Speaking with the behemoth

I called Microsoft tech support Wednesday. I was working on my laptop when I received a pop up notice telling me I needed to activate Windows. Not strange? Well it is, as my laptop is over a year and a half old and I activated Windows when I bought it. I tried the activation and received a message that I was using an invalid Windows key; the key is on the bottom of my laptop and is perfectly valid.

I first called HP as was recommended in the message, the PC is of course out of warranty so they didn’t care. “Call Microsoft” was the very unhelpful reply “it’s not a hardware issue”. So I called MS.

You can imagine my trepidation calling the corporate monster that is Microsoft, but actually it was OK. The HP guy had given me the wrong number of course and I was transferred to the Key Generation Department. I explained my issues and after some time was given a new Key by a very helpful person….that didn’t work. I was transferred again to someone not so helpful who disconnected my call. At this time I started to believe the tech support horror stories, but I called back anyway and was given the tech support number.

The operator gave me my options:

1) Call HP….yeah, I did that and they sent me to you.
2) Look for solutions on line……did, didn’t get one.
3) Pay a small fee for technical support….OK; guess that’s my only option. (I suppose that this is a good time to mention that Windows 7 was being delivered the next day, and I wouldn’t be able to upgrade unless my current Windows version was active).

So, after just a minute or so I got to speak to a real life Microsoft support technician. This is where I was surprised, he was very helpful!

It took a while but he identified the problem, it seems my registration files had been corrupted during a software install (I’m guessing it was the Java update that had happened a few hours before). I gave him access to my PC, he re-installed the files and asked me to enter the new Windows key and hey presto……it didn’t work. He explained that the key had probably been used too many times and expired, put me on hold, and went to get a new key. The server was down he said….it would be about an hour but he would call me back.

Sure enough, about an hour later I got a call with the new key. I entered the key nervously and….well…..IT WORKED! I thanked the nice man and went on with my life.

Windows 7 duly arrived the next day and has installed wonderfully. I’ll see how it goes and write in the future, but thus far it’s very nice!

Radio Radio

I never listen to the radio anymore; there are a couple of reasons for this.

1) The radio here in the US is far two specialized and politicized to be of interest. Music stations play only one kind of music, i.e. “Modern Rock” or “Country” or “College Rock”. I find this most annoying. One thing about radio in the UK when I was younger was that it was very eclectic. You could here five songs from five genres in a row and not find it odd.

The talk radio stations are the same. Conservative or Liberal they are designed to allow people to listen to only what they already agree with. This leads to a culture of mistrust and schismatic attitudes. It’s a “throw them some meat and watch them fight over it” way of selling advertising time. Very distasteful.

2) I tried internet radio. This includes the likes of Pandora (which I have given my opinion on previously in this forum), and UK radio, particularly BBC 6Music (which was great in the early days but has now homogenized into blah.

Pandora and its ilk is again too specialized, you select Captain Beefheart and that’s what you get (even when Captain Beefheart isn’t on, via hi many art rock clones). Live streams can be better but the chance of getting quality when you need it is pretty slim, especially with time zone issues.

So what to do. Well switch off the radio and make a point of discovering interesting things yourself. I find Emusic very useful for this; it forces the browser to be made aware of music never before heard of. And don’t be afraid to listen to new stuff, you’ll be surprised how much fun the world outside your comfort zone can be.

Building up The Walls

Yes! The walls are finally up! I drove the last drywall screw and started taping the joints yesterday. I thought I would never get there (at one point I thought I would run out of drywall and have to buy more, but was rescued by some leftovers from a previous project). I have cleaned up and now have to dispose of the scraps of wall board that are left.

This weekend I hope to get some joint compound up and look to purchasing the trim. I started looking at flooring today too. Hello! Are you still awake?

Jiggery Pokery in VA

The Virginia trip went well and a good time was had by all. I did manage to have a very short blast of Bruce as we hit the New Jersey turnpike in the closing minutes of Friday night which was most exciting, although the Duckworth Lewis Method was far more dominant in playing time.

Our friends were as wonderful and generous as ever as we stayed at their place for two nights, feeding us well and providing copious amounts of beer and wine. On Saturday we went to Wegmans supermarket in Fredericksburg, what a shop!!! It’s no secret that I am a foodie and this place was heavenly. We purchased two large rockfish that, some wonderful lamb and the juiciest filet mignon that you have ever laid your starry eyes upon, I later grilled the lot and oh what a bountiful feast it was. We bought sushi for lunch and I stuffed myself silly. I would seriously consider moving south just to have regular access to this gastronomical wonderland; they even have a seafood restaurant bang in the middle, complete with raw bar and wine tasting!

Sunday we went for a trip to the Luray Caverns in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. The caves are huge with amazing formations, being a tourist attraction it was of course expensive to get in, but the little one did get in for free. Besides, my dear friends had been so generous over the weekend that this was pretty much the only time I spent any money.

All in all it was a fantastic trip. We had some traffic issues around about New York City as you would expect, but the GPS proved its value. We also got to drive trough Harlem and The Bronx on the way back, how exciting!

Today - LBW

This week I downloaded The Duckworth Lewis Method, what a corker! The name applies to both the record and the band, the band being Thomas Walsh of the band Pugwash (of whom I know absolutely nothing), and Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy (of whom I am a big fan).

Another concept album, I seem to listen to little else lately, its theme being cricket (yes cricket) and is very Divine Comedyesque indeed. I’ve not listened to the whole thing yet, but the standout track for me so far is Jiggery Pokery, a wonderful piece of commentary concerning a sneaky young Australian bowler and an out foxed experienced batsman. “Out for a buggering duck” must be one of the most expressive lines ever written, and it mentions Dickie Bird as any good cricket based pop music should. Get this record.

Last Friday

Another weekend approaches. A busy one coming up, that bloody room still needs finishing (I have started putting the walls up) but there always seems to be something else to do. When I do get going on the work it’s never as easy as I thought it would be, I know, a surprise right? A one hundred year old house is never square, and by that I don’t mean that it’s a hep cat daddyo. No, there are weird angles and a wall is eighty six inches high at one end and eighty five and a half at the other. This means that everything takes longer than it should, and is very VERY frustrating!

But I am getting there, and will fight the stupid walls until I have won!