Today, I surfed on over to The Canadian Apple Store, selected the white 13 inch 2.0GHz MacBook and placed my order.

While at the Apple Store, I noticed there was more of price difference than could be accounted for with the upgraded ram and hard drive on the black Macbook, so decided to do a little experiment. I created two identical MacBook specs but built a white and a black one. Turns out you are paying about $149.00 extra for the black paint...

Received email today stating that my MacBook was on its way. It left the warehouse on 02-Jun-06.

I called Apple support again to lodge another complaint with regards to the MacBook not booting properly and pointed out that my fantastic 'ultrabright widescreen display' was flickering. I powered up the machine and instead of a grey screen of death, this time I got a deep blue screen of death (I was wondering if Microsoft was going to take Apple to court over the use of such intellectual property).
Anyway, after some PRAM refreshing hand calisthenics I was back up again...

Ok... that quote does not come from an Apple employee, it was the UPS operator.
I had to call them and give them RMA info from Apple regarding the shipping of my lemon MacBook back to Apple. After I explained I was shipping something to Apple the UPS operator said she was going to start answering the phone this way since so many of the shipping calls coming in were regarding Apple RMA's for MacBooks, MacBook batteries, and iPods. I actually asked if I could quote her on that. I took her laughter as a yes.

I received the MacBook today. I fired it up and registered with Macintosh. There I read about the AppleCare 'Protection Plan: Long-term peace of mind'. I already declined that when I purchased the MacBook. I assumed that since Apple had such a great hardware reputation, that extending the 90 day warranty to 3 years was not really worth it. My IBM Thinkpad has been running for 6 years, so I gambled on the MacBook being of equal or better quality. Besides, adding another $300.00 to the price of the Mac would then put it out of my target price range.

Was chatting with my CoA friend today using iChat, via the Jabber network, with my Google Talk account (I really wish Google would make a Google Talk client for Macs!), when my fantastic 'ultrabright widescreen display' started flickering again. At first I thought it was a dirty power supply. So I ensure I am fully charged and use with just the battery for a while, but flickering returns.

Spent 37 minutes on the phone with Apple support this morning

Spent 25 minutes on the phone with Apple support this morning since my screen started flickering yet again last night. It then eventually went blue screen of death on me again. I have said it before, and will likely say it again *sigh*.

Spent 3 minutes on the phone with Apple support this morning explaining the problems I am having with this MacBook. The Apple tech support staff have always been very helpful and this one said it was time to pack it in and ship it back for a replacement. he asked for my contact information and said he would be shipping out a box that I was to ship the MacBook back in. Soon after, I received another call saying there were problems with shipping a box over the border and that I should once again drop the MacBook off at the authorized dealer.

Apple support call