Well, I am having more fun than I was yesterday afternoon when I was struggling with a dysfunctional MacBook Pro trackpad. Or this noon when I was haaannnggging out at the Apple Store waiting for some young whippersnapper to swap it out for a new one. This is the THIRD trackpad for this loverly little laptop. The one I bought in June.

The first trackpad was dysfunctional right out of the box. The second one? Worked for quite a while. The deterioration was slow. It would be randomly unresponsive for a few minutes in the morning and then kind of straighten up and fly right. Was it the heat and humidity? Could be, but thees eez a laptop! They are supposed to be able to take a certain amount of abuse. Did it start after I upgraded to the Lion OS? I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t even remember exactly when I *installed* Lion. The whole situation deteriorated precipitously yesterday afternoon and I was starting to feel stressed out every time I checked my email or whatever.

And then. Dun dun dun. Software Update popped up. On a Sunday afternoon, for once. I was actually kind of overjoyed. Usually Software Update pops up just about when I’m ready to shut down and try not to break my neck as I scramble out the door. I was just hanging around de-hoarding the Landfill, so I started the update. I was even optimistic. Maybe it would fix my trackpad problem? Then, in the middle of the update, during the stage when my computer was shut down… Bbbbbrrrrraaaaaaapppppp! What the heck was that! It was infinitely worse than the old Deep Shit sound. At least I knew what the Deep Shit sound was. Miraculously, the laptop started back up normally. But that update did NOT fix the trackpad problem. Actually, it deteriorated precipitously AGAIN! Yes, Precipitously². There was nothing left to do but make an appointment with the, uh, Genius Bar. I couldn’t even do that because I couldn’t navigate the Apple website!

And so, another new trackpad. I hope this is the last one. My Apple Store experience? Not too bad toady today. I did not get treated like some old hag. I was able to communicate that I know how to use a trackpad without resorting to saying things like, “I bought my first Apple computer before you were born” or “I used to use a DecWriter II terminal to write FORTRAN programs for a mainframe computer” or “a remote mainframe support guy once called my FORTRAN code ‘sexy'” (actually, I have no clue what that meant). I did mention that my history with trackpads began with the G4 12-inch screen powerbook AND that said powerbook is now repurposed serving up music at LongPointLLC or whatever. And, whenever I had to wait for anything, I sat there and read blahgs and Twitter and things on my iPhone. Yes, I can swish and swipe just like all the hipsters. I swish and swipe the iPhone and I swish and swipe the Blue and Only Toilet. Every day.

I could maybe make a song outta that, roight? Swishin’ ‘n’ swipin’ phones ‘n’ toilets. Dum de dum de dum…

Do the hipsters swish and swipe their Blue and Only Toilets? I am gonna guess some do and some don’t. Just like the rest of us…

Hmmm, maybe we are having fun…

This entry was posted on Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 6:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.