The New Computer Choice Saga continues...

glennmagusharvey

Remember that craziness involved in what sort of computer I might be getting and bringing to school, and what my dad might be using?  Here's Act II.

My parents had both decided that they want a 3rd-gen Intel i5 processor instead of a 2nd-gen i5.  I was even thinking, maybe 3rd-gen has slighlty newer tech that might last longer, but that's just a small chance.  The biggest difference, as far as I know, is just a slight speed difference.  But they decided they would insist on it.  So, okay, fine, I'll suck it up, you don't want me to help save the family money.  Fine, I'll accept this as a $120 "investment" (the cheapest 2nd-gen i5 machine is $479.99, while the cheapest 3rd-gen i5 machine is $599.99).

So, okay, fine.  It was 8:30 PM, the Best Buy store closes in an hour and a half, so my mom decided that we should finally make a choice about the matter.  (And just check the next day's new prices to see if there's anything better.)  I invite my dad to sit down to look through computers at BestBuy.com and Amazon.com (and also Newegg.com and PCRichard.com, but those were more expensive).

Before we started, my dad, who is tired of this computer-choosing saga and also likes to play Big Important Leader, issued a decree saying that if I spend more than an hour and a half doing this, I ought to "cease and desist" my computer-shopping activities.

So we look through stuff, and find the following two choices (and a few features, relevant to this comparison):
* Amazon: Samsung, 3 USB 2.0 ports, 4 GB RAM, 0.3 megapixel webcam, Intel HD Graphics 4000, 500 GB hard drive.  Free shipping, tax free.
* Best Buy: Dell, 4 USB 3.0 ports, 6 GB RAM, 1.0 megapixel webcam, Intel HD Graphics 3000, 500 GB hard drive.  Free shipping, pay $38.10 tax.

Note that a salesperson at Best Buy had said to us that the better laptop brands are ASUS, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, and Lenovo, and the ones that have more problems are HP, Dell, Acer, and Gateway.  My dad, considering this guy's advice, and also the fact that it can be bought tax-free, decided he wanted the Samsung.  (He also doesn't like Dells very much, for past reasons.)

My dad also found a really creative way to cut my preference for a cheaper 2nd-gen i5 machine out of the picture.

See, my mom is very straightforward, and simply said "what do you want?", and I reiterated my original preference, and then she said "between these two machines, what do you want?".  She's also exasperated with how much drama has been generated by this whole process, so she gets to the point and very irritatingly but straightforwardly restricts the choices and runs with it.

My dad, on the other hand, figured out something far more creative.  He wants a faster computer for himself anyway, right?  One of the original ideas (and still the idea on both my parents' minds) is that I get a new computer and then give my current one (a Pentium machine running Win7) to my dad as it is still faster than his current one (which is a Pentium machine running Vista).  So, instead of giving me the choice because I would be using the new one, he said this:
* First, he buys the computer for himself.  This way, he gets to make the decision as to what features are on it.
* Then, he will offer the computer to me in exchange for my current one, and give me (in his words) "right of first refusal" on the new computer.
I gotta say, this is pretty brilliant.  It's jackassery, but it's brilliant jackassery.

So he wants the Samsung.  Noting the fact that the Dell has USB 3.0 ports (and the fact that I just bought an external hard drive with USB 3.0 functionality), I prefer the Dell.  My mom also prefers the fact that it has more features, despite the fact that taxes have to be paid, and sees it as a similar investment in new and possibly useful features.

(This amidst my thinking that my parents want new features--such as the 3rd-gen i5 processor, among others--just because they're new features and supposedly better and can't actually say how they're better (other than vague statements like "it's faster").)

However, the fact that the two of us prefer the Dell is not immediately communicated to my dad.  For about ten minutes, my mom is upstairs, and my dad expresses his preference for the Samsung.  I then go back to questioning why he wants a 3rd-gen vs. 2nd-gen i5 processor, and then also questioning his preferences for USB 2.0 and a crappier webcam (and less RAM, but I hadn't gotten to it yet)--specifically, why he's willing to pay $120 for the newer-gen processor but not $38.10 for a better webcam, more RAM, and faster USB data transfer speeds.  (I also keep mum about less-awesome graphics card, though when I first introduced it earlier my dad had already dismissed it as unimportant.)

As we're talking, he questions how much better USB 3.0 is than 2.0, and I become curious, so I go look it up, and he accuses me of not ceasing-and-desisting my new computer search activities, while I claim (mostly truthfully, as I really do want to know) that this is for my own interest and edification about the USB 3.0 thing.  So while we're going back and forth over this little detail...

My mom comes downstairs and wonders what the fuss is all about, thinking we've settled it all.  Then she inadvertently mentions the word Dell.  Then my dad, who's sitting in front of the TV (again, as usual) and doesn't want to discuss this anymore, is like, hold it, I thought I wanted the Samsung.  My mom is like, why do you want the Samsung, the Dell has newer features that might be useful.  My dad then says haven't you heard what that guy at Best Buy said about Dells and Samsungs, and also, we have to pay taxes on the Dell.  And more back-and-forth.

After a while of yet more back-and-forth, I just say (quite honestly) that I'm seriously considering ignoring this whole batch of shenanigans, letting my dad keep the new laptop we're going to buy, and then buy one on my own time, with my own money, when I actually need it or when I find a good deal.  (Thereby subverting the very much implied original purpose of me getting a new computer.  After my dad subverted my chance to apply my preference for a computer.)

So at this point my mom then further decides to explore that hypothetical, by saying that I ain't buyin' a new computer until I actually need one, NOT just whenever there's a "good deal" (and even if it's my own money, which I admittedly will have precious little of).  And since the whole point of getting me a new computer was because my mom was concerned that my one-and-a-half-year-old current computer won't last me through three years of my doctorate work, she's going to to have me take the 13-inch semi-netbook that she currently uses (which both my dad and I have preferred against since it doesn't have an optical drive, but which I have significantly used before), and instructs me to only buy a new computer when my current one bites the dust, and to use this one to tide me over from this current computer to my hypothetical new one.

And then somehow the conversation goes back to my mom asking for my dad's preferences (or maybe this happened before the above aside), at which point my dad praises Toshiba, misremembers how many Toshibas we've bought, and claims that they're really great while my mom complains that they're not, because her semi-netbook Toshiba has really crappy built-in speakers, and the Toshiba my dad uses is really slow, then my dad replies to that saying that the semi-netbook was never built to have good speakers, then my mom replies saying that it's the most expensive computer in the house...and so on.  (I would also chime in an add my own comment that I'm not entirely satisfied with Toshiba, but I didn't get a chance.)



See, this is about as dysfunctional as the U.S. Congress.

And it was also probably a good thing that I just went and bought the external hard drive.  That was the most important piece.  And I went and did that almost unilaterally, just pushing it through until it happened, and when my mom was mostly distracted with other things (and she was kinda amenable to the idea anyway).  I haven't told my dad, and I don't plan to either, because of a very high likelihood of causing even more drama.



Oh, by the way, fuck the (so to speak) C&D order.  I just was looking at Office Depot and Staples, and on Staples I found a Lenovo computer with 4 USB ports (2 2.0 and 2 3.0), 8 GB RAM, 0.3 megapixel webcam, Intel HD Graphics 3000, and a 750 GB hard drive.  Whenever someone orders you to stop doing something, and you have an inkling that they're shoving something important under the rug, mentally tell that order to fuck off.

Of course, just because I told the order to fuck off doesn't mean that I can just go and present this finding to my dad.  He doesn't want to talk about computers anymore, and he'll accuse me of wasting even more time on this, and then he won't even listen to me.  Even if I try to compress the information and deliver it as quickly as possible.

delta534

Jesus fucking Christ, it's things like that that I'm glad I'm the tech person of my house. I wish I could help. 

glennmagusharvey

Probably the more important issues here are the following:

1. My parents don't trust my judgement very much.

2. Major decisions frequently become long-winded, harrowing procedures involving lots of speculating about others' motives and motivations, lots of arguing, lots of negotiating, lots of exasperation followed by realization that something still remains to be done and then repeated attempts to actually do something about it, at which point we repeat the cycle until by chance a decision somehow arises out of this process.