As expected, the lizards show was fantastic. Glad i went, glad to see the guys, and glad i drank two Harp.

but then today....our latest entry from the "it's always something" department.

I'd noticed that my beloved 12" powerbook g4 was running a bit hotter than usual, and the fan sounded loud. SO, I decided to take it in for a check up. But first: i must go downstairs, and transfer a few things from the powerbook to the external drive. I carefully unplug the power brick, walk downstairs, and...for some reason, can not replug the brick once I'm there. That's right, walking down the stairs killed my power port.

I go to the apple store tonight, where they inform me that this won't be coverd under warranty because my powerbook (2.5 year old) has a few dents in the case. Small things, that probably have been not affecting things for two years now.

But...for a mere 600 bucks, they can replace the powerport, and give me a new external case...which will mean my warranty is back in service. But since it's only for the first 3 years of life, it's almost dead, anyway.

I call then call the apple repair shop here, and find out they'll replace the powerport for 400 bucks. That's powerport only.

For lack of any other plan, I call bob at cal tech. He tells me that his old powerbook started failing right before the 3 year mark, and he ended up having much of it rebuilt. He offers to sell it to me for 400 bucks...100 bucks off the price he'd sell it to one of his students.

So...what to do, what to do.... I like my little powerbook, but then I can get a 15 inch screen, likely with a larger hard drive, for the same price as repairing mine. And it's already been fixed up with a new display, motherboard, and something else.