Mao is Surrounded by Idiots!

Unfortunately, I have a lot of tests and homework piling up in this tiny four day week (Friday is an in-service day of sorts), so I don’t have time to even put together pictures for an update, much less actually play. I’m really missing my sims. I’m still cruising other people’s blogs when I need a tiny break between studying and homework, so at least I still have that luxury. Here’s hoping for an update either this weekend or next week, at the latest. Who hates midterm week? I do! I want to get to generation 9’s TH, dang it!

Without my computer, I can’t really do anything involving the sims 2. So, unfortunately, I am going on hiatus but I will DEFINITELY continue with this family, as for once, I really, really enjoyed playing them. The major problem being that I have to wait a maximum of 20 days before I get my system replacement from Dell. I will be getting all my Sims 2 data from my old HD, so I won’t lose anything.

That’s right, system replacement. The problem? I have an XPS 600. They don’t ship nor make them anymore. They’re going to look for one that matches mine, if they don’t have any, I get an XPS 700.

Big deal. I still have to wait another month. I’m not very happy right now. Not in the least. But I don’t have much of a choice in the matter and so, I’ll be back when I can.

And my parts have shipped. After countless phone calls, I finally got them to ship. How, you ask? Why, I finally got a reply from an email correspondent, someone within the US, I’m assuming, as their name was fairly normal and there was no automated part of the email. I kindly thanked him for his response and explained my trials and tribulations with their system… all in a manner which was polite. I have NO idea if that had anything to do with anything, but he DID say he gave my shipment a kick in the butt when he emailed me, so I’m assuming whatever he did prior to my email, did it. Either way, yay!

I still am not happy with Dell. I’m not happy with the way my claim was handled. I’m not happy with the way I was handled as a customer. I was patient, I was kind, and I never once was rude nor abrasive to anyone, despite my frustration. What did I get for it? I got pushed around, I got lied to, and worst of all… I was discounted. Why? Because I wasn’t beligerent… because I wasn’t screaming down their necks to GET IT DONE NOW! Instead, I got a family member to do that.

How sad is that? Dell is supposedly searching blogs for Dell customers and their responses/etc about the company. They claim, on their blog, to be taking measures to remedy customer service. I hope they do. I hope they managed to take their assbackwards system and make it somewhat manageable. But I will not be a returning Dell customer. I cannot support something that has no respect for the customer.

Tomorrow my parts should be here and I will do it myself. Why? Because they gave me a technician on the other side of the state, 100 miles away. No thanks, dude. I’m a CIS major and my warranty runs out in forty days. I’ll do it myself.

On a happier note, YAY SIMS! Here’s hoping EVERYTHING WORKS! Man, what a relief.

Added: Wow, this is retarded. I got everything BUT RAM, which is what I need. My father calls them–as he’s pissed and he realizes they’ll charge us for it, since it’s on the order sheet–and they give him a terrible run-around. He even called the home office… and yet still got directed to Dell Tech Support Somewhere In Freaking India(tm). So five Indians later, all saying the same thing, he gets an American again. Who does more than any of the tech support people combined in the past three weeks have. He gives his name and his number, and he directs my father to a senior tech support guy.

This is ridiculous. The American guy couldn’t make heads nor tails of what happened. It seemed as if they’d lost my order completely. As if it never existed, yet it shipped.

What a circus.

Edited. Again: The motherboard they sent? It was bad, too. Two bad motherboards. That’s a little unusual. Here’s hoping the one I get, hopefully tomorrow, will be a GOOD one. Here’s hoping I get a damn upgrade of some kind for all this trouble. This is ridiculous. They’re supposed to TEST their motherboards… mine, I can totally understand. They go bad. But the one they sent me? All I can say to that is: WTF?

Edited Thursday: What’s worse than a broken motherboard? An invisible one. They sent me a graphic card (which I don’t need. This will be card #3 they’ve sent) and a motherboard… only, well, the motherboard isn’t there! Wow! It’s exactly like the RAM situation. What the hell?

My new Dell has mysteriously died. It’s been a joke amongst my family and friends that my Sims addiction kills my computers. My last major gaming computer exploded–literally, the power supply blew up–because I left The Sims 2 paused for almost 24 hours. This wasn’t quite the case with my XPS… no, it died while playing Simcity 4. That’s really, really, really sad.

I was playing and suddenly, Windows decided to reboot. I thought maybe I had missed an update dialog. Then it booted back up, and slowly but surely, it continued to reboot… the intervals between the reboots becoming smaller and smaller until finally, nothing. After several hours of figuring out it was beyond my knowledge, I called Tech support. Apparently they were having a “Fashion Party” at their office and it ended up with screaming and yelling in the background while I was getting my support. It was amusing at the time, because I thought it was just the small issue of my graphic card.

Thanks to the warranty (and now I know why they offer it), I got my card and a technician came to install it (the interiors of Dell are like minature hedge mazes, wow). It wasn’t the card because my computer still wasn’t responding. No post-boot beeps, no monitor… it barely made a sound. Technician called support, and now I’ve got a motherboard, a power supply, memory, and another video card in the mail. Great. They had no idea what’s wrong, so they sent me everything but a new system. Stripping the retarded setup and trying to reassemble everything is going to be hell. The tech is on vacation this week, so he won’t be around. Thankfully, neither will I. I leave Monday and won’t return until Thursday.

Thank God I still have my laptop. I’ve already had to go a month without the internet and wow, was that boring. So hopefully everything will be fixed and I’ll have my sims again and all with be right with the world.

I definitely will NOT be recommending Dell to anyone. I haven’t even had this computer a year and it’s pulling this crap? Yeah, no thanks. My Vaio laptop even lasted three years before I had to reformat it. Not to mention the tech said he’d been to several places where the people hadn’t even had the computer a month and it was worse off than mine! Stupid Dell.

This spot will soon chronicle my attempt at the ISBI challenge utilizing the game, The Sims 2.  Watch me pull out my hair as I try desperately NOT to interfere.  I’m a SERIOUS control-freak, especially in games such as these.  The only time my poor sims ever get left to their own devices is when I get up for a moment to do something or another… and it’s rare that I ever do that without pausing… so this will be interesting, to say the least!

TBC…