A New Hope

So my laptop is currently semi-broken. This is what happens when you try to close the lid:

...yeah, not so good for the screen. It was slightly separated when I was in Canberra (that was the first time I noticed it). After that, I ignored it, but its gradually been getting worse, to the point where I'm scared I'm going to break it every time I close it.

So I went into a shop on Monday night, to try to get it repaired. Apparently that shop didn't fix mechanical things, so I had to call Asus directly. The guy at the shop told me to find the toll free number, and call them.

So Tuesday morning I search for the toll free number, and can't find it. They really hide it well. So I give up and ring the long distance number listed on the web site. I pick up, press the appropriate numbers for the department I want, and get put on hold. The hold recording, just at the moment, had said "toll free" before moving on to something else. So I didn't hear the number at all. I did however, get the " Your call is important to us, please hold the line and an operator will be with you shortly" message a dozen or so times. The second time I went through the loop, I missed the toll free number entirely.
For those interested, the ASUS notebook customer service toll free line in Canada (perhaps North America) is 1-888-678-3688, extension 4. So I'm on the line for a little while, they guy's really nice. I explain that I bought my laptop in Australia, and that I was in Canada studying at the moment. He tells me that I could bring it in to the service centre, but it's a fair way away.... like the other side of the country.

However, the problem is apparently quite common on this model, and he even opens up an order, asking me the serial number of my laptop before my name... which I thought was a little weird. Very helpful.

As it turns out, the 20 minute phone call costs me $15, but oh well...

So they send me an email, telling me about all the stuff that I need to do, which says they're going to send me a box, and a FedEx (delivery company) Airway Bill, so I don't get charged for anything. The next day, I've received a package =D I go to the front desk, and the lady there hands me this:
She also notes how exciting it is to get an empty box. As you can see (or may not be able to see) that box is big enough to fit ten laptops into. So, at the moment I've got a box which I'm going to cut up and make some holders to hold the laptop in place, as well as a bunch of paper and newspaper so hopefully it doesn't get trashed in transit.

The delivery is an overnight express thing, which is good, and I'm guessing it's going to be overnight back to me. They've told me it'll take about a week, although I've read a story on the internet where it took 72 hours from the moment he called them, so I'm pretty optimistic at this point.

I haven't sent it yet because it's a long weekend this weekend, and I've got some work I need to do before I send it in. So I'll send it in on Monday, it'll get there Tuesday, and hopefully I'll be get it back by the end of the week. If not, at the start of next week. Should be all ok.
Hmm... so other than that, what's happened since Monday? Well.. not much. On Tuesday we had a power cut. Two of them in fact. Campus-wide ones. One of them in the afternoon, which meant that I almost missed lunch (it came back on just before I had to go), and the second one was at night.

Interestingly enough, in a house full of guys, there's not heaps to do when there's no power. Unfortunately I got socked when the power was out, which means I'm out of the game =( I did find my person though, so I know she does exist, but she was in her room so I couldn't sock her.
While the power was out, the internet was somehow still up for a little while, and the network stayed up throughout, which was interesting. So some of the guys played Starcraft, which is becoming something that a lot of people on the floor like to do. We also found out that the emergency lights in our house don't actually work - but they work on other houses for some reason. Interesting...

The best thing about the power cut was the little security system at the entrance of the house. It beep continuously, and had a little light which flashed, next to the world "Trouble." Awesome.

Hmm... Wednesday was a bit nothing, I've decided that I'm going to do a ray tracer for my final graphics project. A ray tracer produces something like this:

From scratch. Well, almost from scratch. I'll be modeling all of the spheres and stuff, and then calculating the colour of each pixel based on the reflection of the rays of light and stuff. After that, it can be expanded to produce some really realistic pictures. The ones that you can't decide whether they're photos or computer generated. All pretty cool.

Thursday was a bit meh, as was today. I was involved in a discussion which originated with what we would do in the event of a zombie attack. Blair (our House President) had actually put a lot of thought into it. We'd evacuate the bottom and 1st floors up to the second floor. We'd then barricade the stairs so they couldn't get up. We'd fill the bins up with water because that'd be likely to be shut off. The only problem would be the food...

It was a very detailed conversation, which turned into a conversation about buying a zeppelin and becoming air pirates, robbing high rise buildings by swinging down on ropes. As well as being detailed it was entertaining. Anyways, hopefully I'll go out this weekend and see some sights or something... and finish off those assignments so I can send my laptop in.

Anyways that's it today, I'll post before I send my laptop in probably...

Oh, and I need to choose 3 photos for the study abroad photo competition. I'll probably send in the one of the fog on top of Grouse Mountain, the one of the Space Needle from Seattle, but I can't really decide on another one, and it has to be done tomorrow... so any suggestions tonight would be appreciated =P