I'm only writing this because I'm so sick of seeing my last post! I don't know if I've lost the urge to blog. I don't! So many people blog now. So many opinions. So much is being said. Go here, do that, think this way. Not sure what I think of any of it. I really don't. I just know though when I find a good thing, a really really good thing, I want people to know about it -- especially a good thing in LA that might be under the radar. Let's face it, that's all I ever really care about anyway: secret stairs, secret restaurants, secret tours.
So I was in New Mexico and had a terrible nightmare about what I'll never know when I woke up, disoriented and in moving my hands like a helicopter propeller to figure out where I was I spilled water onto my laptop. It was so weird and startling when I finally found the light and then saw this little puddle; this little innocuous looking puddle. Like it meant nothing. But it meant everything. It was the arsenic and old lace to my constant companion.
I tried wiping it off and praying and blowing on it but it was 2 in the morning. So eventually I closed the top and said good night to it and sort of drifted off into an uneasy sleep where a pool was following me onto a campus and I wasn't wearing any pants.
The next morning I woke only to immediately look at my computer the way you look at someone who's on a deathbed but you're not really sure if they're still alive or how you want to figure that out. I was at my friend's house, who said that we should dry it out. It might be fine. "Really, Cyn." So we opened it up and left it out in the desert sun to get warm, to get color in its cheeks. And on the advice of a Southwestern nerd we didn't turn it on. At night we brought it inside. As the days wore on, we sort of stopped noticing it was there, just hanging around. Outside during the day, inside on the counter no one goes near at night. We just let it sit. And sit. And sit.
Finally it was time to head back to LA. While packing up, I remembered my laptop like some lonesome sock that you can't leave at your friend's house but you know it's useless and no longer has a place with you. Or rather it was an appendage that had no nerve endings; a floppy, lifeless dewclaw that just hung there. In went my metallic dewclaw into my bag like a dead person being transported for burial. Though I had a shard of hope. Perhaps when I got back to LA it would be fine with all that sunshine and that not being pressed ON, etc. All our high-tech methods.
But at The Genius Bar in Pasadena (does anyone else feel scared and alone when visiting The Genius Bar?) I was told the water corroded the board and in all likelihood it was done. Maybe the hard drive could be saved. They showed me the damage. They showed me what I had done with my flailing arms and my forever forgotten dream. And then they told me to try and fix it would be $1,200.00. Oh and it would take days (I already had had to wait a few days just to get in there). $1,200.00 smackaroos. That's like 4 roundtrips to New Mexico or rent or just a ridiculous amount of money. Who cares what I could spend $1,200 dollars on? $1,200 dollars is simply too much. The other option they offered me was to spend more. I could buy a new laptop for two grand. I mean who are these people and what have they done with common sense?
I left. Me and my appendage, walking down the mean, bright, dry streets of Pasadena. I knew what I had to do. I had to get a new computer. Just not the Apple Store way.
I went online for a refurbished laptop. I found one for under a grand so good, good. Once it would come in, my plan was to find a private Mac Repair shop to see if the hard drive was still good. Apparently they couldn't tell me that at The Genius Bar at the time. The Genius Bar--where genius's hang out and drink hope away like an iced chai latte.
So... I kept my fingers crossed. Perhaps my hard drive did avoid the deadly water like Roy Scheider in Jaws. Though Roy did get wet and eventually had to paddle his way back to shore with Richard Dreyfuss. (must find a new analogy).
The computer arrived today. It's almost as nice as my last laptop but six months older. It has a little more weight and harsh edges where my old laptop had sexy woman curves. Either which way I called around about that hard drive thing. Prices quoted were from $75 to $150. Oddly I went to the $150 place. I wasn't sure it would cost that -- the guy said it could be less -- but it was that he seemed nice. I wanted to feel taken care of. The business of computers had up until that point felt cold and harsh and expedited. I wanted a second to breathe. To be treated like a human. To have another human look up from a device, look me in the eye and tell me what's what; maybe even say that everything would be okay. That it all wasn't such a big deal.
I went over to New Mac World in Echo Park on Sunset and Laveta Terrace (otherwise known to my friends as Nicole's old street). Guy is the person who greeted me AND SHOOK MY HAND. And then he introduced me to Andy who was wearing a good rocker shirt and was very nice and mellow and took a look at my hard drive and within moments said it was perfectly fine. I suppose he's a SUPER genius. The transfer would not be hard. He could do it right then and there. And he asked me what I was going to do with the old computer. I'm sure I could have figured out a whole slew of things. Maybe there was a way to make money off the parts. But I also knew most likely I would dream that dream of doing something with it and do nothing with it and then have it sit there and stare at me and act as a surface for papers and old scripts and guilt so I said, "I have no idea." He told me he'd take it and not charge me for the hard drive transfer. I said "Yes." From start to finish I was in and out within 20 minutes. I was done. It was over. And wait, he even carried my water for me out to the car because, well, I'm sure you can understand why: I didn't want to carry my water and my computer at the same time.
I'll get some pictures to post on this eventually. I'm not even sure I'm really back to blogging. But I wanted you guys to know THERE ARE GOOD BUSINESSES OUT THERE! Run by good, hard-working, polite, efficient small business owners who don't want to scare you and aren't juggling 3,000 people an hour. They will see you right away. They're right there. They're fair, they're even, they're cool. And they're in our town. Which is so good.
Yay New World Mac!
http://newworldmac.com/
1498 Sunset Boulevard
LA, CA 90026
They have two designated parking spots but you can also park on the street.
