My Netbook Stopped Working

In a recent post, I mentioned that my netbook stopped working.

I have an Acer Aspire One with 8 GB solid state drive (really, it is compact flash) and an 8 GB SDHC card using Ubuntu. On July 31st, while waiting for our flight to Washington DC, I tried to use my netbook, but it did not work. When I pushed the power button, the power light would come on, one of the two WiFi buttons would flash, and then the power light would go off. Everything I tried (including batter, no batters, wall power, no wall power) had any effect. My netbook is still under a year long warranty until Christmas time, so I sent it to Acer to get fixed. I will post again about this when I get my netbook back and know what was wrong with it.

The Best Movie Line I have Ever Written

When going out to eat Shannon says that she does not like when the waiter/waitress says "Hello, my name is John/Jane and I will be taking care of you today." She does not like the "taking care" part because its too broad. As if your response should be, "Awesome, because I have this knot in my back. Would you take care of that for me?" Instead, she prefers it if they should say "I will be serving you today" or "I will be your server today".

Well, inspired by the original line that annoys Shannon, I came up with a great movie line - the best movie line that I have ever written. It would be in a movie about the mob and it goes like this:

[A man with the appearance of a waiter walks up to the table of a notorious mobster.]

Hello, my name is Big Fat Paulie and I will be taking care of you today......*pop*..*pop*

[Big Fat Paulie successfully executes the hit by shooting through the menu he was holding with his silenced pistol.]

Now all I need is a movie to go with my line :/

This Should be an Unecessary Service

My Acer Aspire One stopped working recently, so I began the process to send it to Acer for fixing. It is strictly a hardware problem, so everything on my hard drive should be fine. However, Acer's documentation says that they will clear the hard drive and return it to its factory state. I do not have any important data on there that is not already backed upped by Dropbox, so that is not my concern. I just do not want to have to reconfigure my system if I do not have to.

I wanted to call Acer and tell them that if the hardware problem was not with the hard drive (which it is not), then I would appreciate it if they would not mess with my hard drive. Well, to do this, I first need a phone number, something that has alluded me to this point of the troubleshooting process. I decided to Google "Acer tech support phone number"....and I was extremely supprised by the first hit.

The first hit is a website called Contact Help. The service provided by this site is "fact access to customer service numbers". Now, I know that every company tries to suggest alternative ways to solve your problem other than calling them. However, when companies make it so difficult find their phone number that a service like Contact Help is required, they have gone too far.

US Go Congress (3 of 3)

The congress finished yesterday. I lost on Thursday (by only about 10 points). I did my best but still lost. Later on Thursday, Ramon and I got our books signed by Takemiya. On Friday, I won my game, partly because of Maeda's sabaki lessions. Going into Saturday, I was 4-1. My game was against another 9k that was also 4-1. I did not do so well in the opening, but took the lead near the end of the middle game. Then, on the very next move, I did not notice that my opponent's move thretened to undo what I had just done. My next move (and one later move) caused me to lose by over 80 points. My opponent in this game placed second in our band (11k - 9k) and I did not place.

US Go Congress (2 of 3)

I was expecting to blog more about my trip, but we do not have much free time.

Today is Wednesday, the day off. There have been three days of events so far. I won my first two games and lost my last one. I won my first two games by a comfortable margin because I killed a big group in each game. I lost my last game but only by about 13 points. I am playing as a 9K and all of these games have been against 8Ks, although every game has used 7.5 komi.

We have been going to Ryo Maeda's lectures. He is a Japeneese 6P. Ramon got a game reviewed by Yilun Yang (a 7P) and we also went to part of one of his lectures. Ramon showed me some books by Yang and I really like them. Yesterday, Masaki Takemiya (a 9P) arrived and we saw him twice. Ramon and I both plan to get his autograph in a book by him.

US Go Congress (1 of 3)

I was going to blog about everything that is happening with me here in DC, but that would take me more than an hour every day, and I don't have that much time. Since I am here for the US Go Congress, I will mostly blog about go related activities.

Shannon and I flew here on Friday. We had to get up at 4 AM for our 7:10 AM departure. We are staying with my friend Ramon's (and is finance's) place. Before going to bed. Ramon and I played a game. He won 73-43. I played poorly. I was playing unconventional moves when I knew the conventional move. Also, I need to remember that I cannot have it all. I need to either give my opponent the worse half or give up something in return for something better.

On Saturday, we spent most of the day in Baltimore. At the end of the day, we went back to George Mason (where the congress is held this year) to register for the congress. Ramon and I would have probably stayed and watched some people that were playing go, but the our ladies did not want to stay and the buildings on campus were closing in the next 10-15 minutes anyway.

It is now Sunday morning and we are about to leave. Each day we will play one game in the US Open tournament. Wish me luck!