Overall I had a pretty good Christmas this year. The kids, fortified with what only can be described as a massive sugar rush, had a lot of fun playing with their new toys. My mom kicked my ass at our annual Christmas Monopoly game. But then my sister whupped her butt, so that was cool.

So everything was cool and I was playing around on my iBook. I love it so much I even named her Priscilla (Priska for short, okay everyone now say awwwwwwwwwwwwww). The Updater thingie said I had some new software to update Priska with, more specifically, the 12/19/03 Security Update. So thats what I did, because I am a good Mac owner and I love my Priska and I take care of her. Everything updates fine, I reboot, blah blah blah.

A few hours later, Priska starts crashing. And when I reboot, my hard drive icon and the Finder is missing. I am totally panicked and my mind is screaming Eject! Eject! Eject!

Luckily, I can still access the internet, so I go to the Mac forums and find there is at least 1 other person who had Finder problems after installing this update. The recommended cure is to go to the Unix prompt and run fsck. Which I do repeatedly to no avail. Apple technical support is closed for the night, so I have to wait till this morning to call in. Which I did.

Apple Techie: Welcome to Apple Technical Support. Your initial 3 month free telephone support warranty has expired. Would you like to buy the AppleCare Protection Plan for $249 so that we can talk to you on the phone about your problems even though it was our fault we sent you a bad update and screwed your computer up in the first place?

Me: I'll just bend over now, shall I?

Apple Techie: *in a Mr. Burns-esque voice* Excellent.

[Whine phase initiated]

After spending one and a half hours with Apple Techie, the recommended course of action was to reinstall the OS X. That took another one and a half hours. I still have to reinstall all my other software. And I have to pay another $6 to re-download Norton Internet Security now.

Sigh.

[Whine phase terminated]

On the bright side, I get to do some serious clothes shopping this weekend.

Update: I called Apple back to complain that I shouldn't have to pay for their warranty because of their stupid update. So after their smooth saleslady talks to me, I'm still getting the warranty but at a reduced rate. My co-workers think its hella funny.