PC World Of Pain

"Is this the one who brought his PC in, in November?"
"Yep. I asked him on the phone why he'd taken three weeks to get back in touch with us."
"Sigh. Let's have a look at the service docket, then..."

The fine gentlemen of The Tech Guys at Tottenham Court Road's PC World store, were labouring under a bizarre delusion. They clearly believed that the perspex screen which separated them from me – standing mere metres away at the Tech Guys' counter – was soundproof. More than once, I considered calling out, "I'm right here, you hilariously rude cocks". But given that they were deciding whether I could have a brand new PC in exchange for the knackered one I bought in November, this seemed ill-advised.

The Tech Guys' support system is laughable. In my experience, only one in approximately 4,026 attempts to call them directly in-store will be successful. Call their alleged Customer Services 'hot'line, and you'll be put on hold, then told that they've attempted to call the Tech Guys in-store without success. So basically, they're just calling the same unanswered phone as you tried to, without any kind of special powers. Not even an e-mail address, according to the apathetic Customer Services fella I spoke to. Ludicrous.

Anyway, it has all ended in joy. I have a brand new PC with which to face 2008. It has a ludicrous Terabyte of memory, divided into two 500GB drives. It also throws in a 300GB media drive, which caused me much excitement last night. The PC's tower has a neat slot for this very drive, and all you have to do is satisfyingly slide it inside, with no need for adapters or wires. As I pushed this beauty in, right up to the hilt, it was positively wonderful to see it light up and begin to whirr. Which kinda spoils the whole sexual suggestiveness, unless of course I was boning an android.

Right, then. Time to start filling this baby up with words.

Regional Tension

Why, in the name of fuck, do the likes of Window Media Player and Power DVD insist on policing what kind of DVDs I play on my PC? It's none of their business.

Windows Media Player almost earned itself a black eye the other day, when I attempted the heinous crime of playing a Region 2 (Europe, Oz and, uh, other stuff) DVD. Perversely, WMP is packaged on my new PC (which is, worryingly, displaying a blue screen of death each and every day) with a default setting of Region 1 (US/Canada), but will only allow me to change the region setting four times. So what's the logic here? Region-switching is either okay, or it isn't. And clearly, no-one apart from the makers of DVD-playing software gives a flying fuck about DVD regions any more. Apparently, these new-fangled HD-DVD discs are region-free, so clearly the days of shiny-disc segregation are over.

Yet... yet... here's Windows Media Player, popping up with the oh-so-patronising message: "You need to obtain a disc appropriate to your international region". Cheers for that, you electronic cock.