Jumping Through a Series of Fiery Hoops

Okay, here's what happened.

Wednesday

I lugged my (surprisingly heavy) MacPro into the Genius Bar. The Genius (in name only) looked through the error logs on my computer. He pointed out to me several lines that referred to the processor, and said, "Wow, see? It looks like your processors are the problem." He continued to scroll through lines and lines of errors.

Minutes later he showed this to another (much more knowledgable genius) who said, "Those aren't errors. Those just show that the processors are enabled."

Genius #1 said, "oh." And I started to see what I was in for.

They tested, poked and prodded my ailing machine until Genius #1 said, "Well, here's the thing. It looks like there are problems with the hardware", (absolute duh), "but we can't really figure out what those are."

I asked, "Can you just replace the whole machine then?" To which he replied, "No. Your machine is custom," (just because I added an AirPort, which is a very common part that comes in all their laptops, just not usually in the desktops), "so you'll have to take it home and mail it to AppleCare."

So I dragged the stupid heavy thing back out to the parking garage and called AppleCare from the car. After about 15 minutes on hold, I spoke with a kind man who thought it was so sad that I got such a troubled Mac. However, he couldn't help me. He had to transfer me to his supervisor. After another 35 minutes on hold, Mr. Supervisor Adam picked up.

He was not as nice. In fact, he was downright passive-aggressive, and actually seemed angry I was even inferring there was a problem with a Mac computer. Instead of trying to help me diagnose or fix the computer, he was extremely defensive throughout, and kept trying to convince me it was a "software error." I said, "so you're saying that every single program I run on this computer, all of which are made by Apple, are just randomly having errors? You're not willing to consider that it might be caused by an underlying hardware issue?" He gave me a diagnostic test to perform, and told me to email him the results in the morning. He was tired and was going home. So I did that.

Thursday

He woke me with a call me at 8am. The results? Guess what -- it was a hardware issue. After reviewing my email, he declared the machine an "out-of-the-box failure." I love this term. The car was doomed before it ever left the garage. All of a sudden, Adam was very apologetic. He knew I was leaving town for San Francisco on Friday. So he said they were going to email me shipping labels, and he guaranteed I'd get them in a few hours so I cold send that sick puppy out.

Well, after waiting all day, those shipping labels never arrived. Around 3pm, I decided to raise hell. I called Apple and spoke to an employee, who said that the labels need 24 hours to process. I said that Adam promised them to me today, and that I was headed out of town. So I had her transfer me to her manager, who told me the same and passed me off to another department. I spoke to an employee there, then his manager. This went on. Seven transfers and an hour and a half later, I was told flatly and definitively, "you will not get your shipping labels today. Adam must not be informed as to our policies here. It is an automated system and it takes 24 hours to process these labels."

So I went off, saying things about how I would never buy an Apple product again, how this is a terrible way to run a business, etc. It wasn't pretty and it didn't really get anything done. Or did it?

The phone call ended. I wanted to throw my new Treo at the wall and see it smash into pretty pieces (Don't kill the messenger!).

Minutes later, I received an email with shipping labels.

I set up a home pickup with FedEx for the next morning (because I wasted the afternoon on that marathon phone call). They had a box to check for time of pickup, so I specified that they had to get here by 10:30am at the latest. We were leaving for San Francisco at 11:30, and I figured this was enough time in case they were late.

Friday

We were packing gear like madfolks. Once everything was ready, I checked my watch. FedEx never showed. 10:30 at the latest, and it was almost noon. Nothing.

I called my sweet parents, who live a few streets over, and asked them to take the computer to a drop off location, since we had to get out of town now if we were going to be on time for the Jonathan Coulton show. Lovely people that they are, they agreed.

We hit the road. Around 1:30pm, when we were in the middle of the desert on the 5 freeway, I received a phone call. It was the FedEx guy asking, "where are you? I'm here to pick up a package."

Are there competent employees? Or is that an oxymoron?

One Of Those Prawn Salad Waiting Room Days

Today was a glitch day. First, my brand new MacPro erased my iPod and has been locking up every time it tries to sync it. So my 7,000+ songs on the iPod are gone.

Then, said brand new MacPro locked up in every conceivable way in every conceivable program. This is after I've already reinstalled my OS and reinstalled all the programs. This takes hours. And I've had this computer less than a week. You know what they say about how "Macs Just Work?" Not so much.

I have an appointment tomorrow with an Apple Genius. (Could they be any more full of themselves!?)

Then, I had Ben over again (he's leaving town soon and I'm trying to see him as much as possible) to watch a movie. After five minutes, the disc started skipping. It was a rental, and sometimes they're a little dirty or scratched. I pulled it out to clean it. It was literally THE dirtiest disc I've ever seen. Something was smeared all over it. I couldn't get it off.

So we abandoned the movie and started playing Bioshock. I wanted to show the game to Ben. After about a half hour we ran into a gamebreaking glitch. I have never found a bug in this game. Ever. Until today. Prawn Salad Waiting Room Day.

Ben showed me this video, which completely describes how I'm feeling.



Now I need to just go to bed and not touch anything. I'm a little afraid my bed might fall through the floor or something...

Pretending It's July

It's 2:15am. Other than lunch with my friend Jan, I've spent the entire day working. Yes, I decided to celebrate Valentine's Day this year by flat-out ignoring it.

I've finished upgrading my studio to be fully Mac, and now I'm learning Final Cut and Logic and the other eight or so programs in their respective suites. That's a lot of learning, which equates to a lot of hours staring at a screen.

My parents were sweet and dropped by with a salad, some fruit and a little heart full of chocolates. So I took a five minute break and ate. Treating myself.

But this is probably for the best. I have my custody mediation downtown tomorrow, with Nicole joining us on the phone. It's stressful, and depressing, and absolutely ironic in its scheduling.

So I'll just keep working and try not to think about that.

Ween of Hallows

San Francisco is pretty cool. This afternoon I went exploring and found a great used CD shop: five floors of awesome and cheap music.
I got some great stuff, like the new Patty Griffin, the new Magnet and the new Perishers. Then, I headed to this famous SF landmark:
Yeah...again. What can I say? I like.

So tonight, I was going to hang out with Candice and Jaco and have a little Halloween dinner, but they both went all out and got costumes, and I just didn't care that much. So Candice was going to make me a sign that said "Nudist on strike," and then I could just wear my regular clothes.

But at the last second, she changed her mind and decided I should go as her. So she just started handing me her clothes and putting makeup on me. I looked just like Candice...well not really, and as the night went on, people kept adding things to the costume, like blood, a jacket, etc, and by the end I decided I was "Frustrated Housewife With A Random Bowler Hat Who Committed Suicide". Don't ask why she has chest hair. Ultimately, I looked pretty terrible:

The leggings were especially horrific. And cold. Those things are pretty drafty. And you could totally see my leg hair through them. Not attractive. But I fit in just fine:

(That's Candice as "Tequila Te-Kill-Ya," Ellen from wardrobe as "The Contessa Of Death," and Ashlee Nino the dancer as "Patron In The Zone.")

Jaco went as "Wonder Woman Going To Prom Incognito." I got a great photo of him stalking Brandi Cyrus.
Creepy.

We hung out for a while in the hotel bar and got many many weird looks from strangers. Completely justified, I'd say. We were quite a motley bunch.

Then we headed to the Mission District and had dinner at a tapas bar. Jaco and I were already pretty tired so we headed home, but I know the dancers are still partying now, and probably will continue to party into the am.

What did I learn tonight? Well:
#1) In San Francisco, anything goes...unless you're in the hotel bar.
#2) There's a big parade at the Castro every Halloween, and last year 6 people got shot...so avoid that party.
and
#3) When you dress like a woman, even an ugly one, everyone will want to squeeze you:

Life lessons, indeed.

Goodbye Portland!

I'm so glad to be leaving the Pacific Northwest. Not that it's not beautiful. Not that it's not filled with culture. It's just that, for me, it's associated with many things to do with my wife. So I kind of expected that part of the tour to be difficult. I didn't expect to get hit by a car or anything, but that's just a bonus. Thanks Seattle.

While I was in Portland, I:
#1) tried to stay away from busy intersections and buses
#2) went to my new favorite place:
...to play with my new favorite toy:
And that was all I found to like about Portland. Although everybody says it's really nice. I just couldn't take my chances on the streets till I got out of the crazy Pacific Northwest...seeing as it hates me and wants me to die.

The Portland show, however, was by far our most fun show so far. Pretty much everyone agreed. We were all goofing off on stage. Jaime has begun walking up to the keyboard platform and making me laugh while I'm singing during the first act. And last night, all the male dancers came out with funny wigs: mullets and afros and stuff. They had just been to the Halloween shop earlier in the day. Miley also messes up a lyric from time to time and turns around and makes crazy faces to the band. The nice thing is, with this show, nobody really needs to keep a straight face, so we were all laughing pretty hard while continuing to play.

And now it's Halloween, and we have the day off in San Francisco! Yay!

Fun With Photo Booth

I have to admit I'm impressed. My new Mac does everything it said it would, and it hasn't slowed down or so much as hiccupped even once.

Last night, Nicole and I had some fun with the Photo Booth application. Here are some samples.










Trust me, there are a lot more. I thought I'd spare you.

Mac Attack

I've just spent (literally) the entire day installing plugins and trying to get my email to work. I've input the exact same server settings from my other computer (servers are platform agnostic - right!?) and I can receive email in all my accounts, but I can only send from Gmail. Weird.

And I wanted to take it easy today. But now it's almost 3am and I'm all bleary eyed and about to fall over. So I'm going to bed, fully beaten-down by my new computer. And I thought technology was supposed to make life easier, faster and more convenient.

Oops.

The Dirty Word: ***intosh

I'm headed up to Washington on Monday, to be with Nic and Noah. But I have a lot of work to do while I'm up there. And with the SMtv show starting in August, I needed a laptop.

So, I finally did it. I bought a Mac. Yes. The world is ending. Here come the four horsemen.

I've been a notorious Mac poo-pooer for years now. I was raised on PCs. There are pictures of me at 7 years old, playing around in DOS. Yes, that was the kind of fun I had. So, anyone who knows me is probably either fainting, or laughing a hyena (or coyote) laugh of "I knew you'd come around eventually."

Every experience I've had with Macs in school were terrible. They were always crashing and freezing, and also...WHERE IS THE RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON? Okay so I still don't understand that. Why is there only one mouse button? This is stupid. And the keyboard layout felt totally weird and wrong to me...

Anyway, I got over it and decided to throw myself into the unknown.

It wasn't just a whim either. This was premeditated. The recent release of Windows Vista means that much of my software actually won't work until each one is updated, which could be a while. Also, I need to be able to run many tracks of audio live for this show, without any hiccups, or "oops, you need to update your drivers," etc. So it finally happened.

So far, I'm definitey impressed. Other than the fact that hardly any of my VST plugins are being seen by Ableton Live (which is weird, annoying, and absolutely making me want to toss this laptop through a plate-glass window), it's mostly very smooth. Not one error message, freeze-up, or even minor slowdown yet. And the on-board camera and microphone are a nice touch. Here's what it saw when I first got my hands on my Macbook.