[FOOD]

I've never tried it before, but I was wondering if the macbook shuts down while it's shutting down and you close the screen. Say I'm in a big hurry and want to shutdown my macbook and close the screen to dash out for some emergency. Would the macbook continue to shutdown while the screen is closed? I know when the screen is up and it's shutting down it takes a while.

[wgood]

In my very brief tests, this was the case. Later I'm going to do it again, but right now I'm trying for a long uptime. :D
Give it a try once, and just wait for the sleep light to go off.

[FOOD]

Would it damage the software? Let's say I save all my progress and shut down my programs and such, would the OS crash?

[Typhoon14]

Close the lid early in the shutdown process and it is quite liable to simply go to sleep. My question is, why would you shut down your mac, especially when in a hurry? Most people, when they're finished, simply close the lid, allowing the computer to enter sleep mode. There is no reason to shut down your machine at all unless you are going to be away from it for an extended period of time (i.e., days). My MacBook Pro routinely goes months without being shut down or rebooted.