DEAR MOM

Thank you for the birthday card, even if it was a month late!

At least you sent one. In our family, that seems beyond the capability of most, for reasons I've never really understood. Kathy's family always sends me cards and presents, usually on time, too, but they're all from Iowa, so what do you expect?! (Oh, and thanks for the check, too!)

Your mildly-disapproving comment on the array of equipment I showed the world in last week's column is understandable in light of your having grown up during the Great Depression. Back then, people had to save up the money before they bought anything, but things are different now. Besides, a few thousand dollars owed on credit cards is nothing compared to just putting gas in the truck! The minimum payments are usually less than the $44.10 it cost me the other day to fill up both tanks. I can see that anyone using a credit card to pay for gasoline needs to be very disciplined, but we always use cash, so what the hell. The ole Ford gets better gas mileage at 7,000 feet than it ever did at sea level, surprisingly. I would have thought that the thick, humid air back in Maryland would pack more of a wallop when mixed with fuel, but apparently not!

Anyway, I need all that stuff! Especially the CD-burner, my latest acquisition. My only question is, why do people like these things so much? I tried to copy a CD someone had loaned me and ruined half a dozen blank CDs before I gave up. It seems there was a corrupted file on the master disk that cancelled the operation every time. (Not that the stupid software told me this, of course!) But I know I need this thing. It comes in its own cute little black nylon carrying case, too, so who cares if it doesn't work? Someday I will figure it all out, of course, and then back up all my digital photographs and software applications like everyone tells me I'm supposed to.

You may have noticed that my WebFaust column is no longer carried by MacAddict.com. Don't worry, the loss only represents a little over a fourth of my fabulous Internet income, ha-ha. If you read the MacAddict Readers forum messages, you'll see some long posts from a couple of editors who have a lot to say about "evolution," but don't believe it: David and Rich have to protect their jobs, that's all. The new management over there has all the Mac people by the balls (sorry! :-) and they have to put a good face on things. And would you believe it, the email message telling me my services would no longer be required came from a Maximum PC email account! A number of my friends and I had a good laugh over that one. (There's a lot more to tell, of course, and if the editors at Salon.com buy my story pitch, you can read all about it!)

I'm getting kind of tired of slogging my way through this stuff, actually. Mac users are wonderful people, generally speaking, but most of them don't even know these sites exist! (You've had your iMac for a couple of years now, but how many can you name?) It's just as well: the other day I read an article about "Mac culture," an oxymoron if ever there was one. In this day and age, it's hard to believe anyone would tie their self-image so strongly to a corporation, no matter how cool its products are. I've written a lot about this point, but all it seems to do is make people crazier than they already are. Hah! -- I've even seen references to "Mac journalism," hee-hee (as if)! How many people does it take to make an "ism," anyway: 3? 6?? 20??? I guess the whole thing started back when kids began wearing brand names and logos on their clothing. Do you remember how I always used to like getting a new pair of "tennis shoes" (sneakers)? My favorites were always Keds, the high-top black ones. They had this little red rubber "Keds" label stuck on the back of the heel, and I would always pull it off!

Meanwhile, things are going pretty well here in northern New Mexico. The landscape is almost too grand to be real, I often think, and compared to Maryland, this place is another planet. That may be part of the reason why I'm always torn between feeling that I'm either in heaven or in exile. Going without television for a year (due to bad reception in the mountains and not having the time to watch it anyway) has contributed to the isolation, too. This morning we were in Taos buying groceries and I saw a magazine with Garth Brooks (the country/western singer) on the cover. The headline read, "Garth: Can He Come Back?" Wow. I never even knew he had GONE! This is kind of spooky, you know. At least I know who's running for president, although of course I'll never get to see a single campaign commercial, thank God.

We're both registered to vote, of course. Our local polling place is about half a mile down the gravel road we use to drive up here, in the local community center where they hold the Head Start classes. I'm kind of partial to Big Al, you know. I was going to vote for Ralph Nader (and still might), but it's awfully hard to go for the right person if it doesn't look like he can actually win, darn it! That's just the kind of reasoning that keeps us in our cages, though, isn't it?! And hey, do you know what they call George W. down in Texas? "Shrub," har-har-har! Kinda makes me proud to be a native, I have to say. :-) Sometimes I think folk wisdom is the only real kind there is, you know?

Isn't email the greatest thing, by the way? If we hadn't gotten you that iMac when they first came out, you'd still be waiting to hear from me. Heck, you'd probably never hear from me, given the family disinclination to take pen in hand! The only thing is, everyone from the government to your next-door neighbors seems to be able to intercept and read all our messages. (Did you know that?) Boy, I can just imagine what would happen if what I've just written you ended up on the Internet or some other public forum! For one thing, I'd get all kinds of nasty emails from right-wing nuts who'd hate my calling them that. Other people would be all upset that I mixed politics with Macs, the fools. . . I mean, as if that were a violation of the precepts of some sort of cult, fergodssakes! It's like the other day, when I read an article by someone who thought it was a sin of some kind for one Mac writer to say something "bad" about another. These goofballs ought to wake up and smell the coffee, I say. (They probably count the cars at 4-way stop signs and wait for their "turn," too, hahahaha!)

But enough about me. Are your new hearing aids working out OK? How are my sister and brother doing? Is Tucson still getting bigger every day, even though there isn't any water? You ought to send me more emails, too, or is your iMac acting up? (That's what you got it for, you know! :-)

Gotta run.

Love,
Johnny

P.S. Maybe you can tell me: how long has Jacksonville had a football team, anyway?! Man, I gotta cough up for a satellite dish or I won't know anything.

John H. Farr edits the news for Applelinks.com and invites your comments. The Farr Site Archives will take you to the past two years' worth of columns. John also writes his WebFaust column for MacAddict.com and a monthly op-ed page column called "El Emigrante" for Horse Fly in Taos, NM. He's also got some JPEG-laden weirdness going on at a special project he hasn't been updating regularly enough, Zoozone News. (And yes, his mother does have an iMac.)

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