My Trip to the Apple Store

            I went to an Apple store for the first time yesterday.

          
            I needed a very specific kind of USB cable, and was also interested in an iPod specific remote thingy for my headphones. I was at the mall, and I saw that shiny, white, sterile store. I figured what the hell. The only times I’d ever noted the place before was when glancing at the huge line-ups the day the latest iThing was released. Today, I’d enter the place that was many a techie’s Mecca.

Maybe no line-up, but it was still a fair busy place. I paused just inside, taking in the gleam, the glare, the glass. The plastic white-ness. It was like being inside the head of EVE from Wall-E. It smelled like . . . well, it didn’t smell. I imagined this place at night, where no cleaning staff entered, but instead the ceiling sprinklers doused the place in sanitizer.

I own an iPod. It’s a classic 80 gig.

“Classic.” I got it in 2007.

I also own a 3GS iPhone—which means it’s the second to latest edition—and a 4 gig iPod shuffle that I use for running. It was a gift, but I love it.

I will admit, I love my Apple devices.

But I hate their computers. Yes, enough to start a sentence with a conjunction.

Recently, I set off a minor firestorm on my Facebook page when I dared scoff at the glory of Apple computers. I will never join that trend (speaking computers, that is. I’d die without my collection of iDoodads). I don’t care how wonderful their operating systems supposedly are, I don’t care how cool their entertainment systems are, I don’t care how damn white they are. They’re stupidly expensive and I understand Windows just fine, thanks. Why, at my age, with limited time to spend learning rather than using a computer, would I force myself to learn a whole new OS, and shell out that kind of cash just so my laptop bears a glowing white once-bitten apple to impress my friends? Nuts to that.

That was my opinion when I entered the Apple store in search of a USB cable and a remote thingy. The place was very busy, as I’ve said, but there were many employees as well, more than there were customers. Each was young, bearing a blue shirt and a sparkling smile. Odd for an electronics store: plenty of available clerks who appear happy.

No, not happy.

Fanatical.

I passed the first tow glass tables which were set up as iPad 2 altars, and then an employee sprinted up to ask me how he could help me.

When asked, he knew exactly what I needed, and led me over to an accessories wall where he indicated the cable ($30) and remote thingy ($55) that I sought. I didn’t grab them, instead considering places where I could find cheaper knock offs that worked just as well minus the Apple logo.

Unused to having an electronics store employee stay with me, I sought to milk the moment.

“Say, where are your iPhone cases?”

He took me to the opposite accessory wall, which bore hundreds of the cases in all colours and styles, made of gels, rubber, metal, plastic, cork, human flesh (I’m sure). But all for the iPhone 4.

“Mine’s a 3,” I said. Then, like it mattered, “A GS.”

His smile faltered, just a little. To the point of almost coming back into the range of the humanly possible. I took a moment to study his teeth, telling myself that they couldn’t possibly be made of white Apple plastic. No, they couldn’t be.

“Oh,” he said.

He pointed up to a nigh-unreachable corner of the wall bearing four 3GS cases. One looked like a sunglasses fabric bag, another was pink metal, the third was the same as my own, and the fourth was pink and purple with the word “juicy” adorning it in what looked like rhinestones.

“Thanks,” I said. “Think I’ll pass.”

“Okay. Say,” he said, his eyes widening and crossing slightly, a small trickle of drool running out of his mouth, “you tried the iPad 2 yet?”

“No, I’m not really interested.” I’m not a tablet man. My smart-phone and laptop combined make a bulky tablet pretty meaningless to me.

“Oh, but you should at least try it.”

That is not a human grin.

“S’okay,” I said.

“Tell you what, go check it out. I’ll come check on you in a few minutes to see how you like it.”

“Uh, kay.”

I left, fearful that if I stayed a moment longer that a side panel would open up, revealing a shrine of Steve Jobbs made of white plastic, and the faithful would line up for afternoon prayers.

I went to Best Buy, found the items I wanted for less than $30, I didn’t even see  an employee, and was happy that the store was as dishevelled and poorly-organized as ever.

I remain an Applegnostic.

A Note of Thanks to the People of Canada from Stephen Harper

A note of thanks to the people of Canada from your lord and ruler, his majesty, the always-right, and honourable (because it says so in my title!) Primus Regis Maximus Minister, speaking of his will over the peons and plebes, his godship, Stephen Harper.

Subjects,

It is with great hope for the future of my rule that I set these words to cyber-paper—well, I’m dictating them to a nameless lackey (Helena Guergis) and I’ll have another lackey check them over for grammar and proper fear-mongering—but basically it is I, your lord and master, deigning to speak to you now.

I need to start with a word of thanks. What, you ask, I thanking you? No, your petty eyes are not deceiving you. I am truly thankful, for you see, I could not continue to rule you as I see fit without your continued ignorance and apathy, so: thank you. *Ahem. That was much more distasteful than I expected.*

I shall now present to you, point by point, the reasons I am thankful, through a concise and comprehensive list compiled by another of my lackeys.

1.     Thank you for not understanding how our democracy works. This is extremely helpful in my quest to reorganize it into: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNAHjsAnTd4

I have been able to do this by convincing you that you are voting for me, or against Stephan Dion’s accent, Michael Ignatieff’s education, Jack Layton’s moustache or Elizabeth May’s right to exist. Thank you for not understanding in Canada that you vote for your MP, not your PM. Your cooperation in this matter has continued to help me perpetuate an American-based system rather than British. Please, watch more FOX News.    

2.     Thank you for not knowing what the word “minority” means. If you watched the Canadian news rather than The Bachelor or pro sports once in a while, you might have learned that more people voted against the Conservatives than for us in 2008. If I were any other leader, I might have to play nice with those scum who use the big words and sit across the floor from me. But you have allowed me to ignore facts and numbers and proceed as I will.

3.     Speaking of words, thanks for allowing me to convince you that the word “coalition” is nastier than Armageddon, hospital waiting rooms, and HST combined. It’s helpful that you believe me when I say it is unconstitutional and undemocratic (I’ve never glanced at our constitution and democracy is what I make of it), even when many European nations govern with coalitions quite nicely, appealing to a greater set of the populace’s interests (I mean, who cares what you want—governing is about POWER!). Thanks again for not knowing that our system has a British basis, not an American one. OH! And thanks for believing me when I tell you the opposition parties are a coalition already, even though they deny it, and there are no facts to supprt my claims. Pffft, evidence. Always in my way. Also, thanks for forgetting altogether that my Conservative Party (3.0) is a COALITION of the right, featuring former Progressive Conservatives, Reformers like me, and that Canadian Alliance thingy. It's swell that you forget that I proposed my own coalition in 2004, and that I refuse to speak about a letter I sent to the Governor General then. My word always trumps the facts! My daily needs to re-write history are duly served by your inattentiveness.

4.     When those dastardly, puppy-skinning, Lenin-worshipping Liberals ruled us, we Reformers and Conservatives rightly decried every prorogation of Parliament. Who did those lazy sos-and-sos think they were, calling a pause to Parliament—y’know, every decade or so? But it’s super cool that I can do it every time the Opposition starts using that constitution thingy to form a coalition (EVIL!), or when you get wind of us hiding the abuses of Afghan detainees from you. Thanks for allowing me, when the chips are down, to take an extended holiday so I can go see some hockey. I know that letting you have some time to get worked up about who is getting kicked off the island will cool your passion for politics faster than you can say "abuse of power."

5.      That short-term memory of yours is awesome! I mean, if you remembered my gay-bashing newspaper ads back when I was an out-of-the-closet Christian fundamentalist Reformer, you might not prop me up so readily. Thanks also for letting me campaign on Senate reform, then get into power, learn what the Senate actually is, then load the sucker up with Conservative sycophants. I mean, this way, if Parliament fails to pass a bill but I can get it to the upper house, we can just re-route the system and I can make all kinds of crazy laws. How come Arthur Meighen never thought of this?

6.     Thanks for missing the whole “contempt” thing. I mean, sure, we’re stealing your tax dollars and lying about campaign spending, super-prisons, shiny jets, and we created a budget with the sole purpose of goading the Opposition into a contempt vote so that we could blame them for the election we don’t need right now because, dang it, I’m just so concerned about Japan and . . . that Arab place with the guy who has the kind of power I want. Y’know, the one Obama asked us to help bomb? So, thanks for not knowing that “contempt” means your government has broken your laws. Repeatedly. What’s that you say? “Corruption?” LOOK, THE COALITION IS DROWNING KITTENS!

As we’ve begun this election—that I wanted, but know you don’t, so I’m blaming it on the other guys—it’s become apparent that you, my subjects, will let me say and do anything.

Because you just don’t care.  

You either blindly follow my party with the same sort of reverence you hold for hockey teams, never taking silly things like policies or issues into account, or you just stand aside and do nothing. You don’t follow politics, you don’t vote. I couldn’t continue to translate “minority” to mean “empire” without your continued zeal or apathy, respectively.

So, thanks. People throughout North Africa and the Middle East are protesting, fighting and dying for the rights you have given up to me with nary a shrug.

Sincerely,

            The (Always) Right Honourable (as I define “Honour), Prime Minister cum His Majesty, President (in Deed if not Name), Dictator (in Intent and Practise), of Canada,   

                                                                                                                             Steve

                                                                      

Blognote: Today ask yourself who the real fools are.