Category: computer

i’m about to go to bed so here’s what fedex.com says about my apple powerbook.

october 6, 2004 – 2:52 pm – in transit – anchorage, ak – departed location
october 6, 2004 – 12:40 pm – in transit – anchorage, ak

the estimated delivery date is still the 25th so apparently they are having to ship the powerbook across the frozen tundra via dog sled.

i’m going to be at the “national youth workers’ convention” for the next several days so i might not be able to update the blog for a little while.

i’m about to go to bed and i figured i would post the last fedex.com tracking statement of today. it is:

october 5, 2004 11:30 pm – at local fedex facility – shanghai cn

thus the first day of the 20 day journey that my apple powerbook has to travel in order to get to me. good night little powerbook floating in the sea on a really slow ship.

i received an email form apple.com this morning saying that the powerbook has finally been shipped. of course, i was extremely excited. since the laptop is being shipped by fedex i went to their website and entered the tracking number to see when it should be here (thinking it would be around wednesday or thursday). here’s what it said:

oct 5, 2004 2:52 pm – picked up – shanghai cn (china – i guess) – future delivery requested
oct 5, 2004 2:52 pm – left origin – shanghai cn
oct 5, 2004 11:32 am – package data transmitted to fedex; package not in fedex possession

that would all be well in good if it wasn’t for an additional comment that is made right above the table i just posted. the statement is this:

estimated delivery oct 25, 2004 10:30 am

it would appear that my powerbook has been shipped form china (cn) and apparently shipping it by air is too fast for apple so they decided that they would put it on a slow moving ship for freight purposes. at least that’s the only way i can explain why it would take 20 days for the powerbook to make it to baton rouge.

i have to say that i’m a little surprised that apple has stuff made in china. maybe i’m just naive but that seems very un-apple like. yet, even if they were going to have things made in china it shouldn’t take 20 days to ship it. if this is fedex’s normal time frame for shipping things then i’m going to use other companies for shipping items.

the truly sad thing is that i paid $18 extra for “expedited shipping”. this was supposed to have knocked the shipping time down to about 2 days. i would hate to know how long normal shipping would take.

btw, for your viewing entertainment here’s the fedex “castaway commercial” that the above photo is from.

i don’t have anything really to post about today but i figured i would let you know that i’m still waiting for the apple powerbook. of course, apple doesn’t work on saturdays and thus there was no real hope that it would be shipped today. still i could pretend that it would be shipped today. but it wasn’t shipped today so i figured that i would report to you that it wasn’t shipped today. basically, to summarize the powerbook is still not here because it hasn’t been shipped yet.

kevin, a friend of mine, has linked to an entry in my blog today and that’s wonderful.

now people have listed the blog on their links before and i appreciate it when they do. it’s great that anyone would think that someone else might want to read this stuff (either because they like what they read or they think it is so stupid that they find humor in it’s idiocy) and therefore post a link to it. this actually confuses me because i would think that most people, including the homeless, would have better things to do than to waste 15 minutes or so a day reading my blog. still i do appreciate my little audience (basically my parents and a guy in belarus who doesn’t really understand english – hi mom! hi dad! hi boris!).

yet, that’s not what i’m talking about here. kevin, posted a link in his blog to a specific entry that i had made previously in my blog.

this is tremendous!

the reason it is so great is that by posting a link to a specific entry within my blog kevin is saying that i have made a point! I HAVE MADE A POINT! now it might not be a good point, in fact, kevin could have posted the link to my blog for the sole reason of disagreeing with what i had said. yet nonetheless, by posting a link to a specific entry on my blog the linker has said that i have made a statement worthy of responding to. agreement or disagreement doesn’t really matter. all that matters is that my statement was worth responding to. think of all the things you hear throughout your day that you consider unworthy of your attention. there are alot of those things. we ignore a great deal of what we hear. yet at least one statement that i made on september 24th was worth responding back to and that’s good to know.

of course, now i have to try and live up to this new standard. now i have to write something else worth linking to directly. i’m not really sure i can handle all that pressure. oh, the weight is bearing in on my soul. it’s simply too much responsibility. i don’t think i can bear it. why did you do this to me kevin? why did you throw this heavy load on my shoulders? curse you kevin. curse you and your link! aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!

yet another day without the apple powerbook arriving. however, my micro$oft office for mac did arrive today. a friendly fedex delivery person brought the software to my door. overall it was a nice experience. i hope the powerbook experience will be as nice. of course, it has to get here first for me to have a pleasant or unpleasant experience.

oh why do you taunt me powerbook? why do you give me hope by sending me the “office” software and then snatch it away again by remaining listed as pending on the apple.com “order status” page? you evil temptress powerbook. what have i done to cause you to act this way? oh woe is me.

some of you are probably wondering whether i have received the apple powerbook yet (see the entry on september 28th for an explanation of the powerbook). sadly, i have to report that even though i only order the laptop two full days ago it still has not yet arrived. right now the status for shipment of the powerbook is listed as october 6, 2004. of course, the micro$oft office for mac software bundle that i also purchased from apple.com shipped yesterday. so one part of the order has been shipped and the other part is still being processed. i’ll keep you updated because i know that some of you may have trouble sleeping until i receive the powerbook. yet rest assured it will come soon.

no apple powerbook as of yet. i only ordered it yesterday so it really shouldn’t be here yet, but i figured i would tell you any how. i didn’t want any one waiting with baited breathe. of course, you might have to hold your breathe for awhile because right now it is not even listed as being shipped until october 6th, which means i won’t get it until around the 8th or 9th.

nothing else to really report today. i did think that tonight’s view, our youth worship service, was quite cool.

it’s finally happened! about 30 minutes ago i bought an apple powerbook – 15″ screen, 1.33 ghz cpu, 512 meg ram, 64 meg ati video, 80 gig hard drive.

let the “change” begin. apparently after buying a mac i’m supposed to change from the person i am now into an “apple user.” you see everyone i know that has an apple is … shall we say … “different.”

• they treat their macs different from the way that pc owners do.
• they talk about their macs in manners that aren’t quite the same as pc owners do.
• they compute in ways that just aren’t the same as pc owners do.

they walk to the beat of a different cpu and it shows in their lives.

i’m not sure why this happens. maybe it’s the computer equivalent of “short-man’s syndrome.” maybe it’s the fact that windows basically ripped off the mac’s ideas and then made them more popular. maybe it is that the mac really is a better computer than the pc’s are. i don’t really know.

what i do know is that i do not want to become a stereo-type. i wanted a mac because it was going to be best for the needs i have. i did not want to buy into a certain lifestyle. from what i understand it’s going to be hard to keep form developing the “apple user” personality. i’m going to fight against.

ralph waldo emerson once said the following regarding possessions – if i own a cow, the cow owns me.

thankfully he was talking about cows and not apples, so hopefully i should be okay.