In skipping merrily around the blogosphere I notice that many bloggers are impelled to vent their spleens via their blogs........there is quite a bit of ranting and raving going on and I think that is possibly a good thing. The human race desperately needs an outlet for its rage that doesn't harm the environment, animals or, I guess, humans. And on a more personal level, I, particularly, need an outlet for my rage because, not having a husband or children to take things out on, and not wanting to harm my precious kitties, I seriously require some way to keep from bursting a blood vessel in my brain and having a stroke or a seizure.
I say this because I am "mad as hell and I am not going to take it any more!" Yeah, yeah, so what are my options??? Screaming it out the window does not seem to satisfy me any more, and, sadly, each day that passes brings more insults and blows to my delicate sensibilities......so what's a poor infuriated person to do?
I am proposing a new rating system to be appended to the price and description of just about everything even remotely electronic...........and I am calling it the FFFF rating.. That stands for the Fucking Fear and Frustration Factor. (the fear part comes from the fear that if you can't immediately get your hands around the throat of the imbecile responsible the top of your head is going to blow off) No longer can manufacturers hide behind low prices or 4 Star ratings. Once it is revealed how much fear and frustration their products inflict on us they may have to consider changing their miserable ways. An item that is tagged with an FFFF rating might just as well be branded as loaded with lead, full of the Ebola virus and friendly to Hamas and the Taliban.
What brought this particular rant on is the fact that after several years of faithful and sterling service my Dell 942 All-InOne Printer lost a piece of its color cartridge bracket and, though it continued to print in black I got fed up with having to give it permission to do so every time I hit "Print". All my fixit methods failed and I innocently decided I would spring for a new one. Only trouble with that approach is that they don't MAKE the 942 any more and I was given a choice of bigger, bulkier more complicated units, none of which appealed to me in the least. In desperation I picked the one that seemed the simplest (and the least expensive) and ordered it. After receiving and installing it I quickly discovered that I had purchased a large mechanized package of horse dung. The control panel was so complex I could barely figure out which button to push in which sequence, the screens which offered me various options were poor and the options were even worse. And, even the simplest print request took forever for the order to be translated into Swahili or something and forwarded to the various elements which required goosing to cause the page to actually be printed. In addition. about every 3rd request to Print caused a snotty message telling me that my ink cartridges were not properly installed and I should immediately reinstall them. My heart was heavy, I can tell you, when I realized what I had lost........much like the stalwart lad your young foolish self dumped because he was a bit unexciting and whom you longed for wistfully for the rest of your life.
However, the unkindest cut of all came when, after just a brief time of usage I noticed that my printed pages were becoming paler and paler till they finally consisted of nothing but a few blue streaks. Both ink cartridges had run out in a mere twinkling. Grrrrr. Sigh. Time to get out the ink refill kits and the rubber gloves. For years now I have been refilling my ink cartridges from a DIY kit and have been hugely successful, thereby saving at least a gazillion dollars if not more. (One of the things which makes me totally livid with rage is the ridiculous price of those cartridges.......how dare they ?!!!) Snapping the refilled cartridges back into their brackets I attempted to print a test page only to be advised by some supercillious piece of software that the cartridges were no longer virgins and were unacceptable to this persnickety piece of junk daring to call itself a Printer.
I have been stewing about this situation for several days trying to decide what to do. Because I hate this unit with a passion I decided there was no use spending the small fortune to buy new cartridges.....I would just as soon put the money toward a new unit. Two days of research on my computer led to little enlightenment......I read the user reviews of all printers in my price range and found that even the ones who got mostly rave reviews also got a few pans which indicated the presence of quite a few faulty Lemon-y machines out there. Finally in desperation I settled on a Canon AO1 from Walmart ....on Huge Special.....which hardly cost more than the price of replacement cartridges.....I may live to rue the day, but I figured it was worth a try. Hardly anything can be worse than the Dell that I am relegating to the trash barrel..........did you all get that....
Dell V515w ........ rating FFFF on Lois' Fucking Fear and Frustration Factor scale.
Take that you rotten manufacturers of shameful, ridiculous garbage !!
There.....I think I feel better now.
The New Yorker covers: September 26, 2011
2 hours ago
