Sunday, June 15, 2008
Dave and I just got a new MacBook - the black one - with OS X Leopard 10.5 installed. Well, I’m the primary user. (Ha.) After a few hours of familiarizing myself with this stunningly beautiful piece of technology, all I can say is, Wow. I can’t believe I waited so long to get a Mac. I’ve used Macs in school growing up and for one summer as a graphic designer, but I never seriously considered getting one for personal use because it was always too expensive and incompatible with PCs. Now, it’s the best time to get a Mac. Everything is compatible (just like the commercials say), and all the equivalents to PC programs and functions are not just prettier - I think they’re better.
These are my first impressions of my new MacBook.
The packaging is so pretty, I’m tempted to keep it for its own sake. The computer comes in a slim square box with a plastic handle. When you slip open the cover, the first thing you see is a square rounded-corner piece of Styrofoam with the words “MacBook” engraved on it. Leave it to Apple. Once you remove the Styrofoam, the MacBook presents itself nicely wrapped in a smooth coverlet. Underneath, there is a flat square box that containing a user manual and software CDs. Everything is square! The first page of the user manual contains one line: “Congratulations, you and your MacBook were made for each other.” Trying to play on my emotions like how the light “pulses” instead of blinks, eh?
I plugged it in and Dave sat with me the first time I turned it on. After an impressive “welcome” montage, the display sat still with the Finder window open, waiting. I clung to Dave’s arm and whined, “I’m afraid to use it!” So silly, but this computer is just so nice that I was afraid of ruining it somehow. Dave brushed me off with an “eh” and started clicking everywhere and installing programs. I sat there, dazed.
Then, I discovered just what I needed - Switch 101. It’s Apple’s step-by-step tutorial on how to make the switch from Windows to Mac. I proceeded to begin reading every page from the beginning and discovering that the Mac is not such a mysterious machine after all. It still has all the same components as Windows, just named and organized differently. Apple has an amazing web of support for everything - switching from a PC, iTunes, iPhoto, how to set up a wireless network, etc. Unlike Dave who likes to learn a new skill by trial and error, I like to read all about it before doing anything.
The most exciting revelations have been that I’m not sacrificing any efficiency by giving up my PC. For example, PC keyboards have both Backspace and Delete keys, Backspace for deleting backwards and Delete for deleting forwards. The Mac keyboard only has one key named Delete. When I blogged on Dave’s MacBook Pro in New Orleans, it was driving me crazy that I couldn’t forward delete. But I learned through Switch 101’s nifty comparison chart of common Windows habits and the Mac equivalents that you can forward delete by holding down the Function key while pressing Delete. This was news to Dave, who doesn’t like instruction manuals. Also, on the PC keyboard I use the Home and End buttons a lot, and the Mac equivalents are Command+Left Arrow Key and Command+Right Arrow Key - how logical!
The one thing that I don’t think I can get used to is not having a right button for the mouse pad. Hence, I plugged in my Microsoft optical mouse and it’s working just fine. Except, the movement of the pointer is strange. There is a delay or slowing down when you’re trying to pinpoint the thing you want to click. The pointer moves fine in large movements but is poor for the precision movements. Dave tells me the same thing happened to him with his MacBook Pro, and I just need to get used to it. Grrr.
Tonight I learned about the most impressive “replacement” of all - iPhoto. On my PC, I was using Google’s Picasa 2, and I loved it. When I first started using it, I irritated Dave with all my rantings of “I love Picasa, omg, it is so awesome how it’s easy to rename the files and do touchups and organize! Goodbye, ACDSee!!!” Of course every program has its flaws, but Picasa came pretty near to being perfect for my non-professional digital photo needs. I was skeptical that anything could rival it, but iPhoto certainly does. My MacBook comes with iLife ‘08 (iPhoto, iTunes, Garage Band, iDVD, and iMovie). I watched the whole iPhoto tutorial and can definitely see the tricks they took from Picasa’s bag. All the tools that Picasa is known for (straightening, a variety of effects, one-click color and exposure editing, albums), iPhoto has emulated perfectly. Even some of the button placements are the same. I could be wrong about who copied whom, but who cares! Apple has not given me a single reason to regret my switch and that’s all that matters to me right now. (The MacBook isn’t cheap, of course.)
I’m sure I’ll be sharing more about my PC to Mac switch as I continue to unpack everything my MacBook has to offer. If I sound gushy and excited, that’s because I am. No more ugly interfaces, struggling with the wireless networks dialogue box, finding and installing drivers, and so on. I get to come home from my Windows XP work computer (force-configured to display the dull Windows 2000 theme) to this:
| Tags: inner geek, obsessions
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Dave and I just spent 8 hours playing Rockband on XBox360 with some of my co-workers. I kid you not. We started after lunch and took one 30-minute break for dinner. It is the most addictive and fun game that I’ve played in a while. Dave took to the “guitar” and I took to the “drums.” We both are able to play songs on the Hard setting now. My co-worker is lending us Rockband until her XBox gets fixed. After they left, Dave and I played by ourselves for another hour trying to beat songs that we couldn’t do earlier in the day. I can’t believe how fun it is. We’re planning to buy our own set. (After my right ankle heals. It’s really painful now from hitting the drum’s foot pedal nonstop.)
The songs are, as the name suggests, all rock songs. A lot of the songs are lesser-known songs of popular bands like Nirvana, Weezer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Fallout Boys, and Stone Temple Pilots. Some are hit songs like Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden, and some are songs most people have never heard of. But you can buy more contemporary and popular songs off XBox marketplace, and they are constantly coming out with new songs. If it really takes off, they will have new songs debut on the game platform before CD or radio. That would be bizarre, eh?
You can create a band with your teammates and go on tour, play rock offs, and earn points to spend toward new outfits and tattoos the the like. As you get better, you can hire a band manager, sound team, and bodyguards. This is the billboard for the band we created -
Dave and I when we first started to learn, before we realized our natural tendencies were for the opposite instrument -
| Tags: memories, obsessions
Monday, February 11, 2008
This post contains spoilers of both the book and the musical, so stop reading if you don’t want to know.
Last summer I read the book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, and last weekend I saw the musical Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz produced by Disney. They are unbelievably different.
The book is a dark, piercing and at times dreamlike narrative that explores many characters’ thoughts and motivations and luxuriates in the descriptions of buildings, clothing and the various races that inhabit Oz (Winkies, Munchkinlanders, Animals, etc.). It is definitely an “adult” fiction with its themes of conspiracy, adultery, betrayal and power. It is a pessimistic commentary about the evil of established institutions and the price of rising to power. I suppose any novel that conjures up images of Nazi Germany might be taking itself too seriously, but one can’t help but notice that the Witch is portrayed as a subversive yet righteous advocate for the poor oppressed Animals (which are animals with the power of speech and thus human-like consciousnesses). There’s blood; there’s sex; there’s devastating choice.
The musical is a comedic and sugar-coated version of the book, substantially changing the characters and plot. The musical focuses on the relationship between Glinda the Good and Elphaba, who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, from their initial mutual loathing to loyal yet heartbreaking friendship. No doubt this relationship is important in the book, but in the musical, which needs to be simplified like all musicals do, it forms the driving force for the story and musical numbers. Musical Glinda is a caricature of Book Glinda – where do they find actresses who can giggle and kick up their heels and bend backwards to touch the ground and sing in perfect pitch? The music and acting were awesome. I was moved to tears more than once.
But I couldn’t help noticing the jarring differences. In the book, Fiyero is a sincere, studious Winkie prince who has brown skin with blue diamond patterns. In the musical, Fiyero is a playboy who’s been kicked out of every school and revels in the “unexamined life.” In the book, Elphaba’s father is a “unionist” minister who travels about Munchkinland trying to win converts. In the musical, he is the governor. In the book, Elphaba’s sister Nessarose is born without arms and becomes the Wicked Witch of the East. In the musical, she is in a wheelchair (but otherwise normal) and has a love interest whom she has a hand in turning into the Tin Man (one of a few allusions to the original Wizard of Oz story that the book does not contain). In the book, Elphaba’s real father is a random green elf with whom her mother had an affair while her father was away preaching. In the musical, the Wizard is her father who seduced her mother with the same elixir in a green bottle that he takes swigs from. In the book, Fiyero and Glinda never had a romantic relationship. In the musical, Glinda falls in love with Fiyero and thinks she will marry him, and when he chooses Elphaba that causes of rift in Elphaba and Glinda’s friendship. In the book, Madame Morrible goes senile and gets her head bashed in by Elphaba. In the musical, she is imprisoned. In the book, Fiyero is executed by the Wizard’s secret service for associating with Elphaba. In the musical, he becomes the Scarecrow. In the book, Elphaba is killed when Dorothy splashes a pail of water on her. In the musical, Elphaba appears to melt after the same, but emerges from a trap door that Fiyero opens, after which they disappear and live happily ever after. This is wrong. The lovers don’t get to be together. I could go on and on.
The worst change was the fact that Elphaba lives. The whole time you’re reading the book, you know she will die at the end and that makes her choices and struggles more compelling. I was complaining about the Disney-like ending of the musical until Dave reminded me, it’s a comedy; of course she lives. But I think that really cheapens the story, if you’re trying to stay true to the book, which the musical isn’t, apparently.
The musical is good as its own work, but if you really want a story that is “different” (and if you want to look up words in the dictionary – amazing how many words in the English language I didn’t recognize), I recommend the book.
| Tags: obsessions