web-goddess

I am so frustrated with Apple Australia right now. My iMac is still out of commission, waiting for a replacement logic board. (Which is the same part that was replaced back in January.) It’s now been FIVE WEEKS that I haven’t been able to use my computer, and according to my technician, it could be another two before they get the part. I’m on hold with AppleCare right now, and for once I’m going to demand that something be done. This is RIDICULOUS. I did the math today: I’ve owned the machine for a total of 32 weeks, eight of which it’s been unusable. EIGHT! That’s twenty-five percent! And it’s even worse if you take off the few weeks I was on holiday (and thus didn’t use the machine). Here I am, working my ass off on a crappy laptop to try to finish a website in 48 hours when there’s a frickin’ G5 sitting DEAD in the next room. NOT HAPPY, JAN.

Update: Well, they offered to replace the machine. That’s good. They can’t get me a new one for three weeks. That’s bad. How stupid is that? Plenty of stores have stock, but they can’t just give me one of those. It’s ridiculous. I’m sure if I was in the U.S. I could’ve just taken this thing to an Apple store and walked out with a new one an hour later. Instead I’m just supposed to accept shoddy service here as a given. So I just sent off a righteously peeved e-mail to my AppleCare representative, Apple Australian customer relations, the third-party service technician, everybody I could think of. I even invoked the Office of Fair Trading (who state that any manufacturer offering an express warranty must have a “reasonably” supply of parts on hand). I explained how I’ve personally had a hand in convincing several people to Switch: (Max, John, Hoey, Sharon) but that right now, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to recommend a Mac to anyone in good conscience. “I feel like Apple have LET ME DOWN.” Let’s see if that does any good…

Dark side of the moon.
I was just chomping away at my breakfast cereal and happily reading AskMeFi when I came across this question about the consequences of the moon’s destruction. It was all very interesting speculation and I was about to ask the Snook for his opinion… when I got to the bit about how it would mess up all the human female’s menstrual cycles. HUH? I nearly blew muesli all over the keyboard. That has to be a joke, right? But no, a couple of posters honestly argued that the length of a woman’s cycle is not coincidental, but is somehow tied to the phases of the moon. The fact that other large mammals have widely differing lengths of estrus doesn’t seem to sway them. My favorite bit of the argument is the cynical chick who refers to “magical moon fairies”. Even Uncle Cecil agrees.

They wanted a countdown; I gave them a friggin’ countdown.

I’m SO going to put this on a T-shirt.

Try not to stare directly at my spook eye.
Good grief. On top of all the rest of my stress, I noticed earlier this week that the vision out of my right eye was significantly blurrier than out of my left. How long has this been the case? I have no idea. My allergies always make my eyes a little screwy so it’s hard to tell. It’s only with my contacts; my glasses are fine. It’s been about a year since my last prescription, so I stopped in at my optometrist tonight for a checkup. We did the whole “Better here…? Better here?” routine, and then the usual laser beam/puff of air in the eye thing. Finally he started writing down my new prescription. I freaked out as soon as I saw it: -7.5 and -9.0. Holy crap! My old prescription was -6.0 and -8.0! He didn’t seem too perturbed but I just lost it. “What’s the matter with me? Am I GETTING OLD? Am I GOING BLIND?” I asked in desperation. He laughed and then explained that that’s my glasses prescription, which is always stronger than your contacts prescription. The upshot was that my right contact is going up to a -6.5. Whew! Then he told me about some other patient of his named Lewis who’s up to a -18.0 in each eye. So now I feel a little better, knowing that I’m still better off than that guy.

If you’ve been wondering if CouchCam has been stuck for the past 72 hours, it hasn’t. I’ve literally been sitting on the couch for twelve hours a day trying desperately to finish this damn website before Friday. It isn’t going to happen. My ass is numb and my diet is shot. And I think I’m getting a cold. STRESS.

Don’t be an idiot like me. If you are an idiot like me, and if you happen to, say, pop off the space bar on your iBook because you want to clean out the cat hair underneath and then you discover you can’t get it back on properly, this is what you have to do. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.