What Just Happened Here?

Sometimes I do something and then, in retrospect, I wonder why in the hell I did it. For example, I just spent the last hour cleaning my computer. No, not like cleaning off the hard drive of meaningless files that I no longer need. Cleaning the hard drive would be pointless. It's only 60 GB and that 60 GB breaks down into: 50 GB music, 5 GB operating system, 5 GB leeway for downloading more music. My plan is fool proof.

Side bar - When I ordered my dreamy iBook G4 circa February 2005 and I upgraded the hard drive space to 60 GB my brother quite vehemently assured me there was no way humanly possible that I would EVER necessitate such an impossibly gigantic hard drive. Moving on.

The day progressed thusly: I woke up to the gigantic mess that is my apartment, as I have yet to clean it. I hate cleaning. I am procrastinating the cleaning. It's kind of gross outside and I'm feeling a little sick. I can't do outdoorsy mountain things so I will do something geeky. I will download some new music. Let's see how full I can pack this computer.

Now, I've had this fine machine for a number of years and I love it. I have been an Apple nerd since before it was cool and hip to be an Apple nerd. I realize it's pretentious to say that and no one will probably believe me, but you can ask my parents. I annoyed the hell out of them for a Mac long before I was lucky enough to get one. I had to accidentally (oops) kill my PC laptop to get this one. It's been a good companion. We've been through a lot together. It's only had to go to the repair shop once because someone accidentally threw a full drink on it in the dorms. That person very nearly lost his life. He's lucky he's a very large man and that I'm a relatively small and weak girl. Relatively.

Anyway, after many years of use, the white case iBooks get, well, a little gnarly. Like, really gnarly. I tried to help by covering mine in sweet stickers which shows that I am an independent thinker and that I like really sweet bands while simultaneously hiding the really big scratches on the lid. There is very little you can do, however, about the gnar level of the keyboard. It gets gross. Just gross. Which I have usually been able to keep under tabs in the past with a low-level use of elbow grease.

It seems, though, that conditions here in the mountains have made for a far nastier computer dirtiness level than anywhere else I've had this thing. It's never been like this. I think the dirt is part cement. It might cause cancer. Or cure it. That would be my luck, now that it's all cleaned off my keyboard. Anyway, I started with my usual method, the iKlear Apple Polish product. Didn't touch whatever kind of mutant dirt was all over the keys. I tried Windex on cotton swabs. Nothing.

So then I moved on to rubbing alcohol. What just happened to the last hour of my life? Seriously. An hour. I am not this OCD about ANYTHING else. I'm slightly ashamed. I went as far as to use Q-Tips to clean in between the keys. Q-Tips for Pete's sake. THOSE ARE FOR EARS. Someone might need to send help. I might do the dishes next or something productive like that.

But I'll be damned if my computer doesn't look effing amazing.