For a Pessimist, I am Pretty Optimistic

“Hi, I’m a Mac. I’m supposed to be young and fresh and make you feel like a loser for not owning a Mac.”

“And I’m a PC. Of course I’m going to be portrayed as older, stodgy, and sweaty.”

With this ad campaign, so began the Mac/PC wars, especially in my home. I have an HP laptop while my roommate has been a religious Mac user. I am definitely NOT a tech savvy person, but I always thought that PC was the superior system.

I had grown up in a household of Macs. Never using the computer for more than typing school reports or to check my always empty AOL mail, I lived in blissful ignorance. Even after switching from dial-up to DSL, I had grown accustomed to reading a book while a lower case E bounced and bounced on the bottom of the screen. Entire days were devoted to downloading an album from Napster. A straightened paperclip was kept on the desk to reset the computer when it crashed since our iMac didn’t have a reset button. It wasn’t until my step-father bought a Dell laptop that I immediately fell in love with Word and Outlook.

Macs were always ridiculously slow reacting whenever I used them for anything. No matter what model I used, I’d always end up staring too long at that stupid bouncing Internet Explorer icon. My roommate bought a new iMac in 2007 and even when I use that, it takes forever to load a new internet page. Of course, it works perfectly for my roommate who always got a chuckle from my frustration and “neglected” to tell me to just use Firefox.

The Get a Mac commercials began after the release of Vista. I don’t know what it was but something about Justin Long’s floppy hair annoyed me. If he was supposed to be a representation of the average Mac user, then I was happy not owning one. To me, he seemed like the pretentious Starbucks toting people who think they’re so bohemian because they live in the Village, but really spend $2400 a month to rent their tiny studio apartment.

As the commercials continued and Vista annoyed people with constant prompts, I became more and more irritated with the Apple marketing team. Ever since most Apple loathers gave into the superiority of iTunes, it seems like the Apple team was getting too cocky. The commercials played on the TV and radio constantly and I was starting to feel bad for poor Mr. PC. He began to look more disheveled and sweaty than before.

After having too many a fight on whose turn it was to use the computer, my husband purchased my HP laptop with Vista already installed. I loved the look of Vista and how everything was so much prettier than XP. iMacs never came with a side bar that had cool little “gadgets” (like a weather widget and a scrambled picture puzzle). Oh they do? Well, screw you anyway Mac!

However, iMacs never hid their settings. After messing around for hours, I found the main settings and tried to change the computer font. However, I made the wrong selection and have not been able to find the damn options again. Oh, I can change the window color, the screen saver, and the font size, but for months I’ve been forced to squint while reading swirly script letters that have heart dotted I’s.

Then the Get a Mac commercials started pointing fingers at Vista users who switched back to XP. Stubbornly insisting that Vista was perfect for me, I ignored my husband’s offer to install XP. He jumped ship after switching to Vista for only a week. “I hate that stupid Mac guy; it’s because he’s so obnoxious that I’m not switching,” I told him. I remained firm, even as Vista “encountered problems with Internet Explorer” and would suddenly shut down every window I had opened.

My frustration grew as I was prevented from opening multiple windows. The weather widget told me it was sunny while snow flurries were falling. Explore.exe (whatever that is) would shut down, re-start, and shut-down again. As my roommate taunted and jeered at my yells of “Damn you Vista!” I still refused to downgrade. Oops, not downgrade but “upgrading to an older more familiar experience”.

3 weeks ago I noticed that Apple was still continuing with their campaign. Their “Group” commercial was all too familiar to me. Out of stubbornness, I managed to get used to the sporadic crashes. However, this week things were just ridiculous. I couldn’t open up anything. Not Word, not iTunes, not the internet. The task manager wouldn’t even open. Re-start and the same crap kept happening. I gave up and asked my husband to install XP. While he looked for the CD, I checked my email on my roommate’s iMac. I glowered as that damn lower case E bounced mockingly at me.

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