Apple Store, Body Butter

Went to the grand opening of the Emeryville Apple Store, which coincided with the grand opening of Yet Another Hugemongous Shopping Mall, this one like a little Disneyland world within a world – fake city streets lined with Banana Republic and Body Shop and Williams Sonoma and whatnot… The inside of an Apple Retail Store is precisely what one would expect – like walking around inside the Apple Online Store – all white diffused light bouncing off white walls and ceiling, brimming with oh-so designed Apple Toys and Apple Software… like stepping into Cult HQ, seductive and scary.

I mostly wanted to talk to the Apple Geniuses to try and find an answer to a hanging problem with CUPS printer sharing – a problem I know is not in the vendor’s driver but in Apple’s CUPS layer… but the Genius of course threw the onus for the problem right back on the printer vendor. For crying out loud, it’s an Apple bug but I can’t get tech assistance without paying for Apple Care (je refuse) and the Apple Geniuses just deflect the blame… an absurd comedy of errors resulting in Amy not being able to use our “shared” printer for the past two months.

Went into Body Time and was assaulted by no less than half a dozen moonies, er, employees all wanting me to slather myself in buckets of Body Butter, sugars, salts, aromatherapy, yoga incense, etc. I must be missing an appreciation gland for this kind of thing – I don’t know what it would feel like to come home and think, “What I want most is to slather myself in fruit-scented butter.” With them, it’s all about making one’s body into a great hunk o’ toast.

Music: The Upsetters :: Curly Dub

6 Replies to “Apple Store, Body Butter”

  1. Christ, Scot, don’t you know that if you’d only let them make you smell better, your printing problem would magically clear up? ;-)

    If I were you, I would consult the real Mac geniuses who populate the forums at Macfixit.com. Very much worth the $20 or so a year to join. Or maybe the forums at macosxhints.com. Or even Apple’s support discussions.
    Or the forums at dealmac.com. So many smart people out there wearing their MacOSX scars, willing to tell swap war stories and solutions. But you know all that.

    My best to Amy and sMiles.

  2. Larry, you’re right – I gotta stop thinking that Apple employees are going to answer questions in their own stores or their own forums and get out there where the flavah is. Thanks for the kick in the butt.

  3. Scot,

    If you e-mail me you and Amy’s configurations, your network details and the printer you have, along with a more detailed description of what the printing hangs are, I can do some research for you. I have lots of free time to do shit like that where I’m working, between pushing pixels around for boring corporate brochure retouching projects. Believe me, I find a certain perverse entertainment value in troubleshooting.

    BTW, I was at a film festival the other night, and on the program for the show after the one I attended, I saw the name of your old friend Larry Shea listed as one of the filmmakers. I recall meeting him in Boston with you and Amy years ago while I was at a MacWorld Expo.

  4. Larry, you are the most, I swear. Judging by the robust volume of your posts lately (always welcome!), it appears that your job is as boring as you say it is. Ouch.

    Your offer is thuper generous. Thanks! I’m actually in dialog with the printer vendor now, but if I don’t get satisfaction (and at this point it appears they’re going to give me the runaround), I may just let you know. Why shouldn’t I accept free tech support if you get entertainment value out of it?

    ;)

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