Correct me if I’m wrong but did CNN have Wolf Blitzer discussing the life and times of Anna Nicole Smith today? Somehow I don’t feel that is what Wolf imagined his career would amount to. Sure, it is a news event when a celebrity dies but I’m not sure that it ranks as breaking news requiring your top anchor to drop everything to cover every detail. It just seems so bizarre that the biggest news story of the day was the death of a former Playboy Playmate. If you want to know what our priorities are as a country, there you are.
(Oh, and I found out that Newsweek had a big article last week on kids who are idolizing Paris Hilton and her ilk. The only thing of note from the entire article is the term used to describe the young girls who dress like their skanky idols. They are called “Prostitots”. Man, I feel dirty just writing the word.)
I’m going through a bit of a transition right now as I finally accomplished one of those things that has been on my list of things to do for months and bought a new laptop. Of course, I’m not using that to write on right now as this change is going to take a bit of time as I’ll explain. It’s a very strange story.
I’ve been wanting to get a new laptop for months as Julie the laptop, my faithful companion for the past five and a half years, is really beginning to show her age and I don’t know how long her lifespan is. And since I knew that Microsoft was going to release Vista I figured I might as well wait until it was out so I can get a top of the line system with everything pre-installed. Which I did, getting this massive laptop with a 17 inch screen that is portable in the sense that you can move it from room to room but probably shouldn’t take it outside. Seriously, when I fire this machine up the lights dim. As I got it started and configured it asked for the machine’s name and I, after much consternation, typed in “Natalie”. Thus, naming my new machine after Natalie Portman. And the moment I did it I felt like I was cheating on Julie. And even as self-aware as I am I can’t quite make sense of this emotion.
First off, I’m not sure if I’m upset at myself for cheating on Julie Delpy with Natalie Portman. Mainly, this just means that my screen backdrop now features a moderately known actress as opposed to a nearly completely unknown one. But I still feel bad even though I’ve never come close to meeting either of them. It’s like I’m letting someone down who I’ve never met before because I’m no longer dedicating a computer to them. So even I think this is a bit nonsensical.
Which means that I am really saddened by the fact that I won’t be using this particular machine any more. There is at least a reason for that. I truly have used this machine day in and day out for five and a half years. It earned my MBA with me, spending more late nights at the Doermer Center than half of my class and running more regressions than any machine this side of a supercomputer should have to attempt. It’s made more than a few trips with me around the country and has always worked, no matter what I’ve done with it. The biggest thing is that every word that I’ve written over the past few years has been typed on Julie. 99.9% of the blog has been written by me sitting down and looking at this screen and writing whatever comes to mind.
I know it’s odd to feel emotion to a bunch of silicon but given all that we’ve been through I really feel like I owe a lot to this machine. That’s why Julie isn’t going to be retired just yet. Sure, I’ll start transferring more and more of my work to Natalie, especially once I get her configured and running Office and install the high speed internet. But I still have a few things in store for this old girl. This is still going to be my main writing machine, especially for my big projects. I am just too used to the keyboard to switch to anything else. Plus, I can actually use it as a laptop again as opposed to just leaving it on my desk every day. Even more, I think I’m going to turn it into a really big MP3 player and use the drive space to store most of my CD collection. Admittedly, this will mean that I will have more active computers than I have desk space but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
So if things look a little screwy over the next couple of weeks or I seem a little ill at ease know its because I’m making a pretty major life change. True, it’s involving computers but most of you know how much time I spend at a computer so, yeah, this is big. Also, for those of you wondering why I keep on talking about Julie Delpy and don’t know who in the world I am referring to I ask that you go to Best Buy and pick up Before Sunset. You can get the DVD for five bucks. Watch it and you’ll understand my attachment.
Speaking of that, next Wednesday is the big day that I always dread. Which means I’ll have to relive my tradition of watching Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. And then listen to Morrissey discs in the dark.
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