where it is, just as long as its in the store when you call me. this endless game of phone tag does me no good whatsoever. two, obviously there is a more serious problem for them to have to send it off to an off-site repair center and for acer to approve any changes. a problem that i have not been made aware of. three, (acer is getting hit with this) acer tech support is CLOSED on the weekends, and CLOSED during non-business hours central time. plus their tech support phone number is found nowhere on their website. i had to search other sites just to get told i was unable to get tech support until monday on a saturday night. plus e-mailing my problem did me no good, because i got a response back on tuesday.

so you see, as a consumer, i am about fed up with the entire process. i want my computer back and if i can't get it back i want to know why. compusa could have saved this post and my bagging on them heavily if they said well beforehand what was really wrong and when i should get it back, information i just partially found out today.

bottom line- compusa is good for purchasing hardware for your computer and installing it quickly. but in terms of actually _fixing_ the damn thing, much has left to be desired. as soon as the warranty is up on the laptop at that place, i'm not going there for any sort of repairwork on either my desktop or laptop ever again.

edit: this is the problem verbatim from the guy who initially took my laptop. tell me this doesn't sound like a quick fix:

Unit comes in under warranty/TAP. The unit is Stuck in a boot cycle. unit blue-screens and restarts. Unit comes with battery and no AC adapter. No other accessories.

(from a post on the c-j's official forum under a different name. i can do that because no one reads this rag, so no one will know its me)

that's all that I can stands 'cause I can't stands no more

I am tired of the Repubilcan sycophants that try to use sleight of hand tactics to change the subject of issues. Stuff like gay rights and abortion and flag burning are all hot button issues that these demagouge Republicans are using to get away with the rescinding of the rights we as Americans have. Reguardless of what you say, there is no way a Republican can justify anything they do. Can someone tell me how two men getting married affects a current marraige? It seems to me that if two people reguardless of gender wish to dedicate their life to the other, more power to them. Want to protect the sanctity of marraige? Its very simple- make a constitutional ammendment to outlaw divorce. Half of all marraiges end in divorce, and unless a party in the divorce was actually a homosexual that had an affair with another person of the same gender, gays don't damage anyone's marraige of two heterosexual people. Although I am not a Christian (or Muslim or Jewish or any religion not that it really matters) but have had Christianity pounded in my head Sunday after Sunday for nearly 18 years, to deny the same rights of a married couple to two homosexuals is most decidedly UNChristian. What we need to do is to classify all state and federally recognized "marraiges" with all of the rights that come with it as "civil unions" and let the religion take care of recognizing "marraige". Jesus never talked about homosexuals. Never. Not once.

And if anyone is going to say that god did in the old testament, then we also need to stone our children for being disobediant (Deu 21:18-20), stone women (and only women) for not being a virgin when she gets married (Deu 22:13-21) or being engaged and being raped in a city (Deu 22:23-24), stop associating with menstuating women because they are unclean (Lev 15:19-30, 33), prohibit the physically handicapped from going to the alter because they would "profane it" (Lev 21:16-23) or allow any man with damage to their genitalia or illegitimate children including their tenth generation to go to church (Deu 23:1-2). But Jesus did say to hate your parents (Mat 10-34-36). Those are all directly our of the so-called holy Bible. I could go on. Anyone who wants to go by the rules in one testament has to go by everything that the Bible says. Picking and choosing what to follow because it suits your political or moral views is not allowed. You cannot claim to be Christian and claim to care about our fellow man while also hating on homosexuals and those who haven't had the best lot in life. And that's what this marraige distraction and fear of raising minimum wage, even raising it to coincide with the rate of inflation, is.

And about these murders that (these two forum repub demagouge north(r)up campaign plants) like to throw around, this 42,000 or so number of abortions that take place annually, when you compare 42,000 of the unborn to the thousands killed in United States sanctioned millitary conflicts (our own and those "we" are fighting), and those who die because they can't afford their medication, and those who die because they can't afford heating, and those who die later in life because they were uneducated or had no place to go after school other than the streets, I think that I can be quite confident in saying that 42,000 is peanuts compared to what Republicans champion in their actions instead of their words. You wish to stop these abortions? Teach our kids about safe sex practices. Abstinence is an answer, but it is not THE answer. Kids will experiment. By this administration's criminal in my opinion failure to teach teenagers about condoms and dams and birth control, etc. they allow for this type of thing to happen. And think, if you actually outlaw abortion, you actually increase the health problems for the mother. If a woman really wants an abortion, she's going to get one at any cost, especially to her own self. George Carlin said it best- to borrow his phrase, you don't see any of these rich white Republicans adopting black babies do you? It sounds like something christ might do.

Shame on these Republicans who want to have government interfere in our lives, shame on our congressional representatives in both houses who allow government interferance to happen and shame on the American idiots who are the accessories who allow the representatives to have government interfere in our lives.

And this is not a slam against Republicans. Its against Democrats as well. We need a viable third party in this country badly. The moderates need to abandon both sides and form a new Moderate party. I registered independant because I cannot in good conscience be a member in either major party. But I have always voted person instead of party, and I can tell you that in this race, and in future races, I will always vote against Anne North(r)up. Ever since I first heard her ads listening to the radio going to and coming home from school, I never heard what Anne did, but what her opponent does. Every one of her ads has been negative, even when that stuff isn't true, and she comes with the negative stuff first every cycle. And the local idiots buy it every two years. Enough is enough. Vote Anne out for a change in Washington. Vote Anne out so at least we don't have to listen to her smearing attack ads each even numbered November. And vote Anne out so we can have a representative that will, you know, actually DO something productive and constructive in town.

if you haven't heard it by now, rick riley si columnist wrote in this week's issue of a 9-10 year old little leauge game championship in bountiful, utah. bottom of the final inning the red sox trailed the yankees by a run, tieing run on third, two out. the sox best hitter comes up to the plate. the yanks coach decides to not let the best player beat his team so he walks the kid. the next batter up is the worst hitter on the team. this kid strikes out, game over. he goes home and cries himself to sleep, but the next day he tells his dad that he was going to work on his hitting so that next time, the other teams would walk him instead.

end of story. oh, forgot one minor detail- the sox player who struck out, him? brain cancer survivor. plays with a shunt in his head. needs to take human growth hormone to play. good on the kid.

so now many of you are thinking, that i am going to rip the coach for walking papito, that the coach was showing poor sportsmanship for picking on the player who has cancer, who needs to take hormones just to play.

continue to think that, because i ain't doing it. in fact, the ones i'm going to be ripping are YOU. this is not that big of an issue. this is not a story that warrants national attention, in fact the only reason that this is a story is because the sox who struck out had cancer. so what are we supposed to do, make a rule that states that kids who have beaten cancer should be treated differently than the normal kids? we have to villify the coach who did the right baseball move in walking the best hitter? and don't give me that crap about he knew that this cancer survivor was next in the lineup, its irrelevant. some of these sissy weak kneed uber-yuppie commie liberals are going to say the coach should have pitched to the big bopper just because there wasn't a single walk issued all season. bullshit. these people will say that the name of the game isn't winning and losing, its how you played the game and the lessons that you learned. even more bullshit. if it wasn't about winning and losing, why keep score? why have a championship game even?

well, its likely that the two teams played during the regular season and they didn't walk him then. and? different situation. it may not have mattered if the cancer survivor could do anything. the heavy hitter may not have been in front of the cancer survivor. it may have been a 4-run game runner on third, bottom of the last inning two out with the same lineup where a home run doesn't hurt you. the truth is, the past meeting doesn't matter to the title game.

so how do we fix this so that it never happens again? simple- don't keep score. don't have a title game. everyone's a winner. no one goes home crying themselves to sleep.

shame on the rest of you for making this a bigger issue than what it is. people like rodger lodge especially. saying that he doesn't care about who wins or loses, that little league isn't about winning or losingbut yet rips the yanks coach for strategy to give his team a better chance to win is extremely hypocritical. a caller on rome's show today said that the kid having cancer was irrelevant. rodger cuts him off and says "then why are we talking about it?". uh, i dunno roge, you are controlling the show for today, you set the agenda?

"why are we talking about it?" why indeed.

yeah, it's the fourth of july, america's independance day. the day when all americans are supposed to join hands and sing all sorts of patriotic music capped off by the star spangled banner, support the president (cause he's the president bagawd) and rally around the flag.

so why aren't i as proud to be an american as most would like me to be? could it be that those in congress are trying to make hot-button issues tickets to get re-elected, despite there being much bigger fish to fry? could it be that we have a war dragging on and on that will seemingly end when this current president's term ends, plus/minus a few months? could it be that the wacko religious right is trying to decide for me what i should be watching, reading, or listening to seemingly every day? could it be that the nsa is spying illegally (it don't matter what anyone else says, i'm no suspect in anything, therefore its illegal searching, a violation of my fourth amendment rights) in this so-called war on terror?

nah, it's because scott speed, the lone american in f1 got punted in turn one lap one of the usgp. yeah, that's it.

i have concerns about my country, that the sheeple in washington aren't really fighting for the common person, but for power for themselves, as evidenced by the flag burning amendment debachle. i wrote a letter to the editor a few months to a year ago which didn't get printed, but it is still relevant to the issues today, which is kinda sad once you think about it:

I hear so-called patriots applaud the fact that the flag should be protected from meeting its untimely demise from a lit matchstick from citizens of this country. Never mind the fact that that flag essentially is nothing but a visible sentimental symbol of American ingenuity, pride and history, the fact that these people think that burning a piece of cloth (yes, the flag is just a piece of cloth. Most flags are made of similar flamable material) is un-American is both hilarious and scary. Where's McCarthy when we need him?

We should never care this much about visible symbols. We need to focus on the values instead; ingenuity, pride and history. There are much bigger things to worry about other than what some of the citizenry, expats, and other citizens of the world do to express their extreme displeasure of what this country has allowed its leaders to do worldwide. Burning the flag is as sacred to the American way of life as is being allowed to question our leaders when they deserve being questioned, and harms NO ONE. This country needs to get off the hot-issues-for-federal-constitution-amendments du jour kick that this president has started from around the start of his re-election campaign and start focusing on issues that matter, such as an energy crisis, healthcare, and this big ugly war that we are in. It is a very dangerous society to live in in which its leaders will cater to issues which sentiments may change in as little as an election cycle instead of focusing on issues that will be much more relevant when we are all long gone.

and before i go a few things; one brentjackson is an idiot. a close minded, hard headed, irrational, backwards thinking idiot who never admits he's wrong with an anger management issue. if you have been banned from multiple internet racing foraa, crapwagon especially, for the same basic issue, then something is not wrong with everyone else, something is wrong with you.

second, a quote from the remarkable mr. mark twain:

I support my country, always. I support my government, when it deserves it

third, as a followup to last month, congratulations to the carolina hurricanes in the southeast division of the nhl for stoning the edmonton oilers from canadada in the quest for lord stanley's cup. how did that taste canada? (that was a joke by the way. i love canada, i root for canada if they aren't playing the us in athletic competition. if i weren't american, i would like to be canadian). it took up until the conference finals before i got interested enough to watch the playoffs which is saying something because most didn't even watch the finals, which were pretty damn good too.

i work for the number 1 most recognizable fast food company in the world whose mascot is a clown. i'm not proud of that. i know i am underpaid and overworked. a lot of the managers realize this. but they really can't do much if anything. but this isn't about me, this is about making my life, and other fast food employee's lives much easier in drive thru. so here are some things bouncing around by brain while i was working back drive tonight:

1. the most important thing- KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO ORDER BEFORE YOU GET IN DRIVE THRU. you have no idea how frustrating it is to take an order when the car is just in front of the speaker and the person has no idea what to order. there is no excuse for this. for one thing, this is freaking mcdonalds. nothing major has changed on the main menu since the new "premium" chicken sandwiches rolled out middle of last year. you should know what is on the menu and what they put on it. that goes doubly for the order-takers. if someone orders a sandwich with no tomato on it when it doesn't come with tomato anyway, don't ring up "no tomato" for the sandwich.

2. have your money ready when you get to the pay window. pretty self explainatory. if you have your money ready when you get to the window (or better yet before you even order) i don't have to cancel an entire order because you don't have enough money. the purpose of having your money out and ready when you get to the pay window is to move you through drive thru faster.

3. when you see the parking lot empty but drive thru wrapped around the building, come inside and order. there normally is a reason why drive thru is backed up and its one of two things- an order taker who is back there by themselves taking orders and taking money or something is holding up progress in the front where you actually get the food, either a food item wasn't ready or no one is assembling an order (called running) to be handed out. it doesn't really matter. if you see drive thru backed up, go inside. by going inside, what was really lost? a few seconds from parking, stopping and starting a car? a minute (tops) is not really much to freak about when getting food.

4. don't talk about anything wrong with a previous order with the pay person. really, we don't care what happened to you. i don't care if the last time you came through your fries were cold; complain to the manager. i can't do anything, i just take the orders and the money. if you were missing something from an order, come inside and have a manager handle it. by taking the time (and space) to complain, you have just cost me time and a car a space in drive thru to get the orders out. simple rule of thumb- if you go through drive thru to get a complaint addressed, it wasn't much of a complaint to bitch about to begin with.

5. don't expect drive thru people to be smiley faced with the customers unless said person is a perky person anyway. you know what i think about people? one of the t-shirts i own says "do i look like a people person to you?". or "you opinon while interesting is irrelevant". it is my belief that the larger the group of people, the lower the collective intellegence. so i'm an antisocial pessimist. i don't smile, i think it pointless. i am probably the nicest person you would ever meet, but i am not one of those smiley typed people. and a lot of the people who work drive thru, or take the orders and money anyway, aren't either. be glad that the order taker even says please if they ever do.

6. if you see something wrong with your order on the display screen, tell us, but don't keep harping on it. order takers are human. sometimes the wrong button is pressed. the good ones catch it before moving on. the average ones are let known by the customer. but what the customer needs to do is just say it once and let the order taker fix it first before moving on. keeping on saying that there was no extra coke on that order doesn't help anyone. if anything, it pisses off the order taker. listen- we see the mistake. we are fixing the mistake. if nothing happens for a few seconds, just let us work with it. don't get upset with us if something doesn't happen immediately, you need to excercise some patience.

7. don't order around the world. the fastest way to get things ordered is to go in this order- size of meal, any additions or subtractions to meal, drink, lather, rinse, repeat. or sandwich, any additions or subtractions to sandwich, drink or repeat process. don't go drink, sandwich, meal, dessert, drink, different sandwich, kid's meal, different meal not involving previous sandwiches, sandwich, drink, kids drink. if everything is different, that sequence took 11 screens and times 3 buttons (one to open a screen, select an item, and exit a screen). lump the stuff together. order sandwiches at one time, order kids meal and the kids drink together, order the meals together and then the drinks. less confusing and faster for the order taker.

8. my biggest pet peeve- unless there are absolutely dire circumstances, do not make seperate orders. and if you do make seperate orders, the items for each order must be more than 1 item and over $2. jointly ordering is faster and easier for everyone involved. the customer just need to pool their money together and just make one order. or have one pay the other back. either way i don't care. multiple orders per car is annoying as all hell.

more to follow if something else annoys me...