Not us. Herself is downstairs working and I’m upstairs goofing off, enjoying the fracas from a distance. My idea of a good time is not playing Australian rules football with a bunch of bargain-hunters in a Best Buy at four o’clock in the morning.
Mind you, I like to shop. It’s often more fun and less disappointing than actually buying something. But I usually root around online for quite a while, checking specs and weighing options, before marching down to some local shop to lay hands on the product and finally slap down the plastic. Or not.
Here’s a case in point. I have authorization from Herself to buy a new Mac, but haven’t done so. How come?
Well, it’s that natural contrariness rearing its ugly head again. The Black Turtleneck Mob in Cupertino isn’t selling exactly what I want to buy, which is an affordable, accessible consumer tower model like my old G4 AGP Graphics Power Mac, simple to fix and/or upgrade, but sporting modern hardware and software.
There’s the Mac Pro, but at $2,499 I’d hardly call it affordable, especially since it ships with a measly 3 GB of RAM and no Airport Express card. You want to double the first and add the last, tack on another $200.
OK, how about those nifty iMacs? Not sure I’d like working full time on a glossy screen. My 13.3-inch MacBook has one, and it can be irksome to see my ugly mug staring back at me as I cook up another bouillabaisse of bullshit for fun and profit. Plus all its ports are in the ass-end of the thing. WTF?
New MacBook? Got an old one, thanks, from 2006 and in a manly black (I dislike pasty white computers). MacBook Pro? No separate audio in/out ports on the new 13-incher, which seems to offer the most bang per buck, and no user-removable batteries on any of ’em. Plus I already have more laptops than Cheney’s closet does skeletons. As daily drivers go, they and the multiplicity of cables to peripherals required eat up a lot of desktop space, which irks the cats, who like to use my desk as a springboard to the window for reasons known only to themselves.
Mini? Another Mac I can’t crack, and it seems underpowered, if nicely priced.
And then there’s that voice, only one of many in my head, but among the most insistent, which keeps whispering, “You work in a subset of journalism, a craft with all the future of a Conestoga repairman in Manhattan.”
So instead of greening up my Black Friday with a new Mac, I’ve gotten myself a tad more computing horsepower by hooking up the MacBook to my 22-inch ViewSonic. The G4 tower now serves mostly as storage space, three drives’ worth, accessible wirelessly through my DSL modem-router combo. But I’ll also use it to scan and color cartoons, since it has an ancient yet serviceable version of Photoshop (another $500 goes unspent).
This probably won’t fly come July, if I’m still helping VeloNews.com push pixels during Le Tour. But it ain’t July.
• Late update: Reading the Gaslight‘s latest coverage of the first official shopping day of the holiday season (suck it, you out-of-Focus fucktards), it’s sad to note that while the G found it worthwhile to report from big boxes on Powers and Academy boulevards, in Woodland Park and in Castle Rock, they didn’t bother to send anyone downtown — which is about a mile away from Gaslight HQ. Maybe they’re afraid of ice falling from the USOC HQ, but I can’t see this lot being scared of a head injury, considering where they keep their brains. And they wonder why both the newspaper and downtown are struggling.
Mad Blog Media 
Hey Pat,
As a new iMac user, I would have to disagree with what you say about the IMac screen being too glossy. It really isn’t. Since I do software for a living, I understand what that means when one is in front of a screen of one kind or another all the time. I really thing you would like the IMac for what you do. Just my two cents…
Doug
Hey, Doug,
My colleague Matt Wiebe at BRAIN says likewise; he loves the family iMac, a 24-incher from the previous generation. He went that route after croaking the logic board in a Mini. My big concern is that my itty-bitty office is mostly windows — two facing south and one west — and on sunny days a reflective screen might have plenty to work with. Too bad they won’t let me take one home for a test drive, eh?
P O’G,
Excuses, excuses, excuses. Get yourself a new Mac, boy!
Let’s see if I have this correct: you have the “authorization” to do so, the space to use, the run-down of the options….and your ‘excuse’ for not getting one is that your desk is in the wrong part of the room?!?!?!? WTF? Move the desk, fire up the scooter, and get yourself to a local purveyor of all thing Mac! Failing that have Herself authorize you “Gifting” me the one you don’t want. I won’t complain. You might, but then again you are. Go get the Mac!!
Besides I can’t think of a reason why I couldn’t use a new MacBook. The one I am using right now is nearly eight years old, and running a dial-up with no fancy bells and whistles. Sheit, I can’t even access VeloSchnooze if I wanted to.
Besides July will be here before you know it. Go get the computer you want!!
Patrick, Let me get this straight. Your wife has given the green light to buy a new gadget and you didn’t peel rubber getting to the business of buying it? Are you feeling all right? Go re-read your own post. You’ve got a history of making almost-right stuff work for you. But NOW you’re waiting? Crivets! My cordless drill croaked in the middle of my basement remodel project last week, and the words “Well, just go buy a new one” were still coming out of my wife’s mouth and I was halfway down the block. An hour later I had a nice new lithium-ion 19.2v Ryobi in the trunk. Either drink more or drink less, whatever it takes. Opporknockities only tunes once.
Which reminds me. I went to the V-news beta site and like it even less. Where is the “Home” button? Went to look at the “best mountain biking photos of the year” section, found it clumsy (no slide show like the current setup) and tried to get back home to look at other articles. Had to retype the URL or hit the back arrow button on my browser. Is that 90’s or what? Give the programmers a dime and tell them to go buy a real site structure.