The fun stuff

I've been having a lot of fun with my new eMac. It's a lot of work setting up a new computer, of course, but it's enjoyable, too, and it's nice to start fresh and just copy over things as I discover that I need them. Mac OS X is very cool, but quite a bit different from the old Mac OS, so there's a lot to get used to.

I'm enjoying having a larger display, for one thing. The actual computer itself isn't much bigger than the iMac, but the display area is a lot bigger. I wasn't crazy about the big, photorealistic icons at first, but they're kind of growing on me.

There a lot of things I can do now with OS X that I couldn't do with OS 9. Over the weekend I made my first purchase at the Apple iTunes store -- Ryan Adams' "Hotel Chelsea Nights," which I heard on Cyprus Avenue on Saturday. I also bought "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down. They each cost $.99, and I was able to download them immediately -- immediate gratification.

I don't buy a lot of music, but when I do, I tend to fall in love with an artist and buy everything I can find, and I enjoy discovering the obscure songs as well as enjoying the ones that may have been hits for them, or the ones that I hear all the time. But with CDs rising in cost, I'm a bit pickier than I used to be, and I seldom buy an album on the strength of one song. I heard "Here Without You" quite a while ago, but just wasn't sure enough about it to buy a whole album, but I can afford to spend $.99 on one song.

As far as the Ryan Adams one, well, I listened to a bunch more samples of his songs, and kind of doubt that I'd listen much to a whole album of his, but I loved that particular one. So even though I'm more of an "album oriented rock" kind of gal, a single cheap download was just what I needed.

Over the weekend I also decided to install The Sims. I have the original game, the Livin' Large expansion pack and the House Party expansion pack (which I think was given to me as a gift), but I was never really crazy about that one, and deleted it the last time I did a clean install of the game on the old computer. The next one was Hot Date, which I never bought, and then Vacation, which I did buy, and Unleashed, which was also given to me as a gift.

If you're going to install expansion packs, you have to install them in the right order, so after I installed the first three (I went ahead and installed House Party), I decided to stop and think about it, because if I went ahead and installed the last two, I couldn't go back and install Hot Date if I got it later, without either uninstalling everything and starting over again, or doing a bunch of manipulation of folders, which I didn't really want to do, having done it in the past and finding it a big pain.

So I thought, what the heck, and stopped at CompUSA last night and bought it. I briefly considered also buying the most recent two expansion packs -- Superstar and Makin' Magic, but they were almost $30 each, and I wasn't prepared to spend another $60. Hot Date, being an older one, was only $20.

So I installed that, then Vacation and Unleashed, and then went in search of new skins and objects, because of course I can't be satisfied with the default stuff! And I had to have Obi Wan and Qui Gon Jinn, of course, and the cool furniture and houses I had before . . . I should probably just copy stuff over, but I kind of like the idea of starting fresh. And half (or more) of the fun is shopping!