I said goodbye to Clam today. It was sad, we go way back. Let’s see… my first Mac was Elsie. Geddit? Then came this guy, when I wanted more Mac purity. The next was.. well, let’s just call her Melissa.
(For those among you of the Geek persuasion, we’re still in Motorola 68K territory here.)
Melissa was my first lap-top. She came via an ad in Craigslist, bought to my doorstep by
a striking and portly old Sikh
whose ears were so terribly meek
that he hid them in roses!
for one thing he knows is
just how to treat ears that are weak.
He was some kind of Doctor or Homeopath. Looked wealthy. Me, I was poor, studying for my Philosophy degree and in need of a computer I could take to the library. It was a situation; one with lots of winning. I think I paid $750. And those were real dollars.
And now we come to clam. Ah Clammy boy. Wherefore art thou Clammy? Unfortunately, some years ago Clammy was put out to pasture. I contemplated getting rid of him numerous times, even looking at prices on eBay to see how much I might get for him. But each time I faltered. Finally about a year ago, I realized it was enough. He can’t just sit in the closet all day. Dammit Clammy, everyone has to work and nobody wants to work with you because you can’t run the latest Mac OS.
Clammy sez: “But I can maybe run Linux?”
Me: what for?
Clammy: you know, to do your experiments. Your special scientific investigations.
Me: Stop looking at your fingers. Now listen! I’m going to let you stay if you can run Linux and I can find something useful to do with you.
Fast forward to now. Like when you realize you’ve been daydreaming. You’ve more or less dozed off with your eyes open. You’re a thousand miles away, and suddenly you realize it. You scramble to find your way back, and its like fast forward till now. This moment, right here, is like that. And Clammy has had linux installed for about a year, and I haven’t found anything useful for him to do. And Clammy has been advertised on eBay, been auctioned, and sold. And then paid for.
And then sent away.
