The Mac Plunge

OK, so I did it. This actually goes back to shopping for a new car and the final realization that I really didn't want/need to spend that kind of money at this point. The problem is that I had gotten in the mood to buy "something" and once that horse gets running, it's pretty hard to get him back in the barn without something to show for it. Of course, the rationalization was that I was saving all kinds of money by *not* buying a car so I could buy something pretty expensive and still spend a whole lot less than I would have had I bought a car...

As I've written before, I've been tempted to switch to a Mac for awhile but I've always been able to talk myself out of it for practical reasons - like practically everyone else on the planet *doesn't* have a Mac. So I was looking at new Windows PCs - with the new Vista Windows Operating System - but I was just completely uninspired by the thought of getting yet another version of Windows. So, when I went to the Apple site to ponder the Macs, I saw that they had a deal where you get a free iPod with the purchase of a Mac. Oh, I should point out that this deal was for college students. How, you may ask, did I see the iPod deal? Well, I knew from last year when Kyle was getting all his computer gear for college that Wheaton has a special section of the Apple web site where Wheaton students could get discounts on Apple stuff. So, I figured since I am the financial portion of Kyle's college experience, I should be able to reap the benefits offered by Apple for student gear. That, and the fact that they didn't seem to require any verification of being a student on the web site...

So the iPod deal was a pretty good incentive. It was actually not free but I could get $200 off a $250 iPod. Of course, there's no small bit of irony here (I think that's what it is) since, during the music player decision process I went through a few months ago, I had originally bought an iPod and returned it for a Zune player. The Zune is not compatible with the Mac so I would need an iPod if I were to switch to the Mac. With this deal, I figured I could sell the Zune for about $150, get $200 back for the iPod and come out ahead of the game - just nod your head and agree.

Anyway, that's what I did. I bought a iMac, an iPod along with some video editing software - at ridiculous student prices - and other software that lets me run Windows on the Mac as well so that I can still run Quicken. I think I wrote about this before. We'll see how things go when it gets here...