The Story of Lennie

So. I finally got myself a notebook. Pretty nifty, I would think so, especially since as I distinctly remember just a month ago, I never thought I’d have enough in my payroll piggy bank to finance the purchase of anything that cost more than a few measly grand. But then I remember, that’s what plastic is for. Memory gaps, tsk. That’s what you get for living the corporate zombie lifestyle.

Forgive me for being such a sap, but allow me this one-liner, to introduce a heffalumpa load of one-liners in the coming attractions:

Say hello to my little friend.




Yes, holla to Lennie, the new kid on the block. The fresh pea from the consumer pod of the Bel-Air of computers, IBM Lenovo. My precious. So help me if I accidentally drop the thing which, given my genetic predisposition, is not a near-impossibility. And yes, I now understand why dog owners call their beloved quarries Blackie/Brownie/Snow-Whitey/what-have-you.

So why get myself a notebook when there are bills to be paid and gabizillions of kids going hungry in China? Well, one might say it’s not so hard to justify the acquisition of such things, what with the world being increasingly run by computers and us humans needing to “get with the program” lest we get obsolete (yeah, the Matrix rocks!).

But the truth of the matter is that I got the idea of bagging Precious here so I could download and install iTunes for my personal use. (The damn office firewall won’t allow such errant behavior for some reason.. Friggin’ holier-than-thou IT people, you guys are insufferable when you’re not troubleshooting and fixing bugs and other garden-variety PC mishaps, you know that?)

And why, pray tell, should I have an actual use for iTunes? Because, silly, that’s how you transfer and save mp3 and other kinds of files to and from your iPod. An iPod, rather. Which would refer—painfully obviously so--to the lack thereof. Autoplay new mantra: Stop The Swiping. Must Save Bread. It’s rainy days again, after all.

So anyhoo, any bright kid who hasn’t been brainwashed with the idea of buying into the Apple experience franchise would raise the logical question of why I feel the need to get myself an iPod to begin with. It’s not exactly the most essential of things, after all. (Note: I am yet to be a proud iPod owner--only the question of when that's happening remains. So to those who already get the idea, this is my caveat.)

The answer to the nega-million dollar question? Coz I need to run. I need to run, dammit. And what else to egg me on all the more with my current preoccupation than to get myself one of those Nike+ thingamajigs. It’s a tiny gadget that monitors distance and time elapsed, plus calories burned (if I got my vital stats right), in the course of a run. To complement and maximize the benefits of using the Nike+ system, you need to firmly latch on to an iPod as you do your runs. It doesn’t hurt either that apart from listening to energy-boosting tracks that are supposed to help distract you from all heartburn-inducing sensations associated with running and exercising, you also get the rare chance to be pushed and bitch-coached by some of the greatest in the current sports scene. I mean, I guess hearing Lance Armstrong say “You go, girl” or any permutation of such would be enough to get your engine revving to full capacity, even if I personally would prefer Marat Safin to do all and, well, any kind of revving up for me. But what can I do, he’s still in the Adidas fold. And I suspect that until he wins a title again, he’s hard pressed to be courted by the peeps over at Oregon to lend his sexy Spanish-speckled baritone to Nike+. But I digress, time and again, for the last time.

And that, my friends, is the long and short of how I got myself my Lennie.


P.S.
Let me assure the people who are the least bit concerned about Lennie's reason for being. Prior to its purchase, the uses I've decided would be this notebook's purpose have graduated to more serious, less interesting roles. Apparently, notebooks are quite the little engines that could, and then some. Maybe this little fresh prince could actually someday bring me to Morocco, like you never know. I'm serious.