5 MINUTES, MY ASS: THE INTERMINABLE INSTALLATION

I love my MAC. I'm a devoted MAC user, never to switch back to PC. But when they, and everyone else, told me it would take 5 minutes to set up my new, gorgeous, hyper-speed IMac, even I didn't believe it. And you know what???? I was right.

"You just have to plug it in, enter a little info, and you're all set," said my husband who recently bought himself a MacBook.

"I hear it takes only five minutes to set up," said my sister who was eagerly awaiting her very own recently ordered IMac."

Our desktop is just over four years old and in computer years that's about 100. I suspect it had Alzheimer's. The once johnny-on-the-spot keyboard now clean forgot it was supposed to transmit the letters I typed to the screen. The formerly nimble scroll bar was now unresponsive and would, without warning, suddenly go screwy, driving the screen up and down at warp speed.

But this senile old coot possessed ALL our personal information, scripts and stories I'd written, pictures, everything. I knew transferring that to a young turk was going to be no walk in the park. No matter what anyone said. But I gave it the ol' college try. I even ran a firewire between the two computers to transfer everything over instantaneously two hours later. It did move everything over but nothing to the right place. Brand new applications remained childless, their orphaned folders floating aimlessly in search of home. Our wireless airport suddenly thought me a stranger and locked me out. Our trusty printer was no longer compatible with the new software.

So, 5 minutes 3 DAYS LATER!!! everything seems to be working but I've lost my entire weekend and my Monday. On Friday eve I was full of optimism and plans. I was going to chill out with family and friends and get ahead of the game on my new endeavors (one being this blog). Instead, I spent 13 hours on the phone with Apple Care. I kid you not, 13 hours over 3 days. One Apple rep even told me he was writing a letter to his boss to explain why he helped only one customer on Sunday.

I tell you this LOOOONG story, not to bore you silly as I was this weekend, not to steer you away from MACs (because I still love them), but to tell you that I'm soooooo sick of sitting at this damn computer that I'm getting the hell away from it right now! Until tomorrow...