Excuse Me, I’m Off to Mourn the Loss of My Baby

Sep
27
2007

On Monday, for the first time ever since I got my sexy MacBook Pro a year and a half ago, I drank something next to it. I didn’t even think of it. I was sick as hell, my head felt cloudy, I couldn’t breathe, and I just needed some sort of beverage.

Said beverage turned out to me milk.

Milk that turned out to be very bad for my computer. Particularly when I didn’t turn it off right away because my cold-medicine-induced stupor made me, well, rather effing stupid. I’m not even computer illiterate. I just wasn’t thinking.

Very, very, very expensive mistake. Expensive mistake that made me cry. Very expensive mistake that made my keyboard act as if it was possessed by Samara1.

My dad fixes computers for a living. Spilling milk on it voided my warranty anyway (any problems it has can be blamed on aforementioned evil milk) so he popped it open, cleaned it out, cleaned under the trackpad, tried everything.

Keyboard is fried, trackpad is done for, has massive start-up issues (hit the button, wait for a minute before it makes any indication it’s going to start up at all — and sometimes it doesn’t start up at all) and won’t stay in sleep mode properly.

So today I go to the Apple Store at the mall because 1) I need an external keyboard2 for now and 2) I’m applying for a job at another store in the mall. I asked for a quote on what a repair would cost.

Turns out said repair would cost about $1,200 USD. When I could just get a brand new iMac or MacBook with 2 GB of RAM, 2.16 GHz processor, and 160 GB of space (as opposed to my current 1 GB of RAM, 2.0 GHz processor, and 100 GB of space) with about the same amount of money with my student discount.

The thought of spending that much money on an item after only a year and a half of having my MacBook Pro makes me want to cry even more. I was planning on having this computer for several more years. I love this computer–I don’t want a new one! This one is the perfect size, sleek, sexy, and exactly what I need. But I’m definitely not putting up the cash for a brand new one either. I’ll live with a new MacBook despite my dislike of glossy screens, assuming I get this job. I’m probably going to wait until Leopard comes out to buy it to save myself US$119 (again, with student discount).

Hey, whatever computer I get it will always be better than what I had before my current love–a third-hand 400 MHz Dell laptop with broken hinges, 256 MB of RAM, and a 20 GB hard drive that only ran when I got it into the mood.

  1. Well, perhaps not as much as that one time on a very, very old Dell laptop I had where I was typing and then everything was inserted backwards (siht ekil tsuj) and my then-girlfriend did not help with my fear that I was going to die in seven days. Have I ever mentioned that I went to a Christian summer camp where part of The Ring was filmed? And I’ve been in the cabin?
  2. Turns out it’s very difficult to do anything on your computer when 1) you cannot type and 2) it’s in various naked pieces.

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