| 16 jan 2002 "you could be my someone you could be my savior you know that i'll protect you from all of the obscene i wonder what you're doing imagine where you are there's oceans in betwen us but that's not very far" i was totally delirious last night.� completely mad.� mad for the imac.� i started IM'ing adam, and i was telling him how i wanted the imac, and being the apple evangelist that he is, he just fed the fire.� like, he poured jet fuel all over it.� shit.� he kept on feeding me links, shooting down all my reservations against getting it, and even photoshopped an image of my room and how it would look with an imac in it rather than my clunky 333MHz obsolete piece of shit PC. aw hell.� so i left work at 6 and drove straight over to the apple store in palo alto, ready to plunk down my $1799 for a preorder.� adam even called the store for me and told me that there was a demo imac on display.� so when i walked in, i saw it... it was beautiful, its silver plastic halo'ed lcd screen looking up at me like an affectionate pet...� i could help but touch it and playfully pat it on its head.� yes.� it's like a puppy, it's so cute! there was this kid who couldn't have been more than 12 years old with a sweatshirt, burning a cd on the imac.� he was giving me this hard sell on the imac, telling me all the specs, and when i mentioned my misgivings about transferring my PC files, he let loose a stream of technical terms that i had no idea what it meant.� somewhere in there was the word "samba," which i've heard of before.� but anyways, clearly this kid is computer literate.� and i even went as far as to incredulously ask, "do you work here?!"� he said no, but someday soon he would consider it.� smart kid.� :) so it turns out that apple isn't taking any preorders.� i talked to this effeminate salesman (who i guess was gay, but my gadar isn't really good) who had these two cool earrings, and he said that initial response has been overwhelming... like people who stopped by after closing would beg him to at least play with the monitor and show them what it could do. so i signed up on the notification list, and hopefully there will be units coming in next week. apple makes the coolest shit.� i swear.� not only did i fall in love with the imac (i had a crush on an inanimate object!), i saw these clear speakers by harman kardon called "sound sticks," as well as an hk clear SUBWOOFER.� shit.� i must get those.� i must.� it's an extra $300, but damn.� i'm basically buying pieces of art, is how i'm justifying it.� pure art.� beautiful. i am so easily seduced by good product design.� it's one of my greatest weakneses.� i literally get weak when i see something slick (usually something silver or clear)... even the white translucent gatorade (alpine frost) catches my eye.� i hope nobody ever uses this weakness of mine against me... so i went home, and i immediately tackled my PC and started preparing for getting rid of it.� i uploaded all my important files except for my pictures to my yahoo! briefcase.� and hopefully i'll borrow somebody's CD burner and archive two things... my photos, and my freshman year journal.� and then i'll be all set to welcome my imac in my open arms. so yeah.� basically i was nuts.� i was in a serious crush phase over this silly computer.� and i know i get really whimsically inspired like this, so i knew that it would change... i left at 9 to bowl with the usual crowd.� well, they're starting to become the "usual" crowd, now that i've done it 3 weeks in a row and have no intentions to stop.� too bad that mike was in vegas, so he didn't show up, but i had fun with some of his other friends anyway. and when i came back, i just took a shower and slept... ...and *poof*... my imac obssession is gone.� i mean, i still *like* the computer, and i still plan on getting it, but that ludicrous crazy love for it has vanished.� and that really bugs me.� it's like i can't trust my feelings to stay true for any amount of time.� sometimes i wonder if i'll ever be able to stay in love with a girl because it seems that i'll eventually burn out or something.� i admit, that a girl is a much greater thing than a silly computer, so maybe i'm just worrying too much, and i'm really making a comparison that is invalid. hey eric, being the PC evangelist, if you want to dissuade me from the imac, i'm all ears. ----- aside from that imac high, i also suffered one of the biggest sadnesses in a long time. you know how i love my past.� and how i savor being able to go back and experience it, to pore over it and wallow in the splendor, especially of my stanford years. well... yesterday, while cleaning out my computer's files, i realized that i had lost all of my e-mail in college.� i basically had emacs RMAIL archives that contained every e-mail i had ever received or sent, all zipped up and stored somewhere.� and as i went through the important files on my PC, i realized that the last place i stored them was on this placed called freedrive.com, where they allows you to store tens of MB for free.� but they started charging for that service, so i downloaded all of my stanford e-mail to my PC... at VIVACE.� shit.� i know that i didn't save them when i got laid off. so.� basically, all those megabytes of e-mails, all those memories... they're gone.� and the finality of it all is really haunting me. the only thing i have left is two binders of my freshman year e-mails.� so i have a tiny tiny consolation... but... so many wonderful sagas were embedded in those lost files... the climax, deterioration and aftermath with kristie... the little flirts with girls like delphine and k3... e-mails from my beloved guy's drawgroup and the corresponding girls' side... the initial contact and subsequent college bliss with k2... holy shit... you mean to tell me that i'm never going to be able to read about those things anymore?� not even one more time?� that just KILLS me. i mean, if i'm lucky, i'll look at them once a year.� but it's the comfort of knowing that they're there that makes me happy... so i know that if i ever felt like it, i could go back and read and chuckle over how silly and wonderfully simple life was back then. *sigh*.� ok.� i'm whining now.� but i'm really upset.� heartbroken. i IM'ed rahul back at vivace today asking him to check my PC at the old company.� funny thing is that he said that i left my ICQ on, and the screen was flooded with messages.� ha!� but he checked my desktop (apparently i was still logged in), and he didn't see any folders that had my stuff in it.� i must have trashed them all. can you un-delete files that have been put in the trash and emptied out?� i remember the old norton utilities could unerase files that were deleted in MS-DOS. rahul said what's the big deal, and i asked him if he kept any letters.� to my surprise, he said no.� i asked him, "aren't they important to you?" and he said yes, and that's precisely why he doesn't keep them... because he doesn't want to get caught up in it, and not be able to move on in his life.� hm.� to each his own. anyways, so now i'm bummed.� i was really high earlier, and now i'm really down.� such is life, i guess. |