3 January 2001
Last year: "Well, if you start squealing in binary, I'll know to request that you be transferred to another team!"
I was working along yesterday, minding my own business, when I got an Instant Message from Braz. He wanted me to know that Apple - in anticipation of various unveilings at MacWorld San Francisco next week - had dropped the price on their PowerBooks until the high-end PowerBook was actually cheaper than the iBook I'd been planning on.
Not quite believing him, I pulled up Apple's WebStore and built my iBook, writing down every statistic and add-on, and the price. Then I went and built the PowerBook, doing the same thing. In the end, it came down to exactly four differences:
Everything else - RAM, hard drive, DVD-ROM, accessories - was exactly the same. (Though at 128M of RAM, the iBook was maxxed out, while the PowerBook can be upgraded to 512M.) The only thing against the PowerBook at this point was that, with MacWorld SF coming up next week, a newer, shinier computer will be on the market before I even get mine. But then, the newer, shinier computer is likely to still have a few bugs in it. Besides, if I put that much importance on always having the newest and shiniest, I'd not only be a fool, but broke. As Braz said, it's really a no-brainer: A nicer computer for less money.
But I'd been in that iBook rut for a while. I told both Braz and Matt: If either computer was available with the tangerine case, that would make my mind up for me right there. I don't even really know why, but I really want a tangerine computer. (Well, without giving up performance, so buying a used tangerine iBook is out of the question.) But still, it took me a little while to actually come around.
Matt sealed my fate when he pointed out that I'd actually be saving another $90 if I bought the PowerBook, because I wouldn't have to buy a Zip drive - he already has a Zip drive that's meant to fit in a PowerBook slot. It wouldn't have worked with an iBook, but we could swap it back and forth between two PowerBooks with ease.
So last night, before dinner, I ordered a PowerBook. I expect I'll be compulsively checking Apple's website until it ships, and then I'll spend a few days compulsively checking FedEx's website. I paid the extra $10 (hey, $10 on top of almost $2400 is a drop in the bucket!) for 3-day shipping. So there's a bare chance I'll have it by Friday; it's more likely that I'll get it Monday.
It's all Braz's fault.
Word of the Day:
sui generis - constituting a class alone; unique; peculiar
Currently Reading:
- nothing
Current Projects:
- recovering from the holidays
- watching my order status on my Powerbook ("Being Reviewed")