so, i get my ibook back from it's latest trip to the shop and i discover that, on what was a seemingly straightforward repair, they replaced just about every part in the ibook! again! this time, i got a new lcd screen and casing, yet another new motherboard, a new combo drive, a new keyboard and a new harddrive! that's right, they replaced my drive and wiped all my data, when - to the best of my knowledge there wasn't anything wrong with the drive went it went to them. nor, might i add, was there anything wrong with my keypad. oddly - i'm not the only one who has had their drive replaced for no apparent reason. sound suspicious? i called apple to see why they replaced a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't broken when it left and they didn't have an answer. now that's service.

sweet mary mother of perl. for those of you keeping track at home, that makes something like 4 motherboards, 2 drives, 1 airport card, 1 new combo drive and 1 new keyboard in two years. it's beyond ridiculous now, and i understand that this is just the universe having a good laugh at my expense. i just need to remember to breath, right? out with the bad air and in with the good. on the bright side, what else could possibly go wrong?

well, just to peg the insansity meter, apple returned my ibook with 10.2 ( jaguar ) installed. it went in with 10.3.3 ( panther ). of course, i don't have the panther install disks handy ( they're in chicago ), so i decide to temporarily upgrade to 10.2.8. much to my chagrin, when i reboot after applying the software update, i find that the monitor is on the fritz again! what fun! so i call apple one more time and they explain that they're terribly, terribly sorry but 10.2 should have never been installed on the computer because the new hardware requires panther! he! he! oh joy! watch as the universe gets a good kidney punch in, just as she squares up for a right cross...