BSOD - The "Don't You Wish You Lived in a Developing Country?" Edition

Well, it turned out to be the very worst kind of Blue Screen of Death. Like, actual death.

So I spent much of the day acting as Alex's personal shopper, going around town to different little hole-in-the-wall computer stores to pick up price quotes.

Why not just call the various computer stores on the phone, you ask? Well, aside from the fact that then they'll want to send the information by fax (our fax machine is all...um...faxed up), I think this morning's chat with Phydeaux captures the essence of that question:

me: wanna know how useless the CR phone book is?

phydeauxspeaks: sure

me: there's no "computers" section in the yellow pages

phydeauxspeaks: wow

me: It goes from "fuel" to "shocks" to "pawn shops" to "compressors" to "air compressors" to "premixed concrete"

All of which are contiguous, alphabetically, in Spanish, and none of which has more than three numbers listed under it.

"Combustibles" to "Concreto Premezclado" - passing right over "Computadoras"

AND?? There are 4 million people in this country. That's NOT THAT MANY.

But they divided up the yellow pages into /counting/ five different regions, so you can look something up in the whole wrong region and never even realize it.

AND the regions are helpfully vague: Northern Region, Southern Region, etc. etc.

Not even by province (of course there are seven of those, so that would be worse in a way)

phydeauxspeaks: sounds like ... fun

me: oh, I can go on and on about the Costa Rican phone book.

Wait.
I just did.

phydeauxspeaks: :)

me: I can't think what other heading computers would be under.

phydeauxspeaks: me, either

technology?

me: Thought I found it once under "Centros de Cómputo" but not in this book

Can we just discuss for a moment the idiocy of including the word "la" in one's alphabetizing endeavors?

To say nothing of "para"

phydeauxspeaks: LOL

me: I can't believe it's not one of the two dozen "Equipment" categories.

phydeauxspeaks: Yeah, I have a problem with blogrolls for that same reason (with "the" obviously)

me: "Urethane Foam," sure. But "Computers?" Don't be silly.

But as I was saying, I keep getting excited because I'll see a computer or Internet boxed ad, but it's just the phone company touting its own services anywhere they had some extra space to fill.

THERE'S A THREE-PAGE SPECIAL SECTION ON ODONTOLOGISTS.

/sigh/

So, I found it.
Now that I don't have time to use it.

/Weak, broken whisper/
Informatics. The topic is "Informatics"
/Whimper/