Naughty thoughts about ‘first date’ with a G4 Cube

This iBrotha article was originally published at MacAddict.com by Rodney O. Lain. In honor of Rodney’s death, a good friend and contributor, we are reposting here with the permission of MacAddict. We would like to thank them for their generosity in allowing us to remember Rodney by keeping this archive of his work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When cultural life is dominated by people with similar backgrounds and outlook and similarly trained sensibilities — when there is indeed a cultural establishment — the limits of the range of taste tend to become rigid.

— Ernest van den Haag,
The Jewish Mystique, quoted in Richard Kostelanetz’s The End of Intelligent Writing: Literary Politics in America

(MALIBU, CA… 7/30/00) — Yeah, that’s right. I admit it; I’m an addict…and if I get the chance, I’ll do it again.

I’m talking about my trip to Mac Mall’s flagship store yesterday, where I blatantly molested an Apple Cinema Display without getting kicked out of the store.

The Wife and I are spending our vacation traipsing from San Diego to Malibu (what are the poor people doing this summer?). Even though the missus confined me to PowerBook rehab for the duration, the second thing I did was look for the latest Mac haunts (first thing was to tell The Wife that I needed to, ahem, “go to the book store”). While in San Diego day before yesterday, I visited Fry’s Electronics in Encinitas/Carlsbad. Great place…if you want to buy a Lime iMac DV.

I didn’t. That thing was so “last week.”

Lucky for me a California cousin (hey, Elan!) told me about Creative Computers, home of Mac Mall and PC Mall, to which I bee-lined after a day of trying to look nonchalant on Hollywood’s Rodeo Drive.

Creative Computer’s Santa Monica location — down the street from our Marina Del Rey hotel — wasn’t my dreamland version of what an Apple store should look like, but I still took off my shoes upon entering. After all, I was on holy ground.

I got a chance to see the Indigo iMac (drool, drool…) as well as the optical mouse (note to Apple: where the #%*!@ is the power button on the keyboard? Steve, we didn’t like the omission of the reset button on the original iMac; so extrapolate! Stop being so minimalist. It’s not cool).

BTW, “Snow,” isn’t as ugly as I thought it’d be. But it was still ugly. Of course, it would have been better if it were black — remember all of those rumors about the “eight-ball” iMac? Hello?

Then, I saw her — the Cinema Display, in all her 22-inch glory. Oh, no, that’s not a Harmon/Kardon “Soundstick” in my pocket; I’m just happy to see you…

I groped and squeezed her sides. The lady who happened to be sitting in front of the monitor while I carried on blanched at my shameless exhibitionism. But I didn’t care. After all, we were in California; stranger things are seen regularly.

I had a long conversation with a man and wife who were also “copping a feel” off the Macs on display. I began talking to the husband and discovered a man with pent-up passions burning hotter than mine ever were. His wife busied herself with the Indigo beauty while the two of us double-drooled over the Apple display. I could belabor the metaphor and drop several double entendres to describe the next few minutes, but this is a family web site.

To make a long story short, I had to have one. I’d planned to forestall purchasing a new computer until after the next Macworld in San Francisco. But can you blame a guy for being impetuous? Love only comes around once; pure lust comes around even more infrequently, and baby, this was lust I wasn’t about to pass up.

So, here I am, watching a Malibu sunset, surfing the AppleStore, ordering a Display, but not a Cinema display, dammit. Talk about having to whore myself out; I’d really be turning tricks to get $3999. I settled for “mini Me,” the 15-inch Studio Display and a G4 Cube — 500 Mhz, 128 MB RAM, 30 Gigs and an AirPort card, please!

Now, I can have it in the privacy of my own home, instead of forcing myself upon unsuspecting Apple computers and monitors. Nevertheless, this most definitely will be my last Mac purchase in a while. After all, Apple can’t top this product, can they? Can they?

Curse that empty slot in the product matrix!

I’m sure many Mac users can relate to what I’ve gone through. Anyone who doesn’t is a heathen who doesn’t love the Lord — not to mention Southern Conference football.

‘Nuff said.

P. S. BTW, never go to Tijuana; the place is one big stink hole. It only sounds sexy.