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Millennial Litmus Test: I BOUGHT A TANGERINE CLAMSHELL iBOOK—Part I

The subject line is self-explanatory, but I just want to reinforce that I did recently purchase a laptop from '99/'00 that is immortalized in the film Legally Blonde.

Screen-Shot-2022-10-22-at-4-20-49-PM


The key question here is why? Why did I decide that this was a necessary purchase in the year of our Lord 2022? Well, I've always been highly inspired by this pivotal scene from the film itself:

I've always wanted that Tangerine iBook, but being that I was only 11 or 12 when I first saw the film, I certainly did not have the budget to splurge my humble allowance on such a major purchase.

I daresay that this whole experience is highly similar to...I don't know...getting night vision goggles at 40?! (Stepbrothers).


Nevertheless, I finally found a decent looking used one—that still works and includes word processing software—for $200-ish. I do not plan to take it on the super highway of the interwebs. I just want to use it for the old school word processing software, and I want it to be able to print documents.  

Another inspiration for this purchase was, interestingly enough, George R.R. Martin. If you don't already know, he prefers to write his epic novels on a hella old DOS computer with a WordStar 4.0 word processor.

Thus, this blog post also doubles as somewhat of an announcement: I want to start writing. Mainly novels, but I might also swerve into the memoir lane at some point. Maybe a short story or two, maybe some poems-ish. At least at some point, I do want to write about my tenure in education—the good, the bad, and the absolutely ugly.

I thought about going hard in the paint with an old-school typewriter, but I couldn't find any that I really liked. I like the idea of using a device that cannot, or there's a bit of work to connect it to the Internet.

Thus, I thought that at least with the Tangerine iBook, I could metaphorically and spiritually feel the rush of typing grand legalese to intellectually defeat my ex-boyfriend and his east coast debutante fiancee. 

Feel free to drop any thoughts in the comments. I'll upload Part II—with pictures—once the Tangerine iBook arrives!


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blairVVitch

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UPDATE: IT'S HERE, but it just needs a little bit of work. It's used and hella old, so you can imagine that just a clean-up/wipe down is gonna be necessary. The keyboard is indeed functional, but I have to pimp slap the r, v, and f keys to get 'em to work. I've got another battery coming in, so we'll see if I can get it to actually function without the yo-yo charger.


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Excellent,.BW!


Cute Compy!


🤘🤘

by 🩸Dripping Venom🩸; ; Report

Oh, nooo...



Not The PimpSlappage!



by 🩸Dripping Venom🩸; ; Report

I know!!! The good news is that those keys are getting better the more I use the computer, so it's gotta just be the fact that it wasn't used so often, right? 🤷🏼‍♀️

by blairVVitch; ; Report

That's Great!

by 🩸Dripping Venom🩸; ; Report

jake!

jake!'s profile picture

That's so sick! There's something magical about those late 90s/early 00s Apple products. Mac OS X was a thing of beauty.


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YESSSS!!!!! I thought it was going to have 9, but it rolled up with OS X!!! 🙌🏻

by blairVVitch; ; Report

Shadow Bliss

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I had a similar experience. I decided that with modern laptops, one thing they REALLY missed was a disk drive. I just want to watch movies or listen to CDs. So I bought such a laptop. It has some technical specs that would make it not ideal for some people (a lot of the time the screen IS too small for modern websites) but I still like it.


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Awesome! What kind/how old is it?!

by blairVVitch; ; Report

Not sure exactly but I saw an administrative tool that meant I could downgrade it to Windows 7.

by Shadow Bliss; ; Report

Nice!

by blairVVitch; ; Report

ppf

ppf's profile picture

from what little i know those ibooks have notoriously gummy keyboards haha, you're going to have to let us know how the typing experience plays out


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btw that little 2 minute clip of legally blonde was enough to make me want to rewatch the movie. certifiable hood classic

by ppf; ; Report

Dude, the same thing would happen with those huge color iMac G3s!!! I honestly miss those things too, Macs were actually the first computers I ever used at school. We had those ancient ones from the '80s AND the iMacs. Then the school district sold its soul to Dell, and everything went to hell.

I'll definitely review the entire experience, typing included! I also endorse re-watching that fantastic film AND referring to it as a ye olde hood classic. Definitely still a fave that holds up.

by blairVVitch; ; Report