I had a meeting rescheduled today, so I had some time to deal with the sick Mac. First I called Apple, where (after the first call was cut off just as the operator answered, grr) I got a knowledgeable and companiable tech who walked me through all the potential software solutions until she agreed with me that it looked like a hardware problem. So then I used my local Apple store’s web page to schedule a slot at the Genius Bar — which it promptly gave me for ten minutes hence (the store’s about half an hour away). Fortunately, by the time I got there my name was just coming to the top of the list. About 15 minutes later I was walking out with a brand new Mac. All was wonderful when I got it home, until I tried to connect it to my Wi-Fi network, which not only failed but I managed to knock the whole network off the air trying to fix it. I was terribly distracted while we went off to our neighborhood SF book group (this month’s book: The Year of Our War, which we all thought was a bit shallow and the main character unsympathetic), but when we got back I used the DSL modem’s setup disk to reinstall it from scratch and all is now cool. Spent the rest of the evening installing Tiger. Now I’m back to where I was Sunday when the DVD drive failed. At the moment the new Mac is downloading software updates, and I’m going to let it have fun by itself, for I must sleep now.