Posted by Gremlin [24.9.27.34 - c-24-9-27-34.client.comcast.net] on 27 January 2004 at 22.39.26 ZuluTime:

So I've got a thrilling new update on the status of my damned laptop now.
     Since no one at BestBuy ever bothered calling me back about this [I called them a couple of weeks ago, asking whether the thing could be fixed or not, and they hurried off the phone with the promise that they'd call me back the instant they had that answer], Hunter just called them again.
     First, she called to find out what was happening, and learned only that, despite the three-hundred-dollar extended warranty, the laptop was believed to have malfunctioned due to 'customer abuse', so fixing it would cost about four hundred bucks, if we happened to want it back.
     Since that made no sense to us, and since polysyllabic words made no sense to the 'droid on the phone, it promised to have a manager call us back within half an hour.
     Two hours later, Hunter called back again, this time recording the conversation. Supposing I ever have a computer I can actually use again, I'll get the recording uploaded to NewsoftheStoopid.com, along with a more detailed [and, hopefully, more completed] explanation of all this.
     To date, all we know is this:

1. The warranty cost three hundred bucks
2. Having them fix the computer costs four hundred bucks
3. Fixing the computer myself voids the warranty
4. In no event can the money spent on the warranty [suspiciously close to the charge to fix the laptop] be refunded

Based on all that, BestBuy are fixing my laptop for four hundred bucks, which I'm paying under fucking duress. Which is to say that, A) I want my computer back, B) I want it to work, and C) fixing it on my own for less voids the warranty which, so far, doesn't appear to have an applicable purpose in the first place.
     Something else of interest, for the record: here's a quick list of stuff, off the top of my head, I've bought at BestBuy since buying the laptop:

1. The laptop itself, including a warranty equating to ten percent of its price
2. A 16:9 HDTV
3. FlatPanel monitors for existing computers
4. Various cables, headphones, microphones, et cetera, for Radio Free Duhmerica [ironically, the gear used to record the conversation was about all I ever bought, instead, from RadioShack]
5. A couple hundred DVDs
6. A repair charge for the laptop I'd already spent roughly the same money on in order to avoid repair charges

Obviously, the list ends there, since I'm otherwise not buying anything else from these frauds.
     Interestingly, the quote in the title of this post came from the 'tard Hunter was talking to late in the conversation, mere seconds before she hung up, cutting Hunter off. Halfway through the ordeal, Hunter [for some reason] reminded me that she was recording it, which the twerp on BestBuy's end heard, processed, and worked out meant that it was time to stop cackling like Edie McClurg from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and start watching what she was saying...which didn't particularly help her story to improve.
     The story? The harddrive was damaged. Evidently [I'm told], something liquidesque got spilled on it. While I don't doubt that possibility, in general, it does beg a couple of critical questions.

1. Why did the 'droid I talked to at BestBuy before buying the laptop assure me that, since I'm a novelist who writes novels on laptops in restaurants, the additional warranty would cover things like servers spilling coffee and soda on my new machine, and
2. How a liquid-adorned harddrive accounts for the laptop's inability to ignore the harddrive and boot up from the system CD which came with it.