Yeah, I've got nothing. So here goes...
Now with 20% more cheese: First off, I suppose I should apologize for starting the cheese rumor on Thursday. But I'm not going to. Why? Because I thought it was funny.
Free iPod: Well, that got your attention, I suppose. And for once, it's actually true. I'll be presenting at the NATMAC user group meeting in Deerfield Beach, Florida this Tuesday, and one of their door prizes this month just happens to be a 15 GB iPod. Guess which of those two facts is likely to draw more attendees? Actually, you have to be a member to be eligible to win the iPod, but non-members can still attend the meeting. As part of our exploration of the new iTunes 4.5, we're going to collectively build our own iMix during the meeting, and submit it to the Music Store in the hopes of cracking the Top 100. Hey, why not?
Road tripping: For those of you keeping score at home, the NATMAC meeting means yet another road trip for me, complete with stopping off at Apple Stores along the way, desperately grabbing a wireless signal where I can. But this month's road trip will be a bit shorter than the last, seeing as I have to get back up here in time to perform a small task called "moving to a new home." So between the road trip and the obligatory "When's the cable guy finally gonna get here to hook up the friggin' modem?" waiting period at the new digs, the publishing schedule might get just a little hairy around here, but I'll do my best.
Be prepared: I can't think of even the remotest way to connect this story to anything Apple-related, but I'll tell it anyway. I thought I was going to be real smart this evening by taking a carload of stuff over to the new place, in advance of the actual move. It was already pitched black outside, and I knew there wouldn't be any lighting inside the place, so I thought I was being real smart by taking a lamp with me. Hey, the lamp was going to have to get taken over there at some point anyway, right? So I get there, and after entering and fumbling around in the dark to find an electrical outlet, I plug in my little lamp, and...nothing.
Hey, I was told there'd be electricity! Actually, I was told that there was electricity. The issue wasn't even supposed to be in question. Well, no problem, I'll just go home and get a flashlight, except maybe not, since "home" is about twenty miles away. So I decide I'm going to go buy a flashlight, because I can't see squat inside the place. Considering about how late it was, I was pretty much going to have to acquire said flashlight at...wait for it...WalMart.
You know, back in high school, my friends and I spent quite a bit of time frequenting open-round-the-clock Denny's restaurants, but we all had a sacred agreement that we would never, and I mean never, eat there if any other restaurant was open. With food that bad, you just don't go there unless there are no other options. And now, here in adult life, there's a new corollary that reads that I'll never, ever shop at WalMart if anything else is open.
OK, so I don't hold myself to it nearly as often as I probably should. But tonight I really did seemingly have no other choice. I head into WalMart and realize that the place is so large that it could take me three years to find an oddball item such as a flashlight. So I do the unthinkable and ask an employee where I might find one, and she reassuringly tells me that they're "in the hardware section, back there...somewhere..." as she pointed in the vague direction of the back of the store (come to think of it, do these SuperCenters even have a back of the store? or do you walk far enough, and just come upon the registers again?).
After finding the hardware section (smack in the middle of "back there somewhere," just as I was told), I walked every aisle in the section, only to find one flashlight, and I don't know if it was gold-plated, or autographed by Elvis, or used to belong to Elvis, but regardless of the reason, it was priced at a mere twenty dollars. Now, I'm just not paying twenty dollars for a flashlight, any more than I'd pay twenty bucks for a can of soda. I'm paying four dollars for an el cheapo flashlight that has the batteries sealed right in the package with it, or I'm not buying anything at all. So I grab ahold of an employee and ask him to help me find a flashlight, despite the fact that I'm getting the feeling that this just isn't going to have a productive ending one way or the other.
The salesman proceeds to take me directly to the twenty dollar flashlight I'd just been scoffing at, and thinks he's solved my problem. I ask if there are any other ones (by which I meant "any whose price tags don't make me think I'm in Bloomingdale's), and he proceeds to walk every aisle in the hardware section, searching for other flashlights (sound familiar?), before declaring that the store doesn't sell any others. Uh, yeah, so I'm not getting my flashlight after all.
So I'm on my way to begin attempting to carry things into a pitch black house in the pitch black middle of the night, when I stop off at a convenience store to grab a soda. Just for kicks, I snoop around for a flashlight. And sure enough, they've got a two dollar flashlight that runs on two dollars' worth of batteries. So I get my four dollar flashlight after all, and save myself from stumbling through the dark while carrying heavy objects through a structure whose interior layout I haven't yet been able to memorize. In other words, no head injuries incurred.
I swear, I wish there was a point to that story, perhaps there's something to be learned. First, always be prepared: plan for as much as you can, because you never know what might get thrown at you. Second, don't be afraid to improvise: no matter how much planning you do, you still might end up having to make it up as you go along. Third, keep a flashlight in the car: it just might save you four bucks.
Hey, I told you up front that this story would have nothing to do with Apple. ;-)
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