The laptop is beautiful and powerful. Having said that, our relationship started badly. I was snappy as a giant clam with John because even though I said he could open the box and play with my iBook first if he would stay home Monday morning to take delivery from FedEx I went berserk upon finding he was listed as the computer's owner. It wasn't on purpose, it was because he created the first account and the computer assumed he was the owner. I am not proud of myself, but I was genuinely angry every time I saw "John Bartelt's Computer" glowing faintly in the background of the log-in menu. My new computer! My new, expensive, personal laptop which caused me great anguish when Apple said it was going to take fifteen days to deliver and my vacation started in fourteen days but it got here in eight. The wrongness of seeing John's name on my computer pushed a big red plastic button in my psyche that said "I am three years old and I DO NOT SHARE MY NEW TOYS!" He did me a huge favor by staying home, and here I was steamed because of a stupid preference file.

He fixed it. I apologized. I then chose a little icon for my log-in page. It's the tropical sunset for you iBook owners; John's is the orangutan face. Of course, the computer lists John first because his last name begins with a B and mine begins with an H, so I get the feeling it's metaphorically bonded with him and it'll never really love me the same way. Kind of like our dog. I should stay home from work more.

It isn't like me to be so ferociously petty, or at least I hope to god that's unusual behavior. I blame the weather as it was extraordinarily hot that day. It got up to 103F where I work and it wasn't a lot less than that where I live. Our house has no A/C at all, so it stayed hot inside long after the outdoors cooled down to a delightful 70F. It was just as hot the next day.

Meanwhile, Ceej had spent the weekend upgrading spies.com, moving it to a new box, switching our listserv from Majordomo to Mailman, and making a very smooth transition for everyone. My failure was in understanding how Mailman expected to be addressed. I tried everything. I read the FAQ; great for solving big problems, not so good with the basic how-to for dimwits like yours truly. I sent four increasingly anguished notices to the notify list; all of them were returned as undeliverable. Jeez, it took me a year to figure out Majordomo. This program was touted as being easier, yet I failed to make it perform its most basic function. I was a tornado of self-castigation and anger interspersed with despair. I'm fun to live with, you bet.

I finally broke down and asked Michael Rawdon to help me which he did. He suggested the one combination of username and email address that I hadn't tried. Thank you, Michael. Now do you understand why I thought your suggestion that I become a programmer completely untenable? I have no grasp on how computer hardware or software works. For all I know the thing is powered by energy generated by gerbils running in wheels.

But all's well that ends well, and although I'm not sure the word "well" is relevant in terms of my grasping how to use my new laptop like a technically savvy person I certainly have managed to do the one thing I really wanted to do with it which is play the Sims. And may I just say how completely annoying and difficult it is to build a simulated house using a touchpad? Lord, it takes forever. Seriously, it took me about two hours to build and decorate and furnish one little house. But by golly it's fun to be back using House Party instead of Hot Date.

The Sims Hot Date Strategy Guide by Prima is very helpful, by the way. I learned several interesting things about the new expansion pack, and two incredibly useful things about the game in general which had previously gone right over my head. I'm enjoying playing the game a lot more although I remain suspicious of the Downtown experience. It just doesn't seem very fun for most of my Sims.

So there you have it. We've finally got two very powerful computers in the house. What next, a second car? Man, it's like we're finally living like everyone else we know, only about ten years late. We probably came thiiiis close to getting kicked out of Silicon Valley.

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