no dice

So I couldn't pull the trigger on the Macbook Pro. It's like a bad TV show, and I'm the crazy misguided kid who sticks up a bank and takes a bunch o' hostages before getting in that inevitable square-off with the cops. The kid walks to the doorway of the bank, holding a hostage at gunpoint, and looks out the bank window. Cops, dozens of 'em. All pointing their guns at him and waiting for the word. His plan has gone horribly awry and he's starting to panic.

"Don't do it," the police negotiator dude says. "It doesn't have to end this way."

"Get away from me!" the kid yells, anviously waving his gun around. "It's too late. It's over. Everything's over."

"It's not too late," the negotiator says. "Put the gun down and we'll talk. Just talk."

You see the kid's face, and there's a look of reason for a second, and he might even begin to put the gun down...

It's at this point in the show when the kid brushes some tears out of his eyes and does something horribly stupid and irrational, like turning the gun on himself or throwing the hostage down on the ground and opening fire on the cops before being riddled with return fire.

Then he's laying on the ground with the life seeping out of him, but still conscious and grinning crazily.

"I went out big, didn't I?" he asks the EMT who's loading him onto a stretcher.

"Shhh, be quiet kid, don't move, we're gonna fix you up OK," the EMT says. "Just stay calm."

Then the EMT rolls back the kid's shirt and sees the damage: blood and bullet holes dotting the kid's entire abdomen. The EMT tries not to grimace. He knows the kid won't make it.

"I'm gonna die," the kids says. "I'm gonna die. But I went out big, didn't I?"

The EMT is about to cry.

"Yeah, you went out big, kid. You went out big. Just like Butch and Sundance."

I don't want to be that kid.

So it's kind of like that. Or maybe kinda more like a much simpler and more accurate metaphor. I don't have one ready.

But the point is that the logic against pre-ordering this beast is just too overwhelming.

Really, there are two reasons, both potentially powerful, for ordering it now:
-if a ton of people order it, and I wait, the computer may be on back order and I won't get it until later, like maybe March
-like a child, I crave this cool new toy

But as far as I can guess I'll be able to get one a week or two after they start shipping, and in that time perhaps some disqualifying flaws will be discovered. Like the batteries last 8 minutes or the bitch gets unreasonably hot.

So I will wait until February (if I can), and then I will buy this thing if the initial word is good. I am stupid, very very stupid, but not stupid enough to drop 3 grand on an untested computer that has to last me at least four years.

Trying to finish the James Frey book before I read too much about it being horseshit.

For ten genius points, whodat?