I came. I tried. And decided to take a pass.

Last year, I was in the market for a new laptop. I did my research and grilled people in the know to get their opinions on systems, brands, and the tiny details. Thegameiam tried his best to convince me to try a Mac. After listing out the pros and cons, I decided to give it a shot-- why not? Most of the arguments I heard against a Mac in general stemmed from the seeming lack of good gaming, but I'm not a gamer, so who cares? It could do everything that I wanted it for, so I thought, why not take this chance to see what all the fuss is about and maybe even learn something new in the process?

My iBook arrived after a few days, and at first, I loved it. It was sleek and efficient, and it was different. The excitement lasted for a few months.

But after a while, I started to get annoyed. Safari (Mac's internet browser) didn't work well with Yahoo mail features that I used all the time, so I switched to Firefox, which I already use on my PC at work. Firefox worked well for a bit, but then started crashing everytime I would visit weather.com. So I started using both Safari and Firefox, but how annoying is it to have two browsers open at the same time?

I also didn't really like using the new keystrokes. On a PC, I don't have to think when trying to switch between windows, copy and paste, or scroll. Whenever I had my Mac in front of me, I would have to stop for a few moments and consciously decide which keystrokes I wanted to use for the function I needed.

But I was determined to give the Mac a fair shot. A little after a year, that fair shot was over. I was tired of it. A few other things really bugged me, and I started just bringing home my work laptop so I wouldn't be forced to use my Mac. I got tired of doing that every night, so I decided to start looking for a new machine. The Mac experiment was over.

The silver lining in all of this is that Macs apparently retain their value. In January 2005, I bought my 12" iBook (before Apple announced that they were going to start installing Intel chips) for approximately $1000. Just 18 months later, I sold it on Craigslist for $550.

And the best part is that I bought a new laptop last week for $750. So in essence, I spent $200 on a pretty good system, and Circuit City kicked in an inkjet printer for free (after rebates of course).

Not bad. Not too damn bad at all. Thank you, Apple.

Foul!

AP just reported that Brett Myers, a starting pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies (10 games behind the first place New York Mets, btw), was arrested and charged with assaulting his wife in Boston. Now, can someone please tell me, was it really necessary for the AP to go searching for Mrs. Meyers' name AFTER they were told that the police would not reveal her identity because she's a domestic violence victim?

Procopio said he would not identify Myers' wife because she is a domestic violence victim. A player biography on Major League Baseball's Web site says Myers married Kim Wickman in September 2002 and the couple has a 3-year-old daughter.

C'mon! What value does that piece of information give this article?? None! None whatsoever. Whoever did that piece of investigative journalism should be ashamed of themselves.

Frogs

From the New York Times:
How cute?

:-D

The brain has turned on?

Headline from today's New York Times:

Bush's Realization on Iran: No Good Choice Left Except Talks

Then, in graph 2, we get this:

"...it became obvious to Mr. Bush that he could not hope to hold together a fractious coalition of nations to enforce sanctions--or consider military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites--unless he first showed a willingness to engage Iran's leadership directly over its nuclear program and exhaust every nonmilitary option."

No f***ing shit. Good morning, Sherlock. Glad you could join the real world today. Did this inspiration hit you at 3 in the morning while you were tossing and turning over the crap of a war you got us into in Iraq or did the Vice President send you a note recommending this during study hall?

But wait. If you read on, you'll find out that Cheney was "dead set against it." "It" being engagement. Why? Because we must go to war with everyone we don't like, that's why. D'uh.