The World's About to Change

OK, I bought an Apple. Well, just an iPod. But it's Apple.

I actually started my career an Apple man. There's a weird dichotomy of people who use modern computers: PC people and Apple people, and seldome the twain dothey meet. When I originally started using computers in college, and eventually in the workplace, the machines available to me were Apples, er, Macs, though technically Mac was really only a product but that's a whole other blog.

It was when I went to buy my first personal computer (OK, second, though the Commodore 64 didn't function too well by the mid-'90s) that I switched parties. I went with a PC.

It went against all I had been taught up to that point. The simpleness of the one-button mouse. The intuitive nature of the Mac operating system (which Gates and company emulated in a little product called Windows to eventually take over the world). I was a heretic among my Mac addict co-workers.

But I, for once in my life, was not on the path less traveled. That path, while always a nice way to express your disdain for establishment, peer pressure, the Joneses or whatever pushes you to choose something 'different,' always tends to be a pain in the ass. Say you buy the unique, non-standard car. You end up paying more for parts and labor because few people carry that brand or model. Same with so many products in life. I was at a point where I didn't want my choices for software and compatibility on the Internet (it was burgeoning in American households at the time) to be limited to what I might find in the back of some Mac fan magazine. The local electronics and software stores sold all things PC and usually only reserved one shelf for Mac products... not unlike the shelf of guessing-game prize toys Steve Martin gave away during his stint in the carnival in the movie "The Jerk."

So I bought a PC and never looked back. My jobs eventually migrated to using PCs and the transition was smooth, especially as Windows contineud to steal (I mean imitate) more and more features from Mac OS. Hell, the Two-button mouse really has some cool uses.

But I finally went back over to the good side and bought me an iPod. Big, black 60GB, video-capable beast. I'm expecting the world to change. My wife thinks it a waste of money for a 'radio' as she puts it, when most of my spare time is already spent on the computer and I can play music on it. I keep throwing up those examples of doctors appointments and anywhere else I have to wait around as reasons I needed this made-in-China hole in the head.

No, I didn't really need it. I *wanted* it.

It was supposed to be a Father's Day present last year. But we didn't have the money. So when the taxman came this year, I asked if I could plus-up my gift from last year and the wife agreed. Now she's having second thoughts - after I unwrapped it and started downloading my music onto it. Too late, though, because they won't take engraved iPods back. Ha.

Now all I have to do is convince her how cool it is and make her want one. Then... maybe she'll lay off. If not, I'll just put the ear buds in and nod politely. He he.