Technology Apoplexy

by Allison Pang

Well, I was wracking my brain a bit on this one and decided to cheat a little by pulling up a blog post I wrote on my own website back in 2010.

See, here's the thing - I get mad and grumpy a lot. And ranty. But for the most part, it's over normal stuff.

Except.

When it comes to technology - computers, in particular? That's my hot button. Since so much of my life revolves around computers now - work, writing, gaming, everything - I can get pretty damn riled up when stuff doesn't work the way it's supposed to. (Or in this case, when tech support makes me want to drive my face into a wall.)

Keep in mind things aren't quite as bad these days - I've got multiple machines to work on, I don't game as much as I used to, social media can be picked up from smart phones and tablets, so at the time I wrote this particular blog post, yeah - it pretty much *was* my only way to get things done.

So here we go:

OOO

Dell Must Die.

Now, remember in one of my previous posts I mentioned that one probably shouldn't get too ranty on one's blog? You know, so people didn't think you were batshit crazy? Well, you're about to see me go batshit crazy. And yes, I know I have a bit of a hot-button when it comes to technology not working. Nothing will set me off faster than when a program doesn't work or a computer has issues. But even aside from that, what really pisses me off is when I pay a massive amount of money for a piece of technology that 1) breaks a lot and 2) has shitty support. Warning: This is an exceptionally LONG and ranty blog post.

And so I offer Exhibit A.  This is the inside of my Dell XPS 710. Notice the 1000 Watt Power Supply.  Notice the rather large and beefy looking CPU down there in the corner. Also notice the nice and easy way one can slap hard drives in and out of the bays. (If you're not technically minded, this might not matter, but if you're like me, you tend to appreciate the easy swap of hard drives.

Here's Exhibit B: Notice the very large video card. Notice the fact that I can run duel video cards off this motherboard in SLI if I wanted. Notice that big ass cable that attaches to that video card. (It's an older one - an Nvidia GTX 8800 -  but it still requires about a 500 Watt Power Supply to run and probably cost about $300 back in the day.) Okay, so a little history here. I paid about $4000 for this machine in May of 2007.

I needed a new gaming rig, and thought I'd try a Dell this time around instead of the Alienware/Sagers I've had in the past. I paid for a 3 year extended warranty. In the time I've owned it, the video card has had to be replaced 3 times. The separate Physx card once, the motherboard twice, and the monitor once. And of course it came with Vista as the OS, which has been nothing but full of suck. (Dell would not sell me a Windows 7 upgrade however, as it had not been tested on my computer configuration. Very weak, dudes. Windows 7 Ultimate runs on my freakin' NETBOOK without any issue.)

Also note that when my monitor started ghosting badly, Dell's solution was 1)send me a replacement monitor that was more broken than the original 2) Send me a second monitor to replace the first replacement. Except it wasn't a widescreen like it was supposed to be. 3) Ignored my emails for 3 months, except to send me links to inferior monitors and asking if those would be acceptable replacements. 4) Sending me the correct monitor after I finally called 4 months later and bitched them the fuck out.

Okay, so on January 31, my video card shit the bed again, but this time it took the motherboard with it. I tried swapping out a different video card, different monitor and alternate slot on the motherboard to test before I called Dell, so I was pretty sure the mobo was dead. Well, that and the nice burning smell that occurred when the screen froze up. (It's the little things, yo.)

So I call Dell. They tell me no problem, they'll send a replacement mobo and video card, and since I paid for the extra support, a tech guy would come out and put it in. (I can do small things like swap video cards, but I really didn't want to try messing with the entire mobo. Yes I'm a techno-wimp.)

 Three days later, no motherboard. I did get an automated phone call from Dell telling me that "a part was on backorder" and no additional information. I called the following Sunday and asked WTF was going on. I was told that the mobo was on back order, but given the situation, they would upgrade me to a "newer" mobo - the one from the XPS 720. (And to understand the main issue - Dell doesn't make the XPS 710, 720 or 730 anymore, so all this stuff is refurb where they can find it.)

They send me a 720 mobo and a tech. Tech puts it all together. But there's a problem. The mobo doesn't really fit the case so there's no way to hook up the power supply. Computer is DOA. Tech calls Dell directly to try to order proper mobo. Gets told that it will be at least 3 or 4 months. They offer to just replace the whole machine with the usual assurances that it will be "the same or better" than what I have.

 A week goes by. I email them. No one can tell me what the specs on the replacement will be, or when it will be shipped or anything else. It's been nearly a month now. This past Thursday I come home and find a Dell box on the front step. I notice it is much lighter than my XPS. Not a good sign. So I crack it open and sure enough, NOT good.

I offer Exhibit C: Notice there is only a 450 Watt Power Supply.  Notice the tiny, skinny ass wires everywhere.

And here is Exhibit D: Notice the shitty video card. An NVidia GS 220. It costs about $50. It's a total piece of crap. Also notice the lack of SLI capability on the mobo. Now, does this new computer look like it's the "same or better"? NO. Yes, the processor is newer, but this is clearly not a gaming rig of any sort. And the main reason for this is probably because the new line of Dell XPS systems *aren't* gaming rigs at all. They seem to have pushed that completely off on the Alienware division. (My previous Alienware purchases had been BEFORE Dell bought them out, go figure. I had issues with them too, but nothing like this...)

I call my credit card company and discuss how I might be able to set up a dispute on my 3 year old purchase. After all, it appears Dell has no intention of honoring the extended warranty contract that I paid extra for. I also called Dell yesterday morning and spent 90 minutes on the phone with them. Dell India, in fact.

My conversations went like this. 1) Called Customer Support, looking for someone to complain to. Replacement is not acceptable. CS rep sends me over to some sort of "expert". He pulls up the tag numbers for both machines and totally agrees with me...but, because I bought the machine through an employee purchase plan, he can't help me. He swaps me over to an XPS tech. I explain everything for the THIRD time. (Each time, I'm stuck giving them my Tag info, my email, my phone number, the whole damn story). He agrees. But I need to switch all my account info to the tag number on the new machine. Which he can't do. He sends me BACK to Customer Service. They swap the account information. They send me BACK to XPS tech support. I get another tech. I explain again. Yes, I am screaming at them by this point.

Tech says, "You know, you could have just told us what you components you wanted." I flipped the fuck out, because I hadn't been given any sort of opportunity to discuss any part of the replacement at any time. She told me to spec out an Alienware as a replacement, but that her manager would have to approve it. He would call me in about two hours. Sixteen hours later, he finally called. No, he can't approve it, but he'll plead my case with the dispatch center. They will call me in 1-2 business days. I'm not holding my breath. In fact, I don't want it anything else from Dell except my money back. However, I need a gaming/rendering rig, so I dropped about $2000 at NewEgg for parts on Thursday night. They've already been shipped and I should have them all by Wednesday at the latest and I'm going to just build my own.

And Dell can go fuck itself.

OOO

As a follow up to this particular post - I built that new machine with those parts - going on 4 years now, and with the exception of upgrading video/sound cards/ hard drives as needed, I've had ZERO problems with it.

Also note that eventually Dell did send me some nutty ass liquid-cooled Alienware monstrosity - but I was so angry with them, I never took it out of the box. Sold it to a co-worker for like $500 just to get out of my house.

Hell hath no technological fury like that of a consumer scorned.

Weekend of Apoplexy

Apoplectic fits, as Jeffe so kindly defined in Sunday's post, are "sudden  paralysis with total or partial loss of consciousness and sensation."


I had such a fit this weekend, concurrent with observing my bairy heast having such a fit.  My beast of typical boundless energy and zeal had become listless in the matter of an hour. Uninterested in food, unable to take stairs, unwilling to move at all.

I freaked.

I'm no vet. I don't pretend to have a clue on the inner workings of people much less animals. Feed. Walk. Love. Force the occassional pill. I'm totally down with the basics of dog maintenance.  However, I am fairly certain insta-flop is not a good thing. And, of course, beasts being beasts, and I not having a shape-shifter translator at hand, couldn't ask, "Dear doggy, whatever is wrooooong?" My brain immediately conjured twelve different horrifying ways my dog was dying Right. Before. My. Eyes.

Apoplectic. Fit.

I'm not too proud to admit it. Noooooo. I had a fucking apoplexy of the figurative sense believing my beloved beast was suffering it literally. Three days of emergency visits, scans, tests, pokings, proddings, and invasive procedures for which I'm fairly certain my dog will never forgive me (gods bless KY),  resulted in a diagnosis of...

Dog Flu. Canine Crud.

Day four and he started his day by racing to the door to greet the repair man. There has been begging for boiled ham and absconding with the cheese. Oh, and wiping out on the ice exacerbated his arthritis, so no, no he will not be keen on the stairs for a while. But hey, there's a pill for that.

~mops brow~

So, now that my heart has returned to a somewhat regular pace and I'm no longer sweating expletives, I'm beginning to recover.

Apoplectic fits. 

They're the new millennium version of antebellum vapors.

Why You Should Be Glad that Being Apoplectic Isn't as Bad as It Used to Be

I laughed this morning to see the results of my late-night phone call with the brilliant and insightful Carolyn Crane. She's been swamped with work lately, so when she pinged me, said she'd finished my new erotic romance novel and had crit for me, I paused the movie we'd been watching and hopped on the phone. Amusingly enough, we were both walking on our treadmill desks as we talked and I wrote comments on both on my laptop and on these sticky notes.

The laugh was an especially happy one, because I can incorporate her comments today and send this off to my editor! Best feeling ever.

The opposite of apoplectic, regardless of which definition you use.

Yes, Bordello-followers - the word of the week is "apoplectic," which is one of those words that has migrated so far in common usage from its original meaning, that it's fair to say that it doesn't mean what we think it means.

I suspect I encountered the word first in historical romances, usually when some grand dame went into a rage. In fact, if you plug "apoplectic" into Ye Olde Google, you might get something like what I got:

Notice that "apoplectic fit" is the second suggestion, which is how it always appeared in the romance novels. Unless the person in question had a "fit of apoplexy." Interestingly, it's come to pretty be synonymous with anger.

But this isn't what it originally meant at all.

My Webster's Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary (2,347 pages, thumb indexed, 320,000 definitions, 19 encyclopedic supplements, 3,000 illustrations, Full color maps of the world) defines apoplexy as from the Greek word apoplessein, "to strike down."

"sudden  paralysis with total or partial loss of consciousness and sensation, usually as a result of hemorrhage causing pressure on the brain tissue; sometimes used of a hemorrhage in some other organ; as apoplexy of the liver."

And "apoplectic" is:

"disabled by a stroke, stricken. 1. Pertaining to, having or symptomatic of apoplexy; as, an apoplectic fit. 2. predisposed to apoplexy; as, apoplectic with rage."

I suppose this secondary definition - which notably appears only in the definition of the adjective, not the noun - has ascended as medical terminology has overtaken the language that describes a stroke. (Note, however, that our word "stroke" still conveys that original sense of being struck down, that the ancient Greeks observed.) More, our increasingly detailed understanding of the syndrome, which The Merck Manual calls "a heterogeneous group of disorders involving sudden, focal interruption of cerebral blood flow," has produced an array of more precise words: ischemic, thrombosis, embolism, aneurism, etc.

So, really, "apoplexy" isn't accurate as a medical term at all, anymore. Fascinating to me that we've retained the sense of the physical symptoms of being apoplectic, but now assign it to an emotional state.