Vodkapundit - Late Night Rambling

Late Night Rambling

Posted by Stephen Green · 29 March 2006

I’m one of those freaks who doesn’t get any kicks out of painkillers. They kick in after about 20 minutes, then I feel woozy for ten more. Then I go to sleep. When does that get fun? Needless to say, I can’t take a full dose during the day. I’ll take a half a pill instead – just enough to leave me irritated twice. Once because I still mostly hurt, and again because my brain is running at half speed. For the first time in four days, I got through today without any brainkillers. I’ll take half of one before bed, just in case. You only have to wake up your wife once in the middle of the night, screaming, to kill your reluctance to take some drugs.

And then, I hope, I’m done with the damn things for a good long time.

I’d suffered lower back pain a couple times before. Once, right after a road trip and another time right before one. Learned a valuable lesson from that first time: Never drive a twenty-year-old car for twelve hours with the broken-down seat in the wrong position. Woke up the next morning, swung my legs off the bed, turned white, and nearly passed out. The second time involved the loss of a good friend and a trip to New Mexico to scatter some ashes. My guess is my body was telling me I was in no condition, physical or otherwise, to make that trip.

Don’t know what happened this time. All I know is, as bad as lower back pain is, it’s a roll down a gentle hill with puppies compared to upper back pain. So I took the pills – and pretty much lost a week. Thursday, before I gave in to Percocet, I couldn’t even hold my son. That, in a word, sucked.

Snapped this picture before the back trouble, and I gotta say that’s one attractive child. He got my blue eyes, but even bluer. And his mother’s mouth. I realized that unless we start him on karate lessons, maybe in the next couple months, Preston is gonna get the crap kicked out of him at school. The boy is just too pretty. Then again, maybe he’ll get my nose. It could happen – I had the cutest little button nose right up until puberty.

My, how times change.

It used to be that I never worried much about illegal immigrants. There was this oral agreement that everyone stuck to, and it worked. The deal was: you work for cheap, don’t make a fuss, and your kids will be real Americans. Besides, gatecrashers are usually the best people at the party.

The problem with oral agreements, of course, is that they’re not worth the paper they’re written on. I know I’m late to this party, but the weekend demonstrations in LA really got under my skin. Immigrants, legal or otherwise, are guests and should be expected to act as such. If they don’t like it here, with most Constitutional protections and legal services, I suggest they emigrate elsewhere. I hear Saudi Arabia is lovely this time of year, except for the not being allowed to practice Catholicism and your children never becoming citizens and the getting shot dead at the border.

Some people might blame the drugs, but I ordered my first Macintosh on Tuesday. I had planned to wait until the new Intel-based Power Macs come out, but circumstances changed as they’re wont to do. It seems the motherboard in my old PC is as twisted as my upper back was – cards kept popping out of their slots. First the graphics card, then the wireless card, and then the graphics card again. And then the wireless a second time.

So why a Mac? You might blame the Percocet, but I blame Microsoft. I used to buy new a PC every third year. If Windows Vista had come out as originally promised in 2005, I’d have bought a new PC last year without hesitation. But Microsoft dicked around and removed features, so I waited. And then waited some more. A year went by. Now Microsoft says Vista won’t come out until 2007. Maybe. Meanwhile, I have a four-plus year-old computer with a warped motherboard – and why should I put more money into a machine I no longer want?

When cards started flying around my Gateway box like Ricky Jay dealing a crooked poker game, I knew it was time to switch. The iMac I ordered was less than I wanted today, but more than Microsoft could deliver tomorrow. FedEx will deliver my Apple to me soon, hopefully by Monday. There’s nothing quite like ending a craptacular week with a shiny new toy.

Later I’ll let you know just how nice the Kool-Aid tastes.

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Comments

"One of us ... gooble gobble, one of us ..."

I think you'll like it. Macs aren't perfect, and there are things about OS X that I don't like ... but every time I have to use a Windows machine I rejoice that it's only temporary.

Posted by: Mike G in Corvallis at March 29, 2006 10:47 PM

Word to the wise... upgrade the RAM. That's the only thing Apple sucks at with their lappys.

Posted by: Stephen VanDyke at March 29, 2006 10:52 PM

Cute Kid. On the back. PT it is the only thing that has a chance.

Posted by: Robert Schwartz at March 29, 2006 11:50 PM

Same thing happened to me re PC vs. Mac a few months back, and for the most part, I'm pretty darned pleased with the new toy's performance . . . Plus, like your angel-faced firstborn, it's wicked pretty.

Posted by: Sissy Willis at March 30, 2006 03:45 AM

You're late to the Mac party. You'll enjoy it. My first computer was a Mac, in 1992. I'm on my fourth one now. Present G4/933 is four years old and going strong. Have yet to have my first virus (knock on wood).

Posted by: Calvin at March 30, 2006 06:36 AM

I have the new Intel iMac 20". I've also got a PowerBook and PowerMac, but the iMac is for the wife at home, and I use it for my photo work. It's a great machine. Do upgrade the RAM, and posthaste. The machine was downright sluggish on basic operations until I did. I added a gig for $130 and it's as snappy as a Thelonious Monk concert.

I'm quite surprised that Photoshop works just fine even though it's not a Universal Binary, at least for my minor photo tweaks. I might consider it slow if I had to work on it all day, but Rosetta handles it great.

Last tip, after you spend some time acquainting yourself with the OS, install the free app, Quicksilver from quicksilver.blacktree.com. I can't say enough about it, it's truly revolutionary. Trust me.

Posted by: Philip Putnam at March 30, 2006 06:43 AM

TO: Stephen Green
RE: General Notions....

"...gatecrashers are usually the best people at the party." -- Stephen Green

...are geneally wrong.

If you doubt this, consider the gatecrasher at that party in Seattle last weekend.

Then there are the 'gatecrashers' the Israelis have had to contend with for the last six years.

Not to forget all those people in LA waving Mexican flags and shouting "Mexico! Mexico!"

In other words....

....THINK AGAIN.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Posted by: Chuck Pelto at March 30, 2006 07:05 AM

Welcome to the Mac world. The koolaid is FINE.

If you didn't opt for the larger RAM package, you'll get it sooner or later. There's no computer out there that isn't happier with more RAM.

Posted by: clay ramsey at March 30, 2006 08:31 AM

About the iMac. Yes on the memory upgrade, but don't go through Apple. Get it third-party. It'll be much cheaper that way.

Rosetta: Good for running individual apps, but be very careful about running multiple apps at the same time. A couple of weeks after we got our iMac, the OS dropped off the face of the earth. Wouldn't boot for life or love. I dicked around for a couple of days, trying to figure out what the hell happened. I finally took it into the Apple Store in Towson, and had a Genius take a look. He messed around for a little while, after hearing about everything I did, and then just reinstalled some of the core pieces of the OS over what was already there. Worked like a charm.

We talked about it, and he warned me against running too many applications under Rosetta. It's great for single-tasking, but is not geared towards handling multiple applications at once. He was pretty convinced that running Word, Illustrator and Safari all at once was a pretty bad idea. And what do you know--Office and Creative Suite won't be upgraded until at least the end of this year. Oh, joy.

The Core Duo processor is pretty sweet, though. Native applications pretty much fly, and even non-Universal apps are decent. I don't think you'll regret getting the iMac over the PowerMac (or Mac Pro as they seem to be indicating it will be called).

Posted by: NukemHill at March 30, 2006 09:34 AM

Boy there's some bad advice. I run a dozen or so apps all day, every day. A web browser, photoshop, page layout, Illustrator, ftp client, mail.app, Word, and various Apple apps

Just get more RAM. 1.5GB minimum - otherwise you end up page swapping and it's miserably slow, with Rosetta emulation in the mix.

Posted by: Marco at March 30, 2006 07:05 PM

Thanks for the insightful commentary, Marco. Not.

Steve Jobs said it himself when Rosetta was discussed as a part of the Intel iMac introduction at Macworld in San Francisco this last January. Rosetta is not designed for heavy lifting. And the Genius was very clear about what they've been told to tell people. Running multiple PPC-based programs at the same time is definitely *not* recommended. I think I'll take his advise (and my experience) over your 'expertise' for the moment. Just because you haven't seen this particular issue doesn't mean it's non-existent.

Posted by: NukemHill at March 30, 2006 08:08 PM

Steve- as a former back/neck pain sufferer, let me tell you what worked for me. I was on the anti-inflammatories (Relafen, Celebrex), physical therapy, special pillow, etc. I saw neurologists, orthopedic surgeons, GPs, etc, none of whom could find anything seriously wrong with me. 5 years later, I have no back or neck pain at all. It was all psychosomatic stress-related pain that I brought on myself. I had a very stressful job, working long hours with negative people who didn't enjoy their jobs. I moved from the DC area and its high cost of living, terrible traffic, crime, etc, back to my native SC. Less stress = no back pain whatsoever.

I'm not saying move or change jobs, obviously, but I would bet that your pain is caused by the current stresses in your life- new son, work etc. I wish you the best but I would seriously think about some stress-relieving activities in addition to the obvious martini treatments- more exercise, more outdoors, more relaxation time etc.

Posted by: Rob at March 31, 2006 08:13 AM

Welocme to the dark side, Steve. Bwahahahaha.

"install the free app, Quicksilver from quicksilver.blacktree.com. I can't say enough about it, it's truly revolutionary."

Quicksilver is a huge attention sink. It has a steep learning curve, very little documentation, and lots of bugs. It's a work in progress. It is a quirky work of genius by a solitary mysterious programmer who I think is in France. It makes me furious at least once a day. But its potential is awesome and even having only figured out 5% of what it can do, it is very useful.

If you think the Mac world is Koolaid, wait till you meet the Quicksilver fanatics . . .

Posted by: Yehudit at April 1, 2006 11:22 PM

I have a four year old Titanium Powerbook that has crud all over the keyboard and have never given me a moment's trouble aside from the usual minor crashes. No hardware problems after 4 years of hard daily use.

Posted by: Yehudit at April 1, 2006 11:24 PM

It seems rather silly to choose or not choose to continue on a Windows platform simply because Microsoft has delayed their next version of their operating system. But good luck with your Mac. Hope you don't lose out on too much of the stuff you liked before on there.

Posted by: MH at April 4, 2006 08:02 AM