Death of a salesman.

It is the end of an era.

NacBook is dead.

"What is a NacBook?" you ask? Simple. It's the name I lovingly gave to my beautiful, black, second-hand MacBook. After a solid 2-ish years of faithful service, it has finally shuffled off this mortal coil. It will never more play another iTunes track. It will no longer be host to my gigs of pirated TV shows. It has gone on its last Safari.

Firstly, a bit of history. A eulogy if you will. The name NacBook arose not too long after I bought the MacBook. I bought it second-hand off Facebook Marketplace. Having never purchased anything online before, I was terrified I was going to get played. So much so I actually had a nightmare in which my MacBook arrived, but when I opened it up, I discovered it was actually a cheap Korean knock-off, called a "NacBook".

In the nightmare, the keyboard had random symbols written on the keys. When I turned it on, it powered up and looked like a Commodore 64 and the screen stayed locked on an image of a monkey laughing at me as the tinny speakers pumped out the following on repeat:

"HAHA HAHA NACBOOK!!! HAHA HAHA NACBOOK!!!"

I woke up in a cold sweat. It made the wait for my purchase brutal. However, when it arrived, the MacBook was perfect. A powerful, sleek, black machine that, once I got used to using the thing, was a dream to use.

The beginning of NacBook's demise was a few days before Christmas 2008. I was in London with my family, and they had all headed out to the shops. I stayed home, wanted to jump on the internet and catch up on the viral web I'd missed over the last few weeks that'd I'd been schlepping it around Ireland and Spain. I had a big glass of water at my side, and in what I can only assume was a fit of laughter, I spilled its entire contents over my Mac.

I'm sure they heard me scream across the English Chanel. I couldn't believe my stupidity. I turned NacBook off and wiped off as much of the water as I could. I placed it over one of the many heaters in the house and prayed it'd be okay.

Two tense days later and the big test came. I tried to power it up. And it worked! Oh joy of joys! I practically peed myself in excitement. There appeared to be no issues. NacBook had looked death in the face and laughed. "HAHA HAHA NACBOOK!!!" I assume.

Unbeknown to me, I had done more damage than I thought. Like a cancer that sits quietly in a man's testicles before it one day surprises it's owner with blood filled urine, the water slowly began to eat away at the inside of NacBook.

First to go was the hard-drive. In about April of this year as I watched an episode of Weeds, my Mac came crumbling down around me. It was running a marathon with a bad hip, and that hip had just disintegrated, taking with it all my music, movies and uni assignments.

I dropped NacBook into the MacHospital (Next Byte on Adelaide St) and hoped I wouldn't be apart for long. That same afternoon I got a call. They had the part in stock and would replace it for me right now. I peed myself for the second time in 6 months. $300-ish later and I had NacBook back. I rebuilt my music and movie collection, and restarted two uni assignemnts. Once again, I thought everything was fine.

Yet the cancer had spread. It hit NacBook's lungs (I've never felt a laptop heat up as much as mine could), brain (the logic [read: mother] board was slowly corroding) and liver (NacBook was a cheap drunk). It struggled on, like a rapper with a sore throat, but the audience know it was only time before this rap battle was going to end in a technical knock-out. Well, I didn't, but I was the ever-optimistic coach.

I began to notice that if I turned NacBook off, it sometimes didn't like to turn back on. It seemed that the power-button was faulty. Usually it would just take a few tries. But each time it took longer and longer. I was having to leave NacBook on permanently so I wouldn't have to boot up. This band-aid could only stick for so many showers.

Finally, on Friday November 6th, NacBook loaded it's last Facebook page. It seemed to be struggling so I turned it off, against my better judgment. And when I tried to reboot, nothing. NacBook was out. I tried all night but the poor thing was done. I hoped it was just a superficial power-button issue, and so I dropped it into the MacHospital again (this time Mac1 on James St).

What a mistake that was...

Coming soon: MacBook Medical Negligence