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Ah, what a week!

If this were a normal Mac column, I'd be writing all about the new PowerMac G5s. Then again, if I were normal, I wouldn't be sitting here on Sunday night pretending all is right with the world. At least there's not a surfeit of complacency around these parts. In fact, there isn't any, but let's give it a shot anyway:

64 bits, wow, as if I know what 64 bits are. Heck, I didn't even know I already had 32. I do need a G5, though, and not just a loaner like those that get passed out to the same old names. Just imagine the kinds of reviews I could write! Before you know it, when the 128-bit G6 prototypes are ready, people at Apple would be saying, "Screw the developers, give one o' those to Farr!" I mean, the mind reels. Mine does, anyway. I swear, the real reason Apple doesn't have greater market share is because nobody in Cupertino is smart enough to give me the latest gear to pimp. After all, here I am ready to crank out the adjectives and I don't even have OS X. (WHAT?!) Oh, get real. I can't help it if my 8600 still kicks butt, and whose fault is that, hmm?

On the operating system front, I'll at least be halfway up to speed in a few days. That's right, thanks to a generous arrangment with management, I'm about to become the proud owner of an actual TiBook. Not a brand-new one, mind you, but damn close. Don't everybody get excited all at once now, but Farr is going to be commenting on something current in the world of Macintosh from first-hand experience! My God, I might even be able to review software once again. Before you know it, it won't be humid in Baltimore and Scientologists will stop looking for alligators in the Senate.

Now then ... Another reason that the TiBook is a welcome addition to the family is that my current round of house-hunting sucks tusa tails. There's definitely something rotten in my karma when this kind of thing turns out to be so much trouble, but I guess I should be grateful that no one is shooting at me or trying to have me arrested. Anyhow, I figure I can always camp out in the back of my truck, invent stories about Macs like everyone else does, then nurse a latte at the local Internet cafe long enough to upload the news most days. That would work, except for baths, but I'm working on it. (Baths are important after all, even in New Mexico, where you can wear the same shirt for a week, que milagro!)

In fact, my insanely perpetual quest for housing has made me so hungry for a solution that last week, I nearly fell victim to a hideous hex, an abominable omen, a harbinger of doom ... BAD BOOJUM, boys and girls! [shudder] I did manage to escape again, but it was close, hoo boy.

In this part of the world, where the houses of the very rich are made of mud, it used to be that (in the olden days) an ordinary man could build himself a home of humble adobe: just a little clay, manure, and straw, plus a dozen or so big Ponderosa pine logs for vigas to support the roof. Miraculously, I just happened to find one such old adobe house for rent. Not only did it have foot-thick walls, an actual porch, and quite a bit of what passes for greenery in these parts, there wasn't a busted-up mobile home within 30 feet! It even had a washer and a dryer. (No, really.) AND grounded outlets. I tell you, this was a find.

The first day I visited the house, I was so overcome with joy I didn't notice the matted dog hair on the carpets. The windows were set awfully low in the walls, though. I don't expect anyone from the rest of America to fully appreciate this, but the tops of the windows came up to my shoulder. Uh-huh. "Strike zone windows," I called them. One runs into this sort of thing with an old adobe house, you see. In this case either the builders were short, so the windows were low, or maybe the decking added later over the original mud floors caused the weirdness.

In any event, I told the rental agent I wanted the place, but overnight I fretted about the windows. Once I'd gotten over the initial triumph of my successful hunt, the thought of a house I couldn't look out of unless I stooped was rather disconcerting, to say the least, so the next day I went back for another look.

It wasn't so bad, I tried to tell myself, although there really was a lot of dog hair, and when I bent down low to peer outside, the only view was of the neighbor's rusty truck and a totaled Ford Tempo with Colorado plates. My wife was outside, checking out the yard, when suddenly she screamed: in a low tree by the south bedroom window was a severed deer's head! I don't mean a skull, I mean a full-blown head, maybe three weeks old, with the skin still attached and buzzing with flies. The neck, still fleshy, was torn and ragged, as if a drunk had cut off the head with an old chain saw. I had no explanation for the macabre discovery, but the head was firmly wired into the lower branches of the tree and so intentionally placed ...

Regardless of any possible explanation, we in the business call that a bad sign. Hell, I didn't even want to take a picture. (Why risk the Nikon?) For all I know, the whole thing was a trap. In retrospect, the lack of barking dogs was strange, and both times we were there, I never saw or heard a neighbor. (The horses were nice, but they were off a ways.) No matter, I killed the deal toot-sweet.

The TiBook comes on Tuesday, and not a moment too soon!

Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr invites your emails.

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Like pictures of el Norte?

Salon Weblog: yackety-yak!

(Beautiful land for sale here: "What It Is About El Rito,")

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