It sure feels like the holidays are coming

Just like last time I was going to be off for quiet shores, my laptop has decided to show character flaws -this time in the shape of my optical drive failing to read discs.

This wholeheartedly sucks. not because this occurred while I was feeding bacon into the drive, but because the people at the genius Bar will most likely try to get away with claiming something of that magnitude anyway.

So far, my dealings with plain old proper Applecare-covered issues has not been great:

1. Magsafe battery charger starting to fray. Apple eventually akonwledged the problem. That didn't stop the blackshirts from refuting my claims since this was clearly a case of using the Magsafe adapter as a Batarang or whatever they were fantasizing about (*)


2. GeForce 8600GTM chip failing. Not even Apple was safe from a generation-wide screwup from Nvidia -and it failed by the book (or KB article, as it were). However, the blackshirts tried to peg thaton a dent in the casing of my macbook instead, one they dismissed as being "cosmetic at best" the time I brought it in for inspection. Only after I pointed that out did they replace the faulty logic board under warranty rather than at the cost of 1200 euros.

So yeah. I'm not really happy to have to deal with the slanderous disinterest that they call the Genius bar in any hurry. I'm pretty sure they'll blame this one on Michael Jackson's death upsetting the gravitational pull of the moon.

Apple: "Man, f**k Firewire!"

Look, I know that FW800 is backwards compatible with FW400, but I'm using both the 400 and 800 ports on my current laptop. I consider the lack of the FW400 port on the Pro somewhat of a big deal.

I'm also not precisely thrilled about the regular MacBook, wholly lacking Firewire. This used to be the portable do-gooder for musicans with Firewire gear. Well, screw all that! Get the bigger one for almost twice the price! At least the plastic one is still around :)

Bag troubles (or: Mabcook Pros don't bounce very well)

Last December I replaced my worn-down messenger bag (every zipper was broken, holes started to appear, etc) with one from Buddista. Pretty neat vinyl bags with a removable flap which can be interchanged with a design of your choice. Pretty good bag altogether -up to the point where it began to behave a bit iffy.

Iffy being that the buckle of the strap just decided to unhinge at random. That's pretty annoying when you tote your laptop around pretty much all the time. Initially I blamed myself for the annoying habit to clasp the buckle, but last monday that pretty much was proven to be not the case when the thing popped open while I was paying for my groceries. With all my gear in it.

Once home, I was able to inspect the damage, which was a depressing experience. It wasn't that bad -there a pretty serious dent in the lower left front and a nick on the side. I guess the sleeve did some protective duties after all -I've seen far worse damage. I wouldn't want to trust my stuff to that bag in any hurry though.

I returned the bag to the store yesterday evening, where they immediately swapped the bag for a new one, no questions asked. Pretty much all I really wanted was the buckle to be replaced, but the guy was thorough in making sure I wouldn't run in trouble again. Extremely nice, though it was a bit difficult to leave the store without having a quick tour of the mandala paintings and the possiblity of attending a workshop.

Anyway, new bag, everything looks in order and I'm trying to avoid the urge to have the dented case replaced. Pricing is …oppressive :)