Summer of Geek Love

Brought to you by the nice people at Apple.

I fell in love last Friday. My heart’s delight is a new iBook G4 laptop computer. I’ll call him Bookie until we know one another better and I can think up a cleverer pet name. I do know Bookie is a boy, though, because he already got lost on the way to the Internet and refused to ask directions.

Bookie replaces my ex-laptop, Sony, a PC that has grown slow and cranky with age. It takes Sony forever to wake up. He doesn’t like to play my music, especially when he’s trying to do something else. He balks at chatting with my friends, refuses to speak to my Treo, and sends me packing if I spend too much time surfing the web. Don’t ask him to go outside; he’s tethered to his power cord. And don’t ask him to look at too many photos of CNE; he’ll just yawn and go to sleep. Despite our long relationship, I can never find where he stores important information. Also, just between you and me, I think he may have a virus he hasn’t told me about. Sony is, in other words, an old fuddy-duddy.

I met Bookie through my Macintosh-loving friends, always the best bet for a successful blind date. I was hesitant to give him a shot because I’d been with Sony for so long and feared change, but everyone assured me we’d get along great. I looked at his picture, read his profile on the web, and thought long and hard before picking him up.

But boy, am I glad I did! Bookie has none of Sony’s foibles. Bookie wakes up at the touch of a button, and he LOVES music. He spent all weekend gobbling up and playing back every CD I own, helpfully sorting the songs by artist, album, and genre. He also shows me movies, something Sony is too old-fashioned to do, and has room in his heart for all my hundreds of pictures. He even offered to turn them into a slide show.

Bookie loves chatting with my friends and thoughtfully tells me, in a gentle voice, when one of them logs on or off. He’s macho enough to cut the cord and run on his battery if I want to play outside for a while. He also loves my Treo; the two of them spent some quality time this weekend bonding over data exchanges, and Bookie even loaned Treo a few music files. Isn’t that sweet?

Also, I hate to bring this up, but . . . well, to put it bluntly, size matters. Bookie boasts a bigger display than Sony, and he’s not carrying any extra weight.

Which is not to say that our relationship has been all wine and roses. It hasn’t. As I mentioned before, Bookie could not find his way to the Internet when I first got him home, and it took a few hours on the phone with various tech support services, as well as a new Ethernet cable, to get him back on track. And now that we’re online, he’s being sly about where he stores our bookmarks. Do you suppose he’s just doing that to get me back for confusing him with that funky DSL modem?

Bookie has also refused to shake hands with Lex, my printer, although I hope that if I find the right installation disk to feed him, that will change. The way to a laptop’s heart is through its Superdrive, right?

Ours is an interformat relationship — Bookie is Mac, I grew up PC — but I’m already well on my way to converting. Not to be platformist about it, but there are certain things Macs just do better. They have a better immune system, for one thing; Bookie is unlikely to come down with most of the viruses Sony has to watch out for. Macs also shine in the areas of graphics and multimedia. Never mind that I don’t really need to create my own symphonies and movies at home; the point is that I could if I wanted to. I can find what I need quickly, and Bookie will help me if I ask. Plus, there’s an Apple store practically next door (at the Darth Mall), so if Bookie ever does fall ill, I can pack him across the highway to the Genius Bar for treatment.

Right now, my main complaint about Bookie is his lack of fashion sense. He insists on wearing white, which shows every hair my cats shed in his vicinity. Is it tacky to use a white laptop before Labor Day? Ah, who cares? In two weeks, the question will be moot. In the meantime, let the Summer of Geek Love continue!

Photos today? YES! Scroll down to see Bookie relaxing in our new home office, plus a bonus pic from Chef Jeff.

Today around the world: August 22 is hard to spend away from my new toy.