Volleyball is mana to my soul...

The title kind of says it all. Nothing brings me such utility as a very well-played, competitive game of volleyball. And that's exactly what we've had the last three times my intramural team has played. We played twice on Wednesday (19:15 and 20:15, back-to-back game) and then again yesterday afternoon, and we've pulled out wins in all of them. Two of the games we did lose, but only lost 23-25 and then took them in the third game. The third game is special because it's only to 15 (instead of 25, which is what normal games go to) so it's faster paced and more stressful. However we've got some clutch players and pull out a blow-out each time we go to the third game. It looks like we've got three more opponents to go through before we can claim the championship, so we've got a ways to go, but it also means that we're halfway there. A championship t-shirt would be an awesome way to end my last semester, but no matter what happens, it's been fun so far. Oo-rah Justice League. (c=

Newegg Rocks!!

So I built a computer at the end of July and I bought all of the components off of Newegg.com, including a Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 keyboard. The thing's a budget board ($20), but it's the best keyboard I've ever used. I even got one for work cuz I enjoy it so much. However, after two months the left ctrl-key began "sticking' (kept sending its electronice signal, even after I released the key) occassionally - especially in games - and that rendered the computer inoperable. I could nicely select all text, copy, and paste it without holding down two keys, but I couldn't actually type anything. Super frustrating! However it would only last for 30 seconds, so I didn't worry too much about it. Then in the last week it began sticking for 10 minutes at a time and finally never released. It was time to replace the bugger.

I looked at the warranty and the keyboard was within the time period (it's a three year manufacturers warranty... that's amazing!) so I went on Microsoft's hardware site to get more information. Worthless website, didn't even have a "Contact Us" so I went to Newegg's to talk to them. I filled out a RMA (Return Merchandise something) request and found out that it'd cost $8 to ship the keyboard to them and another 2-3 days once it was there for them to process it and send out a new one. I was looking at 2-3 days to ship to them, 2-3 days for processing, 2-3 days for them to ship to me. 6-9 days without my desktop computer did NOT sound like fun. So I looked into just buying a new one and having them reimbure me once they received my dead one. I'd still have to pay $8 shipping to them and temporarily pay for a brand-new keyboard, but at least I wouldn't have to wait very long. I decided to get on their Live Chat before putting my plan into action, and I'm glad I did.

I don't know if my plan was satisfactory to them, because the rep I talked to (Meredith) proposed something so much better: "why don't we just ship you a new one for free and you keep the dead one?" My was that a fair option. So I have a junk keyboard to tinker with (I wonder if a soldering-iron could fix the problem?) and I have a new one on its way. It's basically the best outcome that I could hope for (except for Overnight Shipping, but I wasn't gonna push my luck). (c= This course of action makes a lot of business sense, though, because the keyboard isn't THAT expensive, they likely would just throw away the one I'd send them, and I've spread this story to bunch of friends in the last few days, giving them positive advertising. In fact I pointed one of my co-workers to their website to buy a monitor for her daughter, and I'll recommend them to everyone who wants to buy electronics. They're fast, competitively priced (usually the lowest out there), ship quickly, and have the best customer service that I've ever dealt with. A+ for them. (c=