Disaster

Good Friday my ass. My MacBook video died just like a certain religious figure.

This means no music beyond what's already on my iPod. No guitar (why have an amp when you can have a computer that fails).

Good thing I have other things like this iPod Touch that offer a backup connection to the world and my data.

But let's explore this a little shall we? In this digital age (for lack of some other pretentious label) are very dependant on machines costing a big chunk of our change. We are all told about backing up our data but what happens when the machine dies? Some people point at the cloud and say that's the future. Maybe. But right now could you replace your main machine on a moments notice?

For me, this has ceased to be a hypothetical question. This is the second major failure on a holiday weekend (you may have read about my drive failure) and it has me thinking. No big ideas, just thinking and fuming.

This time I got very lucky. My local Apple store has a new motherboard in stock and I bought AppleCare so it shouldn't cost me any $$ right? Almost. Apple has this extortion racket called ProCare. For another $99 per year you can get expidited service. Or you can wait longer for them to get around to it. Obviously I paid the ransom but I feel like I've negotiated with Somali pirates.

Now I sit outside the store waiting for my Precious... Hope it's ok.

Edit:

So the above was from my iPod Touch. This is from my (newly repaired) Precious. Driving home from the Apple store I thought that I was perhaps unfair. Yes it's expensive. Yes it's unfair. But how many other computer companies will repair your gear same day for any price? This is not my first time dealing with the store as well.

My wife's Macbook logic board was replaced.
My son's ipod touch was replaced.
My harddrive was replaced.
My logic board was replaced.

I know from experience that failures with other manufacturers gear involves me taking shit apart and replacing parts myself. Mother/logic boards would be pretty much impossible too.

So all in all, I'm $99 poorer but infinitely happier.