Microsoft, chicken lady, and my cervical vertebrae
I spent about an hour with Microsoft this morning. It took much longer than it needed to, because they had to keep shuttling me around to various call centers around the world, but each person I talked to was kind and helpful and none of them thought my frustration was unreasonable. You may remember that a few months ago the "genuine advantage" extortion scheme came to bear on us and we were forced to buy yet another new copy of windows. (It was our third for this exact computer: every copy had been legitimate, but I couldn't prove it because there were installation problems and we had ended up using a registration crack on completely legitimate copies of windows bought in perfectly legitimate circumstances)
So a few days ago we get the little shield exclamation point saying that "updates are available" and, come to check on it, it was the damned validation thing again. So today I spent the morning asking one person after another "how can I prevent this ever happening again?" because it also turns out that the backup disk Microsoft sent me had no serial number on it. But finally the nice customer service people walked me through a process to get the serial number, which he was able to find in their records, established on my computer. Supposedly (or supposably, as my students used to say) this means that it won't happen again.
So Frank went to court today, in what I sincerely hope is the last episode of the chicken lady. This was the hearing for the fine, which was in Frank's name for no reason. She came to testify against him in the hopes that the court would fine us $345 more dollars on top of the money she had already gotten from us -- this money wouldn't go to her at all, it's sheer vindictiveness on her part to pursue the matter. So he took the line that 1)everything she says changes everytime she talks so she's not a reliable witness and 2)the only way that he knows our dog went after her chicken is that she said so. Honestly, I believe the dog did what she said she did, but Frank was able to get the fine down to the minimum ($100).
If this is not the last episode of the chicken lady I don't know what to do.
I had my stitches taken out -- the thumb is doing really well. The doctor said the xrays of my neck show two bad discs -- I forget whether it's C2 and C3 or C1 and C2, and I do not know what difference it makes. I call the physical therapist tomorrow.
Mikey from KUSP says he thinks that the musicians that made the "En pais Vasco comemos bacalao" song were Orchestre Baobab, so I'm checking in to that.
It's the defenestration building in San Francisco. I tried to meld two snapshots, but they didn't go together smoothly so I decided I'd let it be funky and punky like that.
So a few days ago we get the little shield exclamation point saying that "updates are available" and, come to check on it, it was the damned validation thing again. So today I spent the morning asking one person after another "how can I prevent this ever happening again?" because it also turns out that the backup disk Microsoft sent me had no serial number on it. But finally the nice customer service people walked me through a process to get the serial number, which he was able to find in their records, established on my computer. Supposedly (or supposably, as my students used to say) this means that it won't happen again.
So Frank went to court today, in what I sincerely hope is the last episode of the chicken lady. This was the hearing for the fine, which was in Frank's name for no reason. She came to testify against him in the hopes that the court would fine us $345 more dollars on top of the money she had already gotten from us -- this money wouldn't go to her at all, it's sheer vindictiveness on her part to pursue the matter. So he took the line that 1)everything she says changes everytime she talks so she's not a reliable witness and 2)the only way that he knows our dog went after her chicken is that she said so. Honestly, I believe the dog did what she said she did, but Frank was able to get the fine down to the minimum ($100).
If this is not the last episode of the chicken lady I don't know what to do.
I had my stitches taken out -- the thumb is doing really well. The doctor said the xrays of my neck show two bad discs -- I forget whether it's C2 and C3 or C1 and C2, and I do not know what difference it makes. I call the physical therapist tomorrow.
Mikey from KUSP says he thinks that the musicians that made the "En pais Vasco comemos bacalao" song were Orchestre Baobab, so I'm checking in to that.
It's the defenestration building in San Francisco. I tried to meld two snapshots, but they didn't go together smoothly so I decided I'd let it be funky and punky like that.