March 18, 2008

Crush Your Mac Laptop for Fun and Profit!

Ever have 30 seconds of your life that you wish you could take back? A mere 30 seconds that can make a great experience instead be recalled with stains of regret? That's the quandary I find myself in, as after wrapping up a quick mini vacation that saw the Oakland A's win all four of the Spring Training games we saw from Thursday through yesterday, I made a stupid mistake that is already costing me sleep and productivity, and will no doubt lead to hitting my pocketbook. For yesterday, I crushed my MacBook Pro, like a moron, and I have pictures to prove it.

Click Any Image for a Larger Version


See how 40% of the LCD is unusable...



The latch was bent outward from being crushed.



The left side bowed from the blow.



An angled shot (without Flash).


So how did I pull that off? After checking out of the hotel yesterday, we piled our bags in the trunk of the rented convertible. Concerned, once at the game, that my laptop bag would be easily spotted in the back seat, I put it in the trunk, temporarily, in an area marked "Not for Luggage". After the game, I forgot this, momentarily, and hit the "top down" button for the convertible, which dutifully whirred to a start and crushed my laptop bag with MacBook Pro inside. I spent hours last night getting it alive (in FireWire mod) and moving data to an old G4 laptop which I'm on now. But given the MacBook Pro's hard drive is 200 GB, and this one is 80 GB, we're not failsafe yet. But we're trying, and it sounds like I have a visit or three to the Apple Store in my future.