So I took my PowerBook down to the Apple Store today, and discovered that there was Good News and Bad News.

The Good News is that all I needed to replace was the power adaptor–effectively, the power cord. This makes no sense to me at all, mind you. How can it be that the power adaptor can power the computer, but can’t charge the battery? I don’t get it. Nevertheless, it’s good news–they gave me a new power adaptor under the warranty (which has a couple of months left to run) and I got to take my laptop home.

The Bad News is that my laptop has a nasty dent on one back corner that I wasn’t aware of. It probably got there last Spring when I went to Australia; I slipped and fell in the airport and dropped the laptop case. But I looked the laptop over then and I don’t remember seeing it. If it didn’t happen back then, I’m at a loss–it clearly got a pretty good whack. It doesn’t seem to have affected the computer’s behavior at all, but I was informed today that it’s enough to void the warranty if I ever do have to send the whole thing for service. Ugh.