Saturday, July 24, 2010

I’m a Conflicted Soul

In the age old rivalries of meaningless corporate allegiances we're asked to choose, I've always sided with Coca-Cola over Pepsi (though I don't drink either now), MacDonald's over Burger King (don't eat either now), and, growing up in the high tech suburbs, PCs over Macs. In the last 24 hours, however, I've suffered through major Mac envy. I don't care much about the iPhone or iPad. No, I'm enthralled by a program called Papers that archives and organizes PDFs from research databases (Whitecastle described it as "like EndNote but useful," and sadly, I knew exactly what he meant. Damn you, EndNote). That, and remembering how Riles can practice Chinese on the go with her iPod touch. And last night, using Ashley's MacBook Air with a squirming Meli in my lap, I very nearly ran home with that computer. I could hold the computer on one arm as I typed with the other hand, swerving it in the air to avoid her surprisingly strong arms. So nimble. So fancy. So great with Papers.

To be fair, Cecil the Thinkpad has not yet failed me. Cecil has been stupendous. And I'm not sure why I'd need a baby friendly computer or a device for practicing Chinese drills on the bus (but it'd be so cool), and while I'd probably do lit reviews for kicks if I had a program that managed the PDFs I pulled from PubMed (I'd never stop writing papers!), I'm nerd enough without it. Just give me a #1 meal with Coke and I'll be fine in a second.


Whitecastle: I always thought you had a Mac. You seem like a Mac user.

Moi: I don't know what that means.

Whitecastle: You should take it as a compliment.

Moi: …

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