computers

okay, so about a month ago a i bought a new mac. a macbook. i call it babymac. i bought it b/c my pc charger broke which was the last straw on the camel's back. i refused to buy anything else for my broken, slow, infuriating dell. i went to the mac store and walked out with a computer, and it was so satisfying.

i brought babymac home and was very impressed with fast Internet connection, zero wake up time, real dvd player, quick ipod connection, everything. then things got messy when i tried to install windows for the partition...yeah, it was confusing. called mac, was on hold, listened to crappy music (really, for a brand that prides itself on being young and cool, why are they playing squeaky eighties music on hold?). the mac guy was funny- i told him my computer said i could be causing irrevocable damage if i continued, and he said, go go go. it worked, so thanks. computer problems make me positively queasy. so then i had the dual windows/mac which is pretty awesome and really the reason i was so ready to buy a new computer. i mean, leopard lets you have the best of both worlds.

but then yesterday, after doing twenty hours of work stored in my computer, the mac part wouldn't open. the dell partition worked perfectly (take that mac!). so i called support again, got the same go go go, and everything was fine just a super pain.

it made me realize how like Marshall McLuhan says, electronics have become extensions of ourselves. unlike the older generation, i cant live without a laptop now. i need the internet, i need the media, its like a drug. omg, life must have been so boring before computers. back when i was playing barbies and climbing trees.

lets go literary

books and movies. movies and books. sometimes they fit together like double stuf and oreos; other times its like trying to get the square peg into the triangle- just not going to work. i've been thinking about this lately because i've been getting much more pleasure out of reading than watching tv. here's what i've been perusing with all my free subway time:

Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathon Lethem: about a petty mobster with tourettes- a guy with a heart of gold. well written, interesting viewpoint, brilliant language play. nothing makes you think more about words than a lead with tourettes. could never be a movie though b/c it so textually rich

The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold: the absolute favorite of the books i've read this fall. very melancholy, rich with emotion, tender and brutally honest. very visual, and the kind of book that moves in the rhythm of the character's grief and growth, without restricting itself to the classical plodding forward action- circular, lovely

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini: already a movie! i liked it for its Afghanistan subject. it doesn't hurt when a really good book also fills in some holes in my ignorant brain. it was also quite refreshing to focus the book on a male character who isn't alpha male. Instead, Amir is incredibly human, revealing all the strains of cowardice and guilt that everyone already feels and doesn't want to admit to. quite a page turner as well, although a little sagging in the middle (Amir might be too much to deal with in the same way no one wants to stare at their own flaws in the mirror for too long).

So what makes this a movie? Well, for one its about children and children are always easier to deal with when talking about a sensitive subject. it adds a dash of instant humanity. also, the US comes out looking pretty good, San Francisco the safe, regenerative harbor for the boys/men damaged by the "axis of evil."

I'm not going to read The Atonement. First of all, its a kiera knightly movie. so no. i enjoyed her in bend it like beckham...and that's about it. so many stupid books get made into movies! and the good ones are hard to transform on screen.