The High Price of Apple's Genius Help

I posted previously that my 2-year-old, lightly-used Mac Mini seemed to have a dead hard drive. In comments, my brother-in-law suggested I "take advantage of the customer support Apple is known for." I packed up an ailing iBook and my Mini and my husband took them to the Shibuya Apple store for a consultation.

The iBook is an old dual USB 500 mhz G3. Some of the keys on the keyboard don't work and the fragile delete key fell off (though I still have the key, it just needs to be reattached). Also, there seems to be a slightly faulty connection with the display. The screen dims and you have to squeeze the area in front of the left side of the keyboard to get it to return to full brightness. Since the keyboard only has issues with random keys (1, 5, 9, Q, return, etc.) and not an overall problem, it seems like the whole thing isn't dead and the display issue is clearly a loose connection problem if a squeeze can fix it.

The geniuses told us that it'll cost 20,000 yen (about $190) to fix the keyboard and 45,000 yen to fix both the keyboard and the display issue. Considering better iBooks than mine are going for about $150-$200 on eBay, I passed on this offer.

The ultra clever geniuses wouldn't guarantee that my problem with my Mac Mini was a failed hard drive but they offered to fix it for 40,000 yen (about $380). Considering a new Mini which is far better than mine would be $600, I passed on this as well.

I'm utterly disgusted by the inflated costs of these repairs. I know for a fact that I wouldn't pay this much if I went outside of Apple's repair service for a fix. I also know that I can buy a replacement hard drive of the exact same make and size as the one currently in my Mini (and from the same manufacturer) from Other World Computing for $100 (including shipping) and put it in the Mini myself in about a half hour. I don't know where Apple buys their drives nor how much the geniuses make but they'd have to make $400 an hour and pay twice as much as the going rate to justify a 40,000 yen price tag for the hard drive fix.

Apple either overcharges on an extended warranty (3 years instead of the miserly 90 days of the initial warranty) or gouges sufficiently on repairs that you will consider buying a new computer rather than keeping your old one. Either way, the customer is going to lose out by forking over $170-$350 on the extended warranty up front, by paying exorbitant repair fees, or tossing their old machine out the window in favor of a new one.

This trip brought home that what Apple is known for is higher prices than others offering similar services and products. I'm beginning to feel increasingly that there aren't enough options out their for computer purchases as I'm fed up with Apple and I don't want to use Vista.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe is a leftover from my Christmas baking binge. My husband has been off of sweets now for quite some time. However, with Valentines Day coming tomorrow, it seems appropriate to offer up a recipe with chocolate.

There are tons of recipes for chocolate chip cookies and, for most people, Toll House cookies are the gold standard. My husband doesn't like the way Toll House cookies are relatively flat and contain tons of chocolate chips. He likes a chocolate chip cookie which has a bit more "cookie" to it, so I've been modifying the recipe to make a puffier cookie with fewer chips.

If you live in Japan and make anything with brown sugar, you'll notice some differences that affect baking. Most standard western brown sugar is darker and has a deeper molasses flavor than standard Japanese brown sugar. You'll also notice that Japanese brown sugar will not pack when you measure it.

I've made this recipe with both Chelsea brown sugar (purchased from Nisshin supermarket) and Japanese brown sugar (which you get in any Japanese market). Using western brown sugar and packing it makes a flatter cookie so I have to add about a 1/4 cup more flour with western brown sugar. Also, the cookies are quite a bit lighter in color with Japanese brown sugar.

I've also make these cookies with a mixture of Crisco and butter as well as using Japanese "keiki margarin" (cake margarine) only and there doesn't appear to be much difference. If you're in Japan, it's simpler and likely cheaper just to use the cake margarine.

Modified Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe:

• 3/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup Crisco
• 1/2 cup butter (softened but not melted!)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups flour (if using western brown sugar; if using Japanese brown sugar - 2 3/4 cups flour)
• 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream the brown sugar, white sugar, Crisco, and butter with an electric hand mixer. Add the salt, baking soda, and eggs and mix well. Add half the flour and mix again. At this point you'll have to mix with a large spoon or your hands. Add the remainder of the flour until thoroughly incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto an un-greased baking sheet, placing at least 2.5 inches between each. Bake at 375 degrees F./190 degrees C. for 10-12 minutes. Makes 3 dozen.

Mini Frustration

My two-year-old Mac Mini appears to have some serious issues. The other day while I was using Skype to talk to my sister and a friend, it crashed several times then the Mac OS itself went down. I had to push the power button on the back to restart and it couldn't successfully boot.

Several attempts to erase, partition or repair the drive using the system DVD that came with the Mini resulted in various errors or frozen progress bars.


When I try to start the Mini up without the system DVD, it hangs on the log-in screen and ends with a frozen progress wheel and this attractive black box. :-p

I opened up the case and blew out all the dust in a vain hope that that may magically fix it but, of course, this didn't help at all. While I had it open, I booted it up again to listen more carefully to the clicks it made while attempting to boot. I'm pretty sure that the hard drive is a goner.

Right now, I'm torn between buying a new computer and limping along with this one. I can buy a hard drive and attempt to repair it myself. This will cost about a hundred dollars. The only drawback to this is that, if the hard drive isn't the problem, I'll have wasted the money and it still won't work.

I'm actually quite disappointed in this failure after a relatively short time. While the Mini is two years old, it hasn't seen heavy usage and certainly hasn't seen anything which has required strong hard drive usage (like video editing or torrent downloads). I spend about 3/4 of the time on my old PC doing web or e-mail work and about 1/4 on the Mac doing the occasional graphics, page layout or database work. This failure represents some fragility in the hardware that I wouldn't expect from an Apple product.

While I realize that a Mini is a cheap computer at $500, my eMachine cost $400 and has lasted twice as long as my Mini (so far). I'm guessing that cramming all those tiny components into a small space may have something to do with it since I can't imagine Apple uses cheaper parts than eMachines.

Nova Pocky

There are some people who are absolutely crazy for Pocky (essentially an unsalted pretzel stick dipped in chocolate) but I'm not one of them. I think they're inoffensive but not especially appealing so I don't buy them regularly. Once in awhile, they will release a variety that I'll sample (like coconut) but it's quite rare.

While I was shopping at a local market today, I ran across Pocky with Nova conversation schools' ugly usagi (rabbit) mascot on the box. I'm not sure what compelled Nova to go with such a poor design but the Japanese supposedly went pretty crazy about it and collected items made in this thing's likeness. The company I used to work for was sold to an off-shoot of Nova two years before I stopped working there and our salespeople would get bugged by the clients they were trying to sell to for free Nova usagi collectibles. I also heard that on-line auctions offered stuffed usagi and whatnot which sold for an attractive amount of money.

Personally, I've always called this the "beak bunny" because the face looks like a chicken beak has been planted in the middle of a rabbit's face. Of course, the point is for the nose/mouth combo to look like a smiley face but it just looks weird. Nonetheless, I was intrigued enough to pick up this box of Pocky to see how Nova was linking to Pocky.


The two packets inside the box each have a drawing of the mascot and an English phrase with a Japanese translation. I guess the idea is to get people to study English on their snack packages. It's probably targeted toward kids for the most part. Though adults do enjoy Pocky, I think the notion that they'd study the packets is a bit far-fetched.


On the back of the box, another chocolate product made by Glico (the company that makes Pocky) is mentioned as part of the Nova campaign. GABA is a chocolate product which claims to help improve "mental balance". This chocolate includes Gamma-Amino Butyric Acid (hence the name GABA) which is supposed to soothe the nervous system. I guess Nova hopes to reach the kids via Pocky and the adults through GABA.

One thing I wondered is how much Nova had to fork over for this advertising campaign and if it all seems pretty ill-timed on the heels of the bad publicity they are getting over a handful of their teachers being arrested for drug possession. I also wonder how well this sort of marketing works to draw people into language schools.

Valentine's Day, Japan-style

The gift and card pictured above were a Valentine's treat given to my husband by one of his more generous female students. Inside, there's a gold box of chocolate truffles made in France. If you know anything about the way things work during the Valentine's holiday in Japan, you know this isn't an indication of any amorous intent on the student's part.

For those who don't know, the confectioners in Japan performed a profitable King Solomon act on the holiday and split it into a holiday in which men receive chocolates as gifts (Valentine's Day) and one in which women receive cookies or marshmallow-based treats or other white sweets (White Day). What's more, the chocolate gifts that men receive are usually based on mundane friendships or business relationships rather than romance. Female workers give chocolate to their male colleagues in many cases.


The chocolate women tend to give isn't elaborate for the most part. You find that women in offices tend to buy pre-wrapped tidbits of relatively pedestrian chocolates from convenience stores or supermarkets. Strawberry or cherry Kit-Kats are a particular favorite. This year there is a special Valentine's box of brandy and orange Kit-Kats for sale. In fact, I've never seen the heart-shaped boxes of candy that are frequently sold in the U.S. at this time of year. The truffles my husband received are definitely several cuts above the usual fare.

Most of the Japanese women I've spoken to about this are not fond of the way this works. I've been told that White Day is frequently forgotten and their Valentine gifts of chocolate are not reciprocated.

My husband also read a book quite some time ago (I wish I could remember the title) about the politics and psychology of Japanese office ladies (frequently called "O.L.s") and it mentioned that a lot of women use this holiday as a means of expressing some hostility toward their bosses. Besides spitting in the tea they served, they'd also carefully break apart all the chocolate inside it's wrapper before giving it over to their boss or coworker.

Surprisingly, the conservative, old-fashioned former president of my former company (he reigned for 10 years of my 12 there) was savvy enough to outlaw the giving of chocolate during Valentine's Day. He didn't want to impose the hardship of buying a bunch of pointless little gifts on what he knew were our greatly underpaid O.L.s.