Monday 23 January 2012

Gasp


I look for you. Not in a search light kind of way. More in a Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan kind of way. The way that you know only happens in movies. That moment when she's searching a bookshelf and extracts a book to see him on the other side.

It's lame. It's even nuts because you aren't even in the same world as me. That doesn't seem to stop me from looking in to the crowd in an eatery or looking at the opposing escalator for your shoes and your knees and then.. oh no, that's someone else.

Sometimes, I sit on a seat and wait for you to pass by. You are walking another street in another place in another town, somewhere. You may even walk passed me and I don't see you because I'm staring in to the faceless crowd and looking for you in another time. A time when you would have smiled right up to your crows feet to see me.

That's the thing though. Even if it was a scene of only you, I won't ever see you again. You don't exist. Too much has passed. Too much is broken. It is so unfixable that for you to ever live again would involve time travel and amnesia and Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and fiction.

I think I'll keep looking for you. I hope to never be disappointed and actually see you. That would so ruin the feeling of the quick gasp before it's evident that it's not you.

Saturday 21 January 2012

Choose a Choice


Take one table and call me in the morning

People keep asking me for advice on choosing between a tablet and a netbook and then which of the array of choices will suit them. It's an interesting question but one that has only a single answer. Uno problem, uno solution.

I have a MacBook Air. I have an original gangster iPad. I have a MacBook Pro. I have an iPhone 4. I have an iPhone 4S. I have every accessory. My first computer was an Apple Mac. My Dad brought home an Apple IIC. When it comes to the PC camp, I love myself a good Tecra. Toshiba makes the best hardware for running Windows. The Tecras are the membes of the Toshiba family that sip French Champagne at family dinners and watch amusedly at the Dells and Compaqs that can't hold their cheap beer and local house red. When it comes to eBook readers, I'm a Kindle girl. Seriously, choose a eBook reader based on what you're willing to drop on your head when you are reading in bed and doze off. The Kindle was gentle tap your skull while and iPad will brutalise it with a jack hammer.

So when I'm asked what tablet someone should buy and if they should wait for the latest release of iWhatever, I die a little bit.

Just choose. It won't be the last choice you make.

I spend ours with my iPad. It's not the latest. It's not the greatest. There are droids and Sam-hungs and lots of other choices. There are netbooks that can be like a tablet with a real life keyboard with slightly more peripherals. There are small full-sized laptops with minimum-expansion but more use. Each step takes you closer to… to what. Ask yourselves that question as you say "if I only spend this much more, I'll get…" because that will stop you.

My recommendation is buy whatever is good at the time. Use it. Don't just buy it if you don't really want it. Use it. Get your money's worth. Accept new stuff will be released within a blink of an eye. Whatever you buy will one day be retro.

Accept that and you'll forget the overload of choice and simply enjoy your next purchase.

Scuze me