The deal with my laptop
This is a long and happy tale: About three months ago I realized that the Airport card in my MacBook Pro was, from time to time, arbitrarily not moving data. The antenna icon wouldn't go blank, but the card itself wasn't transmitting that signal through whatever magical channel (USB?) to the actual computer. So the Internet would die. Small problem, really. All I had to do was reselect the network I had been using from the drop down list and the connection would be restored. I didn't bother to get the thing looked at because, let's face it, Pentagon City sucks, and I can be exceptionally lazy about things like this.
That's when what I will call the "gurgling hard drive problem" started. I don't know exactly what triggered it (heat damage, perhaps?) but about nine or 10 weeks ago, the hard drive began--yes--gurgling whenever I left the computer on long enough for the processor to get really hot. Sometimes this gurgling was deafening. Sometimes it sounded like a jigsaw calmly making its way through a human thumb. But the computer's performance was otherwise OK, so, again, I ignored it.
Then four days ago, my keyboard and mouse pad decided--as one--that it was time to die. And die they did. An excruciating 24 hour death. Into and out of coma until, on Tuesday, the computer, without an external keyboard and mouse, had essentially become a very expensive, handsome hunk of scrap. At that point, reluctantly, I took it to Virginia, where I backed up my hard drive and sent the bastard unfortunate device off to a place called Apple Care where, allegedly, humans will send me email status updates on Project Resuscitate Brian's MacBook.
So that's why things have been slow. Here and everywhere else. A friend has allowed me to borrow his spare (yup, spare) MacBook Pro while I wait for mine, so the whole thing isn't a complete disaster. But I haven't yet sat down and transfered my OPML file and my contacts sheet and so on from my external drive to my loaner. So I'm a bit hamstrung.
Anyhow, that just about explains it. I hope you've enjoyed this most recent installment in the ongoing "What's Pissing Off Brian" saga. Stay tuned for more.
Comments
Just out of curiosity, did you choose the "sounded like a jigsaw calmly making its way through a human thumb" simile because you can attest to its accurcy through personal experience or simply because it reads well and sets off vivid imagery?
See, I'm a cabinetmaker by trade and I have some experience with the intersection of fast moving pieces of sharp metal and human flesh. When cutting machine meets meat the sound is both subtle and visceral. One hears an absence of what the machine should sound like going through the intended substance rather than the positive sound of flesh being cut. At the same time, you know, at a deep level, that something has gone very wrong. (Then you hear one or more of an infinite variety of all too human expressions of intense pain and/or shock).
Anyway, writing like this is one of the reasons I keep coming back to your blog. I found your use of this image amusing in a kind of twisted "been there, done that" way.
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