Circle of life.

Previously on Pazzwizzle...

"NacBook is dead... my beautiful, black, second-hand MacBook... 'HAHA HAHA NACBOOK!!!'... I spilled its entire contents over my Mac... my Mac came crumbling down around me... the cancer had spread... I dropped it into the MacHospital again (this time Mac1 on James St)... what a mistake that was..."

I checked NacBook in on Saturday November 7th. The geeky Mac shop assistant assured me that their technicians would have a look at my laptop within the next 2-3 working days and get back to me, and if anything needed to be replaced, that'd take about 5-6 days. I was upset but I knew they were going to fix NacBook. Well, I thought they would. They seemed to think it was just a power button problem, and those are cheap and easy to fix. I thanked them for their time and headed home, Mac-less.

2-3 working days rolled past. Nothing. Not a peep. I began to worry. I spoke to some of my friends who also owned Macs. Some of them had used Mac1 before and none were impressed. Long wait times, poor customer service, high fees. I began to regret my choice of MacHospital.

Friday November 13th dawned and it was now into the 5th working day. I was pissed. I waited until lunchtime and then called Mac1 to see what was going on. A smarmy Mac techie answered. Put on your best "I'm an elitist MacTard and I'm better than you because I know about computers" voice and let's have a conversation. (Mind you, this is abridged for convenience.)

Tom: What's happening with my Mac? You guys said you'd call me within 2-3 working days?
Mac1: Hmm, let me have a look. No, we haven't checked your Mac yet. It usually takes 5-6 working days. We'll get to it.
Tom: Right, well, I kind of need my laptop back, so when do you think I'll get a call?
Mac1: Ahhh, probably not today, so definitely Monday, since the weekend isn't a working day. (Oh really? No shit, Sherlock. Did your Mac tell you that or are you just naturally gifted at knowing what happens on certain days of the week?)
Tom: Okay, I guess I'll hear from you Monday then.

I sat through my second weekend without NacBook. Tortuous stuff. I was using my mum's mini-laptop and it was like trying to make a phone call on an Etch-A-Sketch. Anyway, Monday arrived and still no phone call. Now I was mad. It had been 5-6 working days and that window had passed.

I didn't know what was so difficult about my problem. it's not like there was a program on the Mac that wasn't working, the whole thing wouldn't turn on. How long did that take to test? I can tell you, about five seconds. Once they'd identified the problem, all they had to do was solve it. Surely there are only so many things that can cause that problem. Yet somehow I was at the bottom of their list of things to do.

Tuesday November 17th and I finally got a call. Once again, get your "Elitist MacTard" voice ready.

Tom: Hey, Nice to finally hear back from you.
Mac1: Hey Thomas, we've had a look at your Mac and there isn't anything wrong with it.
Tom: Sorry, what?
Mac1: It's booting up fine. I've run a full diagnostics test on it. There is nothing for me to fix because there is nothing wrong.
Tom: There is, or else I wouldn't have dropped it in. It wasn't turning on.
Mac1: Well I've turned it on a number of times. It's working fine for me. (At this point, he is implying I don't know how to turn on my MacBook.)
Tom: Right, well I guess I'll pick it up then. So there is definitely nothing wrong?
Mac1: Nothing at all. If you do have any further problems we can look at it then, but for now it's good to go.
Tom: Okay, excellent, I'll pick it up as soon as I can.

I picked NacBook up the next day (well, my sister did as I was at work, bless her soul) and was excited to use it again. Due to prior commitments however, I was not able to properly test it until Thursday night. Thankfully, Mac1 had not charged me anything to look after my MacBook for 10 days, so I was not out of pocket. Lucky for them too, as what was about to happen would not have been so easy for me to handle if I'd given them so much as a dollar.

NacBook wouldn't turn on. I tried for at least half an hour, yet nothing worked. I did this thing that the Mac1 guy recommended, I prayed to various deities, I even got someone else to try just in cas I had actually forgotten how to turn NacBook on. Zip, zilch, nada. Not a sausage. I was furious. Mac1 had wasted ten days of my life. I felt like hunting the MacTard down and ramming my laptop up his over-clenching anus. Then I realised he probably already pleasures himself with Apple products so I'd just be doing him a favour.

I picked myself up off the floor and committed to getting NacBook fixed. I owed it to him. No doubt having to spend nearly two weeks in Mac1 would have been like shooting yourself in the face repeatedly. On Friday at lunchtime I dropped into Next Byte on Adelaide St. I explained to them the problem. I covered the whole Mac1 saga and pleaded with them to have a proper look.

They were great. I actually spoke to the technician who was going to look at NacBook. He told me what the problems might be and assured me he'd get to the bottom of it. In fact, within the 20 minutes I stood in that store I learnt more about what was wrong with my Mac than I had in ten days with Mac1. I did have to pay a $75 fee to get it looked at, but at that point, money was no longer an issue. They said they would get back to me in 2-3 working days. I believed them.

Two hours later and I got a phone call. No "Elitist MacTard" voice necessary this time. The technician informed me that he had opened up my MacBook and discovered water damage on the logic board. The logic board was basically the motherboard and it controlled everything in the MacBook.

It was going to cost about $1900 to replace, but I hadn't lost any data. He then suggested that a new MacBook would only cost $1300, so it'd be far more economical to just get a new one, considering NacBook had water damage. He even offered me the opportunity to turn NacBook's hard-drive into an external hard-drive for a small fee, and that way I'd have all my old data, as well as a shiny new empty Mac.

Once again, in two hours, Next Byte had done more for me than Mac1 had managed to do in nearly two weeks. Obviously I was upset at the prospect of having to pay for a new MacBook, but knowing that I was going to have all my old data made me happy. I did not want to have to re-download all my porn.

So here I am now, using my sister's computer to post on Pazzwizzle and check my e-mail. I am faced with the exciting yet expensive task of buying a new Mac this week. The moral of this story is fairly simple: Don't go to Mac1 on James St for anything Apple related. However, if you want to burn down a shop or rob somewhere, then its the place to be. I do, however, highly recommend Next Byte on Adelaide St. Not as an arson or burglary target, but as a place to get Apple things.

Smell you later!

Spare a moment.

I got stopped by those charity spruikers in the city the other day.

You know the ones. The girls are always British and they wear the shortest skirts and tightest tops. Like they've donated all their modest clothes to Rwanda. Yet somehow they all look like hippies still. Perhaps it's the clipboards. You don't see many people using clipboards except hippies. They seem to have a lot of documentation they need to carry around that needs to be easily accessed and written on.

The guys always look like giant douche-bags. They've got their Jeans West faded dark denim on and their popped Cotton On polo collar. But they're all so handsome. Sickeningly so. They're out there telling you about dying pandas or starving children and all you can think is, "you could be in an underwear commercial, you pretty pretty man."

Anyway so I got stopped. And I am the worst person in this situation. I once bought a shit homemade rap CD off a guy in New York. I don't even like rap music. But this black guy stopped me and I could hardly say no. It was around the time of Obama's inauguration, so racism was even less cool than usual. I certainly didn't want to offend him. He was huge and would have crushed me like a bug. Twenty US dollars later I was the proud owner of the worst hip hop CD ever recorded. I'm not even sure it was original songs. This guy could just have made a mix tape of his favourite tunes and sold it to me. I wouldn't know. That's how little I know about rap music. I gave it away. I thought that would get him back for making me buy it. He may have my $20, but I'm never going to listen to that CD again. which means I'll never recommend him to any of my friends. I guess the joke is on him.

I'm terrible at saying no. I even feel bad if I don't get a dry cleaning flyer from those people that hand them out in the city. I actually apologise. Why? I don't know. They're being paid to stand on the street and hand out paper. It may not be much, but they're getting it. And I apologise for not taking it. It's not like one sheet makes any difference to them. It's a third of the size of an A4 sheet of paper. I'm sure they're not struggling under the weight. but I apologise.

So you can imagine how bad I am when it comes to actual charity. I clam up. I've tried the old "I'm talking on the phone" trick but I bail as soon as someone says something to me. So I appear to have the shortest phone conversation ever. And they think I care much more than I do about starving sharks in Africa. They think I care so much that whatever important call I was on, I instantaneously ended when I heard them ask me if I wanted to hear about the plight of one legged men in Kenya.

For a while I got away with the old "I'm not over 21" trick, but that will only last so long. I'm walking around the city in a suit for gods sake. They're going to start figuring out I'm lying. Although it would be funny to see how long you could make that work. Imagine an old guy walking past slowly with a walking stick, maybe an oxygen tube coming out of his nose. Monocle. And they stop him and ask him if he wants to donate to Elephants Without Borders and he says "I'm sorry I'm not over 21". Would they buy that? Would they call him out on it? What would the point be.

"No you're not"
"I am"
"No offence sir, but you are most definitely not under the age of 21. You look like you're about to die."
"Well I don't care about elephants. Good day."

Anyway, so I get stopped and I spend the next 10 minutes of my lunch break being lectured about God knows what. I tuned out early on in the speech, hoping that if the girl saw the glazed look in my eyes she'd go, "This guy is a lost cause" and move on. Or feel sorry for me. Maybe if at the end I said "Huh?" she'd roll her eyes like my sisters do when they tell me something and I realise I haven't been listening so I try to cover it up with a skilful, "Yeah, totally." Eventually I manned up/hunger got the better of me and I said that I wasn't interested and thanked her for her time. Her time? Who was being the burden here? I suppose she had just filled me in on the situation of wells in Indonesia. That's handy.

I wish I could be more forceful in ignoring them though.

I saw one guy once, and I shall practice until I am as fantastic as he was. He went storming past a charity guy, he was clearly going somewhere. Had a suit on, looked important. This dick-hole from NAPLAN or APEC or something said, "Do you care about the environment sir?" as he flew by. And without missing a beat this guy has said, loud enough that he didn't have to stop walking, "Not enough." And then he was gone. He was a ghost. The spruiker looked so confused. I was pissing myself laughing by that time as I waited for the bus. Then enviro-douche came up and harassed me. I sat through his dribble for nearly 10 minutes until my bus arrived.

I must learn how to say no.