Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Boys and toys



The video demonstrates a set of toys I'd feel obliged to buy if there were to be a Canon Eos 5D Mk. 2 under the Christmas tree. But I fear there will not be and, in any case, HD video is not at this time a pressing need for me. What I do need, however, is an old, simple DV camcorder so that I can ingest a bunch of tapes left over from last century and finally edit them. And a Flip Mino... that might be for the Christmas stocking of my twenty-year-old.


Shall I be editing with iMovie? Maybe... I'm inclined to be one of the first customers at the new Apple Store opening in Munich on the 10th of December. I think the time has come for me to face up to my computer chaos. The ten-year-old Vaio laptop at home is no longer really reliable. I cannot upgrade the OS on the five-year-old iMac I inherited from my late father-in-law and using the Swiss keyboard is less than efficient (oddly, even in the Sandlands, I always use a German keyboard!) Then there's my fifteen-year-old blue-and-white G3 for which I'd need to buy a new monitor and then, possibly, discover that after such along sleep the thing will refuse to wake up! I mean, my 'screen count' is getting out of hand... three 'pooters, two active cell phones, one in reserve, one iPod, a CyberShot camera and the TV!

Wait though, might I give in to temptation and get the Flip Ultra for myself? It received high praise from Mr Pogue here. But I shall consider a new iMac very seriously.





Today's post is motivated by a purchase already made, just yesterday. A vacuum cleaner, yes, but one which is far from mundane. Can one think in terms of a life-changing vacuum cleaner? Is that what we silver surfers get off on when the liklihood of life-changing sex has become remote?
When I lived in lofty spendour on three levels in Cologne I had a cleaning lady who came once a week. When I downsized in the late nineties I decided I could do without domestic help; I rounded up the dust bunnies occasionally with a DirtDevil which produced an unholy stink when operated. But mostly the dust bunnies had the upper hand. Subsequent homes were not intended to receive visitors, just to house a lazy slob who found the companionship of Wollmäuse perfecly normal. In Abu Dhabi I had the office boys come in every few months or so to do a clean-up. But my twenty-five square metres in Munich are carpeted in a dark, sludgy green which is not improved by ash, crumbs, lint and so forth. I looked at vacuum cleaners in the discount store and found them all so awful that I knew I'd find all kinds of excuses for not using any of the usual models regularly. And then I remembered the Dyson. Un-boxing it was almost as much fun as releasing a Cupertino product from its wrappings. It's sort of pale grey, transparent and bluish, too, not unlike the iBook which once belonged to ZimmermannMax. It also cleans carpeting rather well. It's a toy I'll be happy to play with often, methinks. Is being a techno-snob more or less virtuous than being a domestic slob?

1 comment:

Keef said...

No carpets, no Dyson. But a luvverly little MacBook. And I've been looking at the new IMacs. Phworrrr.