I had a weird dream last night that I finally decided to take advantage of the health care coverage I started shelling $162/mo out for last month. When I went in for my appointment, I chatted with the woman at the front desk for a while, then she gave me a form to fill out. I started filling out the form and realized it was a job application. All the people manning the front desk were busy chatting up other applicants, so I just kept filling it out, thinking maybe I'd end up getting a job with paid health care benefits, then I could make a medical appointment later. This guy comes over and asks me if I want to help test out the new ping pong table - I can finish filling out my form there. I go over and sure enough, 2 people are playing ping pong on one side of the table and they have 3 chairs set up on the other side and one chair is free. I sit down to finish the form and this facilities-type guy asks me if I want a Pod workstation? The guy who invited me to the ping pong table answers '"no, she wants a kneeling workstation like everyone else." I'm thinking wait a minute, what's a Pod workstation? Or a kneeling workstation? Do these guys know I haven't even finished filling out the form yet? I try to go back to the form for the third time and I'm still at the question "Have you been distracted much lately?" At this point we discover there's a hole in the carpet under the table and decide to tear it up to see what's underneath. There are a few other layers of crappy carpets, then what looks like it could be a nice wood floor.

Then a whole bunch of other crazy sh!t happens. But to finally answer the question, YES! I HAVE BEEN A LITTLE DISTRACTED LATELY!!!

Before I get distracted again, let me respond to (e:Jim)'s [inlink]twisted,288[/inlink] comment. Yeah, I did add more memory. Like so many things in life, if I had it all to do again, I would do things differently. Not that I'm unhappy with the ways things turned out so far, but I spent a bunch of time researching the best deal, which probably would have been to use the Macworld value code (MWSF) at Eunitek to get the $1649 promotional price. But when I went to do that, the price came up as only $1,614.05! Wow! But when I actually added the 20" Core Duo to my cart, the price stayed $1,614.05, but the item in my cart was the G5. I called them up and walked them through recreating it, and they told me to call on Monday to place my order. I said the point is, there may be a lot of unhappy customers ordering an iMac Duo but getting a G5, or being charged the wrong amount, or both. He had no answer for that.

Between that and a number of other near-misses, fantastic treatment at the Apple store where they let me try out the wireless mouse even though there's no way to keep one out for demo purposes and have it secured, free shipping from Apple.com and the $100 rebate for the printer ($50 more than any where else), I ultimately decided I would gladly give Steve Jobs my last cent. Which ironically is pretty much [inlink]twisted,288[/inlink] what happened. Ha! Post-Macworld euphoria might have had something to do with it too.

I had them put in a 1G SODIMM in place of the standard 512MB for an extra $100. Which is crazy I know because I could get the 1G for $100 and end up with 1.5G (my ex gave me the same advice). That is definitely one of the things I would do differently. If I had, my iMac almost certainly would have shipped a day sooner, and I would have gotten the full rebate (I'll still get $50 from Canon), which would have paid for the memory. D'oh! Best laid plans...

I also did not upgrade to the wireless keyboard and mouse, mostly based on reviews/advice to look at other manufacturers or wait for a multibutton wireless mouse from Apple. My ex says a single-button mouse would drive me crazy after being used to multibuttons/scrollwheels with my PC. I'm not so sure. I long for a wireless world in the worst way. The jury is still out on that judgment call.

What could be better than waking up in San Francisco, rolling out of bed, and hauling my ass down to Macworld for the third day in a row? Feel the love! Ok, the only thing better would be to take an extra long (1/2 day) "lunch" and do Macworld with (e:j3sse) on company time. But someone had to move to Buffalo. Oh, and we got laid off. D'oh!

I haven't bought a darn thing yet. I almost bought some accessories for my intended iPod, but I can't bring myself to buy gifts for something I don't own yet. Call me superstitious.

I think I have to buy a new Mac instead. But which one?

p.s. - This PC is killing me. If someone were ready to commit suicide and a mere $1,699 (or $1,999?) item would make their life worth living again - that would be a good investment, right?

As seen at Macworld SF!

You would not believe this if you saw it.



The windows are there, and the messages keep bleeping, but I can't see the text. I might have to skip the iPod and just get a new computer. What can I get for $60? ;-)

...when things fall into place.

Oh yes indeed. I ordered it. I'm not really sure if this is the day, but my life will surely change. I am so freakin' excited. Can this $1799 item ($1959.92 total including memory upgrade and tax) really make me so very happy? I almost want to suspend this moment of infinite promise. Somehow I think it will. Steve Jobs, I love you.

Which reminds me - Happy Anniversary (e:Jim) and (e:James)!

Not to get philosophical about [inlink]jim,55[/inlink] being philosophical, but my recent happy buying experience on apple.com really highlighted how unusual it's become to have everything handled right - even when things go wrong. Case in point - when my iMac was ready to be configured and shipped on Monday, something went terribly, terribly wrong. My credit card took that inopportune time to max out. D'oh! HOW did I let that happen, you ask? Well, since I was technically homeless for a few weeks before I finally got this place, I had to get a PO Box in Alameda - inconveniently located on the wrong side of the Bay from me now - and I guess some bills are still going there. Basically I fucked up, ok?

Anyway, I get a nice email from Apple.com explaining the problem with helpful suggestions for a solution. After surviving the shock of reading the words "transaction declined" and immediately concluding then dismissing the notion this must be some kind of divine intervention to keep me from making a purchase I maybe shouldn't be making, I pulled myself together and literally sprang into action like my life depended on it. PLEASE wait for me Steve, I swear I'm good for the money.

So the first thing that comes to mind is WHY didn't the nice guy who called from my credit card company on SUNDAY to ask about some "suspicious activity" mention the pre-authorization for the iMac that clearly went through on that day? I know this because he listed the printer I also bought from Apple.com at the same time to qualify for a rebate. I told him, yes, I had made all those purchases, and there should be a larger transaction for about $1799 for the iMac. All he said was "ok." So now I'm kicking myself that I could have had some forewarning about this, and realizing my $100 rebate for the printer is now in jeopardy if I can't buy the iMac at the same time before the deadline.

I check my credit card balance online, and sure enough, I'm about $250 shy of what I need for the iMac purchase. THEN it dawns on me, the other "recent transaction" cited was the $240 fee when I joined the local health club on Sunday. WHAT WAS I THINKING! I already splurged and bought myself health care insurance after 5 years without. My health and future aren't worth THAT much. If I had to pick between health insurance; better overall health and fitness; or the new iMac - I would have to go with the iMac. But it's too late now! Somehow I have to pay for them all.

So ANYWAY, I begrudgingly remember I do in fact have another credit card - one that I reluctantly signed up for back in the day when I thought Alamedalink could be a self-sustaining and/or profit-making and/or web design business-generating site. (Ha! I was so naive back then.) So I pull out that card, dust it off, plug in the numbers, and voilà! Transaction seems to go through. I remember to change the billing address first and make a mental note NOT to immediately chuck any mail from that credit card company into the recycle pile next month.

THEN the really scary thing happens. That transaction is denied too. Now I'm panicking, and the divine intervention conspiracy theory is starting to carry some weight. This is already a really long story and I'm nowhere close to finishing so here's the Cliff Notes version of the rest.

I call Apple.com - explain the change in credit card, and that the new card definitely has more than enough credit to make the purchase. He says he sees the new card, but it's saying transaction declined for that one too. Gives a number of reasons why that could happen and suggests I call the credit card company.

I call the credit card company and get the message "due to the MLK holiday our offices are closed today." D'oh! I call the emergency 800 number and actually get someone. She says the transaction was declined because they tried to submit it too many times. Well, yeah - because after it was declined in the first place he tried it a couple more times while on the phone with me. Anyway, as interested as I am in debugging why this happened - and why to me at this exact point in time - I'm more antsy to get my transaction back on track. So I tell them I NEED this transaction to go through, so they force the authorization and give me an authorization code to give to Apple directly. I call Apple.com back up, give them the code, and voilà, I'm back in the good graces of Steve Jobs.

This story doesn't really make sense without the contrasting bad experiences I've had recently. But you all know how that goes. It just seems like more often than not, so much is spent on the hype and marketing, but the product rarely lives up to its promise. So then we buy into the hype and promise of something else to make up for it. That's a really bad cycle.

Ok, enough ranting for now. Time to check FedEx tracking to see if I can spare an hour to bike down to the gym for my 11:30am yoga class.

p.s. - come to think of it, the last time I almost maxed out my credit card was for another computer purchase. I had to FAX my life story to a complete stranger that day before getting on an airplane at 8am. THAT was fun. You would think the credit card company would have up'd my credit limit by now. What kind of communist country is this? (Ha! Just kidding.)

p.p.s. - I might have to move this post to myspace.com - if I had an account there. Not sure if it's interesting enough [inlink]hodown,215[/inlink] for (e:strip). How am I supposed to know that? Doesn't everybody think their own day is more interesting than it actually is? Oh well, there's no law that says you have to read it. I suppose we could add a polling feature and "unworthy" posts could be voted off the 'strip. But I think (e:Paul) has enough going on right now [inlink]paul,4134[/inlink] without coding that. (Much more to debate on this topic, but just playing devil's advocate for now.)