Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

THIS is what happens when you bottle up that anger

It seems that it's the done thing that whenever anyone gets a Mac they write a post gushing about the moments of arrival. Their joy, the tears that well up, the gibbering about the sensual feel of the scrabble like keys. For me it's slightly different.

We tend to attribute human characteristics to anything we use on a frequent basis. Whether that 'thing' works well or fails abysmally we refer to it by a name or (not so p.c.)a gender. Take for example something that doesn't work, we imbue it with a malevolent force bent on making our lives just a little bit worse.

I still remember my brother (who interestingly enough developed schizophrenia later in life) yelling at soldering irons and hi fi components that didn't work, threatening merry hell if they didn't comply with his simply wish of building working nuclear fusion. (We all put it down to autism) At the time I would pause in whatever I was doing to listen in on the escalating scenario. A mini Bay of Pigs, if you will, peppered with floating consonants and incomplete words.
"You just s'."
The word would vanish as if the sound suddenly had just been cut.
"...... just, just stay."
The instructions he gave were always reasonable enough.

Cept it was to inanimate objects.

You were always at risk of being fooled into thinking for the briefest of moments he was talking to something that could consciously comply with his requests.

"Staaaaaaaay.... good... now... good."
There was always a period of silence in which you would then hear the barely audible sound of something small and metal hitting the work bench.
Right there the the escalation would begin. Actually escalation is too gradual. It was an accelerated incline with a g-force that would smear your eyelids across your forehead.
"OH MY G'...OH....MY..... You!....YOU!"
Then there was the sound of teeth grinding their way back to bloody gums.
"RIGHT RIIIIIGHT....Stay...."
Then there was the quiet and focussed imploring.
"Staaaaaaaaaaaayyyyaaa. STAY. Good. That's a good boy."
A sigh.
"Now stay."
(endless silence)
The sound of happy work.
"Good."
I would remain listening because it was with wearying predictibility that things would go horribly and irreconcilably wrong, largely because the task he had set himself was impossible.
And so the inevitable would happen.
The second barely audible sound of something small and metal hitting the work bench.
And then...
"OH MYYYYYY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. I.... YOU... NO!! NOOO! NO! YOU.....! (SMASH)

And so I would resume my work. Actually there are any number of entertaining stories I could regale people with about my brother, and this would seem like just the spot as there is little opportunity to bring him up in conversation without killing the very conversation you were attempting to have.

To my point. I got my MacBook on Monday and it was not with the giddy joy of a teenager at port meeting her sailor boy. It was deep seated apprehension. I had grown attached to my HP Pavillion. After three years of working closely together we had formed an almost organic bond. Nothing was ever too much of a problem for the two of us, and when we weren't working together we would catch up on Sopranos, one of the few who would join me in that past time. And so I have moved over to the MacBook. It's cute and white and smells new and has widgets and makes cute noises and can do video chat with colleagues (holy crap just give me an Ugly Betty make over. I am assured that it is a brilliant machine, and I deeply believe that with time and practice it will allow for greater productivity and creativity. But right now it is quietly trying to slash my wrists. The edges where I rest my wrist (now there's some art right there people - 'where''rest''wrist') are quite sharp. Damn thing is too white to be emo. But it just ain't comfy.

It's ok though. I've just picked up the latest season of Deadwood. Happiness is an angry man with a gun on something other than the news.

Ah, to be white and middle class.