Turns out my take on blogging largely mirrors that of today's Pearls Before Swine.

Well put Rat. Well put.

Yet that hasn't stopped me from reading other people's blogs or sporadically updating my own. It's not just delusions of grandeur though - those passed long ago; but there's a certain sense of satisfaction from putting a thought into words and posting that into the ether, to one day be indexed by Google Blogsearch... and ultimately be used as incriminating evidence against me 20 years down the line when this all has been indexed for prosperity by some mechanism like the Way Back Machine - part of the reason why 'social' networks freak me out.

But I digress.

What I really meant to say was, my MacBook is cracking - as in, physically splintering plastic shards. Again, and on the same top assembly - my Wildeepz could not prevent it.

Worse yet, my warranty is expired, I don't have (and thus am no longer eligible) for AppleCare, and the top assembly alone costs about $150. The crack was slight enough (alongside the left edge of the top assembly) that a piece of Magic Tape seems to hold things together alright without looking terribly unsightly, and there is an upside to this: I think I've found the culprit:

I use a big Wenger Synergy everyday to lug my laptop to and from school, typically with a couple of textbooks, a notebook and a binder. It works well, it's comfortable despite it's bulk, and despite being a year-old, it looks practically new. Thing is, the laptop is in a soft-cushioned compartment closest to the back, with 8 lbs of books pressing against it. The plastic holding together the keyboard side of the MacBook is, lets face it, cheap, and simply buckles against the weight of the books.

Since it's not practical for me to get the machine repaired, I decided to do the next best thing - take a preventive measure and buy a new case. My initial impulse was to get a Brenthaven Edge I - seemingly the best, single-purpose laptop sleeve you can get for the money. But the $50 asking price was about the same as I paid for the Synergy, and after listening to the most recent MacBreak and hearing about Andy Ihnatko's Tony Blair-themed Crumpler bag, I decided to check out the alternatives.

Prolonged story short, I ended up (just a few minutes ago) ordering a Cosmic Green Spire Viro messenger. It was about $30 more than I'd intended to pay, but I find the prospect of always carrying two bags to university tiresome, and all accounts intimate that the Viro, designed to fit the MacBook, is one of the sturdiest, well-designed bags you can get. (I would have gotten black, but then everyone has black. Blue looked alright, but the lighter green contrasts better with white...)

I've only managed to track down one or two reviews of the bag and few useful photos, so I'll be sure to post a full review once I've recieved it and had a few days to lug it around. But at double the asking price of my current backpack, it had better damn near blow my mind.

And with that, I've successfully avoided revising my Enhanced Entity Relationship diagrams for another 20 mins. Yay burnouts!