• It had to be me

    It’s happened to you before. You get your hopes up and they are unceremoniously dumped in the crapper. The pisser about this evening is that my hopes were so fresh. I hardly got to know them before they were gone. Hope can be fleeting, but to come and go in less than five minutes? This keeps up and I’m going to need a better prescription drug benefit with my health insurance.

    The evening started with such promise. What could be more exciting than a trip to the Apple store? All right, I’m not that pathetic. There are at least two things better than a trip to the Apple Store, but whose counting? I got to the store and someone said the four words that would change the emotional tone of the evening, “That’s the garage sale.”

    In Apple Store terms, “the garage sale,” is the disorganized heap ‘o products they’d like to get rid of on the quick. Well what did I see on top of the heap? Signaling me through the fog of my caffeine addicted mind was a shiny pair of Apple Desktop speakers, marked down to $20. These are the same speakers that my father has plugged into his iMac. These are the same speakers that I’ve been jealous of since my father purchased his iMac. These are the speakers that I was more than ready to part with $20 for the privilege of owning. Yes, I said “privilege,” they are that cool looking. Momentarily suspecting a “too good to be true” moment sneaking up and biting me in the keester, I sought out the closest Apple Staffer. “Yes,” he replied, “those should work Jim Dandy with your iBook.”

    I was a middle-aged geek in an Apple Store. I quite literally skipped towards the register, stopping briefly at my friend admiring the PowerBook display to gloat over my discovery. Here’s where the skies opened and the parade went home. “John, I don’t think those things are going to work.” SAY IT AINT SO! I wanted to believe. I wanted to trust the first opinion, but doubt lingered. That was when I opened the box and saw the plug. It was immediately clear it would not fit my poor iBook.

    Next time you see Jim Dandy, tell him I’m looking for him.

    I went in search of a second opinion, but my fears were not allayed.

    &*%$!

    For about five minutes I lived in a world where I had a cool set of speakers. Some dreams die hard. Some dreams die slow. Others check out before they even really get started.

    Anyone know a really good therapist?

  • Restoration

    You’ve heard me mention the “natural order.” It’s one of the ways we make sense of a complex world, in order to keep up with all the crap out there, we take some things for granted. Growing boys will have more scrapes and bruises, growing girls will get into more trouble, my wife will have a good reason to yell at me at least once a week, Macs will continue to be a superior alternative to the Windows hegemony, and I will always have more desirable gadgets than my wife. Try to keep a hold on your emotions until the end of this entry, but for a while there the natural order was out of whack.

    Last month we signed a two year contract to share minutes on our wireless plan. Since it’s considerably less convenient to share minutes with only one phone, we bought a second one. Owing to a moment of weakness, Cheryl got the new one, and it was pretty cool, way cooler than mine. I told myself repeatedly that this was an excellent opportunity to pretend to be an adult. “I don’t really need a new phone, the one I’ve got works just fine. I don’t need all of those extra features anyway. When would I ever use a speaker phone?”

    Who was I kidding?

    Don’t you know, the whole point of having a million features isn’t to USE them? Dear Lord Man, get a hold of your self. HAVING them is the most important thing, an ends in and of it’s self. Gadget features are like tick marks on the great scorecard of life. Carrying around a feature poor gadget is worse than not carrying a gadget at all. At least if you don’t have one on you, you can maintain the image of having just left it out in the car. No one is the wiser. Carrying a feature poor gadget not only says something about your social status, it also says something about your self-image.

    “I’m not worthy of a really cool toy. I don’t like ‘me’ enough to buy cool stuff.”

    So that’s how I wound up driving home with a camera phone yesterday. I had $100 of Verizon’s money to spend on a phone, and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to spend every penny. I’ve got perceptions to maintain. The respect of my wife is at stake. The natural order hangs in the balance. The pecking order, no, nothing less than the Biblically ordained relationship between a man and a woman is a risk. Someone get me Jerry Falwell on the phone. Call the President. Bring in the Joint Chiefs. Break out the Bat Signal. DEAR GOD I NEED THIS PHONE!

    It takes some of the worst pictures I’ve ever seen, but it does (technically) take pictures. That’s all that’s really important. Well no, that’s not it. It takes pictures and Cheryl’s doesn’t. THAT’S what’s really important. Rest easy my friends; the natural order has been restored.

  • Listen carefully, my friend

    The other day one of my coworkers approached me with welcome praise. He told me that he appreciated all of the helpful computer advice I had given him over the course of our six year acquaintance. He went so far as to say that he trusted my computer advice more than anyone else.

    Who doesn’t like to be appreciated, as if he were the best thing to come along since Barry first crooned “,Copa Cabana,?” I was sitting there with my Big Gulp serving of caffeine, having a grand ‘ole time, when the moment was spoiled by inspiration.

    Seeing a barn sized opening for the taking, I could not resist temptation.

    “Then why haven’t you taken my MOST IMPORTANT piece of computer advice to date?” I asked.

    “What would that be?” He replied.

    “Get a Mac.”

    The loud groan of skepticism momentarily ruined a perfectly good moment of self-righteousness.