Dear internet,
sorry, Hodgman
I am only human, occasionally less than, with as many frailties as anyone else, like when I have to hit backspace and retype several times to spell “occasionally” correctly, chastised all the while by the red line of death that shakes its dotted finger in disapproving judgment. So it is with humble honor that I come to you today to to beg for your indulgence and allow me this one day (or maybe two) to bask in the glow of a new material possession, that possession being a new MacBook, something I for the first time in my life actually targeted with budgeting acumen and achieved the goal of purchase just as the last vital signs from my poor overworked hand-me-down Dell were blipping into oblivion. Suffer me this slight boost of self-esteem that comes in placing value in something physical and material, my small repentance for spending many years lost in the knuckle-dragging sloth of the Windows desktop computer age, or the purgatory of borrowing my roommates left-behind computers as they tackle southeast asia, elephants, burning bodies and all. And understand my wonderment at the difference between three-finger, two-finger and four-finger touch pad scrolling that is enough to push forward visions of an impending purely tactile computer interface, some few generations beyond the iPad.
As roommate Nathan said in an email, as writers, the one expense we can probably justify is a sweet writing machine, even, as he said, if it does cost WAY more than all the money we have in the world and all of our possessions combined. That thought is comforting in the way it indicates the relative lack of other cumbersome material possessions, and absolutely terrifying when I think of how clumsy and careless I have historically been with things, leading my brain to chastise me several times over the years “THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T HAVE NICE THINGS!” as my hands wipe off a spilled cup of water from the keyboard, or whathaveyou.
So, dear internet, if you have suffered me so far, you’ll understand why I’m dedicating this week’s Friday Happy to the song “Light From Your Mac” by The Rakes, as performed in this video from some sort of German TV show from July.
It also includes the great line: “Don’t show me the fucking futon.” Last note: it is amazing to think of the productivity lost due to slow loading times, the amount of idle finger tapping you do when waiting for a simple page to fade into view, the frustrated grrrrs you spew when coping with the satellite delay between finger typing and response time in a word document. I think basking in the glow for one day is justified for streamlining efficiency reasons alone. That’s it, I’m done for the day, and you can send me to futon if you want.
Sincerely,
Inverted Soapbox
RELATED: Completely unnecessary plug for this Inverted Soapbox classic about meeting Justin Long at a showing of Slumdog in Soho last year.
Inverted Soapbox 
How much did you pay for it?
I can say that it was more than I’ve ever spent on a non-car purchase at one time before, but it was $100 less than it would have been had I not told Apple that I was a student. Because I am a student…. of the world, of life, of the digital arts.