today i’ve been checking half-heartedly. i’d seen the same page of refurbished macs so often that i think i was going a little nuts. this is how nuts:

i just bought an iMac!!!

after all that, i went back to my original thoughts about buying a better machine. i figure if i clean up my iBook it’ll last me another few years of intermittent traveling, and the rest of the time i’ll have my beautiful 3.06GHz processor, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and 24″ screen iMac.

i’m a firm believer in signs, and i think i had to go through all this to get the computer i really want. originally, i was going to get the 2.66GHz 20″ iMac, but after thinking about paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,200 for a MacBook Pro, my budget for the iMac jumped. and i’m feeling really good about spending more, too. desktops stick around longer and tend to go obsolete rather than die (unlike laptops, in my experience), so it’s worth getting a machine that will last a little longer.

the one thing that made me think real hard about it is the difference in graphics cards between the 3.06GHz iMac and the 2.53GHz MacBook Pro, being the NVIDIA 8800 GS or 9600M GT, respectively. Thanks to a discussion on just this subject on the apple discussions site and ultimately the comparison done at barefeats.com.

hooray! i’ve got a new machine on the way!

the backstory: i’ve been ready for a new mac for about six months now. i’m on a G4 iBook, and while it’s still performing its duties, it’s moving at a pace that’s encouraging me to take far too many trips to the kitchen. at first i was thinking about getting an iMac, which would be my first apple desktop. i figured since i’m mostly working at a desk now, a desktop would be fit quite nicely. plus the huge display. plus the lower cost for more power.

so i was waiting for an upgrade to the iMacs. then it came. then i decided to wait until i could get it refurbished from the apple website. then when it was finally available refurbished, i was traveling, and i realized that although it would be grand to have such a wonderful desktop, i travel a bit and i really couldn’t do without a laptop.

so then i was back onto laptops. the buyer’s guide at macrumors hinted at an upgrade to the macbooks, so i waited. then the new aluminum macbooks came out, and i waited for them to show up refurbished. a couple weeks back, there they were, and i decided to wait yet again because i realized i could save about $175 in sales tax if i waited until the next time i went to oregon (which will be the second week in february).

have you noticed all the waiting? i sure have.

so tonight i was filing my b&o tax forms for washington state, which is the first time i’ve done such a thing. and what should find? turns out my sneaky little no-sales-tax-in-oregon trick isn’t something washington puts up with, and in order to claim a tax deduction on my computer i have to pay a use tax equivalent to sales tax if i buy it somewhere outside of washington!

all this waiting. so much time that me and my new mac have spent pining for each other. only to find out it’s needless time apart!

quick as a flash i went to the refurbished section of the apple store. and they’re out. no refurbished aluminum macbook pros. sadness, frustration, ridiculousness: all things i’ve been feeling in waves tonight.

i decided to check one more time before i went to bed, and then i saw it: the infamous yellow post-it informing me that the store is being updated!

and so i’m here. waiting. again.

ridiculous.