I’ve had three computers since 1998, the year in which I entered the wonderful time-wasting world of the PC. Although that’s not strictly true, since as a young lad I was there in the early days of Sinclair ZX 80s and dodgy Texas Instruments models, programming primitive beat boxes and rudimentary games before giving it all up for over a decade.

Anyhow, that’s an average of one computer every three years, so of course, last December it was time for my lovingly hand-crafted AMD-powered hi-tech bundle of cyber-goodness to cough, splutter, and go belly up. Fortunately, the cough and the splutter were picked up by my radar-like sound engineer’s lugholes, and a Big Hard Drive was hastily connected to the shuddering white beast, with just enough time to pull the entire contents from the smoldering ruins, thus preventing a serious descent into mental disarray for your humble narrator.

Oh Lordy, three weeks without a computer! Three weeks of having to sneak in all awkward-like to ‘Media Cafes‘ and book a couple of hours in a tiny overheated cubicle among fat pimply adolescents whacking off to jazz flicks and cheapskate fresh-off-the-boat gaijin furiously emailing their mate Baz in Spalding. And, unprotected by lovingly trained Beyesian filters, having to sift through 500 plus missives concerning the size of my manhood before accidentally erasing the one ‘real’ email which was probably offering me some fabulously remunerated sinecure in Tahiti.

But a feeling had been a-growing these past years. Already an avid iPod devotee before the stinking herds were let in on the secret, I had begun to cast admiring glances at the Apple products, their sleek and sexy forms calling out suggestively for a sea change. Or was that a sex change - my typing skills are rudimentary, dear people.

And then in a rush it was upon me and I could contain myself no more. Why avail myself of a reeking ugly and cheap Dell PC, when I could solve my computer woes by plunging in at the deep end and going all Mac? Why go through all that hassle with language-specific Windoze operating systems and heinous activations when a multilingual non-phoning home Apple product would do the job, and look much more coffee table too?

In short, it was the perfect opportunity to make the switch - the sexy new iMac had just been unleashed along with the new Leopard operating system which seemed slick and user-friendly, and then I discovered that the new Intel-based Macs allowed a dual boot with Windoze which would mean that all my nerdy wargames could still be enjoyed on the new Apple rig! Yippee!

And so now, dear readers, I type this upon my 2.6Ghz dual core CPU 2GB RAM 20″ shiny screened iMac, wirelessly connected to the internet, smiling smugly in a slate grey Armani jacket as I find myself part of that small but growing band of creative cognoscenti who have thrown off the shackles of the Gates and are now basking in the brushed aluminium glow of the Jobs (so to speak).

Hallelujah!