Farewell, Dear Friends

Oh, the long line of Macintosh computers that have graced my desktop these many years. What would life have been without you? A bitter, spiteful, and angry computing experience it would have been, no doubt. To think of the multitude of Windows PC's I would have suffered through had it not been for you few, proud Macintoshes -- it makes me disheartened to even think of it.



Who could forget you, dear Macintosh IIsi? You were the first Mac in the house -- a secondhand computer handed down to me from my brother. And what a computer you were. 20 MHz of feisty pep, 40 MB of (admittedly cramped) hard drive space, and the clickety-clack goodness that was your floppy disk drive. You were running System 7 at the time, if I recall correctly. You were a classic, even at that time. Oh, the many 2-D shareware games we used to run. Remember that old LaserWriter we used for our elementary school papers? That thing was a beast. And that 32x CD-ROM drive we hooked up to you? Truly, you were ahead of your time (for an outdated classic, that is).

We had a good run, IIsi -- that is, until the brain surgery. Yes, that daughterboard accelerator did give you a processing boost; and yes, the 40 MHz of speed did give you a chance to shine for a little bit longer. But let's face it, the upgrade made you a bit, how shall we say, off-kilter. You became unstable, unreliable. Saving my documents early and often helped a bit, but eventually I had to come to the sad realization that I needed to move on. So it was with a heavy heart that I boxed you up, ever so gently, to send you off into a quiet, peaceful retirement.



And then bounding onto the scene you came, PowerMac G3. Fresh from the factory, you came with 266 MHz of raw PowerPC computing power, 32 MB of RAM, and 6 GB (with a G!) of glorious hard drive space. You were a classy machine, G3. You were a proud and stately Mac, in a time when it was rather unpopular to be one. You were tall and beige (some would say "platinum") during a time when other Macs were taking on multi-color, translucent, gum-drop-candy cases. And you brought with you a slew of new facets to my computing experience, not least of which was your brand new operating system, Mac OS 8 (I recall being a bit irked by the fact that they broke tradition by not calling it "System 8." Oh well).

You played a key role in getting me through those high school years, what with all the hours of instant messaging, the eye-numbing games of Starcraft, and the vast libraries of CD-ROM-based encyclopedias (did Wikipedia even exist back then?). Games like Unreal were a bit of a struggle for you, even with your upgraded video card. But fortunately I was never really good at shooter games, anyway. Your built-in Zip drive was next to useless (I didn't want to buy Zip disks), but your floppy and CD-ROM drives were golden. You inherited your older sibling's monstrous LaserWriter, which served you well until it up and died on us.

All in all, you were a terrific machine. I didn't want to get rid of you. I really didn't. But the college years were coming upon us, and I needed something more portable, what with all the constant commuting to and from school. You still had your place at home, faithfully standing watch at my desk at home. But regrettably, once your younger sibling came along, you began to see less and less use.

That's where you come in, Titanium Powerbook. Ah, Titanium Powerbook. You're already a classic (but not in the old, obsolete, Macintosh-IIsi sort of way). How Cupertino managed to cram so much goodness into that titanium shell I don't want to know. That 400 MHz G4 processor of yours is like magic, and running OS X, it certainly makes my brother's old Powerbook G3 look like a hunk of junk. Nearly six years on, you still run like a champ. Sure, you don't have the latest specs and bells and whistles, but we hot-rodded you plenty to keep you in the game.

First came the OS -- from the original OS X to Panther (incidentally, the very first time I've ever shelled out money for an OS without a computer attached to it). Then came the hard drives. Your first transplant was that used drive my brother got from who-knows-where. 60 GB was certainly luxurious compared to your original 10, but the subsequent disk failure, data loss, and finals-week computing drama probably wasn't worth it. So we buckled down, bit the bullet, and got you a whopping 100 GB of factory-fresh storage space. You seemed to enjoy that, what with all your crazy music. A couple sticks of RAM brought your memory up to 512 MB, up from the meager 128 Apple sent you out with. And best of all, we were able to scavenge out an AirPort wireless card for you, since it wasn't included out of the factory. It took a bit of hacking -- that is, physically hacking apart an AirPort wireless base station to get at the oh-so-delicious wireless card within. That was fun.

The point is, we tried to get as many miles out of you as we could. And you certainly met the challenge, and then some. I was even contemplated getting you a new keyboard, once your ctrl-key popped off. But a little Superglue solved that problem, post-haste.

But then came the iPod. Without Firewire. Why did Apple decide to ship out iPods without Firewire capability? USB is fine and dandy, unless you're stuck with USB 1.0, like we were. The word "molasses" comes to mind. And then came the digital camera. And RAW files. And no Firewire SD card readers on the market. Your spirit was willing, TiBook, but your USB port was weak. And I mean weak. That USB 2.0 PC card helped, whenever it wasn't crashing the system and freezing up everything. Same goes for that other USB 2.0 card. If only we lived in a Firewire world, I'd probably keep you as my primary computer until the day you up and died. But alas, we don't live in such a utopia.

Of all the computers I've had to say goodbye to, this will be the hardest, dearest TiBook. But this isn't really goodbye. No, not at all.

You see, your little brother is already here. And he's going to take care of you. We already have a little CD burned that'll take you where no Mac of mine has gone before. That is, if we don't break you during the installation.

So you see, it's not the end of the road, dear friend. Not nearly. Who knows, if we get this right, we might even be able to breathe new life into your older siblings as well. Here's to hoping. See you when you wake up.

Restroom Reading

You know, I'm usually not a fan of reading in the restroom. I can't even fathom reading in my own bathroom (which is different from a restroom. It peeves me when people get the terms mixed up, even though I get them mixed up all the time). Books and toilets just aren't a mix I want to be involved in. But I understand if people enjoy reading whilst doing their restroom-ly duties. It's convenient. It's multitasking. Whatever. I don't want to borrow their books, though.

So the other day, I walked into the restroom at our office, which we share with another company on the same property. Into the stall I go, and what's this? Twas a magazine, tucked in just above the toilet-paper dispenser. And in the back of my mind, I wondered what sort of publications people around here are into. Being a typical men's restroom, I expected the usual: Cars, sports. I don't know -- fishing? So I turned my head a bit at the sight of that magazine, trying to get a better look at the title. What do people read in the leisurely moments in the restroom stall? What counts as light reading these days around the workplace? What calms them, intrigues them, tickles their fancy? Well apparently, it is this:

Industrial Heating Magazine

Industrial. Heating. Huh. To each his own, I suppose. Not my cup of tea, though. Which is a good thing, since I wouldn't have picked it up anyway. Because that's just gross.