The Adnostic

Last week I was participating in my favorite new timesuck when both The Zen Master and I heard an ominous clicking sound emanating from my computer. ZM immediately instructed me to reboot my computer and see if it went away. It didn't, and the next day, when I tried to restart it after a day's rest, it betrayed me with the gray screen of death.

Oh good God. Not the Gray Screen of DEATH.

Have I backed anything up? Um, well, no. But when I thought about it, I really didn't need to back anything up. Sure, it would suck to loose all my pictures and music and I wouldn't enjoy rebuilding all of my personal databases, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Besides, I have my new MacBook Pro as a back up (thank you faceless corporate entity).

So if you're wondering (Jen), why I didn't write you an email to wish you a happy birthday. That's why. I have all of my friends and family's birthdays carefully entered into my iCal and now that I don't have access to that computer I'm not nearly as thoughtful as I used to be. My personal calendar of social activities is also inaccessible. So if I miss a date with one of my friends, that's also why.

Anyways, I was finally able to get to the Genius Bar today. Where the Geniuses were able to reboot my computer and give two options:

A) Send my computer off to Apple HQ and get the hard drive replaced as is, with no upgrade, to the tune of $280.

B) Take my computer to a local independent repair shop, have them recover my data and upgrade me to a larger hard drive for about the same amount of money.

Sweet. I'll take option B, Bob.

Unfortunately, because of my schedule and the repair shop's hours of business, I won't be able to get the work done on my computer for another two weeks. But that's okay. At least I have my new toy. I'll just miss talking to The Zen Master Skype to Skype (it's not on the approved list of applications).