It took some doing, but I finally got my Macintosh "gaming rig" from the U...And, Heavens to Murgatroid, it is sweet! The model is an iMac with a really large widescreen (maybe 20"?) It's definitely going to take some effort to adapt to the subtle nuances of the interface, but I have no doubt I'll get the hang of it. I don't know how many of you are aware of my musical background, but I've been having lots of fun with Garageband (I'm actually thinking of ponying up for the keyboard--piano style, that is). I think I could have amazing fun annoying the neighbors with this one. Is there some way to hook up my electric guitar?

I've also been having fun with the remote control (a computer with a remote control = GREAT IDEA). Now I can recline on the couch and listen to Tangerine Dream interspersed with Morrissey (yeah, I haven't quite figured out the playlist thing yet) and viddy my DS9 .avi files with very little hernia-inducing toil. And I was even able to get XCode (Apple's free Mac IDE; equivalent to Visual Studio?) up and running and compiling my C++ adventure game engine in a matter of minutes. Well, more like minutes in clumps of sixty, but who's counting? It doesn't appear to be as full-featured as Microsoft's Visual C++ (I've gotten rather used to having it keep up with the prototypes and parameters for me), I may switch to it just to use that nice wide screen and its much better-looking console window. I've been coding on my tablet PC mostly now (ah, the pleasures of the pen).

About my only beef with the system is that it didn't come with a pack-in game. What's up with that? I've always maintained that the primary purpose of a computer is to play games; everything else is secondary. But I've not yet killed a zombie. Apple--give me a zombie to kill, like right now, or I'm going to apply those decals to my forehead and YouTube myself revealing the Truth about Scientology. They did throw in some bored games, but for the sake of the Grey-Eyed Goddess, I don't need a computer to play chess (computers really suck at chess anyway; you can't intimidate them by flexing your biceps or zap them with your hypno-stare).

I know there are plenty of Mac-friendly folks out there. Do you have any tips for an average frustrated chump who's not yet savvy? I mean, I've been looking for hours and haven't even found the registry editor. And I get freaked out shoving my disc into the side of the monitor, but I suppose I can get used to shoving my disc pretty much anywhere as long as it results in psychedelic hamster squeals. Is there an "easy way" to make the transition, or am I going to be digging out the sand for awhile?