Here in New Bedford, we have perhaps the most perfect weather possible — sunny, light breezes, cool, dry. So you’d think I’d be out enjoying this beautiful day, wouldn’t you? Nope. I’m dealing with computer problems. (If you’re a techno-geek, it’s preferences problems for Mac OS 10.3 which prevent the Finder from launching.)

I sat in front of my laptop all morning, and at one point I had this sudden memory of bending over the engine of my ’69 Plymouth Valiant, twiddling with the carbuerator. Suddenly it hit me. The evolution of computers today is about as far along as the evolution of automobiles was in the 1950’s — back when you were lucky if a car lasted five years, and you needed to have a tune-up twice a year or the car wouldn’t run, and when basically cars were pretty unreliable. Therefore, my ’69 Plymouth Valiant was further along the engineering evolutionary path (and therefore more reliable) than any computer made today.

Which is kinda depressing to think about.

Worse, when I had to bend over the engine of my old Valiant at least I could do it outside if the day was as beautiful as today is. At least I got to use my hands, and move around. But not with computers. Computer maintenance means sitting for hours indoors and doing nothing but typing.

I admit to some nostalgic fondness for my old Valiant, which finally died because there was such a big leak in the gas tank, my mechanic wouldn’t even let me drive it into his garage (think: “boom”). And I admit to some nostalgic fondness for my old Mac SE running OS 7, a nice stable operating system on nice stable hardware. My nostalgic fondness is completely overpowered by my desire to see a qunatum leap in engineering evolution of computers to the point where they are as reliable, and as long-lasting, as my ’93 Toyota Corolla.

Back to the Mac, as I try once more to get it working.