Wednesday, September 05, 2007

It's a High Tech Life--UPDATED

When we last met, I had every intention of spending Labor Day weekend in labor--the light manual kind.

I was going to pack up all the china and glassware in my kitchen cupboards so the construction guys could come crowbar them off the walls.

But in one of those "for want of a nail, a shoe was lost" scenarios, I spent the weekend dejunking my study, packing things up for the thrift shop, moving furniture, and bringing crap down to the basement. And completely ignoring the kitchen.

See, my husband was using my old iMac for his iPod. And the iMac had been wheezing and groaning for a while. It had reached the point where it was doing the Macintosh equivalent of the Blue Screen of Death every other time he used it. So after spending yet another frustrating evening trying to get things to work, he decided to buy a new computer.

So off he went to the Apple store. And came home with the newest model iMac. With stereo speakers, a 24-inch screen, a Terabyte of memory, and an adapter so you can hitch it up to cable and watch this thing that you, Internet, are always talking about. You know, called "television."



I sent my husband away thinking we would simply swap one computer for another and get back to business. And he could help me pack dishes while listening to his updated iPod.

Foolish me. See, the thing is, a 24-inch screen begs to be watched. And not just alone, but with other people. And that meant some things needed to be added to my study. Like comfortable seating. And order. And cleanliness.

So it was out with the old, and in with the new. The trash went out. The recycling went out. The rummage-y crap went to the porch to await a drop-off day

Crap to Get Rid Of

The metric ton of crap that needs to be gone through or put into indefinite storage went to the basement.

The Basement from Hell; or, Why Poppy Didn't need to Work Out Today

And up and down, up and down, up and down I went, like a plastic bird dipping its beak in a glass of water.

So now, I have a nice new computer

The new iMac

in a tidy study

The After Picture of the Study: neat, sweet, petite

as long as you don't look too closely at the top of my desk

Another view of Crap 2 Do

and I may never go outside again. And not because I'll be sucked into the new computer (although I will.)

It's because I still have to pack up those damned dishes. Because UPDATE: the construction company wants to demo the kitchen on Thursday. But I talked them into Friday, instead.

p.s. Moving boxes and bags of crap around counts as a Weight Watchers activity. A loss of 2.2 pounds says so.

9 comments:

  1. Wow - a pretty impressive explanation (rationalization?) for why you didn't get your kitchen cleaned out.

    2 exercise points, maybe (depends on how fast you run up and down the stairs) - the weight loss probably stems more from the fact that you are avoiding your kitchen!

    How do you get the books in your LibraryThing to display so nicely? Mine is just one long column.

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  2. Congrats on the weight loss! 2.2 lbs is an encouraging start. Go, Poppy!!

    I am envious of your new iMac. I am typing this on my old iBook. I recently moved the back up PowerPC Mac from the kitchen to the basement. Maybe after I'm on the new job for a while, I'll treat myself to an upgrade. It's long past time...

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  3. I feel like that same bird, up and down stairs with crap that has to leave this house! And I'm not even getting a new kitchen out of the deal. I'll take a weight loss though. (Pretty study, by the way.)

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  4. I'd say spending thousands of dollars is a wonderful way to avoid packing the kitchen.

    Wine! 2 points!

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  5. I'm so glad that I'm not the only person who does this sort of stuff. You know, ignore the kitchen and instead deal with some completely different non-kitcheny room.

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  6. Your study is very tidy and very pretty. Congrats on the 2.2 lbs, that's great! I start tomorrow. I'm eating my fingernails in anticipation of weigh-in.

    I hate my Mac. Seriously. But I don't have a Terabyte of whatever, nor do I have a 24" screen or speakers or the ability to watch tv on the damned thing. It's pretty much a $2,000 paperweight that sucks me in with it's beauty but then discards me like yesterdays lunch a short time later. Fickle, fickle Apple, why must you be so pretty and shiny and sexy and yet be so incredibly bad at doing, well, anything.

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  7. I started with a 512K. Then a Plus. Then a Centris. Then a red iMac. Then a gray iMac. And a gray clamshell iBook followed by at least one and maybe two white iBooks and I'm on my third iPod.

    The first three were great. The iMacs and iBooks not so much ... I think their big selling point was their Internet-readiness which as far as I'm concerned, is like buying a car for the stereo system. I mean, you can get tunes into a car in many ways, and Apple? I was already doing fine connecting to the internet.

    But this iMac really is pretty awesome. If I really wanted to scramble my brain cells, I could watch TV in one window, blog in another, listen to music, IM somebody, and have cybersex. All at once!

    (You're dying to shake hands with me now, aren't you? Go on, admit it.)

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  8. I was until that last one...

    -J.

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  9. I started with a Mac SE, then got a Quadra, PowerBook, PowerMac, a graphite iMac for the theatre office, an original blue iMac for stage management & education staff, a white iBook for personal use, and a snow iMac for the theatre when the graphite one gave up the ghost.

    And I got an iPod mini a year or two ago, which suits me fine.

    I'd love to get a new MacBook for personal use. Or a new iMac like yours for the kitchen, where the PowerMac used to live and connect to cable, so I could watch cooking shows. I guess an actual tv would probably be cheaper though...

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Gentle Readers:

For the time being, I have turned off comment moderation. Please don't spam; it's not nice.

xxx, Poppy.