It’s raining laptops

Behold my new work laptop! It’s a 16-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro¹A name that feels unnecessarily repetitive. and I love it.

It’s all sleek and fancy and I’m sure it’ll run circles around my old workhorse, but at the moment there are two main things I really love about it: It can get operating system updates and I’m not having to pay for it.

I’ve had my old work-issued MacBook Pro since 2016, which apparently was eight years ago. We’ve been through a lot together during that time—including, of course, the pandemic. That laptop and I spent nearly two years holding everything together from my makeshift garage office. It’s also been to Hawaii, Alaska, China, Mexico, around the Mediterranean, and just about everywhere else I’ve been since my job generally requires me to be available 24/7/365.²This makes it sound like I’m important, but trust me I’m not.

It’s never given me a bit of trouble and still performs really well too. You’d have no idea it was a relic from the halcyon early days of Pokémon GO.³Directly across the street from our house is a PokéStop or whatever they’re called. For months, there were people standing out there at all hours, just staring at their phones and furiously swiping and tapping. Not nearly as busy these days, but I still people out there getting all Poké every once in a while. Unfortunately though, it’s no longer capable of running the most recent versions of macOS.⁴Or at least Apple isn’t willing to push anything beyond macOS 12 to it. Our IT people were willing to let it slide when I was just one generation behind, but now that I’m two releases behind and another one is due to come out this fall, I was told that it was time to put my faithful pal out to pasture.

I went ahead and opted for the larger 16-inch version this time. Although I generally dock my MBP at both the office and at home, there are times when I have to use it like an actual laptop and I’ve been frustrated for a while with the lack of screen space for multitasking on my current 13-inch machine. I didn’t realize just how much larger it would be though, and I hope it won’t be too onerous to haul it around all the time.

Personal property

Ol’ Silver isn’t the oldest MacBook Pro I have though. That honor would belong to my personal MBP, another silver 13-incher which just celebrated its 10th birthday.

It’s also trucking along without any major problems,⁵Whatever you think about Apple, you have to admit they build stuff to last. but it has developed a few quirks over the years. It can run a little warm when it’s doing things like rendering video. It hasn’t been able to hold a decent charge for a while now and dies within 30 minutes if not plugged in. And of course, it also can’t run newer macOS versions,⁶It’s actually a version behind even my old work unit. although honestly that hasn’t been an issue since I mostly just use it for browsing and web-based SaaS⁷Are we still using SaaS or should I say “cloud-based” instead? I don’t want to be any less hip than I already am. apps these days.

It does have some cosmetic damage—a few dings and some minor scratches on the casing, but nothing major. The little rubber feet on the bottom have started falling off and despite my repeated attempts to re-adhere them through various means, they keep disappearing. The anti-glare coating on the screen turned funky years ago too.

On the flip side, it does have a decal on the top shell that I treasure dearly and am loathe to give up. That’s not a great reason to keep a laptop, but I can’t completely discount its importance.

So, since it’s in relatively good condition and still does what I need it to, I haven’t been in a huge rush to fork out the money it will take to replace it. Alas, it seems that my hand has been forced and I’ll have to move on pretty soon.

A couple of months ago, I gracefully tripped on the always-attached power cord and tugged the MBP off our coffee table.⁸It is one of the magnetic breakaway cords though, so I’m not sure what happened there. Even though I’ve dropped it dozens of times and it landed on a fairly thick rug instead of directly on the hardwood floor, it must have hit the corner just right and now it has some pretty gnarly irreversible screen damage.

I’ve been trying to work around it, but I have to admit it’s less than satisfactory. I never know what time it is and I can only see about 1/3 of the notifications that pop up. It also prevents me from running things in full screen mode since, as far as the computer knows, that right edge of the screen is still fully functional real estate.

I figured a replacement MBP would be hella expensive because generally everything is far more costly these days than it was ten years ago. To my pleasant surprise, however, when I priced out a new MacBook Air—which admittedly isn’t a Pro but will still beat the pants off my ancient wood-burning, cuneiform-based computer—it was less than a dollar more than what I paid in 2014. I kid you not.

So, in conclusion, I have no idea how economics work.

It never rains, but it pours

Of course, life rarely lets you get away with incurring just one big cost at a time. No, if you’re going to have to pay more than you want for one thing, then you’re inevitably going to have to pay for even more things fairly soon.

As soon as you book non-refundable tickets for your dream vacation, the water heater breaks. And the car needs new tires. And your dog needs a ridiculously expensive dental cleaning. These things cannot happen at convenient intervals; they must occur all at the same time because that’s how the universe works. It’s not exactly like raaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiin on your wedding day, but it’s no less frustrating.⁹It is also not like a free ride when you’ve already paid. In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite of that.

But I digress. The point of all this is to say that The Daughter’s most recent burner laptop has crapped out and she needs a replacement. And she has naturally concluded that she needs a MacBook of her very own.

For most of the past 20 years, I’ve just been buying low- to mid-grade laptops for the kids. You know, those HPs and Dells they always offer for like $200 on Black Friday. They rarely last more than two years, but it’s okay because they’re pretty cheap. You don’t need a monster gaming rig to play Minecraft or watch Sesame Street videos and kids are constantly finding dumb ways to break stuff. Consequently, we’ve gone through more crappy laptops than I can count.

Honestly, I can’t argue with The Daughter’s assertion that she needs something better this time around. This will probably be the computer that she takes with her to college, so it should be something decent and reliable. Plus she’s reached the age where she understands what things cost and generally takes good care of them.¹⁰Sadly, she hasn’t yet reached the age where she has a job and can pay for a MacBook herself like her brother did last year. So we’ll no doubt be purchasing a MBP for her as well in the not too distant future.

We’re fortunate enough these days to be able to buy two MacBooks at the same time without too much hardship, but that doesn’t mean that I want to. I’d much rather just deal with a black fly in my chardonnay or something.

At least The Wife is content to keep getting disposable laptops every couple of years. Her current machine is an HP Chromebook that’s fairly decent, but the previous one looked like it was designed in the Soviet Union and manufactured in a bowling ball factory. Every time I had to do something with it, I thought, “Zagreb ebnom Zlotdik diev!”

It’s possible that I went a little too cheap on that one.

Two nights ago at the ballpark

Let’s go live to Oracle Park and see how the Giants’ season is going so far…

Through five home games,¹¹Or six if you include the exhibition game with the A’s. the Giants have hit zero home runs. After a dozen games overall, they’ve stolen exactly zero bases. They’ve haven’t even had a chance to flash their fancy new lights yet because there’s been nothing to get remotely excited about in any of their night games.¹²Although they have started rather pathetically doing a sparkling effect after strikeouts of opposing batters. The only things that’ve sparked any sort of fan reaction thus far have been the introduction of an inflated version of Lou Seal¹³I will admit that I was not a fan at first, but his crazy bouncing antics have grown on me. and the further enshittification of the stadium food offerings.

There’s still plenty of time for improvement, but so far the 2024 Giants have looked a lot like the 2023 Giants: slow, powerless, and generally underwhelming. Getting drubbed by the Dodgers wasn’t unexpected and keeping pace with the Padres was okay, but dropping a home series to the Washington Nationals is not something this team can afford to do.

In any case, they lost again to the Nats on Tuesday night, 5-3.¹⁴It didn’t really feel that close. There was some early buzz when Kyle Harrison mowed down five of the first six batters he faced and the Giants managed to knock in a run, but their lead lasted less than half of an inning. Things started to look a little brighter when they loaded the bases with no outs in the ninth, but they successfully found a way to avoid scoring a single run.

As a wise and devilishly handsome man with a fabulous beard once said, “Some days you get the bear and some days the bear gets you.” Through these first two weeks of the season, the bears have been feasting.

[Editor’s note: The Giants did win a game yesterday afternoon, but of course I didn’t go to that one. And they stole three bases! Still no homers though—they’ll have to wait at least another ten days to get their first one at home.]

[Editor’s note #2: I had yet another Star Trek reference in this post when I was talking about damaging my laptop, but I know that I really need to keep such things to a limit of one or two per post if possible. I think the other one was better, but Riker and Scotty content always beats non-Riker and non-Scotty content when making such decisions.]

• 1
  A name that feels unnecessarily repetitive.
• 2
  This makes it sound like I’m important, but trust me I’m not.
• 3
  Directly across the street from our house is a PokéStop or whatever they’re called. For months, there were people standing out there at all hours, just staring at their phones and furiously swiping and tapping. Not nearly as busy these days, but I still people out there getting all Poké every once in a while.
• 4
  Or at least Apple isn’t willing to push anything beyond macOS 12 to it.
• 5
  Whatever you think about Apple, you have to admit they build stuff to last.
• 6
  It’s actually a version behind even my old work unit.
• 7
  Are we still using SaaS or should I say “cloud-based” instead? I don’t want to be any less hip than I already am.
• 8
  It is one of the magnetic breakaway cords though, so I’m not sure what happened there.
• 9
  It is also not like a free ride when you’ve already paid. In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite of that.
• 10
  Sadly, she hasn’t yet reached the age where she has a job and can pay for a MacBook herself like her brother did last year.
• 11
  Or six if you include the exhibition game with the A’s.
• 12
  Although they have started rather pathetically doing a sparkling effect after strikeouts of opposing batters.
• 13
  I will admit that I was not a fan at first, but his crazy bouncing antics have grown on me.
• 14
  It didn’t really feel that close.