Technical support, my )(*^@)&!^(*!^@$*#@$!#)!$#.

I am now into my third - make that fifth - no, seventh - call to Dell customer support.

I have been on hold for forty-five minute, and every three minutes I get a message saying that "our technicians are aware of your call and are working very quickly to answer your call. The next technician will be with you momentarily."

It's either deal with Dell or guess as to which bits need to be installed and which will cause a disaster.

I have now been working on this laptop for five hours straight.

Given that, and the lateness of the hour, I have the following announcement to make:

For the next 36 to 48 hours, if anybody on the face of the earth wants a favor of me which requires extreme effort, I strongly recommend one of two things:

a) Bribery which includes ALL of the following: a well-paying job, without claims on souls or firstborn; the location somewhere on the open market of a 1989 Dodge Daytona Shelby with the T-top glass roof, five on the floor with the intercooled turbo, and the electronic dash reminiscent of Star Wars, for sale at a bargain price; and an indecent proposal from Miss March 2001;

or, failing that:

b) Make your peace with whatever gods you believe in.

Chocolate will do no good. Coffee will be thrown. And any pointy-haired-boss-speak platitudes will be taken down, reprinted in large type on sheepskin, and rammed back down the speaker's throat with a slug of Victory Gin as a chaser.

I hope I've made my position clear?

Here's how it is.

It's now five-thirty AM and the sun is up. I wanted to be asleep six hours ago. Installing Windows XP on a laptop where I didn't know what-all needed to be installed, then putting in every last driver I could find, then putting in Microsoft Office on top of all that, has chewed up my entire night. I want to be asleep. I can't get to sleep.

At the moment, there is precisely one person alive whom I would forgive for calling and awakening me before noon. After spending a night slugging it out with Bill Gates' brainchild? I am not taking prisoners.

So.

That frelling laptop got fixed at 5:15 this morning, finally. Windows XP is a cast-iron bicta to install from scratch, lemme tell ya.

Wake up at 11am and promptly collapse again; finally awake at 2pm, just in time to scrounge some lunch and take the folks to the airport. Bad omen alert: the Yankees were getting their cans kicked. By Tampa Bay. This is like ... what? Like the Jamaicans winning the gold medal in bobsled. Like Tomato Can McNeely knocking out Mike Tyson in fourteen seconds. It's just not supposed to happen.

We got off down the road late, so of course, ever step of the way, there was traffic. Good thing we left three hours to get to the airport. Still ... I have been fully conscious for four hours, three of which were spent on the Grand Central Parkway and the ... er ... crap, what's the road to Kennedy? Interstate 678? The Van Wyck, was it?

Y'know what? Screw it. I got them there in time. I got back. I'm toast.

Close entry.

(no subject)

And now for something completely different:

A spell-checker that detects corporate doublespeak.