But First, A Word From Our Sponsor:
Top Comments recognizes the previous day's Top Mojo and strives to promote each day's outstanding comments through nominations made by Kossacks like you. Please send comments (before 9:30pm ET) by email to topcomments@gmail.com or by our KosMail message board. Just click on the Spinning Top™ to make a submission. Look for the Spinning Top™ to pop up in diaries posts around Daily Kos.
Make sure that you include the direct link to the comment (the URL), which is available by clicking on that comment's date/time. Please let us know your Daily Kos user name if you use email so we can credit you properly. If you send a writeup with the link, we can include that as well. The diarist poster reserves the right to edit all content.
Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...
|
Well, hi!
I'm popping in from my hiatus to do a drive-by diary. So, how's everyone been? I have been having some great hikes - today, kriser and I did the longest and most challenging hike I've done in ages - 5.4 miles in just over 3 hours, with three "peaks" and 1400 feet of elevation gain/loss. It was great! And the nap afterward was even better! On Monday, while hiking, I lost my sunglasses, which was a real bummer. I've had these sunglasses for five years. They were just about free, and they were polarized and I loved them, so I really lamented their loss. I mentioned this bummer moment to krises and she told me to be sure to look on the top of rocks along my route during my next hike, since that's where people put found items. Imagine my delight on Wednesday when, shortly after hitting the summit of my three mile loop, I saw my sunglasses hanging from a branch near ground level.
While I'm hiking on my own, I'm highly enjoying listening to Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series!
In other news, (and by way of introducing the subject of tonight's diary) I'm writing to you from a brand new (to me) Mac. Because my old Mac didn't like tonic water, and the spill wiped out both the display and logic board of my old one. (Man, that smarts!) So, when this happened, I tried to do some damage control myself - cleaning, letting air dry for several days, etc. When this didn't work, I made some calls to local businesses as well as an appointment at the Genius Bar of my local Apple store. My Genius Bar appointment came first, which was where I got the bad news and the estimated repair bill: $1240. (That hurt, too!) The Apple guy and I agreed that, since I could get a refurbished Mac (or even a new entry level 13") for less, it might be time to let my almost 4-year-old Mac go.
Before I decided to do this, I did want to talk to local repair people - just to see what they said. One guy called me back and said that he'd be happy to take a look at it to see if anything could be done, if I wanted to bring my Mac to him.
Thus begins my highly negative experience. And also why I will check with Yelp and other rating services from here on out.
Long story short, he was really just interested in selling me a refurbished Mac (at ridiculously high prices) and keeping my Mac for parts.
Beyond checking local rating services, here is what else I've learned.
1) Cover potential costs in advance
"I'd be happy to take a look at it for you" turned into me apparently having agreed to surrender my Mac to him for parts and pay a $69 "evaluation fee". (I'd agreed to neither of these things, but now he held my hard drive.) His costs are not mentioned on his website, and he was just so friendly and quickly available. My bad for not making sure that he and I were on the same page. I've learned my lesson, and this takes me to #2:
2) Get it in writing
Frankly, it protects both parties. I think that my repair guy is so busy that he probably forgot what he quoted me. Or, more to the point, what he hadn't quoted me. The conversation we had when I delivered him my Mac had him indicating that he would be tearing my computer apart, and if he had to put it back together, or if we decided to go with a new Mac, got into data transfer, that we'd have to talk pricing then. After the last discussion he and I had - which had me wondering if he'd read my email (he tersely opened up the conversation with whether or not I even planned to buy a replacement computer from him, three hours after an email from Apple invited me to get to know my new Mac), and after I got the pricing from him in order to get my hard drive back (and told to pay in cash, even though his Yelp page indicates that he takes credit cards), I was pissed off and feeling taken advantage of. This would have been avoided if I'd gotten everything in writing from the beginning. This leads me to #3, which may or may not be a caveat simply for repairs, since that seems to be where certain preconceived notions come into play:
3) Have someone of the opposite sex verify pricing
Because I knew I'd never received any sort of evaluation/diagnostic fee info from this guy, with or without surrendering my old computer for parts, I had my neighbor, who is a man, call and give very general information about a problem he was having (one that was similar to mine), and ask about the process and his pricing. My neighbor got the following: $40 diagnostic fee, with hardware and rates discussed after the problem was diagnosed. If the computer proved to be a loss, he'd waive the diagnostic fee and return the hard drive if the computer was left with him. A far cry from my "reduced" diagnostic fee of $69, the "reduced" price being given because I was surrendering the computer. At this point, I turned all dealings with this guy over to my husband. He then flat out lied to my husband, saying I'd told him that he could keep the computer because it was useless to me. Utter BS. I am well aware that there are a number of salvageable parts on that computer, and I can eBay or Craig's List with the best of them. It's simply NOT something I would say. And my husband said as much. Was my experience because I'm a woman? I sure as hell hope not, but that's where I went first. And that's fucking depressing in this day and age.
4) Share your experience.
I'm looking forward to writing my own Yelp review. After getting my hard drive back, of course.
So, I'm all for helping out local businesses, and do really try - whether it be for coffee or groceries, and especially for services. I had the most amazing massage on Monday from an independent practitioner - I'm practically going door to door telling people that they MUST get a massage from her. SO, I'm not going to stop going local because of this negative experience.
Feel free to share your experiences in the comments.
Now, without further ado, here's what you really came here for - and thank you, brillig for compiling tonight's submissions and lists!!!!
I don't know about you, but when
asimbagirl's writing, it's THAT I come here for :).
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down.
From FlamingoGrrl:
Actually this is for "Best Thread of the Day"...do we have such a category?
I always pay attention to FOTHOM diaries so I immediately read ericlewis0's latest diary. But what should I discover, started by our lovely commonmass, but a British FOOD thread....a delightful thread full of clotted cream, scones, scone recipes, strawberries and more...all with a recognition that we Kossaks are some of the finest foodies around! :-)
From Angie in WA State:
This comment by ChemBob in Horace Boothroyd III's Teens Arrested on Own Balcony for Filming Police. It's short, and I'll let the diary title and the comment speak for themselves.
This comment by dmhlt 66 in weatherdude's (sure to create a firestorm of attention) diary. For turning a dumbass Republican political dirty-trick on its head and producing one of the smartest responses to a stupid Republican issue I've ever heard (much less seen).
From Noddy:
TrueBlueMajority gave a great comment to The Troubadour's post about a Twitter exchange. Ontheleftcoast then rebutted with this followed by a number of interesting terms.
From brillig:
I'm probably going to hell for nominating this one by JML9999 inspired by the picture in today's Hate Mailapalooza. Actually, the entire thread is wonderful.
From asimbagirl:
I loved this comment from observerinvancouver about Ellen Degeneres. I also thought that wasatch's reply was great. It's from Dirk McQuigley's diary JCP CEO refuses to cave to AFA; Mittens cowers and caves to Bryan Fischer.
I loved this comment from Shahryar in Weatherdude's very concise diary about Ari Fleischer's idiocy.
This comment by The Angry Architect was a great response to this query by ShoshannaD
Top Mojo for yesterday, May 4th, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you
mik for the mojo magic!
1) Wow. This guy is no friend of Mitt. by coquiero — 140
2) Sounds Like a Lucrative Lifetime Career on the by Gooserock — 122
3) they don't even bother to hide the corruption by wretchedhive — 118
4) MB-of millions of your good sentences, this one by rubyr — 109
5) The thing that offends me the most by LeftHandedMan — 100
6) What would it take to arrest a lawmaker... by Dallasdoc — 88
7) Of course private prisons by ivorybill — 87
8) His end game is the Rapture. n/t by googie — 81
9) Helter Swelter (n/t) by Trix — 76
10) Thanks, ericle. This is yummy. by commonmass — 71
11) Still praying for a brokered convention by MKSinSA — 70
12) Now that is a world class rant - n/t by peterfallow — 67
13) wall street and the medical industry by Laurence Lewis — 64
14) If House of Murdoch falls it will take Cameron by Jacoby Jonze — 63
15) The argument in this post: dig a deeper hole? by bobswern — 63
16) I still can't believe the original Star Trek was by agnostic — 62
17) Lady MacPowell by Magnifico — 61
18) He's had one too many by ZappoDave — 59
19) Happee Friedai! by arizonablue — 58
20) More likely a guest-host slot on Hannity. by here4tehbeer — 56
21) This is just bizarre. by voracious — 56
22) A blot on his reputation? by commonmass — 54
23) slight correction ... by InfiniteThoughts — 54
24) This is why by RoniMelton — 53
25) Oh, and if you knew where I get my cream here by commonmass — 53
26) Given his role in the white washing of by AoT — 53
27) This is what I am working on by xxdr zombiexx — 52
28) It's a good post, especially by TomP — 50
29) I don't always say "Heh" by Debbie in ME — 50
30) Setting himself up for "I told you so" by Dallasdoc — 49
31) So what do you think the upshot will be with by Olympia — 49
32) Yes, because we men are such by Dauphin — 49
Top Pictures for yesterday, May 4th. Click any image to be taken to the full comment. Thank you
jotter for the image magic!