I. don't. know. Or I should say, I. did. not. know. But, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
I assumed it was the computer. I swore that with another power adaptor the same thing happened... no juicy juice. I did the only rational thing for someone in a total panic about not being able to do her work and had no time to go aaaaallllll the way to Shinsaibashi to the Apple Store to have it checked would do. I ordered a new computer. And, yeah, I had wanted a new one. 4 years was a good run, warranty was out, and dayum it had become slow. Boop boopy doo!
Monday to Saturday I just waited, ok, no. I hijacked Hiro's computer. Hiro knew, saying, "Go ahead Jian." If you don't know Jian, he is a bully on the kids' program Doraemon who picks on Nobita and the other kids. One of his famous sayings is "My stuff is my stuff and your stuff is my stuff." And so it is with me. Hiro is my Nobita.
I survived the week with out. And then it came! Like a white knight! I embraced it and gently set it down on our green carpet. Swiss army knife out, opening the flaps of the box, pulling her out! What do you think I did next? Turn it on you say? Absolutely... not. I grab the power adaptor to see if I could juice my old one. Was the 140,000 yen I spent for the computer in vain? Absolutely... kind of.
Green light went on and juiced my old girl got! My new girl? On she was turned and soon I could begin the data transfer. Using airport all my info could flow through space to the new computer set just beside. In 20 hours. Heh heh. By the time I went to bed, I was certain I would wake in the morning with just a few hours left. At 6 a.m., I did and only 3 hours separated me and using my new computer. "That's perfect. I'll sleep another 3 hours," I thought. And then I heard the "buh".
"Buh" is never a good sound, is it?! It means a window has popped up to alert you to something. This window was telling me that my computer was no longer on the network. I will take this opportunity to NOT recommend eo Hikari Fiber as an internet provider. For a variety of reasons, none of which I will enumerate at this time (other than the fact that sometimes it just cuts off), we are switching as soon as we can! And with that, my 12 hours of data transfer was cancelled. I was, as you might guess, none too pleased.
Cancel button hit, pillow over head, I still slept until 9. Then I rolled over and called Apple. No English help today, well, fuck it, I haven't lived in this country for 11 years to not be able to get a handle on this in Japanese and so I hit 4 then 2 and was connected to my helpful technical support person. I would say introduced to, as all phone calls to service centers start with self introductions, but we had no time for that as I had to first apologize for my shitty Japanese and ask for his patience as I "ganbaru" and do my best. Half way though he admitted he really thought I was going to be shitty but you know, I am not, and he was well relieved and happy to say how crap his English is. I reassured him that if it were the U.S. I could understand his disappointment, but um, we live in Japan, Buddy. It's perfectly fine that you can't help me in my L1. Next step, "you need to buy a LAN cable." No, a firewire cable.
Hopped on my bike, wait no, nothing is ever smooth. Climbed back up to get the bicycle pump, pumped it up and then I hopped on. I got all the green lights (Yes!), found my helpful store rep and asked for a firewire cable. "A what? Do you mean LAN cable?" I had no idea, I just knew I was told to get a firewire 400 6 pin 800 9 pin cable. Puzzling. "Let me call Apple," I said. Lo and behold a mistake was made and all I needed was a LAN cable. Yatta! 390 yen later I was back on my bike and home in 10 minutes.
Up, up, in. Sit, call, connect, start the process. No. Stop. Hang up. Update. Make rice. Call back. Try again. No. LAN won't work. WTF!? Who did I wrong recently? Why did they choose now to play their voodoo? I am pretty sure I let the old lady have my seat on the train this week and I didn't punch any children. Oh, I know what I did. I was late and left colleagues waiting. Damn you karma! Shaking my fist, I listened as the 4th or was it 5th technical support person tell me I was out of "easy" options. Easy my big ole white arse!
Out came the EX HD and we began to manually transfer things. Hung up while it got transferred, called back when it was time to put it all on the new computer and voila, 6th or 8th person could finally wrap up my service number. Customer 1816757696 (yes, I memorized it, that's how many times I repeated it with each call back) was DONE!
What next? Skype! That would be easy. Just download and be done. But, why would it be easy? No, Skype wanted to be an ass hat, too. So for a while it was. Until it wasn't. And I was more than ready to take whatever voodoo might have been left on the road and sublimate my pent up ugly into a run. And so I did.
So computer issues, you've been served. I know you will make me think you make my life easier for a while. And you do. But weeks like this, you really don't and like with anything, I am willing to accept that you have to take the good with the bad and in the end, as long as the good (in this case easy) makes me a winner most of the time, I will go forth and still proclaim that I love MacBooks, Apple support, and myself for not exploding on anyone and doing all of this in Japanese. That's right bitches, I got a new computer and even more confidence in myself as a grown-up who can handle a situation maturely and in another language. Me: 1, All the other stuff: 0
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