the yellow hole

Posted on November 30, 2003 by acb

One of the small and simple innovations that will sweep the world, like putting wheels on suitcases, is to make the inside of laptop bags some kind of fierce bright colour so that all the otherwise identical black gadgets that we own can be identified. I trudged round numerous shops in Boston and NYC trying to find such a thing and failing horribly. But in the throbbing heart of downtown Saffron Walden, I have found a laptop rucksack which has a bright yellow interior. In this case, I can now finally distinguish my black laptop from its black power supply, and also from the black digital recorder, the three black pens, a black spectacle case, a black modem lead, a black USB cable, a black pouch for headphones, a black headphone adaptor, and a black Moleskine notebook. And it’s not really expensive, by which I mean it is less than three sessions at the physio, which is what I am paying for lugging the laptop about in a messenger bag.

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9 Responses to the yellow hole

  1. India says:
    November 30, 2003 at 8:19 pm

    I hate that. Among my many black-lined computer bags, I favor a Crumpler “Wonder Weenie” messenger bag, which has an emergency-orange interior. There’s a crosswise stabilizer strap, too, which helps to keep my back from folding, spindling, and being mutilated. Crumpler’s an Australian company (with a very annoying web site), but they have shops in NYC and Germany.

  2. el Patron says:
    December 2, 2003 at 10:58 am

    So far as I am concerned, messenger bags of any sort are too damaging to the shoulders. Even when the strap doesn’t dig into my shoulders, I hunch as if it were about to, and this is bad for nerves, in a distressingly literal way.

  3. Rupert says:
    December 2, 2003 at 3:04 pm

    I’ve wired up tiny lights inside my rucksack, for Glastonbury (when a chap needs all the help he can get) and for some of my dafter ham radio activities. I’ve yet to combine the two, but if I get tickets for 2004…

    R

  4. el Patron says:
    December 2, 2003 at 3:44 pm

    Do you really need lights to see things in your rucksack at Glastonbury? Only the ones that everyone else can see, I suppose.

  5. Rupert says:
    December 3, 2003 at 2:06 am

    We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are staring at the spinning golden fractal gnomes…

    Ah, yes. That reminds me, the staff canteen at Google is run by the Grateful Dead’s old chef. Thought you might like to know.

    Anyway, have you noticed that MT says “Posted by el Patron at December 2, 2003” etc? Surely it should be ‘on’.

    R

  6. el Patron says:
    December 3, 2003 at 8:49 am

    You;re right. My posts should definitely be recorded as made “on” something. Whether I can fix that today is another matter.

  7. India says:
    December 4, 2003 at 2:55 pm

    Well, yes, on the grand scale of bags, messenger-style ones are quite bad for you, as my mother keeps telling me. But backpacks are simply impossible to maneuver with on the rush-hour subway, leading to one’s dangling them them from a single shoulder, which is less ergonomic than any messenger bag could ever be. (When I was in high school, this one-shoulder configuration, with a severe slouch, was the required stance; only nerds wore their bags on both shoulders.)

  8. India says:
    December 4, 2003 at 2:57 pm

    (I went to a math and science high school. We were all nerds.)

  9. Alberto says:
    December 9, 2003 at 3:56 pm

    I had an iBook, neat, white, light, distinctive and gadget-hungry (I had plenty of Apple gadgets…). Then one day I fell in love with a Hermes Baby portable typewriter with european keyboard. Sold my iBook and all the gadgets. Then I feel in love with a moleskine notebook. It fits in the typewriter metal case. No software. No conectivity. No batteries. No accessories. No virus. No upgrade. Accepts recicled paper. FREEDOM!
    Alberto
    Portugal

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