The ringing of the division bell had begun
4/9/2005, Saturday night:
So, we're sitting around the house on a Saturday night at about midnight trying to transfer songs that took hours to record to the computer onto the mp3 player. We are doing this because we are going to the Braves' game the next day with Rachel's parents (the tickets were our gift to her dad for his birthday). We start and the computer is going incredibly slow and then seems to freeze up so, we restart it. When NTDETECT FAILED pops up on your screen after the Dell logo comes up, you know things may be bad. So, I call Dell and talk to a guy with a very noticeable foreign accent. I mean major, to the point that I am literally having trouble understanding him. Anyway, he tells me that his tools are down and he can't verify my account so he really can't do anything for the computer then. He says he will call me back, but never does. So, I call Dell again on Monday (I believe), wait for about 10 minutes, and get the same guy! I hang up and call back a few hours later. Who do I get? If you guessed Bill Gates, you are mistaken, so I hang up again. Anyway, I called again on Friday (or Thursday...?) and got someone else. I run the diagnostics test and if fails on something, and we decide that my hard drive is bad. So, the Dell guy says that they will send me a new hard drive and, since my computer's warranty doens't run out until this month (cool, huh), there is no charge. He says it should be here by Wed. and he will call me on Wed. to help me install it. It actually arrives on Monday and he doesn't call me on Wed., so I call Dell on Thurs. My fun is not over. Installing the hard drive was very easy, but then the guy says we will need to install the operating system again and he will walk me through it. Oh boy. Things went fine until it came to the point where a partition needed to be created/formatted. My 2 options were identical about formatting, except one had (quick) next to it. Simple right? No. Over a period of 10-12 minutes, my conversation went like this:
Dell guy: What do you have on your screen now?
Me: It says the partition needs to be formatted and there are 2 options. They both say "Format the partition using the NCFS (?) filing system to format the partition", but one has quick in parentheses next to it.
Silence for about 3-4 minutes.
Dell guy: Okay, and what does your computer screen have on it now?
Me: Well, it says the partition needs to be formatted and still has the 2 options. They both say "Format the partition using the NCFS (?) filing system to format the partition", but one has quick in parentheses next to it.
Silence for about 2 minutes
Dell guy: And what is on your screen now?
Me: It still has the options about formatting the partition. They say "Format the partition using the NCFS (?) filing system to format the partition", but one has quick in parentheses next to it.
Silence for about 3 minutes
Dell guy: What is your computer screen showing now?
Me: The same thing about formatting the partition.
Silence for about 2 minutes
I hang up.
So, I loaded the operating system and appropriate drivers. Got everything installed and apparently it worked because here I am. That conversation just kills me.
Oh yeah, the Braves lost to the Mets 6-1, but I did get to see John Smoltz strike out 15 batters in 7 1/3 innings. Not too bad, until our bullpen gave up 4 runs in the 8th after Smoltz left the game trailing 2-1. Thank you Mr. Tom Martin, formerly of the Atlanta Braves.
I have also discovered another band that I like, and it was a very strange trip. Recently, I became interested somewhat in Pink Floyd because Dirty Vegas covers Brick in the Wall on their debut CD in the song Simple Things, part 2. I didn't really follow this up any except to find Pink Floyd's version of Brick in the Wall, part 2 and listen to it. That was pretty much it until I was sitting at work during lunch the other day and a thought hit me. When I was in 8th grade, we went to the planetarium to see some educational thing. Once that was over, one of our teachers asked if they would show part of the cosmic concert, which is a show they put on for the public. So, they played part of it and there was a song they played that I just loved, but the only line I could remeber was "The grass was greener." So, fast forward to me sitting at lunch. I google that line and flip through the results when a Pink Floyd song called High Hopes pops up. I go to Amazon, preview it, and it is the same song. It was just wild to me that I would be thinking about Pink Floyd because of Dirty Vegas and then, like a week later, I would think of that line and look it up. Anyway, the song was on The Division Bell album, which is the last CD Pink Floyd put out, and was part of the post-Roger Waters era, when David Gilmour stepped up as leader of the band.
Anyway, that's about it, it has been a pretty uninteresting 3 weeks, just work and school. We did find out that Stevie Nicks and Don Henley are coming to Atlanta on June 16th (supposedly). So, we are going to go see them as soon as tickets are available. I also hope to see Rob Thomas sometime this summer. I just hope that Matchbox 20 isn't split for good, as seems to be the case for most bands I like (Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, Dirty Vegas, Matchbox 20). Anyway, that's it for now. Ciao!
So, we're sitting around the house on a Saturday night at about midnight trying to transfer songs that took hours to record to the computer onto the mp3 player. We are doing this because we are going to the Braves' game the next day with Rachel's parents (the tickets were our gift to her dad for his birthday). We start and the computer is going incredibly slow and then seems to freeze up so, we restart it. When NTDETECT FAILED pops up on your screen after the Dell logo comes up, you know things may be bad. So, I call Dell and talk to a guy with a very noticeable foreign accent. I mean major, to the point that I am literally having trouble understanding him. Anyway, he tells me that his tools are down and he can't verify my account so he really can't do anything for the computer then. He says he will call me back, but never does. So, I call Dell again on Monday (I believe), wait for about 10 minutes, and get the same guy! I hang up and call back a few hours later. Who do I get? If you guessed Bill Gates, you are mistaken, so I hang up again. Anyway, I called again on Friday (or Thursday...?) and got someone else. I run the diagnostics test and if fails on something, and we decide that my hard drive is bad. So, the Dell guy says that they will send me a new hard drive and, since my computer's warranty doens't run out until this month (cool, huh), there is no charge. He says it should be here by Wed. and he will call me on Wed. to help me install it. It actually arrives on Monday and he doesn't call me on Wed., so I call Dell on Thurs. My fun is not over. Installing the hard drive was very easy, but then the guy says we will need to install the operating system again and he will walk me through it. Oh boy. Things went fine until it came to the point where a partition needed to be created/formatted. My 2 options were identical about formatting, except one had (quick) next to it. Simple right? No. Over a period of 10-12 minutes, my conversation went like this:
Dell guy: What do you have on your screen now?
Me: It says the partition needs to be formatted and there are 2 options. They both say "Format the partition using the NCFS (?) filing system to format the partition", but one has quick in parentheses next to it.
Silence for about 3-4 minutes.
Dell guy: Okay, and what does your computer screen have on it now?
Me: Well, it says the partition needs to be formatted and still has the 2 options. They both say "Format the partition using the NCFS (?) filing system to format the partition", but one has quick in parentheses next to it.
Silence for about 2 minutes
Dell guy: And what is on your screen now?
Me: It still has the options about formatting the partition. They say "Format the partition using the NCFS (?) filing system to format the partition", but one has quick in parentheses next to it.
Silence for about 3 minutes
Dell guy: What is your computer screen showing now?
Me: The same thing about formatting the partition.
Silence for about 2 minutes
I hang up.
So, I loaded the operating system and appropriate drivers. Got everything installed and apparently it worked because here I am. That conversation just kills me.
Oh yeah, the Braves lost to the Mets 6-1, but I did get to see John Smoltz strike out 15 batters in 7 1/3 innings. Not too bad, until our bullpen gave up 4 runs in the 8th after Smoltz left the game trailing 2-1. Thank you Mr. Tom Martin, formerly of the Atlanta Braves.
I have also discovered another band that I like, and it was a very strange trip. Recently, I became interested somewhat in Pink Floyd because Dirty Vegas covers Brick in the Wall on their debut CD in the song Simple Things, part 2. I didn't really follow this up any except to find Pink Floyd's version of Brick in the Wall, part 2 and listen to it. That was pretty much it until I was sitting at work during lunch the other day and a thought hit me. When I was in 8th grade, we went to the planetarium to see some educational thing. Once that was over, one of our teachers asked if they would show part of the cosmic concert, which is a show they put on for the public. So, they played part of it and there was a song they played that I just loved, but the only line I could remeber was "The grass was greener." So, fast forward to me sitting at lunch. I google that line and flip through the results when a Pink Floyd song called High Hopes pops up. I go to Amazon, preview it, and it is the same song. It was just wild to me that I would be thinking about Pink Floyd because of Dirty Vegas and then, like a week later, I would think of that line and look it up. Anyway, the song was on The Division Bell album, which is the last CD Pink Floyd put out, and was part of the post-Roger Waters era, when David Gilmour stepped up as leader of the band.
Anyway, that's about it, it has been a pretty uninteresting 3 weeks, just work and school. We did find out that Stevie Nicks and Don Henley are coming to Atlanta on June 16th (supposedly). So, we are going to go see them as soon as tickets are available. I also hope to see Rob Thomas sometime this summer. I just hope that Matchbox 20 isn't split for good, as seems to be the case for most bands I like (Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, Dirty Vegas, Matchbox 20). Anyway, that's it for now. Ciao!