For those of you who are leaning forward on the edge of your seat, wondering what happened to my broken computer…

I fixed it, eventually. The UPS claim process is really shitty, because it involves the true shipper, even if the shipper was a proxy for the ACTUAL owner of the shipped goods (Office Depot, in my case). A belligerant woman from UPS called me a couple of hours ago and offered me the opportunity to “buy” my machine back for a percentage of the insured amount. Since it wasn’t completely destroyed, I agreed to the deal and proposed a number that resulted in a resolution for 42.86% of the value of the machine. I can only imagine what chaos would have ensued if I had decided to actually trade in my now-working machine for the full amount (since I have been swapping parts out of it since it arrived in its piecemeal state).

Stupid computers.

Oh, and since I’m a total nerd, here’s a picture of my computer, in all of its dual-processor glory: