When I was first chided for owning and operating an iBook without giving it a proper name, I thought my accuser was just silly as sugar on grits. After all, this was coming from a woman cradling a camera named Virgil, and Virgil wasn’t even her camera, but under her care, it was called Virgil. I rest my case.

But then I remembered that this was not at all a new or goofy idea at all. I earned my degrees on computers with names. “You mind if I jump on Beethoven for a second so I can rlogin kill this job? Mozart’s being a bitch today,” was a perfectly normal thing to say in the Fitzpatrick computer lab. There was a room full of composers, a room full of painters, and a room full of philosophers. I can’t for the life of me remember what the computers were called in the Nieuwland lab where I continue to live in digital infamy, but I think they were elements. In any case, a name, even a stupid one, not only made it easier to find a computer on the network, but it made being bound at the wrist to it more charming. Good morning, HAL…

New MacbookSo I really ought to get on the ball and come up with an appropriate name for the newest member of the household. World, meet…uh… good ol’ whatsisname, the MacBook. Yes, Clarence the iBook, after an unfortunate incident involving a power cord, my ankle, and gravity, has moved on to the computer lab in the sky (at least until I get enough funding for this stem cell research to grow him a new hard drive). He is survived by Hendershot the iMac and Beavis the retarded Gateway (It’s called a “dongle.”). And now, this new guy, who in spite of having his own nanoscopic iSight built right into the edge of the screen, isn’t easy to photograph.

It needs a name, people. Help me out, my well’s run dry.



Read more filed under Geekery