iBrick

A couple nights ago, after a bit of regularly scheduled maintenance, my 5-year-old past-warranty MacBook flatlined with no chance of resuscitation. As a result, this post was originally written with the analogue form of typing. Oddly, the bricked laptop served as bracing for the paper, so in a sense, it helped to write its own eulogy. Fare the well, MacBook, as you carry on to the great recycling plant in the sky.

It's strange how different life feels between computers. Since I had an external backup, it shouldn't be that big a deal -- a computer is just another appliance, right? Would it really matter if your blender broke? Hell no, you'd just drop the bag of ice until it was crushed enough.

But we're living in the future, and since I don't have a smartphone, my bricked laptop cuts me off from the Internet. I use the web a lot, I use it to talk to my distant wife and parents, I use it for entertainment, I use it to plan trips and book flights, I use it for this blog.

And so does everyone reading this.

Think about it: Do you know anyone born in the past 40 years that doesn't use the Internet at all? What about 50 years? 60? Probably not. These days, the Internet is an integral part of our lives. More and mroe, we have RSS feeds instead of newspaper subscriptions, Netflix instead of cable TV, WoW instead of Monopoly.

Leaving all that, even for a short while, is big. I should be the proud owner of a new laptop soon, and then I won't need to borrow the public computers like the one used to type this article. Until then, I'm mostly analogue.