Monday Ramble #47 – “Mac And Me”

As none of you may know, last Monday I was working on a piece of writing to give to you guys when my MacBook decided to freeze.

I allowed someone else to use it while I was in the studio and he forced a shutdown that resulted in a white screen when I rebooted the joint.
I panicked, took out the battery, restarted it, blah, blah, blah, called Apple, they sent me to a Mac store in Brooklyn

where parking doesn’t exist and the technician told me my hard drive was gone and I needed to pay him $250 for a new one and installation, and another $150 to get my data.

Doesn’t sound bad right? But I don’t just have $250 to throw around based on someone’s word that I don’t know. So I pouted a little bit (not in a gay way), stared at him blankly (not in a gay way), and he basically said he couldn’t do it for free since my warranty was up.

He saw that I wasn’t about to offer that money up so freely so he gave me some advice.

He told me to go to Best Buy and buy a hard drive and come back and they would install it for $100. Jackpot!

I rushed to Best Buy on the other side of town, copped the drive and headed back to the Mac store thinking I would be up and running.
They said it wasn’t $100, it was $130 and it would take 2 days. Well that wasn’t cool but at least I was gonna get my “baby” back.

I got back to my Brooklyn place of residence and felt withdrawal. I wanted to go online and pay a bill, post a ramble, browse eBay, download music, watch an old episode of The Wire but instead I just sat there.
My blackberry came in handy but it just wasn’t the same. And then I got a call from the Mac store saying that the drive I bought was defective.

“Defective? What does that mean?”
They started to explain.

“I know what that means but what does that mean for me? I have to come get it, return it, and get a new one and bring it back?
You can’t fix the defectiveness? No? No that’s not a word, or no you can’t do it?
Ok fine.”

So the next day I decided to go get it and after parking 5 blocks away I noticed a tiny sign that said there was free parking in a lot across the street for the Mac support store customers. Thank you small sign for being visible as I drove by 12 times.
I promise I’m going to sum this story up quickly but I picked up the drive and thought maybe I could save some time if Best Buy did the installation for the same price or even if they charged more I would save gas money and just have the Geek Squad knock it out.

So I decided to take my laptop as well to Best Buy, made the exchange on the defective drive and found out they wanted $180 to install it and put a new operating system. That’s $50 more than the Mac people.

No thank you. As I was leaving out I noticed the box for the drive was already opened. The cashier chick tried to get me. She gave me back the defective drive that I came to exchange and if I hadn’t checked it, I would have had to come back again. I wasn’t pissed but I was suddenly aware that human error exists. And that fact alone made me wonder if my computer was really broken.

That Mac guy spoke too fast, almost like…like a Mack…sure he told me how to save money but he also told me I could retrieve my data for $150. That would have been a quick $400 that he looked like he was going to throw in his pocket.

And as I returned there, and got to the counter, ready to hand over my money and my new drive and my MacBook, something told me to turn it on and see what happened.

Mac Daddy looked like he didn’t want me to give it a try before I gave it in but I did. And you know what happened?
The white light and blank screen that I had expected to see never came up.

Instead I saw my screen, my files, my songs, and my programs. What the heaven was going on? Why is this working sir?

“Oh let me run a diagnostic on the drive,” he says. Oh now you want to do that? So last time you used x-ray vision? You ran over it with your feelings? You just asked it what was wrong and it answered, “hard drive…need new one…help,” is that what happened Mr. Mac guy?

You better hope that diagnosis comes back negative or bad or whatever, that thing better be sick and need a new something or else you guys are…well I don’t have a consequence yet but I’m cooking something up.

So everything was actually fine and he told me to keep the drive just in case. And that was it, I bought an external to back up my entire computer for insurance and I had a new appreciation for technology, human mistakes and coincidence.

So this is why I have not rambled in a few weeks and now here I am rambling about why I haven’t when I don’t even know if you care about the reason or the ramble.

But you’re here so maybe you do. If I’ve just wasted your time, don’t think of this in the terms of computers and drives and mumbo jumbo jargon that most ignorant rap guys shouldn’t know anyway, think about trusting people that are supposed professionals, ponder how dependent you are on digital entertainment and know that patience is one of those attributes that can be applied to mostly any situation when panic seems like the number one option.

Sure my Mac may have been trying to tell me something like go read a book, or take some days off from staring at me, or clean this dust off me, or maybe my laptop was bored and wanted to go outside and see New York while I’m here.

Maybe the guy that was using it touched her wrong and kept referring to her as a “labtop” and that’s why she blanked on me. Maybe it can’t talk or think at all and things just happen.

Either way, you now have last week’s entry and an explanation as to why it is late.

So I may perform in Brooklyn this Thursday at Southpaw, and I don’t know what songs I’m doing or if it even matters. I find myself not knowing the answer to many questions nowadays. But at least I have my computer back to look stuff up.