For the record, I tried the toothpaste technique on a CD with a skipping problem back around 1998 and that CD has played perfectly ever since. I think it's not so much about filling the ding as it is that toothpaste presumably has some gentle abrasive qualities that make it work for buffing out shallow dings.

That's how I understood it. How the hell do you get it to work though? I tried the Brasso route and all it did was scratch the area around the abrasion just like the toothpaste did last time. I don't think it was really that deep but even rubbing for the better part of an hour accomplished nothing and now I'm out five bucks for the Brasso. Doesn't matter though since I just bought a new copy of the game.