After feeling very “I’m buying a new Mac”-ish yesterday after my Leopard upgrade fiasco, I took the cheaper route and visited the Apple Support forums. As per Ben’s comment, I wasn’t the only one experiencing the blue screen of perpetual serenity, as the forums had a technote from Apple on how to shift from blue screen to a roaring Leopard. (And, for the record, it was fixed before Eric posted his nice blog response extending his sympathy from afar).

After 6 lines of typing commands into Terminal, the Mac started. And even better, the upgrade to Leopard appears to have resolved the lemon-like behavior I’ve experienced with this MacBook Pro since the day I got it — essentially unreliable power-on start up.

It seems to work first time every time now, rather than first time every second time (with a forced crash in between).

So, yes, I’m a happy camper again.