3) The Mac & The Mall

WELL, IT'S TRUE, FOLKS. I BOUGHT IT. Ol’ fashion Seinfeld is the proud new owner of a Macintosh PowerTop LapBook.

Congratulations On Your Happiness

After the overwhelming response to last week’s column, “Should I Take A Bite Out Of This Macintosh If I’m Afraid I’ll Get A Worm?”, a razor thin 8 to 6 vote decided I should align myself with the talented Mr. Justin Long and purchase an Apple Core Intel Processor. Justin, you’ve clearly made the delightful Drew Barrymore a happy lady, and I’m thrilled to report, your casual, mediocre charm has worked wonders on the part of my brain that makes decisions. 

Confusingly, one must purchase Apple products exclusively from their own brick & mortars (while I respect Apple's stance, nobody beats The Wiz). So, despite a crippling fear of crowds and commercial culture, I strapped on my Jansport, packed a snack, and hopped on the M21 bus headed for the airport-sized Roosevelt Field Mall.

I must explain - prior to Tuesday, the closest I’d come to entering a shopping mall was joining a picket line of alarmed parents outside a Dick’s Sporting Goods store to request  the ‘i’ in ‘Dick’s’ be replaced with a tactful asterisk. I’m no pest, but my son Matthew wants to buy field hockey cleats and a volleyball - not skanky, yellow-paper Chinatown smut, folks. 

Reprehensible

Needless to say, I was a little nervous as to what to expect from one of the largest malls in the country. So, upon arrival, I bit my lip, said my Hail Josephs, and with clenched fists, walked through the colossal sliding glass doors into another world.

“Holy cow, now that’s a pizza pie-a!” I humorously exclaimed upon entering the complex. This joint was big! Yet, suddenly, awe turned to terror as I became swept up in the orgiastic current of lights, sounds, exotic smells and people. The mall had invaded my senses with such might that I was forced to find a nearby Spencer’s Gifts to take a knee and regroup.

After buying a simply gut-busting Austin Powers keychain for my son (“Yeah, Baby!”)  and refilling my canteen at a beautiful, brackish water statue fountain literally inside the mall, I was ready to venture on. Following a hesitant 5 count (which had to be restarted multiple times), I was off, swimming in a mad, mad sea toward my destination.

 

"Holy Canole"

As I turned into the mall’s west wing, things changed from chaotic to rather euphoric. As the intoxicating scent of Aunt Annie’s cinnamon & pretzel concoction entered my nostrils and blood stream, all I saw turned to a pleasant blur. An Armenian man smoked from a smokeless cigarette as beautiful Russian princesses lured me to their kiask of handmand, centuries old T-Mobile cell phone covers. Suddenly, there it was; the white glow of neon bulbs piercing my pupils with enough power to elicit 16 consecutive, head-clearing sneezes.

It’s hard to put into words the immense spiritual experience one has walking into an Apple Store, but I will bet you all the sand in Cairo it feels similar to how Bono felt the night he discovered his incredible talent. If anyone has doubts as to whether Macintosh is leading the technological revolution of our time, one look at their translucent spiral staircase and you’ll be sold.

I’ll be honest, since purchasing my Mac, I haven’t felt this creatively energized since seeing Jim Henson slap a woman for exhibiting poor stichmanship on a Gonzo foot. Simply by owning an Apple computer and becoming a proverbial “Mac Guy”, not only do I feel I understand Obama more, but gosh darnit if colors don’t seem brighter. And I say that as someone who is legally shade-blind, physically unable to detect the degree in brightness of a given color. Mr. Stephen Jobs has done an incredible thing.

While I feel I am extremely slowly beginning to understand the basics of computer operation, I think owning a LapBook - a Mac at that - is a good place to start. However, I have yet to tackle perhaps the biggest giant of 21^st century robotics: The InterNet. Once Netscape has installed, I’ll be reporting back from my middle school’s computer classroom to observe the future of the human race – our middle schoolers – using the world wide web on their terms. Until then - Happy Downloading!