I'm listening to the Bruce Springstein cd "Born to Run", and it makes me feel like I'm a college kid because that's when I think started listening to his music. My first roommate in college had picture of "The Boss" all over our dorm room. Paula was such a Chi-town North Shore girl, wishing she was a leather clad chain-smoking jersey girl. I only started liking Springstein because I was forced to listened to him for two semesters. I was a mod/goth girl wearing fishnets, clunky 60's shoes, hats with veils, and listening to The Cure, The Clash, Pere Ubu and Joy Division.

I've never understood the appeal of listening to only music from your past. It's kind of fun once in a while to listen to the music of my youth, but then I get depressed. I feel like another Springstein song "looking back on my glory days". And I'm like my "glory days" keep on happening, so what is there to look back at. And my best "glory days" are yet to come, and will keep on happening until that day I drop dead.

Whatever.

My all time favourite Bruce Springstein song "Meeting Across the River" is on this cd. I love this song. It still chokes me up whenever I hear it; the desperation in this song is so palpable. I think we've all been in this guy's position at some point in our lives, maybe more time than we would ever care to admit.

Just when I was all excited and set to buy a Mac laptop, a friend of mine told me that Dell just cut the price on their four pound laptop. It doesn't have a cd-rw like the Mac I-Book G4, but the price is pretty darn comparable because I wouldn't have to buy extra software.

I could buy a Dell laptop Inspiron 700m with Windows XP for Home for about $1,200. I have a Windows XP Pro installation disk at home, so I could upgrade it myself and I could load all my old MS Office 2000 software on it, as well Final Draft 6 which I can install on two computers. This laptop has a 12.1 inch screen like the Mac.

But not having a cd-rw is kind of a drag I think. Plus, I was thinking I could load mp3s on my mac laptop and use it like an I-Pod since I plan to carry the laptop around with me most of the time.

Decisions, decisions. There are two Dell stores in the area, which makes me think I need to check one of them out to see the Dell laptop in person this weekend. The stores are each an hour outside of San Francisco, but I need to see a Dell laptop in person so I can compare it to the Mac I saw in the Apple store on Union square.

My friend was telling I'm just inviting file transfer problems if I have a Mac laptop and a pc desktop. But the guy at the Apple customer service told me that the transfer issues have been taken care of.

I don't why people make such a big deal out whether you're a mac user or a pc user. I started out using a mac, and then I had to switch to a pc, but with the advent of windows, there really isn't that much of a difference I think.

I'm also defintely getting a new palm with a fold up keyboard. I need a new palm anyway, and I might as well get the fold up keyboard for those days when I don't feel like lugging around a laptop.

Something about my apartment is just not conducive to me writing. I can type out my handwritten notes at home, but writing on the computer is just next to impossible I’ve decided. Not sure why this is happening either, but it’s definitely happening. I kind of think it’s because I spent a year working at home, and I’m still suffering from the effects of that whole experience. Not being able to write at home is such a drag, because sometimes it just works better if I can type on a computer and hand write everything by hand.

So I’m looking at two options to my writing dilemma. The first option is two buy a new palm pilot with a fold up keyboard. I met a woman in my science fiction writing class who wrote all her short stories this way, and wrote a 200-page novel on her Handspring Visor. She carried her visor and fold up keyboard in her purse and since it’s so compact and small, she carried it everywhere.

I’ve been looking at the new palm pilots, and my current favourite is the Tungsten E. It’s not prohibitively expensive, and features a colour screen. I’ve been thinking it would be fun to have a palm pilot to check email or surf the net, but I don’t need all those bells and whistles if I all I want to do is use my palm pilot to type out my stories.

My second option, and one that I’m seriously considering, is getting a Mac laptop. It’s been a fantasy of mine to own a Mac laptop. I have a pc at home, but I’ve always wanted a Mac laptop. I looked at the I-book at the Apple store, and it’s so small and light and not expensive at all compared to comparable pc laptops.

I have to buy Office for Mac to make sure I can trade files back and forth, and I probably have to upgrade my Final Draft screenwriting software so I can use it on both a Mac and a PC. Final Draft 7 is cross platform, and with one license you can install it on both a Mac and a PC. This must mean I’m not the only one who has a pc and a Mac.

I’m definitely getting a new palm. But I’m still up in the air on the Mac laptop. I just wish PC laptops weren’t so expensive compared to a Mac laptop, because then I’d probably get a PC laptop. But that Mac price is just so attractive!

I'm really getting exciting about that screenwriting expo I'll be attending in November. I think Andrew Sorkin Aaron Sorkin, creator and writer for "The West Wing" is going to be there, but lots of other famous Hollywood celebs and writers.