Divisions and Precisions

And in other news

The cry-fest of yesterday seems to be over today. As long as I don't go look at pictures of newly married gay couples or hear "One Moment in Time" any time today, I should be okay.

Also, I found out yesterday that my laptop is irrepairable, unless I want to take it to Gateway support, which I definitely don't. The good news is, I may be able to find a used one for cheap--I don't need fancy, I just need one that can run a relatively recent version of MS-Office.

Please note, I'm sparing y'all a huge rant about the computer repair guy who tried to tell me "No, you bought that laptop in 2002, XP wasn't out in 2001."

(Okay, maybe I won't spare y'all.)

Once I explained to him that that yes, XP was out in late 2001, that I was working tech support at the time and they were training us on XP as early as October 2001, he said, "Oh, late 2001. Yeah. It must've been an early-release version." Whatever. (FWIW, the official launch date for XP was October 25, 2001--yes, I'm a geek who just looked that up.)

I get that all the time. I can think of at least four occasions where I've had a computer salesperson or repairperson contradict me on something I know is right about my own system. Sometimes I get the feeling that I have to work to establish geek cred with these people because I'm a woman. Or maybe it's just a more general geek snobbery that's directed only at customers. (Come to think of it, it might be the latter--cause I know I was taught to assume that the customer didn't know what they were talking about.)

In any case, yeah, no Gateway for me ever again, and for you local folk, if you see a commercial for Mad Mike's computer repair in Brighton, let me tell you, he's not kidding about how socially inept he and his crew are. (Yup, that was Mike himself arguing with me about when XP came out.)