Growing Up Geek

'A mime? A goddamned mime? I want him fired. I want him fired right now.'

I had just learned two important things. Always ask a reporter to see the article about you before it hits print, and never compare Windows 98 with a mime. At least not if you work for the ad agency who just won the Microsoft account.

The magazine had asked me to name three things that had helped me go from a nameless computer geek to the winner of the Peoples Choice Awards at the 1997 Macromedia Users Conference.

So I began with the Commodore 64. My dad gave it to me when I was 12, hoping to teach me how to program BASIC. I played Zaxxon on it. I never became a programmer, but it instilled a deep love of computers in me, a mindset that technology is a place of fun, of exploration. That mindset has formed me as a creative professional.

The second item was the coffee brewer. This awesome piece of technology has sustained me, has nurtured me, has been the bountiful teat of glorious adenosine inhibitors throughout my formative years. Without this gadget I would be dead to the world. I would not last a day without it.

And the third and last item was the Apple Macintosh. Me and Mac were joined at the hip from the day that we met. At the time, in 1997, times were tough for a Mac taliban like myself. But I was and still am a true believer. Which was why i didn't even think twice in uttering the phrase that very nearly got me fired that day:

The Macintosh. Because Windows 95 is nothing other than a bleak copy, reminding you of a mime artist who just will not stop following you in the street.