A few Denver thoughts

I find myself in Denver, a city to which I have never ventured before. Seems nice enough and the weather is good, I gather, for October in Colorado.

Some preliminary thoughts:

1) People smoke here more than they do in L.A. Seems ill-advised given the thin air. They'll need their lungs.

2) The Mint should have a nicer gift shop, especially since they didn't have any space left on their tour today. They make a profit on those state quarters. Cycle it back such that the gift shop doesn't seem like a trailer time forgot. There are just the two Mints, really. They could try harder. Does anyone know if they try harder in Philadelphia mint-wise?

3) If I wanted Rockies World Series gear, my timing could not be better. It's all 50% off. Now that I know the Rockies actively recruit born-again Christian players, I don't so much want Rockies gear.

4) I'm in the hotel the BoSox stayed in last night. To hear tell, we're lucky to get rooms, as the celebrated rather, um, vigorously and didn't leave when they were supposed to.

5) I also hear tell that the Packers are staying here tonight. For fantasy football reasons, I'm hoping they have no real reason to celebrate. Brett Favre especially. Plus he doesn't pronounce his name right. Ok, he does, given that he's from the South, where Ponce De Leon is pronounced "Ponse Dee Leeeon" and Cairo, GA is pronounced "Kay-roh." Still.

6) The Rockies (mountains, this time) are really pretty.

7) Ok, I'm off to dinner with my boss. I'm going to try not to say anything stupid.

Costing more

So Honey mentioned to me yesterday that our faithful laptop was conking out a few times a day. I named the laptop "pretty" when I got it. Shall we take a brief tour of my computers? Sure. Why not? It's my blog after all.


My first computer was a PC. Not a real IBM one, but an Epson with a Hercules paperwhite monitor. It served me fairly well. I upgraded it at some point and it functioned like DOS based PCs did. Well. Then Windows cam along and I lost faith.

In graduate school, I had a class that introduced me to the wonders of that magical place called Cupertino. Hypercard prefigured and guessed at the beginnings of the web. I used the internet then--e-mail and netnews--but hadn't yet seen a graphical interface. Hypercard changed that. I promptly got myself a Mac. A laptop.



Color and everything! It weighed a ton, but I was delighted to have a system that worked.

Taking a page from my Honey... to keep you going. There are baby animals here!



Anyway, we entered into the bright phase when Apple did. An original bondi iMac was complemented by the famous (from Sex and the City) iBook. We called the iBook "clam."





Swivelhead came next. I sent him packing this summer when his disc drive went out. That and he wouldn't play Sims2.



Need another baby animal picture? Honey uses them to help deal with tough stuff. I'm compensating for boring stuff. Not the same thing, really.



Pretty and Swivelhead lived together. Pretty has served us well. Even when Biscuit broke her powercord input, she bravely went to the Apple store and got fixed.



She welcomed Flathead when he came home this summer to replace Swivelhead. She chirped merrily along, all the while communicating with the spaceship (our Airport wireless router).





When Honey told me about Pretty's problems, I was worried. Pretty was nearing the end of her life, it seemed. Was it her screen? Was it her motherboard? Either way, she isn't worth fixing. She's a G4 Mac in an Intel CoreDuo world.

Honey and I discussed, looked online, and talked some about it. She's very careful, my Honey. I am a rushing-in kind of fool. Here's one thing we agreed on, though. Apple needed to stop introducing white computers and then making the non-white ones cost more. Flathead was purchased JUST before the new silver and black iMacs came out. Flathead costs $200 less than his silver and black brethern do now. $200. Remember that number.

The new MacBooks are available in white and black.



Here's the thing, though... The white ones are cheaper.

$200 cheaper.

Oh, sure the black one gets you a better hard drive. But it's so little better that it's not worth talking about.

At one point, Honey said exactly what I was feeling, "I don't want to spend $1000 on something that LOOKS exactly like what we already have." Look again, gentle reader. See the resemblance? The current MacBook and Pretty are so closely related in looks that they shouldn't be allowed to marry. They'd produce warped little white plastic babies. What? Oh, ok, fine. More baby animals...



The dolphin isn't white or deformed or anything. Happy?

Apple knows us. We both REALLY wanted the black one. It was matte black, it was smaller than Pretty. It was faster than Pretty or Flathead. I have a big presentation next week for a major nonprofit in a faraway city. Ok, it's Denver, so it's not that far away, but it is a major nonprofit. Dating back to the 19th century major.

Both of our iPods are black. It costs more. We really liked it better. It had a bigger hard drive. It costs more. $200 more. Apple knows us. $300 more? We'd have a white one. $200, we stand in the Apple Store and discuss.

It was hard to justify. We did it, though. We made it work in our brains and now own "Jelly."



Call us shallow. Go ahead. Here's the thing about Apple. They're gotten 100% on the Human Rights Campaign survey of good places for GLBT folks to work for six years. $200. 6 years of good GLBT relations. Black. $200. White.

They know us.

Jelly is a fine looking machine.

And thus endeth the story. Can I get an amen?



Thanks.

Leaning

So I was in my vehicle yesterday waiting to turn left. I glanced over at the cars turning right onto the street I was on. It's a normal Valley street. Big intersections, plenty of room. There are advantages to living in the quintessential post-War environment. 1950s car were big and so our streets are wide.



This 1953 Studebaker, for example, was 20 feet long. And it's a coupe. My FJ, just for comparison, is about 15 feet long. A Prius is about 14 feet. Big cars of the 50s meant big streets. Frank Lloyd Wright said we needed it, you know.

Anyway, I was watching these folks turn right and I noticed they were all leaning over as the turned. How odd, I thought. Then I turned left and realized that I, too, had leaned. Not as much as the people I was watching, but I still leaned.



Now, while I'm sure we all like to keep our equilibrium, it got me to thinking...how important is it to stay upright at all times? It's not like you're going to fall over in the car. And, really, if you are going to fall over in the car, you have a lot more to worry about the simple uprightness.

So, here's the question--are you a car leaner? If so, why? Be honest and share out in comments.