On October 9th, I bought an iPad, and with that, it's time to fully retire my old MacBook Pro...otherwise known as MBP or ManBearPig.
As a side note, the first desktop background I used for this laptop was a photo of ManBearPig.
By mid-2018, I was getting the dreaded "httpsx" with a red line through it on a lot of websites, and my hard drive was perpetually full of pictures... I bought an iMac to replace it, but the laptop kept working for simple things like Word, Excel, and iPhoto, and most websites remained accessible. More importantly, I could still use it while I was eating breakfast, and occasionally burn CDs. So, I bumped it down to part-time hours, and it was fine with that (yes, I just anthropomorphized my computer). It kinda made me question the sense in buying the iMac at the time, although by 2021 the iMac has definitely transitioned into my main computer.
The last straw came in late September/early October of this year (2021), when Google Chrome would show a false clock error on almost every website -- false, in that the computer's clock showed the correct time, but Chrome insisted that the clock was wrong, and therefore wouldn't load anything but Google itself and YouTube.
So I decided that after 11 years, it was time to let the old workhorse rest (likely forever) and get a new device for browsing at the kitchen table. I could have bought a cheaper PC laptop or tablet, but I like Apple products more.
This MacBook Pro was my second computer. I ordered it online from the Apple Store to replace my aging eMac. It cost about $1,900, because I wanted the biggest hard drive I could afford. It arrived on May 28th, 2010 - exactly 7 years before my wedding.
One of the reasons I bought this laptop was because I could partition it to run Windows, so that I could use a program my then-bandmate was writing songs with, called PowerTab or something, although I never did end up partitioning it and running Windows.
For context, when I bought this computer, I was still living at home with my family in Scarborough; still working at the Zoo; still single; still using a flip phone; just one year into owning my first car; still in a band, and still not knowing what I was going to do with that bachelor's degree I finished two years earlier.
Despite the novelty of portability, I only took this computer on a couple of trips. The first one was to Nova Scotia in July of 2010, whence an airport security guard cranked it all the way open in a very non-gentle manner, so after that I said "eff this; I'm not bringing that on any more trips", although I did ultimately bring it to Chicago in 2011, I think. I did frequently take it to my mom's house when I would go visit, though (I moved out less than two months after I got it). Anyway...
This laptop was the computer from which I posted the majority of my Flickr pics thus far. It saw me through a graduate certificate at Durham College in 2012, and a diploma at George Brown College in 2014-2015. The hard drive "crapped out" in March of 2014, but I took it to Carbon Computing and they replaced a small cord for like $25, and it was good as new. I learned how to use AutoTune on it, and recorded quite a few songs on it as well. It kept me company during the summers of 2013 and 2014 when I worked up in Muskoka; I would play Worms and watch Family Guy DVDs in the evenings after work, up in the staff house by myself. I ran it with Snow Leopard right up to the end. It gradually lost its functionality over the course of 11 years, but as far as computers go, I definitely got my money's worth. I replaced it with an iMac because by that time in my life, I'd been working in an office for over 5 years and knew from my own upper back muscles that a desktop computer would be better for my posture.
I fully retired it with the purchase of the iPad last weekend because I needed something small and portable that worked for everything I needed it to work for. But this old MacBook Pro has certainly earned its retirement.
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