So, I've purloined one of these. It is a beautiful, beautiful little iBook. It is cuter than any inanimate object has a right to be. For all of you skeptics who sneer and scoff, "Computers? They're not supposed to be CUTE," well, keep it to yourself. I even -- unexpectedly -- like OS X so far, although I've only played with it for about half an hour. And the darn thing has voice recognition software built in... you ask this teeny tiny 5-lb. computer "what time is it?" and it tells you, say "close this window" and it does. Yah. Unfortunately, there's no "Open the pod bay doors, Hal" command, but still. It does tell knock-knock jokes.

This is the first time I've ever owned a new computer. I am darn excited about it. It's such a clean slate, although hopefully I'll get my act together and start transferring my files on there tonight... the incredible deal from the computer store at the college where my father works came through so fast I didn't have time to give it all that much thought, but I went to CompUSA today and redeemed my coupons for 25% off zip disks. And while I was there, I got The Sims. I couldn't take it anymore -- it sounds so fun and addictive and bizarre, people at work talk about it all the time, it was 25% off too, I have absolutely no willpower.

More fun computer updates to come. I'm a little wary of all the modem configuration figuring out-ness that is going to have to come soon, because I'm not such a hardware geek and don't know a lot about this stuff, and it looks really different from the OS 8's and 9's Remote Access panel thingie, but who cares. Maybe I can just ask the computer out loud and it'll tell me. I wonder if it recognizes me grumbling, "What the @#$%#@^@#$ is wrong with this freaking thing."