Dan’s Blog

The power of music never ceases to amaze me. I put on AC/DC (Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap) this evening to commiserate my bad mood. Then Big Balls came on, which reminded me of a story that put a smile on my face.

I remember sitting in my brother Adam’s room as a kid. I must have been nine or ten, and he was in high school. We were listening to the very same album at the time, and Big Balls came on. I believe that I expressed that I liked the song, and Adam asked if I knew what they were talking about. “Of course,” I stated, “playground balls.” Adam left it at that.

I have a love/hate relationship with Dell. I love them because their computers are top notch and their prices are reasonable. Whenever I have to recommend a computer to a friend or family member, it’s always Dell. I hate Dell because of their customer service. It used to be fantastic. Then they offshored their CS and all hell broke loose.

This summer, my father needed a new computer. He uses his computer for work-at-home purposes, so he can’t go a day without it. He had been having computer issues for some time, and it was an old computer anyway. So, it was decided a new computer was in order. I identified a refurbished model on their website (a good way to get a cheap computer). I then called, had the operator reserve the refurbished item, and asked him to ship it next day. He told me that was impossible, since the credit check and paperwork took a couple of business days. Unbelievably, no matter what negotiation methods I used, there was no way for him to ship it overnight. So, my father and I took a trip to Wal-Mart, yes, you right right: Wal-Mart, to purchase a Dell. They had two boxes: a model without keyboard/mouse/monitor, and the same model without said peripherals. It was a great machine for a great price, so my father got a new computer.

But that’s not the point of this post, believe it or not. This summer, I reformatted my computer in the name of starting the school year fresh (it got abused with installs last year). I thought I had reinstalled everything, but evidently, Dell does not make the PowerDVD codec available for general download. I did a chat session with a Dell technician yesterday who informed me that there was no way to download the software and that she’d have to ship one out to me. Fine, just send the software. I expected to get it in a few weeks. When I came home today, there it was on my doorstep. They shipped it DHL next-day. Perhaps Dell is starting to realize that their customer service used to be a competitive advantage that they had lost and are now working on fixing it.

It’s 1am and I’m about to go to bed. All I can say is that it feels like I just woke up.

My kingdom for about 4 more hours per day.

Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve posted something (even through a spike in traffic). Every now and again I ran across something that I mean to blog about, but don’t write it down, so off it goes. I need a good way to organize the things I want to blog about…

Anywho, it’s been busy here. Papers, family visits, reading, etc.

I will report on an interesting conversation that my brother and I had this weekend about the ordering of movies/books. As I previously reported, I saw Hot Fuzz and loved it. This weekend, Eric and I watched Shaun of the Dead, which he thought I would like more than Hot Fuzz. That was certainly not the case. I enjoyed Shaun, but it didn’t catch my attention like HF did. We determined in a situation like this, the first movie a person sees will set the stage for expectations. HF is a VERY different movie than Shaun. So, I was expecting an HF-esque movie, which Shaun just isn’t. The same can be true for The DaVinci Code & Angels and Demons. I read A&D first and loved it. When I read DaVinci, I was not impressed. When I polled people who thought DaVinci was better, most of them had read it first. So, to make a long story short (too late): the first movie/book in a series will (most likely) be enjoyed more because it sets the expectations for the second movie/book. I also think that Shaun is a movie that will be enjoyed more the second time around, there was a lot to pick up on.

Back in Mr. Scott’s eighth grade class, I never would have thought that algebra was important in the real world. This was thought that went through my head as I put an algebra equation in an MBA case analysis exhibit (no, that’s not the equation in the picture). It wasn’t anything fancy, ’cause I probably couldn’t do anything fancy, but it solved the case question. Ok, it’s still academic, since I’m in school, but cases are real-world situations, darnit.