Looking back, it’s difficult to believe that this blog is now on its fifty-sixth post. A lot of small ideas have come and gone, and I’ve certainly found quite a bit of amusement in doing it. And I think there will be a good many posts to come. On the surface, it seems a bit like work writing these posts…but of course it isn’t. It’s fun, and energizing, and represents a lot of things that I can’t seem to find anywhere else.

It’s creativity.

I have to come to realize that more than anything, I enjoy the simple art of creating things. There’s nothing more exciting than turning a blank page into something vibrant with life–something that simply did not exist in this world before. (Of course, my parents had similar thoughts when they created me, and it’s hard to say whether or not they knew what they were getting into.) But there’s definitely a common theme when you look at a lot of the things that I enjoy:

• When I play the piano, I often add notes, rhythms, or chords to the music on the page.  On many other occasions, I simply make things up–the song of that particular moment being lost to the wind when I am done.  In a few rare moments of dedication, I’ve actually captured songs and synthesized them through the computer, and I always get joy out of hearing them again.  It’s simply a fun process to go through.
• My first loves in the career world have always been web design and architecture, both heavily revolving around the construction of new things.  Architecture always felt a little too far out of reach, but I think I will always have one eye on web design.  There’s something very attractive in the idea of building something that people will use, or walk through, or will be thankful for as a step along their journey.
• My favorite games to play are always the most creative ones.  That’s why I was somewhat swept away by the game World of Warcraft , because it is the ultimate creative experience:  you create a character, give him or her a name, and breathe life into a world that did not exist before.  It’s almost like writing a movie script in a live environment, and there are some amazingly creative people to interact with.  It’s probably worth a post of its own to explain a bit better, because yes, I realize the face you’re making right now.  More on this later, then.
• I enjoy humor greatly, and some of the most fun times I can ever remember are groups of friends making jokes and laughing together.  Part of it is the humor itself, of course, but an equally amazing part is the creative aspect of it:  in those situations, no one knows what another will say next.  It’s a comedic free-for-all, and it’s hilarious to hear what friends come up with in the spur of the moment.
• And then, of course, there is creative writing itself:  this blog, for example.  I hope that you enjoy it half as much as I enjoy writing it.  Life always has its ups and downs, but I think there is always a certain level of happiness obtained from sharing things with another–whether it’s a blog, or a good movie, or a game-winning touchdown, or throwing your gap at graduation. 

Noting all of these things, it’s difficult to believe that many of you would not share the same sentiment, given the right circumstances.  So as you push your way through the day to day grind, always try to take a moment to stop reacting and start acting.   Find something that you can create to make a difference, even if it only makes a difference to you. 

And in the process, you just might start opening the eyes of others, as well.

The following is an e-mail I received, probably not unlike the scams that you have received multiple times in recent months.  But upon closer look, this truly had some gems that were too hilarious not to mention.  Therefore, I’ve added new annotation functionality to the blog here, and you’ll see a number of footnotes along the “points of interest.”

Keep in mind, of course, that I fully realize cancer is a very serious thing. Because of this, I feel no hesitation to point out the complete idiocy of someone who is trying to take advantage of this to steal from people.

At any rate, you can either hover your mouse over the numbers within the text to read the notes, or you can scroll to the bottom.  Enjoy!

Original E-Mail from Mrs. Cynthia Moore, of South Africa:

Dear beloved friend,¹

I know that this letter may be a very big surprise to you, I came across your email contact from my personal search² and I instructed the doctor here in this hospital to help me email you³ and I believe that you will be honest to fulfill⁴ my final wish before I die.

I am Mrs. Cynthia Moore, from South Africa , I am 58 years old, I am deaf and suffering from a long time cancer of the breast, which also affected my brain.⁵

From all indication my condition is really deteriorating, and my doctors have courageously advised me that I may not live beyond the next two months;⁶ this is because the cancer stage has reached a critical stage.⁷

I was brought up in a motherless baby’s home⁸, and was married to my late husband for twenty years without a child⁹. My husband and I are true Christians, but quite unfortunately, he died in a fatal motor accident.¹⁰

Since his death I decided not to re-marry, I sold all my inherited belongings and deposited the sum of $5.2million dollars¹¹ with a Bank here in South Africa .

Presently, this money is in the Bank, and the management just wrote me as the Legitimate beneficiary to come forward to receive the money after keeping it for so long or rather issue a letter of authorization to somebody to receive it on my behalf since I can not come over as a result of my illness, or they get it confiscated.¹²

At the moment, I’m with my laptop in the hospital where I have been undergoing treatment.¹³ It is my last wish to see that this money is invested in any organization of your choice and distributed each year among the charity organization, the poor and the motherless baby’s home where I come from.¹⁴ I want your good humanitarian, to also use this money to fund churches, orphanages and widows around.¹⁵

I must let you know that this was a very hard decision, but I had to take a bold step towards this issue because I have no further option.¹⁶

I hope you will help see my last wishes come true. As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the Bank where I bank the money.¹⁷

I will also issue you a letter of authority, which will prove that you are the new beneficiary of my funds.¹⁸

Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein.
Hope to hear from you soonest.

Yours faithfully

Mrs. Cynthia Moore
moorecynthia79@yahoo.com.hk¹⁹

I think you can see now why I (Andy) am flying to South Africa on Saturday. This is the chance of a lifetime–to make someone’s dying wishes come true. I will help the poor, and of course myself, and all of the religious motherless widows running orphanages. I think this is truly What Jesus Would Do.

Annotations

1. A good start, except one has to ask the question, 'How many beloved friends do you have that you have never heard of?' In the U.S., there is only one answer, and that answer is a prostitute. She's not off to a good start here.

2. I don't know about you, but when I think of a 'personal search' it has more to do with a recurring nightmare involving airport security–not e-mail.

3. Little known fact: in South Africa, doctors not only save lives, but they also double as tech support. Patients are often cheered immeasurably when their doctor walks in, smiling, and says, 'You've got mail!'

4. Little off on the English here, but we'll forgive her because she's dying, with only one wish, and she's trusting it to a person she hasn't spoken with in years living halfway across the world.

5. A hell of a set of maladies, wouldn't you say? It's bad enough to be deaf with only a doctor to send your e-mails, but to have a long-term combination of breast/brain cancer is extremely tough. And here I thought the only true link between breasts and the brain existed in males.

6. She's right here; it does take great courage for a doctor to tell the truth to a dying patient. I imagine it would be far more fun to lie and tease this thing out for a couple of months. Oh, wait. Never mind.

7. This is like when the knee bone meets the cancer bone–only higher and on stages.

8. Now this is great. A motherless baby! The marvels of science have advanced significantly in recent years, but in South Africa, babies no longer need mothers at all! And they also can live in homes by themselves, which is pretty neat.

9. Very sad that the motherless baby had no baby.

10. Some research turned up the true story: Peter Moore had both arms chopped off by an onboard motor during a horrible fishing accident. He couldn't have held their baby even if they had managed to have one.

11. Not bad at all for a single dad who couldn't teach his daughter to use a computer. It's also quite tragic that unmarried women in South Africa are required by law to sell all of their belongings.

12. It would seem, upon studying this legal quandry, that the unnamed bank is quite evil. They know Cynthia is in the hospital, where she cannot leave, so they wrote her there to tell her they're going to take all of her money. Sadly, this is possible because South African banks are the equivalent of that cousin you used to play in Monopoly that always wanted to be the banker. Because he cheated. Or drew the game out so long that you died of cancer.

13. I have to wonder now if Cynthia typed the e-mail, then asked her doctor to take the laptop itself to a Starbucks to send it.

14. Apparently these are three different things. And the home is still there, accepting baby after baby that experienced The Virgin Mary Syndrome.

15. This is getting more generous by the second.

16. With no other option, how hard a decision was it, really? Now I'm starting to get pissed.

17. They'll be so angry to see their confiscation plot foiled! And better yet, it sounds like I won't need ID or anything–just a contact! This is getting better and better.

18. Oooh, a Letter of Authority. This is like an e-mail without the doctor and the Starbucks. *Disclaimer: Letter may be voided if contents of said letter are distorted by cancer of the brain-breast.

19. Interestingly, most residents of South Africa often choose to use Hong Kong e-mail addresses. This must be for tax purposes.

As each day goes by, it’s human nature to focus squarely on what’s in front of you.  We do the dishes, we watch TV, we make phone calls, and we chase our animals around the house.  Life, paired so tightly with time, continues its never-ending journey forward.  And so we move forward along with it.

There is, however, almost an undeniable expectation that the next day will be just like the last…or to put it another way, that everyone and everything that we know will continue to move forward along with us.  It’s the things we’ve always had that we most think we will always have.  Yet this, I believe, is one of the most tragic mistakes that we can make.

Now, I should point out that I am a person that flat-out detests being sad (which is why I prefer having a root canal to having a “good cry”).  I am very much an optimist by nature, but not blindly so.  For while there are some that will tell you that you can do anything…I am not that person.  Because I’ll tell you right now, there are some things you won’t do in a million years.  For me, it’s more a matter of perspective.

Let’s take the most illustrative example:  life and death.  No one ever thinks they’ll lose a loved one.  It’s extremely difficult to think about, and it sure as hell doesn’t cheer up the soul.  And that’s understandable.  But we protect ourselves so much against this thought that we do the opposite:  we take life for granted.  We go on, day after day, assuming that we’ll have our family and friends forever.  We hold in our minds a hundred things that we’ll do someday, never once stopping to consider that the only day we have for sure is today.  And each day that passes becomes a missed opportunity.

I think we’ve all lost someone we loved at some point (here’s to you, Amy).  Surrounding this loss is a feeling that it’s incredibly unfair–that while death is inevitable, there just seemed no way that it could happen to this person, on this day.  Deep down, though, I think we all know that this isn’t true.  We’re given an amazing gift to live on this planet, but it is not a gift with a guarantee.  It can be taken away in a moment’s notice, for any reason at any time.  This doesn’t make the possibility of death any stronger–there is nothing that will change that.  But it should make life that much more powerful.

And so while we wake up in the morning, hammering the snooze button through blurred vision and cursing another work day, I think there are also countless things to be extremely thankful for.  We have air to breathe, and people to laugh with, and a home to live in.  We aren’t in a war-ravaged land, as in Afghanistan, nor do we have to fend off disease at every turn, as in many African nations.  Most of us still have enough money to get by on, even when the economy takes a bad downturn, and we never have to wonder desperately how we’ll get our next meal.  We have family members that care about us, and too many friends that try harder for our happiness than they do their own.  We have rarely been the victim of any serious crime, nor do we have to live a life looking over our shoulder.  And of course we have the opportunity to live a free life in an incredible country.

Taking these things for granted is a choice we all make, subconsciously or not.  But I’ve found that the more you appreciate things, the happier you become.  You begin to see that we live amongst incredible gifts, and that even when darkness finds its way to us, it has far more light to offset it.  Appreciation is, after all, why a starving child finds so much more happiness in a meal than someone with his own personal chef.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

It’s Friday the 13th, and the room is darker than I would have imagined.  Chandeliers cast a pale golden light about the high ceilings, doing nothing to lessen the general unease of the people standing below.  The temperature is surprisingly hot in spite of the cold February night surrounding the hotel.  I set my jacket on an unoccupied chair and take a seat.

I am amused and excited to be at the first one-on-one competition tournament of my life.  I simply would have never guessed that at the heart of this competition would be a board game.  This unadorned room will play host to the Eastern Scrabble Championship.

Fortunately, this evening is not the true tournament itself–it is a special event designed solely for newcomers to the game.  Stepping out from “living room” play, as it’s often called, to a live tournament can be quite a leap forward.  Things of relatively low importance–drawing tiles, timing games, counting scores accurately, and tracking tiles played–now become paramount.  And there is no computer to do it for me.  I’ve already anticipated the impact of this, somewhat, and I don’t think it will catch me off-guard.  But after the first game begins, I literally have no idea what will happen.  I just hope I don’t make a fool of myself.

After waiting several minutes for the last players to arrive, one of the co-directors steps up and walks through the necessary guidelines for new players.  I smile to myself as he talks, because if one were to develop a stereotype about competitive Scrabble players, this guy would do nothing whatsoever to help his cause.  He stammers through the intro, although his intentions are well placed.  Oddly, this performance does break the ice somewhat.

When he has finished, we walk over to receive our match assignments, and I meet my first opponent.  He turns out to be a very normal guy, and I’m intrigued to learn that he and his son both came to this newcomer’s event to play their first tournament.  He nods to another table, and I see a boy of about ten drawing his first tiles against a woman fifty years his senior.  We both share a laugh and then settle in to play the game we’ve come to love.

When I mention the game of Scrabble to someone, the most common reaction is one of someone staring down a tenth-grade English exam.  Spelling words for fun?  Better to leave that for someone else.  And having hated English in all grades of school, that’s something I certainly understand.  But of course that’s not what it’s about–not really.  It’s about tossing a hundred tiles in a bag and knowing with absolute certainty that they will come out in a completely unpredictable way.  It’s what you do with those tiles that makes all the difference.  And the journey is never the same.

So I find myself here, after having tried countless other games, knowing that’s why this is the one I never strayed from.

On this particular night, that unpredictability certainly holds to form.  I can’t quite seem to get anything working, but I manage enough in my first game to eek out a win.  We sign each other’s scorecards, and I look down to see the handwritten record of 1-0.   I am now undefeated in my competitive Scrabble career.  I grin to myself, thinking that I might just get off to a good start, building some momentum toward the full tournament the next day.

Of course, I get soundly beaten in each of the next two games.

The first is against a woman that I’m quite surprised to be in a newcomer’s tournament.  She has her own custom-made board–generally costing $150-200–and she doesn’t seem ill at ease whatsoever.  I make a joke about having to play her on her “home board”, casting a glance at my $15 mass-produced board sitting two tables over.  I don’t really believe this until a few minutes later, though, when I’m down over 100 points.  Five minutes after that I’m fully engaged in damage control.

The third game I lose to the most bizarre of all opponents, and the one thing I’m most shocked to see at this event:  a attractive blond woman.  She’s clearly a true newcomer to the game, as I am.  Amusingly, another woman stops by and asks if she can annotate our game, which means she will watch my tiles and record all of the plays I make.  She’s doing it for the first time and needs to practice for the tournament tomorrow (she’ll be annotating the expert games), so of course I don’t say no.  But it’s quite unnerving, having someone experienced writing down every move I make.  I struggle through the entire game, mostly because the board is someone closed off and I can’t seem to think outside of the box.  I lose a nailbiter and see my record fall to 1-2.

From there, with two games to go, I match up against a eleven-year-old who’s clearly in over his head.  He hasn’t won yet, and of course this happens to be the game that everything goes right for me.  I beat him by a hefty margin, feeling a touch guilty and reprimanding the Scrabble gods for creating a game in which margin of victory matters (it’s the tie-breaker in all cases).  No one ever eases up in Scrabble.  I move on from there to lose another nail-biter at the end of the evening, finishing with a 2-3 record.  I’m sixth place of ten and wondering if the next three days might prove quite the challenge.  But after getting the intangibles of tourney play down on this first night, I feel like I can turn more of my attention to the game itself tomorrow.

As so often happens in these cases, what happens next is something I’m not ready for at all.

So you’ve heard of it before, and now you’re starting to really hear about it.  Then comes the dreaded, “Everyone else is doing it!”  Not wanting to be left out, you sign up, and you’re now staring at a hundred different things, all looking for your attention.

No, you’re not Octomom.  You’re a Facebook user.

Facebook has taken the world by storm, probably more so than every other medium at this point.  MySpace became the haven to crazy seventeen year-olds, budding artists, and fluorescent pink backgrounds.  Twitter was a foreign language to the majority of Americans, much like text messaging (omg! this is gr8, lol!).  Instant messaging started to fade when it couldn’t be hooked into mobile phones well.  But Facebook persevered more than any other, because of its initial sense of no frills…but more important its ability to look up and find countless people that you hadn’t known or seen for years.

Old roommates, high school friends, former lovers, and random people you knew but didn’t care about.  All of these are now a simple search away.  But with technology comes the unknown, and with an application like Facebook, there’s still a heck of a lot of unknown for many people.

So I thought I’d take a few moments to toss in some advice for Facebook.  Take it for what it is, and let it guide you to whatever degree you think it should.  With that said, here are the ten rules I think everyone should follow on Facebook:

1. Don’t accept everyone in the world as your friend. In general, people don’t like conflict, and it feels a little wrong to flat-out reject someone as a friend.  Can you imagine if the world were full of moments where someone stopped you in Target and asked, “Hey!  Will you be my friend and share your info with me?”  Awkward. You’d probably throw out whatever diversionary tactic you could think of and run screaming in the other direction.  So my advice:  don’t let Facebook be any different.  And best of all, if you choose to “ignore” a friend request, they never know this.  Their request just doesn’t get answered, and they’ll never know whether you ignored it or just don’t use Facebook that much.  Problem solved.
2. Set your privacy settings to be a little more strict. At the top of each page, there is a “Settings” link, and under that another called “Privacy Settings.”  Of particular interest on the next page is the “Profile” link, where I have set every single category to be “Only Friends.”  Ironically I ran into the same phrase every time one of my relationships ended, but that’s another story.  But in this case, you’re stating directly that people that you don’t accept as a friend can’t see any of your information.  By default, a lot more is open to that, including photos and the people you’re friends with.  It also helps control access to the crazies (see point #1).
3. Encourage others’ content before your own. The best thing about Facebook is the running dialogue with friends and family, so try to comment on their statuses, links, and other activities when you can.  This can be serious, humorous, or anything in between.  And when things die down a little, then you can throw in your own content to get things going.
4. Don’t post information about how many times you’ve had sex, or how many movies you watched this week, or what your deepest darkest desires are. There is such a thing as TMI, and most people would be somewhat mortified to share this kind of thing at a party.  Why do it on Facebook?  It might haunt you forever, you know, with people finally knowing about your long-closeted love for toe fungus.  Think about it.
5. Use the Links section with wild abandon. One of the best and most-underused parts of Facebook is the Links capability–that is, people sharing links to various web sites, articles, or other content.  The web has become so expansive that more and more content becomes obscured these days, so what better way to enlighten friends by sharing links with them?  If there’s a site that you love, or something that you find fascinating, simply copy the link to your clipboard (highlight and Ctrl-C), paste it into the box on the Links page, then Share.  Add a note, and now your friends can share the love with you.  And not the kind that causes diseases or awkward water cooler moments.
6. If you don’t want someone as a friend anymore, toss ‘em to the curb! One of the lesser-known things about Facebook is that if you remove someone as a friend, they are never informed. You simply stop showing up in their friends list.  So if you need to do a little cleansing, particularly for people that you won’t see in person, just quietly remove them.  Another problem solved.
7. If you’re into music concerts, there’s an amazing application called iLike which highlights all concerts by your favorite musicians. With most artists doing everything they can to earn a living, almost all of them are hooked into applications like Facebook and MySpace.  If you perform a search in Facebook for “iLike”, you’ll find one of the best applications there is, and a terrific way to make sure you don’t miss an opportunity to see your favorite artists in person.  You can also share your music likes and dislikes with friends if you wish to, as well as see unique artists updates and music videos.
8. Play Scrabble with me. New victims are great!  If you want to play, please send me an invite and I will crush you like a bug.  Then you can crush me in return at almost any other game that you wish to.  :)
9. Keep an eye on what your wild siblings are doing. I have witnessed my brother, through the various capabilities of Facebook, do the following:  get romantically serenaded by a man, catch a pie in the face, embody the heart and soul of Queen, harass a little girl for speeding in her backyard vehicle, and pay tribute to the late Steve Irwin through a stirring performance in the darkness of his house.  I think you’ll agree that it’s better to know these things are happening…well, more so than not knowing.
10. Experience the true oddities of worlds colliding when friends from one part of the world see comments from other friends they haven’t met. There’s nothing more entertaining than seeing people have that “WTF?” moment after reading comments from your other friends, especially inside jokes.  As an example, my friend Ryan and I have a joke going about neighborhood crime (which there isn’t), so one day after I accidentally left my garage door open, he posted on my wall to say that someone might steal my car before the day was over.  The next thing I know, I have worried relatives writing to me, worried that I was having my car stolen.  That’s entertainment.

As with everything, Facebook is something that has to be used the right way to avoid having it go too far.  There are times when it becomes information overload, and the thing has so many different applications that you can be flooded if you’re not careful.  But with a little selectivity, and just the right dose of crazy, it’s one of those things that brings a lot of entertainment.  And of course a reunion with just about everyone you ever knew.

Just make sure to post a beautiful picture, preferrably not the one from your high school prom.

For the sake of argument, imagine the following, along with me:

My blog has caught fire in recent months, and averages 50,000 readers each day (I realize this is a little low, but again, use your imagination).  I have an annoying hyperactive Geico lizard that zaps its tongue all over the page while you read, and its ad revenue has nearly allowed me to retire from my job.  But not quite.  Sensing a real opportunity here, I hire a web traffic analysis company to research visitor interests and determine which stories generate the most traffic (i.e. revenue), and this research is provided to me two weeks later.  As the final step, I rename the blog from Life As I Know It to Life As I Know It, Sponsored By Cheez-It.™

Things are looking up!  The only problem is, the analysis company tells me that some of my more mundane posts don’t generate traffic.  It turns out that no one wants to read about stories without drama, or conflict, or hate-filled rants.  It’s time to spice it up!  In particular, I’m told that to make enough revenue to walk away from my daily cubicle life, I need to really stir the pot as much as possible, getting readers angry about various things in our culture.  The angrier they are, the more they’ll come, and the more they’ll trust me to “blow the lid” off of the world’s most awful happenings.  And if a slow month comes around, and I just can’t find things to blow the lid off of, well, I might just have to create a little fire where there isn’t one.  It’s a little white lie, right?  You don’t have to create things that aren’t there…you just have to cast them under the right light.  At the cost of a little manipulation…wham!  More revenue.

I think long and hard about this, about all of the things I wanted to do with this blog, and in the end I decide that it’s a small price to pay in order to work from home forever.  Simply typing posts for a living is a dream come true…and I make it happen.  Maybe it isn’t quite what I envisioned in terms of content, but there’s absolutely no harm done because it’s nothing everyone else isn’t already doing.

And so I make the leap, and I never look back.  The blog becomes a major hit.  Readers upon readers throw all kinds of incendiary comments onto each post, which in turn generates more buzz, and in turn brings in more readers.  Revenue goes through the roof.  I have legions of rabid fans.  I buy a yacht.  I sign autographs at huge rallies.  Celebrity status has now found me, and it fits like a glove.

Of course…at some point our collective imagination ceases to perpetuate this dream, and the alarm clock rudely awakens us back to the world where I return to my cubicle every day.  My posts have a weekly high of 47 readers.  I stumble downstairs, bitter with frustration, pull out my bowl of cereal and turn on the TV.  And then it hits me.

My dream isn’t a dream after all.  It’s alive and well in the 24-hour cable news channels.

CNN.  MSNBC.  Fox News.  CNBC.  If you look at the type of content each airs on a daily basis, it’s rarely different than what I’ve described above.  They’re addictive.  They’re interesting, because they uncover the dark side of nearly everything in America…and unfortunately, there are far more dark sides than anyone thought possible.  Righteous anger is probably the most dominant theme for avid viewers…a sense of “Those people are damned crazy and I’m glad this network finally gets it.”  Of course, when political lines are drawn, we’re made to think that half of our entire country is made up of pure idiots, idiots whose sole mission is to drag the better half of the country down into an abyss with them.

Behind the scenes, the paintbrushes of these networks never stop their unending chorus.  Black versus white.  Blue versus red.  Middle ground is boring, so you damned well better pick a side.

Love or hate thy neighbor.

It’s a chorus that becomes more and more accepted, simply because it’s what is in front of us.  Don’t believe me?  Take a little quiz for yourself, and write down ten types of people that you can’t stand.  I bet it doesn’t take long to finish the list.  And when you’re done, think of why you wrote down the groups that you did, and where you got the information from that made you say so.  It’s an intriguing exercise.

It has long been true that we’ve felt a strong bond with our sources of information–a sense of trust, when all is said and done.  We feel that those describing the news to us are instilled with a sense of duty, and an obligation to unravel the truth of an increasingly crazy world.  But the bottom line is that the news, like nearly everything else these days, is a business.  The network that paints the fairest, most journalistic picture will always fall to the network that has the better ratings.  And conflict drives ratings. More money means more influence, and as we’ve seen in cases of the financial sector, it means more hefty bonuses and a life that most people would never dream of.

The time is fast approaching that Americans will have a choice to make–whether to make a stand, or whether to let pure money and greed dominate the lives of so many.  We will have to decide whether or not we will think for ourselves, and most importantly, whether we will see the world for what it truly is:  an impossibly complex spectrum of gray, not the black and white that drives network ratings.  We will have to understand that simply because someone opposes our view, it does not mean that they are to be discredited, or their character attacked.  And we will have to acknowledge that no matter what our views, they will always be fundamentally flawed views.  No one will ever get it entirely right, particularly when we are constantly informed by those with financial motivations.

It’s a small thing, but I work hard each day to look at things from all perspectives, and to assume that people are doing things the best way they know how.  Even if it isn’t the most newsworthy story (and it never is), I’ll be damned if I hate the person next to me because he is passionate about something that he believes in.  For as long as he has thought this out for himself, I will greatly respect him for it.

And maybe–just maybe–that isn’t a small thing at all.

I think most of you know that I am now a bona-fide Mac user, and in general this statement alone causes one of three reactions:

1. You make the “Oh, God, it’s one of those snobby Mac lovers that is going to lecture me for ten minutes on why my computer sucks” face.
2. You pump a fist in the air, in that geeky sort of no-arm-strength way, and reaffirm that we both rule (or in extreme cases you might kiss my mac).
3. You stare at me as if I just talked about which paint I like to watch dry, and you go back to texting on your cell phone.

This debate has raged for years and years, never dying in its intensity.  In recent times, the edge of this war has become blurred by the unparalleled success of Apple’s iPod, which has created additional crossover success for Apple’s computer lineup.  But the war continues unabated.

The amusing thing, however, is that many users can’t give a definite reason why one is better than the other.  I have people ask me about this all the time, and I’ve slowly tried to work my way to a much better depiction of the two universes (since I have both types).  I’m also one of the rare people that say both Mac and PC are equally viable:  there are groups of people for which each is truly better.

So if you’re thinking of crossing over, but are filled with uncertainty in an uncertain world, here are what I think are the most important points to consider:

• PC’s are less expensive.  A lot less expensive. Anytime you hear a Mac person bragging that a Mac is better, know that he or she probably paid twice as much for it, provided that they have a full power desktop or laptop.  This really sets the two apart and does not make it a fair comparison.  The only exception is the Mac mini, which is a small, efficient Mac that does not come with a monitor, mouse, or keyboard.
• Macs are without question easier to use, and far easier to solve problems on. Everyone has those computer problems that make you want to pull all of your hair out and sob like a child at a horror movie.  Drivers, significant virus concerns, hardware compatibility, blue screens of death, and complicated installations…all of these almost never happen on a Mac.  When you install a program, for instance, you drag the program from the disc folder to your Applications folder.  Almost everything else is plug-and-play.  It’s really that simple, and it’s a huge headache relief.
• There is more software available for PC’s, but unless you’re a power user/gamer this gap is far less than you think. In recent years many major companies have all developed applications for both Mac and PC, including Microsoft Office, all Adobe software, and all web browsers.  Casual users have almost no problems getting the software they’re looking for.  The most significant advantage for PC’s still lies in the realm of  games, some power applications, and work-specific platforms (anything your company has built to let you work from home, for example).
• Macs have significantly more appeal, including the cool factor. If you’ve ever seen one, it’s hard to deny that this is true.  Apple has developed a fair number of applications, in addition to the computers themselves, that become eye openers at parties, or just flat out fun to show off.  This particularly applies to playing music, generating screen savers and videos, and creating slide shows of photographs.  It’s rather like comparing an iPod and a Microsoft Zune in the MP3 player market.
• Macs own the market on compatibility between computers. Because Apple is the only company that creates both its computers and their operating systems, it can take a lot of liberties in terms of how these computers can talk to each other.  As an astonishing example, I bought a new Mac last year, and I allocated an entire Saturday to transfer over all of my software, settings, files, etc.  When I plugged in the new computer, it simply asked me if I wanted to copy all of these things over from an old computer.  So I connected the two…and 45 minutes later my new computer looked exactly like my old one.  Unfortunately PC’s can’t do this because there are countless PC makers.
• For applications that exist on both systems, I simply don’t adhere to the arguments that one is simply better than the other. I’ve used a number of applications on both systems for some time now, and I personally believe that there is no real difference.  The true benefits lie elsewhere, in the things mentioned above.
• For the average user, PC’s still own the market. In spite of some of the advantages above, only certain people truly benefit from the added cost of purchasing a Mac.  PC’s have been around a long time, and their familiarity and cost still win the argument in most cases–simply because most people don’t use their computers enough to warrant the hike in cost to switch over.  Of course, there is still a tough choice for PC users over what kind to by.

So if you’re thinking of making the switch, it might just be worth it, or it might not.  I do hope the above helps a bit.  For me, a fairly serious computer user, I am very glad I bought a Mac.  But my situation is not that of  many others, and I’d always advise everyone to carefully evaluate their own situation before forking out a lot of their hard-earned money.  Unless you run a Ponzi scheme, in which case you can do as you like.

The only case I’ll make a fervent pitch is the iPod Touch, which I am an avid fan of.  I do believe that might surface in a future post, where my love affair will publicly make itself known for the first time.