Another trip to the repair shop

I looked up what might be causing my laptop screen to go dark. The suggestions were either a defective backlight or inverter. I took the laptop into the repair shop this afternoon, so I should know by Friday what the trouble is and how much it will cost (hopefully not too much.) I paid almost $300 at a different shop to fix the broken power supply, add 2GB of memory and remove some spyware. I should be fine as long as this problem doesn't cost more than that.

Phone Soliciting for Dummies

Welcome to Telemarketing/Charity Collecting 101.

How to handle people who can't afford to give:

RIGHT:
CALLER: "Would you be able to donate at the $70 or $50 level?"
PERSON ON OTHER END: "I'm sorry. I lost my job recently so I can't afford to give anything right now."
CALLER: "Okay. Thank you for your time." (end call)

WRONG:
CALLER: "Would you be able to donate at the $70 or $50 level?"
PERSON ON OTHER END: "I'm sorry. I lost my job recently so I can't afford to give anything right now."
CALLER: "Well, (insert guilt trip about the number of children with cancer, police officers, etc. who died last year,) so would you be able to give a lesser amount like $30?" (If necessary, accuse person of not caring about sick kids or law enforcement. If person still refuses, wish death upon him/her then hang up.)

Both examples based upon actual calls I've received.

I can't wait until my laptop gets repaired. I tried to participate in bucktowntiger's uStream tonight, but the amount of memory the stream and the chat room used nearly brought my iMac to a halt. My iMac is one of the early CRT models from around 1994. Even typing a 5-letter response in the chat took about 30-40 seconds to process. I should have just bought an adapter to display the laptop screen on my bedroom TV.