trying to act normal
Last week, feeling a little disconnected from the outside world, needing a book on Flash MX, and hearing that I need the latest Modern Drummer, we went out of Books-A-Million. I normally expect to run into a couple of people each time I go out there, but on occasion people just stop and talk to me. Never met the people, they just strike up a conversation with me…usually computers.
Now one thing I’m not too open about, is that I’m very shy. I enjoy the quiet in the library, let along the quiet of looking for a good book. I’m usually a little embarrassed when a stranger just starts talking to me about any topic. Not that I’m not friendly, but I’m usually looking for an out. I smile and answer and laugh.
One reason I really hate talking computers, is that I really hate geek talk. I’m not that typical computer geek and when talk about nanotechnology comes around amidst the sporadic talk of building computers and networking, I glaze over. So I thought I found my out, as this nice guy was talking with me about all of the above and he asked if I know anything about computers…embarrassingly I said I knew nothing and that I was only a web designer.
He was really interested in that, so we kept talking and then he asked the ultimate “get out of geek talk” question, “What computer do you have?”. When I was a paid geek, if someone would have said “Oh, a Mac”, we would have laughed at them and that would have been a complete conversation killer. But this guy and a few others I’ve talked to in the past year, have been “Oh cool!”.
Shockinly geeks are not as anti-Mac as they we before OS X. MacOS sucked…Apple knew it, You knew it, and Apple knew you knew it. That’s why they decided to ride that unix wave and build something for the geek crowd, the “Saab crowd” along with Apple’s bread and butter, graphic designers.
I’m not trying to be a shy ass and ignore people. It’s just a fault I’ve been working on for ages. Not that I’m socially awkward, I’ve spoke in front of hundreds before, I’m not a bad public speaker. Hell if I met anyone of you, I would be as friendly as I can. I function fine in business.
I don’t know how to wrap this up…so I’ll summarize: Mike like quiet, Mike likes books, Mike hates talking about computers, Mike can’t wrap up a blog entry.
April 13th, 2003 at 2:04 am
“their bread and butter…graphics designers.”
Heck ya man. I always got annoyed at my linux friends who would tell me the MacOS was better than hell, any brand o’ windows. ’cause I’m sorry, sure, its more intuitive, but there’s just something about the MacOS that makes you feel damn powerless to its graphical cheese. Its just so smarmy. OS 10 is fairly cool though.
April 16th, 2003 at 2:04 am
I’ve been using Macs for over 10 years (and computers made by Apple for over 20.) Before OS X the Mac had the best user experience, and as a desktop computer, was just a joy to use. Windows was a nightmare, and *nix was for hardcore geeks.
Today the hardcore geek and the Mac user are often one in the same.
If Apple had not moved to OS X I would probably be running Linux on the desktop today (instead of just on the server.) I still despise using Windows…
April 16th, 2003 at 2:04 am
Oh, and one more thing – Never try to act normal.
April 16th, 2003 at 2:04 am
Pete, I used Macs for years until my first job in computers, where everyone had a PC and would scoff at you if you used a Mac. Most of my friends had PCs, so for peer pressure and free shared software, I got a PC. I use to love Windows and wished for the downfall of Apple. But, I started to get fed up with Windows and was running Linux about 50% of the time. I started working more and more with the Mac again, and just fell back in love with it. Ditto….if Apple shelved OS X, I would probably be using Linux on a PowerBook.
April 20th, 2003 at 12:04 pm
I was one of the ones that made fun of everyone, including my Mom for using Macs. Until… OS X. Now I have the power of *nix with a wonderful GUI and commercially supported software. I even dumped my Linux server. I run my Apache, sendmail, and ftp on an older G4 and couldn’t be happier. Yes, I did give my Mom 5 minutes to let me have it for years of making fun of her after I told her I bought a Mac.