Apparently the US is not the only place where people go crazy for the latest gadgets. A few days ago, a 14 year old boy from India confessed to killing his friend’s sister because he had to have her iPod. The boy, Arka Das loved gadgets so much that he had been caught stealing the cell phones of his neighbors numerous times, though they always let him go because he was so young. Perhaps they should have opted for turning him in and maybe he wouldn’t have ended up killing anyone.

Arka’s original plan was not to kill anyone. Originally, he went to the gadget repair shop where his friend, Sagar had taken her iPod to be repaired. When he was unable to attain the iPod using a forged note, the boy opted for plan B. He called his friend’s house and made plans to meet up with the boys little sister, Siuli. He told the girl that he would take pictures of her on the iPod, so she brought it and they traveled to a spot by the Mayurakshi dam.

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There are a lot of things in this world that get on my nerves. One of those things is when people refuse to take personal responsibility. Another thing is when people in positions of power refuse to call a spade a spade. It makes perfect sense why the jails are overflowing because they are filled with petty criminals. People with seemingly minor drug offenses end up in jail/prison, taking those spots from people that deserve to be there. What’s worse is when it’s obvious that someone should be imprisoned for a certain charge only to allow for pleas. Then, due to just plain negligence on the part of the DA’s office, the justice system ends up giving the criminal a break.

Donnette Sanz died August 14, 2008. While I did not know her or her husband, Rafael, my heart goes out to the Sanz family. Donette was a civilian member of the NYPD (traffic cop). The last thing that she did before she died was give birth to her son, Sean Michael Justin Sanz. It was not the birth that killed Donnette. The cause of her death was murder, or criminally negligent homicide, depending on how you want to look at it.

Sanz was struck by a van that was driven by 72 year old Walter Walker. When Walker hit Sans the force from the van catapulted her into a school bus that ended up running her over. She ended up trapped beneath the bus. More than 30 people ended up lifting the bus off Sanz so that she could receive emergency care. She managed to stay alive to deliver her son via C-section, but died immediately after. Sadly, the little boy died recently, as well.

Rafeal Sans was married to Donnette for four years and is very much in love with her. During reports he has spoken about how his wife donated a kidney to him prior to their wedding. Speaking of his son, while grieving over the loss of his wife he told reporters, “He meant everything to me. He died in my arms.”

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I had the worst customer service experience in recent years on the phone today. This was surprising because it was with a company that I spend a lot of money at, every year. It’s safe to say that I am a frequent customer of Dell. Last Christmas, I purchased 2 XPS desktop systems and received two $150 gift cards, as a result.

On August 3, I made two purchases. One was for a Studio Laptop and the other was for an mp3 player and a PS3 video game. Both orders were purchased online with the gift cards.

The cards were entered and the $150 was removed per card. I put the remainder of the bill on my Dell charge. I received my bill, a week or so later, to learn that the gift card money had not been deducted for these charges, despite the Dell website claiming that the gift card money was removed.

I called to handle the issue and spoke to 5 people that transferred me, all of whom could not speak English well enough to understand me. The fifth person transferred me to another person, also a person that did not speak English and was incredibly rude. He blamed me for not realizing that you cannot use Dell gift cards and Dell credit cards in the same purchase. When I asked to speak to a supervisor, he rudely informed me that it wouldn’t make a difference because a supervisor would not change the rules for me. He ended up transferring me to another person that could not speak English, who was rude, and was unable to work her phone well enough so she ended up hanging up on me.

I called back to request a manager, which once I got to her, made her the ninth person I talked to in a single day. The manager was the most polite person I spoke to, but when it came to dealing with the issues I had, she put me in touch with someone from returns. That person (number 10) claimed that he could not take the charges from my account, but due to the fact that the computer was already malfunctioning he would offer a discount on the computer. He offered $120, which I declined. When I informed them that my Microsoft Office CD was stuck in the computer, the first response was that a CD like that isn’t that expensive (though Dell charges close to $400 for the one I have) and the next response, once that was pointed out, was that you can download the program, so as long as I have my activation number that CD should not matter.

At this point I was through. I informed the man on the phone that I wanted $150 off the laptop and both gift cards returned, since the money for them was never taken off anyway. He claimed that he was unable to offer the additional $30 so I have made plans to send the laptop back. After that he connected me with person eleven in order to get my gift cards back since they were never used.

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