New Computer

My wife's computer, a Mac G4 that is eight years old, still running System 9.x, has finally gotten to the point where it doesn't want to talk to web pages. Rather like trying to call somebody on a cell phone by using a tin can on your end. I've gotten the best browser still available for such an antique, and it's no-go. Freezes, crashes, doesn't have the software to light common apps.

Say what you want about Macs, but this sucker is still running the original hard drive and working fine as long as you aren't into connectivity.

Well ... as fine as a steam- and hamster-powered device can run.

So we went out and found a new computer, and this round, a Macbook Pro laptop, since we can now get and use a wireless router and she can take it anywhere in the house and log onto the net. Plus out into the hinterlands and wi-fi and the like.

I won't belabor the long-standing argument of Mac versus PC; you are on one side of that divide or the other, and that's your business. If you want to follow the Anti-Christ, take your sunblock and go right ahead ...

We got into Macs back when Dianne bought a small-press newspaper operation, and it was run off a Mac Toaster, because that was the only machine that used Pagemaker at the time. We started out with System 5.x or so, and stayed with it.

At one time, I had a Mac clone, which ran the same software but with much cheaper hardware. Mac killed that experiment pretty fast, though. And it was a(nother) mistake to do so.

The wonderful thing about Apple is, every time they get fifty yards in front of the competition, which they've done, oh, I dunno, three hundred times, they stop, pull a gun, and shoot themselves in the foot. It's like Thelma and Louise -- they keep making the wrong choices.

If Apple had zigged instead of zagged, there wouldn't be any Windows, and Mac it would be the default OS for most of the non-geeks out there.

Wasn't for the iPod and iPhone, they wouldn't be ahead of anybody in anything now, and the competition is just idling along, waiting for Apple to reach for its hogleg. Where is the Apple iReader, for pity's sake? I know people who would stand in line at midnight to buy one. Not gonna do it, Jobs says. (Of course, that might be misleading. With Jobs, you never can tell.)

Um. Anyway, we are committed to the hardware and software, and my wife is pleased with her new machine.

A couple years back, my sister-in-law, a writer who works out of her house, thought she might switch from Mac platform to PC. My son asked her why. Well, she said, because there are so many more Wintel and Windows service people than there are for Mac.

Uh huh, my son said, and what does that tell you?

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, the Wienermobile ran smack into somebody's house, knocking it off the foundations.

How'd you like to call that one in: "Police? Yeah, a giant wiener just smashed into my house. No, it isn't wearing a condom, funny man ..."