My view of the world

I got a Fry’s gift certificate for Xmas. I figured it would cost me several hundred dollars, Fry’s has that effect on me.
After finding out that they didn’t have the 74gig 10,ooo rpm hd I wanted, they’ve had these in the past, but the inventory listing in the computer refused to acknowledge that they had ever existed, I found a few things and bought some more memory for my graphics box.

One of the things I bought was an 8 gig usb microdrive by Memorex, the protective shield/guide that plugs into your computer came off immediately, this is non-fatal, but really annoying.
The memory was by the right company, but it was 2 sticks of value ram instead of a matched pair of the high-end corsair I had requested. The sales dweeb was lost at best, and had the personality of cold pasta. Have you ever dealt with a salesman who left you with the impression that you were interrupting their morning cartoons? The scary part is that these guys are on commission.
The only guy there who seems to know what’s up is always busy at the desk, he’s also the only one I’ve seen more that once.

The lesson is simple, unless you absolutely have to have it today, buy online from fry’s at outpost or newegg, I prefer Newegg. Nothing can protect you completely, but by doing this at least you can assure yourself that you ordered the correct part number, instead of relying on some semi-literate, soon to be unemployed luser.

As for the memorex problem, this is a symptom of living in a world where very few people are willing to pay more than Walmart prices. The end result is a lack of quality control and the expectation by the manufacturer that a percentage of returns will go unnoticed by the customers. This unit cost about $200 usd, but the quality is just like the cheap shit.

It only cost me a hundred and seventy dollars out of pocket, and I went away with the wrong memory, (my choice, I have another box that needed memory so it’s not a loss) a defective Travel Drive,(usable but annoying) a usb/card reader with a really flakey install and no docs, (Windows handled it, in spite of the weird install, by not installing the drivers off the disk) a bunch of other small bits and pieces and a Memorex dvd burner that worked the way it was supposed to. The burner is the odd one.

Once upon a time, I’d have been pissed, but now I’m so used to shoddy merchandise and bad service that this is as close to a complaint as I’ll bother with, I guess the assholes are winning after all.