I have decided to buy a Mac.

After thinking it over for about a week, considering the alternatives, and crunching the numbers, I will be going to Best Buy, and will return with a 20-inch iMac.  It was not an easy decision to come to, particularly given that I am buying a new computer because I need one, following the early death of my Gateway (for what its worth, it was a pretty good machine up to that point).

I am one of those guys that defended Windows (and by association, Microsoft) with gusto, deriding Apple users as rabid fanboys lying prostate at the feet of Jobs and throwing him money for what on the surface appear to be incremental updates to OS X.  On the surface, it does seem screwy, after all, who else who pays for a DECIMAL upgrade?

I won’t be fogoing the world of Windows anytime soon, though.  After all, I have no intention of abandoning my netbook (which runs XP, and allowed me to maintain a semblance of sanity this last desktop-free week) and of course my cell phone runs Windows Mobile, which is deserving of a good tongue-lashing once I have time to get it all down on paper.  I will also probably install XP on my Mac as well, there are a few things (particularly old programs) that I don’t think will have a Mac equivalent.

It is time to find out how the “other side” lives.