"T'as déjà commandé ton G5?" netmaster François demanded over lunch.
No way, I told him. I'm happy with what I've got, thanks. Where's the rush?
Moments earlier, Francis the newswhiz told me he was abandoning Apple. "Ah, foul treachery," I cried. "Don't do that!"
"Too late. My machine won't do enough. I've already got a new PC, and it's got this and that..." The list was impressive and extensive. So I half forgave him, even if he pulled the GHz stunt. He added: "I'll keep the old one, though, unless--"
The "unless" came back to mind before he shut up shop. Down I went and asked for all the specs: "je déteste le gaspillage!" In fact, I hadn't realised that it was a so-called "old" Mac, 1997, but it may have quite enough potential to kill two birds with one affordable stone. To be explored.
Earlier, one of my e-mails said:
"i'm surprised u haven't even mentioned panther yet, what with all the hoo-hah this wk. don't say u wr asleep? gonna grab it or not?"
I wasn't altogether asleep. But it's sunny, glorious, too hot for some and likely not to stay that way much longer. Since Monday, I've preferred to let fellow enthusiasts rave or rant on about the great Mac confab in San Francisco.
I read summaries of Steve's keynotes because when he makes his speeches:
- bits of the WWW choke up
- they're far, far too long
- he adores worship
- non-Americans will have to wait on many promises
- I can't stand "high mass" without amazing music.
I also waited to fetch Safari One, which some might still consider a beta browser for a beta OS (that's their problem) and a handful, starting in French with MacGregor, who unleased a rumour from "relatively reliable sources" (MacPlus) that this marvel would be ported to Windows (that would be Apple's problem).
That put the cat among the pigeons a month ago, sternly to be scorned out of court by John Farr at Applelinks in little more than a day.
But. Steve has done some daft things in his time...
zzz
I enjoyed watching the ritual foreplay ahead of the act of consecration. One day, even a few Panther screenshots appeared at 4 OS X, and links spread like wormholes until all were tramped shut with the usual notice "at the request of Apple's legal department", which shovelled aside the grovelling snivellers.
For the hell of it, MacRumors today produces a "who was closest?" rumour roundup.
I'm quite happy to see that Frogland
"deserves credit for providing the lead info on such an important Apple event, however, based on the above record, they remain consistently inconsistent in their accuracy -- which has also been true of them in the past."
MacBidouille broke the first fairly accurate "niouz" about the new Power Mac and its insides from March 10, and whether or not their crystal ball is clouded, they are among the most lively French Mac sites.
I note also from a MacPolls effort on Sunday that just 25.56 percent, or 764 people out of the 2,989 who bothered to answer the question, said they would not be following the Keynote live, one way or another.
Were the other 2,225 telling the truth?
Are we expected to believe that such figures are remotely representative of the Mac-using world as a whole?
Could up to 74.44 percent of Mac-owners be such disciples, such ... sheep?
Even were it conceivable, I'd imagine that a good number of such followers remain agnostics. I couldn't help myself: when I found myself having to register at MacRumors to do something there, the nickname I selected was "le loup".
zzz
Vagary (be warned: quite in character, there've been no more posts since June 16 till now) was on to something with this quiz(illa) biz. When I did the "what is your animal personality?" one, finding out that I was a wolf was inevitable. Even Marianne knew that from a very early age, and nobody ever told the kid. However, that particular quiz only proved to offer seven other possibilities. Not enough for my shamanistic mind.
Quizilla kept me out of trouble. The only story I've been ahead of recently was about NetNewsWire. You got word of the clever new version of this newsreader here two days before MacCentral "broke it". They, however, bothered to add that Ranchero Software is offering a $10 discount on the full, paying version until the end of this month.
Brent must be in a better mood than I am!
zzz
Now I remember what I was planning to write about it in the first place.
"Oui, j'en ai marre!" With everything! I wanted a decent tantrum, of the kind I enjoyed when I was a tot. Since I've been feeling as sick as a dog for the best part of four days now, I want to stop counting my blessings (and clichés) and start bitching.
Who at?
Well, what at, then?
We made a good start over lunch, François and me and a clever feller I didn't know before, with the Americans, flavour of the year. François, who has lived there, said nice things, but we soon put a stop to that positive, open-minded approach. It has obviously rubbed off too much... "Navel-gazers," I began. "Always needing assurance and congratulating themselves on really quite pathetic achievements."
"Good start," said clever feller. "Their friendships turn out to be self-interested. I'm generalising, of course."
"Please do," we agreed.
We soon tired of the Americans and went on to the Brits. Clever feller saw his chance to place a cliché or two of praise but got stopped in his tracks with a mention of how the trains have gone off the rails and some of the health system down the plug-hole. Then I said: "Thatcher really turned them into a nation where it's every man for himself." Neatly committing at least three British sins at once: perfidy, self-flagellation and smug superiority.
When it came to the French, clever feller again wanted to be kind! "We've learned to rejoice in the various comforts of life," he rightly said. I suggested that he meant France had discovered how to be a filthy consumer society like the rest when Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was president, but François explained that I was describing a change in mind-set which took roughly 10 years, 1975-85, and gathered further steam under Mitterrand.
Clever feller defended Chirac, conceding that he was a "ripoux" (pourri in "verlan" or backwards, meaning "rotten", like a bad Apple) and less cunning than Mitterrand, but argued that the man at least had the whole of the national interest at heart.
A "national" interest was an odd concept, I considered, in a country "so lacking in any sense of community spirit".
François thought there was one. Even in internet forums. All kinds of "little communities"!
zzz
This put paid to a staggering headache which, at its worst for just two hours this morning, was initially eased by some lousy news from a friend on the 'phone, and finally vanished so that I managed to avoid throwing up during lunch.
But. Again but: I am also fed up with being confined to quarters by the physical question of how far across town I dare go, screwing July's holiday plans into a ball and throwing them into the waste-paper basket, and being told that codeine is now just as bad for me as aspirin has long been.
I'm temporarily enraged by what life and death have prematurely done to some of my friends. I am cross with friends who behave like cats which decide they want to be caressed and then spin round with bristling tails and claws and spit four-letter verbs not only at you but everybody else in their four-letter world.
At such times, I can be known to frequent such crap-shooting places as Cruel Site of the Day and equally delightful Morons Dot Org.
Their daily findings cheer me up. I don't care if they're not PC!
Oh. Panther. Sod Panther for now.
I haven't got the foggiest idea whether I will give Apple yet another 120-plus dollars for yet another OS upgrade. One, which to my eyes, largely looks more like a gadget-freak's wet dream than a major improvement like Jaguar was.
Tomorrow, I am going to see 'Kaena'. It is a fantasy. It's for kids of all ages. It is French. It is a first for this country. And it's showing, literally, just round the corner this week.
'2 Fast 2 Furious' would both bore me and give me more cause for anger. It may be topping the British film charts and heading that way here, but 2 Fast and 2 Furious are 2 Facts of Life which incline me to give 2 Fingers to other people's "realities". Like deadlines.
11:54:09 PM link 
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