Every Friday, the staff at Crazy Apple Rumors Site answers common help questions based on our vast experience with Apple products and our fervent belief that we know more than you do.
Today: Extreme PowerBook stories! Whooooooo! To the extreme!
Q: OK, so, dude… dude… dude… dude?
A: Uh… yeah?
Q: OK, so dude… the other day I’m just sittin’ here… minding my own business… and… for no reason I can figure… my 12-inch PowerBook just takes a nose dive off the desk, slams down on the cement floor, slides across the room, down the stairs and out into the street where a kid ran over it on his bike!
A: Oh. Wow. That… seems unlikely.
Q: Swear to god, man! Swear to god! So, anyway, I’m all like freaking because I’m thinking… you know… $3,000 laptop shot to hell, right?
A:
Q: Right?!
A: Oh. Oh! Right.
Q: Yeah! But I picked it up, wiped off the bicycle tire tracks, plugged it in and… damn!
A: It worked?
Q: Uh… no. No. It was pretty much shot. The kid was… kinda big for his age. But… I got a pretty good deal on a G5… so…
Q: Oh, man, that is nothing! I saw a PowerBook once get ripped apart by savage weasels! Oh, yeah! They tore into it with those sharp little teeth and their little claws… all “Nyawww! Nyawww! Grrr! Nyawww!”
A: Uh-huh.
Q: Oh, wow, I was freaking! I kept running around yelling “Oh, my god! Oh, my god!” I was just praying they wouldn’t kill all of us, ya know?! And then, after they were driven away by a phalanx of animal control officials armed with stun guns, we snapped the screen back in, re-soldered some connections, constructed an entirely new substructure from aluminum and bought all new internal components… and, uh, then replaced the screen because it was all… gnawed and stuff… and it worked! Good as new! Except for a slight musky odor… because weasels have this musky smell…
A: Right.
Q: But, man, was that wild! It was totally off the hook!
A: Sure.
Q: I learned my lesson, though! Savage weasels do not make a good baby shower present! Whew! Man, was… was that embarrassing! I… I… didn’t know… ya see… that… savage weasels… Whew. Off the hook, I’ll tell ya what.
Q: I am going to tell you a PowerBook story that will turn you white. It is not for the faint of heart. Unlike these other “Extreme” PowerBook stories, this one is true. So, you might want to send the kids into the other room, turn all the lights up, lock the doors, and pray to whatever gods you may worship.
A: Wow. Uh… OK. OK. I’m ready. Lay it on me. Bring on the terror.
Q: Alright. Here goes. I own a 17-inch PowerBook. A laptop of monstrous screen proportions. It cuts a great swath through both vertical and horizontal space. It was to this… my most treasured of devices… that the unspeakable happened. An unbelievable act so brutal in its callous disregard that I can barely muster the strength to utter it.
A: What?! What was it?!
Q: My wife… my own beloved wife… she who have you believe she loves me… adjusted the screen tilt… holding only one corner of the screen.
A: Oh, man! I hate that! Why do they do that?!
Q: I don’t know! It’s like fingernails on the chalkboard!
A: That is so bogus! Can’t they see that the screen is a beautiful, yet fragile device?! You’ve got to tilt it holding both sides very carefully! You can’t just twist it like that!
Q: That’s what I told her! She won’t listen to me! She picks up her iBook by just grabbing the top of the screen! And she carries it around that way! I just don’t know what to do with her!
A: I’d say “Couple’s therapy”, man, but she’s the one with the problem!
Q: I knew you’d understand. See, dudes understand…