NOW PLAYING: Clod-Boy, the Idiot King 23 December, 1997 The unhappiness stems mostly from the fact that I am a Genuine Idiot® and a Certified Clod™. It's true. I'll show you the certificate. I've been toting my PowerBook around for a year in a bookbag/briefcase kinda thing, and it's been good. I like the bag, except for the way the shoulder strap is attached. Instead of solid "D" rings, the strap is run through these triangle-shaped metal things with a gap in them, which means I must be careful when I pick it up, or the strap starts to slip through the space in the metal thing... but I haven't had a problem with that. The bag was free, after all. And the best thing is it doesn't look like a computer case. You know, the ones that might as well have a "STEAL ME" label slapped on the side. My bag doesn't look like a computer case in part because it has no padding. None. Which actually didn't concern me much, really, since I used to carry cameras and lenses in a nylon/cordura bag that didn't have any padding in it either, and my cameras never got hurt in that bag. They got dinged up some when I dropped them. Which didn't happen often. And that's what insurance is for. Well, I didn't drop my Mac, but I must've whacked the bag against something, either getting out of the car or putting it down on the desk or I dunno what. I do know that there was this little black piece of plastic inside the bag after I pulled the laptop out, and that's never a good sign. Anyway, on the 1400cs, the floppy drive can be swapped for a CD-ROM drive or a Zip drive. The little plastic dealy-ma-bob that broke off is the lever on the bottom of the computer that needs to be slid over to pull the drive out of the bay. There's one just like it for the battery on the other side. Now, I only have one battery for this thing -- it lasts long enough for me, and I'm usually not too far from an outlet. I do, however, make use of both the Zip drive and the CD-ROM rather frequently. So WHY couldn't it have been the BATTERY dealy-ma-bob that broke instead of the one I need to use all the time? I mean, I could go for literally months without having to pop the battery out of the laptop. I could wait until I was ready to go backpacking for a week somewhere and have it fixed then, but NOOOOOOO -- it's the useful part that snaps. I have no idea how expensive it will be to have it fixed or how long it will take. The part must cost all of a nickel to make, and it looks like it should be pretty easy to get to. But what do I know? Suppose I get a call from Jim, the repair guy and he tries to pull a fast one on me? Like the repair that it needs will only cost ten bucks, and that's not worth his time, so it's: "Sorry, Mr. Charlson, but when we opened your PowerBook we noticed that the Johnson Circuit was shot, and the Flywheel in the Phalanx Box could go at any minute too, not to mention the Liebchen Module. 'Cost ya 'bout twelve hunnerd dollars to get it all fixed. And that's labor. Parts'll be another six." I mean, that's what happens when I take my car into the shop to get the fanbelt replaced -- why not with the PowerBook, too? Okay, so I'm not totally screwed -- I still have the plastic dealy-ma-bob, and I can hold it in the slot and manage to switch the drive modules when I need to, but now instead of putting a music CD in to listen while I work, I don't bother. Too much of a hassle to fiddle with it. And I probably won't take it to the shop until the middle or end of January, since the techs will be slammed trying to fix all the problems that the hapless Windoze users will have with their Christmas hardware and software "upgrades".... So at some point next month, I'll have to check my e-mail on The Wife's PowerMac at night when I get home. And if there happens to be anything I want to keep I'll have to figure out how to get it from that machine back to mine (or else forward all the messages to myself once my PowerBook is back). Won't have access to some of the programs that I only have on my laptop, won't have my calendar/address book/appointment list (guess I should have bought the refills for my old DayRunner...) and I'm sure there's something else I'll desperately need off this thing as soon as it leaves my hands... Oh well. Guess I need a new bag.
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