Show the old girl a nice time

Old and dependable though the iBook may be – it’s a 1.33ghz 14” with about 5 months of the original Applecare left so if anything is going to go wrong it better go soon – that doesn’t mean it doesn’t want to dress up pretty.  So I got this handy skin from Decalgirl and put it on over the weekend.  

The few times I’ve already taken it out in public it gets a lot of looks.  I don’t understand this – I mean, why a customized laptop-surface should be such a rarity.  Austin may be the laptop capitol (and Apples seem to comprise half of those on display in the coffeehouses) but I hardly ever see any with serious mods made to the casing.  Sometimes people put stickers on, or a splash or two of paint, but not much even of that and never, ever, a full skin visible.  Here they like them naked and dull.  What is it, something about an anticipated lowered resale value?

Decalgirl, a small company based in Delaware, makes some great skins and is overall good to deal with: excellent customer service, fast order processing and shipping, and reasonable prices.  The only quibble I have is given my experience with their iPod skins, the “easy peel-off” claim may not be 100% accurate.  But with my hardware skins are meant to be kept on anyway so it’s not a deal-breaker.

The skin neatly clings to the raised, glowing Apple logo and no light shines through.  That's some pretty heavy-duty vinyl, I guess.  The outline of the logo is visible in relief from certain angles, but overall it's now well-hidden and I'm glad to feel just that little bit less a corporate shill.  Even if it is my favorite corporate Kool-aid distributor.

Bonus cute-kitty picture today, Malcolm passed out on the couch as a rainy day warrants.  A few minutes after taking this I tossed him outside when I left for work.  Sounds heartless, I know, but I left butter out to soften for a grilled-cheese at dinner, and he's proven to have quite the fondness for raiding the counter and scarfing down whatever part of the stick is available.  He weighed in the other day at 13 lbs.  More exercise and less dairy product is what he needs.

(Props to Adam Rice for turning me on to Decalgirl a couple of years back.)