Thursday, December 20, 2007

Critical Manners and Mac

I have finally purchased a new computer—an iMac—which means I can buy a digital camera and put pictures of every little thing here. I feel like a real person now, similar to when I got a ladder and when David and Lisa gave me their microwave.

I’d been putting this off for a long time, because I hadn’t recovered from the trauma of buying a PC ten years ago: the tears, the rage, the late nights, the feeling of utter helplessness, the million calls to technical support, the overwhelming desire to hurl the thing out the window and—ahhh!—see it smash on the sidewalk below.

I signed up for Netflix after I ordered my Mac. The Mac arrived three business days later (all the way from China!) and my first Netflick arrived that same day, a Harry Potter movie.

I picked up the final Harry Potter book from the library this week. The library has 500 copies of it, literally.

When I bought my PC, it seems to me it came in several boxes, including many manuals totaling hundreds of pages, and a variety of CDs, so I vowed that, to avoid getting frustrated, I would start by reading the documentation for my new Mac carefully, taking everything one step at a time.

When I opened the box, I was surprised to see that all it contained was the iMac itself, and a slim box with the keyboard in it. The keyboard box turned out also to contain the mouse, precisely two CDs (for reinstalling the OS if necessary), the power cord, a minuscule remote, and a small booklet. That was it.

The first task was to get online. I figured I would try to use the DSL installation disk I have, find out it was the wrong disk, make eight calls to AT&T for a total of two hours on the phone, have to wait for them to mail me the right thing, etc.

What actually happened was that I unplugged the Ethernet cable from the back of the PC, plugged it into the iMac, and I was online, just like that. Similar happy experiences followed, and what I had expected to require at least a week of agony was easily accomplished in minutes.

My first computer, which I had for about ten years, was a Mac SE, with 1 Mb of RAM, a 20Mb hard drive, and a nine-inch monitor. After that, I got the aforementioned PC, which I also had for about 10 years.

I might have gotten another PC this time around—it would have been cheaper and I wouldn’t have had to learn much of anything new—but on a recent visit to Ann Arbor, my mother, like a drug pusher, left her Mac in the room I was staying in, and after I used it for a while, I just wanted one.

Last week I went to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s Volunteer Night, which happens on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month. The last time I went, years ago, about six people were there. This time, it was a congenial crowd of 20 or so, folding letters to send to SFBC members and chatting about this and that. It was pleasant. I plan to go regularly.

On Friday night, I went on Critical Manners, the courteous, much smaller alternative to Critical Mass. About 14 of us tooled about town, stopping at red lights and stop signs. We rolled over to Pier 39 and back to Market St. That is also something I will plan to do every month.

When I got home, I had a great chat on the phone with David and Lisa.

On Saturday I picked up 48 rolls of toilet paper from Rainbow (Seventh Generation 500 sheets per roll, the good stuff, very economical purchased in bulk) and went back for groceries. I made lentil-potato-tomato stew and my coworker’s caramel oat bars, which are scrumptious.

I used a small electric grinder to chop the nuts, but a few pulses turned some of the nuts into powder and left others as whole as the day they were hatched, so I think I’ll try the knife method next time.

Saturday evening, I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which was absolutely excellent—my favorite Harry Potter movie to date.

On Sunday, I sat in my big chair reading much of the day, with Hammett snuggled next to me, and in the evening, I went on a bike ride to look at Christmas lights with a group of about 50 people. One woman had mounted her iPod on her bike and had speakers in her panniers to play us Christmas music at a rousing volume.

In Japantown, we stopped and spread out the treats we had brought to share and had an impromptu party. The Bike Coalition does a night ride every month, too, so if you are an SFBC member, there is no excuse at all to sit at home, even if your home has an iMac in it.

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