Beautiful machines

I've been working on a new iMac today. My mother is making the big conversion to Apple, and had the computer sent to me so I could set it up with software. It's more beautiful than I imagined. It's such a cliche to get gushy about Apple's products, but it really is something to behold. Elegant, quiet, and, coming from our old G4s, quick. I also found out a great feature in the new Leopard operating system, which allows "screen sharing" via iChat. I've never had the time to figure out how to SSH into a remote machine, and the iChat screen sharing feature makes it all so easy. I can troubleshoot over the phone and actually make the changes myself, on my home computer. I loaded about sixty GBs of music in the machine, which wasn't easy. ITunes at first didn't want to accept a big folder of music, so I had to work at it manually, which took most of the day. Now I'm dreaming of the day when I can switch to Intel.

BB's cache of Pokemon cards is getting smaller and smaller. He's been giving them away, but not receiving any cards in return. I've been trying to go over the concept of "trading," but, really, do I care if he's just giving them away? He's really been able to exploit his mischievous side with the cards. There is a rule in kindergarten that they can't bring in trading cards, along with other paraphernalia - guns, glue, you know. The idea is that he brings them out only on the bus. Of course, as AO pointed out the kids he's been talking about who have seen his cards aren't even on his bus. So, how do they see them? I coaxed it out of him today. He puts them into an outside "net" pocket of his backpack and kids go to his cubby and view the cards that way. I still can't get over it. He's six, and already dealing in contraband! All I could say today was that if he gets caught we'll have to take the cards away. I'm complicit, to be sure. But as the wise parenting advisors say, you have to choose your battles.