Josh Edwards - 10/15/02

The Apple Babe

Okay, I'll admit it. Like thousands of other young men out there, I've fallen for the new "Babe of the Month". Madison Avenue and their wiley tv and print commercials have swayed me a la my libedo.

I'm talking, of course, about the new Apple Computer Babe, Janie Porche.

"What?" You say. "Have you gone daft, m'boy?"

My retort is simple, "Who the hell uses 'daft' in a sentence in the year twenty-aught-two? Weirdo."

(Is it even spelled "aught"? Is it "ought"? My computer doesn't know. Damn Apples.)

Anyway, yeah. I have fallen for this cute little Apple spokeswoman. Fallen with a capital "fuh".

I first saw Ms. Porche on the back of some upscale magazine at Karen and Jack's apartment on game night a few weeks back. I hadn't even seen her TV commercial yet, all I had was her somewhat goofy grin on the back of this "New Yorker" or "other publication that's a little to haughty for Josh with the articles that run more than two pages and few, if any, semi-nekkid women on the cover".

But you know, her goofy grin eased the pain of my crushing defeat at "Balderdash".

Then, a few days later, I saw the TV commercial. As far as commericals go, it's not very swaying, she pretty much says that she "saved Christmas" by having an iMac - her Dad's computer - a crappy Windows machine, wouldn't work with the new Christmas digital camera. He had to spend all day downloading drivers. Her machine was plug and play.

Now, is that really saving Christmas? No. But she's cute telling this little story, and I'm obviously already Mac-biased anyway, so I'll give it to her.

Then I looked her up at apple.com. That's pretty cheesy. They've ditched the whole "Christmas" story (a good idea, I feel) and have gone with, get this, "My PowerBook turns more heads than I do. I'll admit it - I'm a little jealous. Passers-by turn their necks around to see how thin it is, or slow down just enough to see the Apple symbol light up from the back. Maybe it's even gotten me a few dates..."

Yup. Playing right into the target audience of mid-twenty something guys with no girlfriends who spend all weekend on the internet downloading music and porn.

Er, um, not that I fit into that category. Um, cause also she's the target audience for "rad twenty-six year old hotties with lots of friends and a cool job and a swingin' bachelor pad in beautiful downtown Burbank, CA."

Uhhhhhh ... yeh. Anyway.

So yeah, I feel pretty pathetic playing right into their advertising hands. But dammit, she's so cute!

She ends with, "Now I have an iBook, a PowerBook, and the iPod. Along with a wall of historic Apple advertising posters, a few t-shirts, and a sticker on my car. Call it a cult if you must. But when was the last time your computer got YOU a date?"

.... um, never?

God, now I feel like a bigger loser. I'm talking back to words written by a committee at some round table, trying to make the computer nerd's dream girl. It's like "Weird Science" for 2002. But dammit, she's so cute!

- Josh Edwards

home | e-mail

Last Updated on: October 15, 2002