my apple-shaped silver lining

So about a week ago our laptop screen broke.  I will not go into details on how it happened, but I'll just say that it was neither Donovan nor I who did it so clearly that only leave leprechauns who snuck into the house in the middle of the night to bludgeon the screen with clovers.

Luckily, we were staying at my mom and step-dad's house at the time, and my step-dad happens to be a bit of a techno-geek and thus has tons of computer equipment lying around, so we were able to plug the laptop into a spare monitor and use it that way.  We even still brought the laptop to San Antonio with us, borrowing Andrew's flat-panel monitor for those few days (I think we were quite a sight checking in, carrying our few bags... and a computer monitor).

Now we are back home, and the laptop is temporarily hooked up to our TV.  Which sits on a desk in the office... the same desk that houses our 2 cat litter boxes. Which means that it's kinda stinky sitting here.  Zach is out at Fry's purchasing a wireless keyboard and mouse as I type this, so we can at least sit on the couch across the room instead.

We'd been planning on upgrading our computer soon anyway, but this little snafu kind of accelerated our timeline.  I think we'll still use this laptop some (Zach's talking about putting work stuff on it so he can use it at night instead of having to bring his work computer home), but the set-up is not optimal by any means.

So after some research and hemming and hawing and freaking out about money (mainly, Zach), I think we're gonna jump ship and go for an Apple computer.  My mom, two sisters, and brother recently all switched over and have loved their macbooks.  We'll be going for an iMac, which I think Zach will go pick up from the Apple store tomorrow (we called, they should have plenty in stock).  Zach is still a bit concerned about the cost, and the pain factor of switching to a new operating system and having to learn things over again, but I'm pretty excited. I'm hoping all the Apple hype isn't too overinflated-- I'm really looking forward to having a fast computer that doesn't crash or freeze, and that might last more than 2-3 years before needing an upgrade.  I'm also psyched since the desktop computer means I get a huge monitor (27") and plenty of power and space for working on pictures (1TB internal HD... I may even consider switching to RAW!).  Also, I'm pretty friggin excited about the magic mouse we'll get as part of the package... though I'll have to make sure to keep it out of D's reach lest it go missing.

So hopefully tomorrow I can blog from my pretty new computer, sans cat litter fumes.