Dell's Technical Support Quik-E Mart

So, my PC would hang when it was trying to reboot. My wife has the great idea to call Dell's technical support and then wake me up and hand me the phone to talk to them. Because as we all know, talking to a nearly unintelligible person in Calcutta when you first wake up is one of life's great pleasures.

You would think that a mega-company like Dell would have the money to spend on a real tech support nerd, who:

A: Speaks halfway comprehensible English

and

B: Knows something about computers,

But no. Instead I get some idiot with a phone, a computer, and a Hindi accent so heavy that you don't have a hope of understanding them.

As I recall, when a PC first boots it loads it's BIOS and then looks for input devices like a keyboard or mouse. This person I was connected to could simply not comprehend the fact that the computer was freezing before it finished loading BIOS, and thus keyboard input was an impossibility because it had not yet looked for the keyboard.

Dell: "Welcome to Quik-E Mart. I am Apu. What is dee problem, sir?"
Me: "My computer freezes up when I attempt to start it. It eventually loads about 1/4 of the way and then hangs."
Dell: "Okay. Turn dee computer off, and (unintelligible)."
Me: "Turn the computer off and what?"
Dell: "Restart dee computer and when it first starts, press the F12 key two or three time."
Me: "OK" * does it *
Me: "It's still back at the loading screen."
Dell: "Did you press the F12 key?"
Me: "Yes, but I think the PC locks up before it has loaded the keyboard."
Dell: (long silence while she looks at a manual or something) "Okay, restart the computer and when it reboots press the F8 key. Two or three time."
Me: "Err...okay." * does it knowing it's completely futile *
Dell: "Is it desktop?"
Me: "Yes, it is a desktop, but..."
Dell: "Great! Press 'Start', and..."
Me: "No..I said it is a desktop, not that it's at the desktop. It froze just as before."
Dell: "Is keyboard plugged in?"
Me: "Yes, but as I said it locks up before it loads the keyboard."
Dell: "Do you have another keyboard you can try?"
Me: "Yeah, but.."
Dell: "Try other keyboard, restart, and press F2 key. Two or three time. Tap, tap, tap."

* plugs in a different keyboard and restarts, etc. *

Dell: "What happen?"
Me: "It froze in the same place again. Look it isn't getting around to even loading the keyboard. The lights on the board don't even flash before it locks up."
Dell: "Perhaps you press button incorrectly."
Me: "How is it possible to hit a damn button incorrectly?!"
Dell: "I see that your warrantee is expiry. It ended April 2004. (more unintelligible babble) Try to restart one more time."
*restarts*
Me: "Hey, it locked up in exactly the same place. Maybe I could make a startup disk from my wife's computer. It's the same OS."
Dell: No. (long silence) *phone disconnects*

So, I open it up and discover my fan's dead. God, I love outsourcing.

Root causes of terrorism

As another suicide bomber makes the news, the stream of pontification begins. Why do they do this?

It's actually quite simple once you've actually been a few places in the Middle East. Imagine living in a place alternately hot as seven hells and freezing-ass cold throughout the year. There is no beer, no weed, no barbecue pork chops and no porn. No women that aren't covered in a bolt of heavy cloth from head to toe, no decent music and no friggin trees. Infernal sandstorms, and a plethora of of the most horrid creepy-crawlies ever to walk the earth.

Now here comes Ahmed, who says that all you have to do is strap this stuff to your body and detonate it and you'd be free of this miserable wasteland. It's off to a verdant paradise that isn't a billion degrees everyday, waited on hand and foot by 72 virgins.

After living for 20 years in a joint that's only suitable for nuclear testing, don't pretend you wouldn't be jumping all over that offer.