You Can't Have it All ~ All the Time

"For everything there is an appointed time, even a time for every affair under the heavens:

a time for birth and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to uproot what was planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal;
a time to break down and a time to build;
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to wail and a time to skip about;
a time to throw stones and a time to bring stones together;
a time to embrace and a time to keep away from embracing;
a time to seek and a time to give up as lost;
a time to keep and a time to throw away;
a time to rip apart and a time to sew together;
a time to keep quiet and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace." ~Ec 3:1-8 NWT

~~~~~~~~~

There was a odd bit of news on CNN today concerning the price of gas around the United States during this inconcievable 'shortage and crisis': the most expensive was being sold out on Hawaii (no surprise there) and the cheapest gas, by almost 25% cheaper, was being sold in Wyoming... Wyoming... hey now, call me fed-up but ain't that ol' Dick Cheney's home state? What a gosh darn co-inky-dink.

~Liriel

Strung out on eMac

Congradulations are in order, as I've become an Educational Institution without even knowing it. It's true, I found out today while computer shopping with my mother.

You see, ever since 2002, when I made "the Switch" I'd been remorselessly touting the pros of Mac OS X and eMacs over that of other... well, crap, to be utterly frank. I got hooked into this glorious world of painless computing by the $999 eMac G4/700 (keep in mind this was Oct 2002 -- I've since squeezed every dime out of it; still am in fact).

Anyways, back to here, now, today, April 2006; 3-and-a-half years later. My mother, bless her heart, is finally ready to make the leap to buying a new eMac (she had bought a used iMac G3, but I fried the modem and blew the green-rod in the monitor while upgrading the poor thing; it's now an excellent iTunes jukebox - but that's another story...).

She knows what she wants, gets her money together, we pile in the car, drive all the way down to Zombieland Mall, get to the Apple store... and notice the balding lack of eMacs. I approach the already skittish looking Manager behind the counter "Do you not carry eMacs?" I inquire.

The Manager blinks at me like I have three heads, "We only sell eMacs to Educational Institutions... the "e" stands for "educational" so yeah really we only sell them to schools."

My turn to blink; I had brought my mother all the way down here on $3.00-a-gallon gas in a V8 station-wagon, and they had no eMacs? "Look here, I bought one back in 2002 down at CompUSA and you're telling me that you, here at the Apple Store, don't have any eMacs?"

Fluster, bluster: "We have iMacs," as if it was the best thing since sliced bread!

"We can only afford an eMac though..."

"Well, there's the Mac Mini--"

"Right, and by the time we get a monitor and all that we might as well spring for an iMac."

He stared at me.

I tapped my fingers on the counter... "Look, I'm not blaming you, you know. Where's Steve Jobs when you wanna bitch him out, right? Heheh, thanks anyways." And we left.

I was so pissed -- I mean they really should put in plain sight the sign that reads You Must Be This Rich To Get Into Computer Heaven.

I guess what really gets me is that I was caught by surprise -- it never occured to me that Apple would want to phase out the eMac, or limit it's release to institutions only -- or heaven forbid, succumb to the philosophy of planned obsolescence... but then maybe that's the only way to keep the share holders happy and to hell with what the customer wants.

Me though, I feel lucky and blessed to have experienced the eMac G4 -- and now I'll be offering online degrees and certificate programs as soon as I come up with a name for my Educational Institution. Any ideas?

~Liriel

My Secret Life

I have several actually, these double-, triple-lives where some people know me as one thing and others know me as something completely different -- none of which are who I really am though, so I get no fun out of it (though someone else might, should they stumble across me in the middle of one of these other lives -- as happened today while out computer shopping with my mother; a startling reminder that I had left this life on the stove).

At times I'd rather just integrate all these lives and be done with it -- if only it could happen that fast... nah, it'll take years for me to figure out how to get them to work happily together. Each are all so very demanding; like needy children. Meanwhile, I occasionally... vanish, from one sphere or another.

This internet life has been the longest running of my current 'lives'; providing a wide range of intellectual experiences in an energy efficient manner (mmm... brain-food *drools*) -- and indeed it is mostly likely to be fully integrated since it's led to Conventions that have sustained and refreshed an otherwise drab and inactive existence.

The side effects of Cons though, are proving difficult to recover from -- the public high and subsequent crash in obscurity... the hardness of which this last time drove me off and away from any semblance of the net and back to an old 'grounding' hobby reclaimed from younger years of doubt... oddly enough I only found new doubts.

And so now, as I cautiously clamber from my hole, weighed down with debt issues beyond my ken, and wondering where I can find creative juices to fuel the ride to the end of the story -- I can't help but contemplate the idea of bolting.

Ah, but no... that would defeat the purpose. And really, I'm meant to do/be this here/now.

To live just above poverty, work in relative obscurity, and offer grueling entertainment to those what "like to watch" ^_~

~Liriel