InterContinental Geeks.......

There is something very bizarre to me about sitting in a foreign airport, writing this addition to my blog without the aid of wires, a phone line or even a safety net......

Here I sit (gagging for another coffee in Schipol International Airport) surrounded by strangers in transit for destinations across the world, and I'm chatting online with my friends from the site I belong to. It's like a security blanket....... I can do almost anything! Maybe it's not such a novelty to seasoned travellers accustomed to lugging their laptops hither and thither, but for me, it's incredible that I can communicate so easily and so TIDILY!!!! I wanted to show my friends what exactly I was doing, so out came the digital camera, photo was snapped, and after a quick cable connection and upload to my PhotoBucket account, the fruits of my labours were posted online for all to see!

Okay - I admit it - I'm a fully paid-up member of Geeks Unlimited.

The Laptop of Luxury.....

There has been a new addition to my family! No - I have not become a granny - but have adopted a beautiful (hopefully non-bouncing!) baby Apple G4 iBook! It’s so shiny! So pretty! So CUTE!!!! I too can sit around in cafes in Vienna, and look like a sophisticated writer as I tap out my journal online........ Little do they know I'll probably be playing Solitaire......

One thing becomes immediately apparent as I type - or try to...... I need a manicure in order to stop hitting two keys at once! Secondly, I’m going to have to use a bigger font to type in, or risk getting greasy marks on the screen from my nose. I guess I could always affix some binoculars to my specs......

I am however, somewhat disgruntled that it doesn’t appear to want to know my broadband modem, so am now resigned to spending the dosh I saved by purchasing this shiny cute thing in a sale, on an Airport Wireless set-up...... Where’s a geek when you need one!?

Cue Geek.

After ferreting through the ads in a local rag, I appropriate said geek, who performs an expensive, but ultimately successful introductory service between stand-offish new lappy and a snazzy new wireless router thingummajig, and the pair are now firmly united. I can now use TWO computers at once - very confusing! - and am happy as a pig in the proverbial poo that I can sit in bed and access the weird wild web with my feet up!

The laptop of luxury indeed!

Elb n' Apples......

I am looked upon with something like suspicion by friends, relatives and work colleagues: for I am not like other women my age.

I am not a “girly” girl, which is probably just as well, working as I do in a male-dominated engineering environment. I like to think I am sometimes seen as an Honorary Bloke in that I can give as good as I get with regard to bawdy workshop banter, and I enjoy “Top Gear” - not a programme about haute couture, but cars. (Sshh! Don’t let on, but I watch it mainly to lust after the presenter known affectionately as “The Hamster”, Richard Hammond.) I do however, draw the line at football......

But what really floats my boat (aside from a certain Scottish actor) are gadgets and gizmos - the more gadgety and gizmo-ey the better! So imagine my delight when my daughter presented me not with the customary bunch of flowers or box of chocolates for Mothering Sunday, but an iPod Shuffle, Apple’s entry-level MP3 player which plays your choice of music, but just to be contrary, in a totally random order - hence the name “Shuffle”!

I have worshipped at the altar of Apple for many years now, having been introduced to them by my then boyfriend, a graphic designer. The unfaithful slimeball boyfriend is long gone, but my allegiance to everything Apple remains resolute. My house is like an AppleMac rest home, as I lovingly nurse each elderly computer into retirement, then store them in a back room that resembles a scrapyard more than the dining room it once was.... I cannot bear to take them to the local tip, as they each have personalities and quirks of their own, and each in their time, has served me well. I secretly delight in the superior speed and abilities of the newer model whilst suffering pangs of guilt that my fickle affections can be transposed so easily.

My latest acquisition is the oh-so-cute Mac Mini which masquerades as a sandwich box (I believe I may have enthused about it before?) but which has oodles more oomph than all my *coughsevencough* previous computers added together, yet is a fraction of the size. It also cost less new than my previous, secondhand iMac!

Which STILL sits on my desk alongside the young Mac interloper, valiantly putting up a fight to the bitter end, before it too is shuffled quietly into the Twilight Home for Terminals downstairs. And talking of which, it must be time for me to play with my new gadgetry and fill the wee Shuffly Thingy with “bangin’ choons” so I can once more play the auditory variant on Russian Roulette!