What's in a name?

As I talked about briefly here, I attended the launch of Kerri Sackville's first book in Sydney last week. It was an amazing night, an opportunity to meet so many wonderful tweeps in real life, to get to know properly people you'd been tweeting with for ages. But most of all, to celebrate Kerri's fabulous book!

Amidst the cries of "Wow! You look just like your avatar", "Great to meet you!", and "Look at those shoes!", the question I was asked most is "Where did Macsnorky come from?". After being asked a few times, and being the lazy person that I am, I decided it would be easier to blog it than to repeat it a dozen times in one night.

I hasten to say, it's not a hilarious story, and probably not even particularly interesting to most. But I have been asked, so I will explain.

When Thing 1 was a newborn he used to make a strange snorting sound, like a cross between clearing your throat and Peppa Pig, when he was working up to a cry. This earned him the nickname Snorky which we still torture him with now.

Back in the days of build-your-own-PC (who'd bother now?), a friend rebuilt a PC for us and named it Snorky. Since then there have been several variations on the Snorky theme for PCs including Snorkzilla, MiniSnork and Snorklet. A while after Snorky was built, I got my first Apple machine (a Mac G4 tower), which the same friend then named MacSnorky (of course).

Like everyone, I've use many different nicknames over the years for forums and blogs, but given  my Apple fascination, and lack of creativity, Macsnorky has stuck. And seems it's here to stay.

Meet the family

No, I'm not talking about the kids and the dog. Although these family members are almost as important as those ones (just don't tell them I said that!).

I'm talking about my toys. OK, my family's toys. They make me share :-/

Let's start from the bottom and my very first, and most treasured, item of Appley goodness. An iPod 4th Gen U2 Special Edition 20gb. It has a shiny black front with a red Clickwheel which looks fairly smart. But it's the stainless steel back, laser-etched with the band members' signatures that's really cool. I remember seeing it in an Apple Store catalogue at work one day in late-2004 and I nearly fell over at its price of near $500. That didn't stop me leaving the catalogue open on my boss's desk with a sticky note alluding to the fact that Christmas was coming and that perhaps a bonus may be in order. To my shock, he came up with the goods!

We have 2 4th Gen iPod Nanos.

One 3rd Gen iPod Touch, one 4th Gen iPod Touch.

One iPhone 3GS, one iPhone 4.

You'd think that would be enough. No, of course it's not!

There's also a 2006 MacBook, and my newish toy a 2010 13" MacBook Pro.

And finally, a 64gb iPad. 

There's also a Dell notebook but that's barely worth mentioning ;-)

Now, just to keep my blog totally on topic, I have to confess that all of these items have screens that need cleaning, and the laptops need dusting. But you wouldn't expect any less, would you?

I did say my obsession was unhealthy. Looking back at that inventory it seems I may be in need of some professional help. Although, iPad 2 is coming soon. And really, let's be serious, you never know when a girl might need one, right?