Colonel Panic

Friday I made an online appointment at the Apple store, that had me booked in 1/2 hour-hardly enough time to speed up charles and fight for a spot at the TTC. I took a seat at the genius bar among 2 other gentleman eager to unload their CPU problems on me. I never so much wished I owned an ipod. I began opening my sad lappyG4 when genius #1 asked me if I had made an appointment. I told him I did. I waited as the white technology began to woo me and make me sick all at the same time.

I am not able to articulate problems with my car or computer like callers from Car Talk. I think it often leads to misdiagnoses for me and my stuff. I explained to the genius I was working with that I had a "stream of black squares and strings of commands and I thought it was my video card". (I didn't really think it was that, but I ran it by someone else who did--another tactic I use at the mechanic, suggestions so they think I am more informed than I am.)

Genius told me that I was getting what is known as kernel panic. He showed me how to check this in my console. Its like a blackbox for system crashes, you know the kind you aren't supposed to have in system 10? Of course, all I see is the complete text that runs down my screen minus all the little black squares, so that I still feel like I am translating some code that might come from an episode of Lost. Genius 1 and 2 ran some disk and concurred that this must be the cause of a display I was using and not to use it anymore. That was the 2 hour solution.

They also informed me that the cosmetic damage from dropping it some 8 months ago (with no other signs of damage), has most likely rendered not under warranty anymore. applecare doesn't get my endorsement.

Finally I was going to tie this boring computer story with an interview experience I had last week in which I choked. Choked like gullet-blocking huge chunk of mozzarella. the good authentic white imported italian stuff. whatever right?