the lamp and i are starting to get along. and that's good news.

i had a few hours today to do pretty much whatever i wanted to with the iMac, and that consisted mostly of trying to make word docs actually readable on the screen, positioning the cinemascope screen all the way from way up in the air to resting its chin on the desktop, and the incredible discovery of what the f9 key actually does. i'm no convert yet, however, it works enough like windows that i can work it, and differently enough that there's keyboard shaped bruises all over my forehead.

i know the windows versions of most of the software i'm using pretty well, so there's a level of comfort there. that said, iTunes and i are at war...

this post interrupted because i just saw two pigeons having sex on the roof top out the window. it took about three seconds, and now they're looking in the gutter for a cigarette to share. that is all.

...and i'm really tired of icons leaping up and down for my attention in the dock. just give me a little envelope on the lower right when i have mail, the “pick me! pick me!” thing escapes my attention every time, and it just seems a little desperate, you know? jeebus, imail, quit trying so hard, it doesn't look good on you.

i love the force quit option, it's awesome, any kernal that can do that earns my immediate respect. i hate any window animation, whether in windows or osx, and osx's is dramatic, like a giant hoover that sucks up the windows in a vortex of distortion every time you use the hide function. i love the speed of the machine, it's tidy-quick. i hate almost black text on a washed out grey background.

in a lot of ways, it's a neat machine, i can see how, were you born and raised on one of these, it'd have a big place in your heart. after my first day i came up with an analogy for my experience so far, it's a tad crude but i ran it by someone first and they recommended i run with it. so i'll run with it. if you're squeamish, or actually catholic and you don't just tell your mom that, skip ahead to the little red dot below.

years ago, a lot of years ago, i think it was the summer between junior and senior high school, my very best friend of the time beat most of the crowd, myself included. yup, a day after it happened he spilled the beans, he was almost sheepish, but he finally admitted he'd had sex for the very first time.

after he'd answered all my obligatory who-when-where questions, well, that's when the next most important one came. “what was it like?” i asked.

he paused half a second, it was a fresh thought, and for it he brewed an analogy on the spot. he said, i'm so not kidding here, “it was like jerking off with your left hand.”

i'll extend that analogy to the mcintosh. maybe it gets glorious after a little practice, you know, once the awkwardness is over and i kinda figure out what i'm doing. i hope so. though i'm pretty sure i'll always be a microsoft person at home, i'd like to be able to chat up, even flirt outrageously with a mac never worrying what it might lead too. hell, if i conquer the mac, i might even go crazy, find someone cute and try this sex thing everyone's been talking about lately. you never know.

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on other fronts, after years of faithful service i've ditched the zone alarm software firewall. the last update corrupted something, and if you've ever dealt with a corrupted version of za you'll know there's no fixing it forever - short of a format, that is. i'm all sygate now, and if you can spare the half hour it takes to find the free version on their site, i recommend getting it too. it's better than za, even a fully functioning copy, for a bunch of reasons, though i'd recommend disabling its systray icon as the flashing x is plain stupid and distracting. get sygate, disable the icon, love it like oxygen, 'cause like oxygen, it's there all the time and you just don't have to think about it all that much.