Normally, I try to make at least one update to the Proofreader’s Hall of Shame every year. However, in part due to circumstances beyond my control (namely, my laptop’s power cord power input shorting out), I was unable to do my typical end-of-year update this year, and was too busy during the rest of the year to do any substantial updating.

Here’s to better luck in 2007… I’ll try to get an update posted as soon as I have a working laptop.

As it turns out, the local reseller doesn’t actually do Apple warranty work… so if I did get my computer serviced there, it’d cost $70 an hour, while I’m still under AppleCare. (I would have just gone to an Apple store if it weren’t two hours to the nearest one!)

So I called Apple instead, and they think the issue is indeed the power adapter (and that the replacement adapter I got yesterday, which turned out to be a third-party product, is a dud). So they’re shipping me a new official adapter and letting me ship back the old one.

Hopefully this one will work. And either way, I get a new adapter out of it.

More to come once I get the new adapter shipped…

Uh-oh. It’s worse than I thought. Though I’m sure my laptop’s power cord was beginning to short out, that’s not the sole problem; even with a new adapter, the computer’s still not wanting to charge.

Guess I’m taking it into the service center tomorrow…

The good news, at least, is that the motherboard still seems OK— booting off of what little battery power there is produces the familiar Mac startup sound before the system quickly powers off.

Well, my PowerBook’s power adapter has died. It’d been acting up for several months, but was still working… yesterday, it finally bit the dust.

I’m getting a replacement this afternoon, though, so everything’s all right. Set me back a hundred dollars buying the adapter from the local Apple reseller, but it was either that or waiting several days for it to ship…

(Gah, why didn’t I think of that subject line for the previous post?)

OK, I figure it’s time for a bit of further explication now.

Yes, I did indeed post that last post from the Opera browser on a Nintendo Wii (it’s rather difficult to type using that virtual on-screen keyboard, which is why it was such a short post.) That was my big present from my parents this year, along with Zelda: Twilight Princess for that system. And no, I did not expect this at all.

I’d thought for sure that my parents wouldn’t be able to find one by the time I’d brought it up as a suggestion. But my mom actually did get up early enough one morning to get a place far enough forward in line to get one. (Yes, I’ve thanked her profusely.)

My dad and I managed to surprise her just as much with a new computer, to replace the seven-year-old behemoth she had been using.

So yeah, it was a very enjoyable Christmas this year. Now, back to Twilight Princess… man, Zelda games are so addictive.

I am posting this from a brand new Nintendo Wii.

More to come later when I can use a real keyboard.

I did manage to pass Algorithms with a B. Given how stressful that final was, and how much difficulty I had been having focusing in that class, I’m happy with that.

And I did make A’s in the other two courses.

So all the coursework necessary for core competency certification is out of the way. Woohoo.

::cracking up:: I went to check the weather on my Mac OS X Dashboard this morning, and was greeted with this:

Ah, well. The temperature isn’t numeric today. Bummer.

OK, my brain is fried by this point. Two final exams in a day will do that to you.

And that Algorithms final? Brutal. I’m not sure anyone in the class did all that well on it, judging from the conversations that I heard afterward… and at least there’s hope of a curve, from what the prof said. Seriously, there were just too many little details to remember… I did study, but even then I had some trouble remembering some of the finer details of how certain algorithms worked or what certain terms meant.

Well, I’m 24 years old today. (Or, if you’re counting in base 16, I’m finally 18… but then again, I’m 30 in base 8. Yeah…I know, I know, I’m a CS geek…)

Too bad that my birthday has to be sandwiched in between two days of final exams…at least I’ll get to celebrate over the weekend, anyway.