kuniform

This is in the building where i work. Our Christmas party was (is) tonight, in the building.

Dave Cockrum died today. Here is CNN’s obituary. His X-Men were an inspiration to me as a kid. I remember my dad finding a bunch of them in a garage sale. There was a stack of roughly 40 comics, some Len Wein and Dave Cockrum, some Chris Claremont and John Byrne.

I devoured them, one after another, until my eyes ached. Then I read them again that night.

Two years ago, I was mad at Apple. I still am because of problems with my G4 laptop, but that is another post. This past me was angry because I had ponied up for a second generation iPod, which promptly had its battery run dry. I had few options.

I could pay another few hundred to have Apple fix it, or I could trust some crackpot off the internet to sell me a replacement battery and the directions to fix it. 1 crackpot, $90, and a little home mojo later, I had a working iPod. For a month.

It still works now in my car, but that’s about all it’s good for. After $500, frustration, and home fixits, I needed a new solution. Being in graduate school at the time, I looked at the Apple education program. Then I went to Best Buy. I am not a fan of Best Buy, and dislike big box retailers in general. I can’t even remember what I was there for originally, but I thought I’d check out their selection of Apple products all the same. I could get the new 1GB iPod Shuffle for $140 on the Apple site with the education discount or pay $150 at Best Buy and get their warranty program for an extra $10.

I went the Best Buy route, since if it got damaged, they would supposedly replace the Shuffle, no questions asked. A few weeks ago, my shuffle stopped playing mid-song. I had charged it up recently, but I thought it was a dead battery anyway. I took it home and connected it to the Mac, nothing happened. The little light glowed yellow, then green, but no recognition by iTunes, no appearance on the desktop, de nada! I went to the Apple support site, Mac OSX hints, etc., but couldn’t find a way to start it up. It was officially dead, and I was sure my warranty had expired by now.

Pinch me, I had about 5 months left. I was about to use one of those warranty things. What hoops would I have to jump through? What perils would I be forced to endure to get a crappy old 1GB iPod?

I had kept all the receipts, warranty thingie, packaging and assorted ephemera in the case of just such an emergency. I promptly forgot the packaging, brought in the warranty and the dead iPod. While driving to the store I realized this is a super-designed Apple product—there is no place to put a serial number on it. I continued on to the store anyway, to see what would happen. I imagined long lines of grumpy Chicagoans, despondent employees, apathetic managers, the works.

Instead, I walked right up to the customer service counter, told the lady there my story, and gave her my iPod and warranty. She looked it over, and put the iPod in a plastic bag. I had moved and so we updated and compared my addresses and driver’s license. She told me to go to the shelf, grab a new iPod 1GB, and come back. So, I did. Clippy iPod, here I come!

I went back to bring her the new iPod, and she told me that she was sorry, but that the difference in price (the new ones are now $80) would have to be given to me on a gift card. My jaw dropped. The what? Yup, the gift card. I felt like I’d just robbed them. I had a dead iPod and a warranty, and I walked out with a new iPod, a new warranty, and $60 on a gift card. Are the pigs flying yet?

The Union of Concerned Scientists is sponsoring a petition to stop unsafe practices in raising turkeys. Basically, if turkey farmers improve the animal’s living conditions, they can stop giving them so many antibiotics. That would be good for us, since it would keep those antiobiotics’ effectiveness in treating our diseases. Take a minute for the turkeys, and for you, before devouring your bird this coming Thursday!

Scott Likens, congratulations on making it to Partner. If they only knew…