Darkhorse Candidate

A month ago, I made a fateful early-morning decision to forego the MacBook Pro and get the MacBook Air.

This led to interesting times.

While waiting for the interesting times to end, I reconsidered my original decision and took a long look at the MacBook. I think it was a mistake to not seriously consider the MacBook before. After some consideration, I found it a good compromise between weight, size, performance, and value.

It is therefore a pleasant surprise to announce the arrival of my black MacBook named Eöl.

Eöl is named after the Dark Elf of Tolkien’s First Age, Thingol’s kinsman who traded the sanctuary of Doriath for the freedom of Nan Elmoth. Eöl had a rare friendship with the Dwarves of the Ered Luin, and his craft was well-respected.

Eöl (the computer, not the character):

• Entered service on April 4th, 2008.
• Has the 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo (Penryn) CPU, which totally screams.
• Is equipped with a 250 GB hard drive, which suddenly lets me put everything on one machine again.
• Has been upgraded to 4GB RAM, because I can.
• Is running Mac OS X 10.5.2 (Leopard).

I am suitably impressed by the speed and performance of the MacBook, especially compared to the Air. The dual core 2.4GHz CPU is like a Camaro … who ran over your neighbor.

Long-time readers will no doubt point out that Eöl, as a person’s name, falls outside my established nomenclature of using regions or cities. This is completely true.

My only response is that I was going to name it Khazad-dûm or Moria, but Merrystar said it was named Eöl.

I thought about it for a while, and decided that even with Eöl’s less than sunny story: yup, that sounds just about right.

(I’m supposed to be learning from my mistakes, after all. Not repeating them.)