The good news: I am typing this on a sleek new MacBook Pro (which replaces an old MacBook Pro – the planned purchase got moved up a month or so because within the last day or two I noticed that my charger seemed to have an intermittent shortr – wouldn’t work unless I jiggled it and was getting very hot. And I’ve verified that on this one you can work on Word! And Excel, both at once! And it takes about three seconds for them to open!
Admittedly the old computer was still mostly working OK; all it needed was a new charger, more memory, and a new version of MS Office. Apparently I am so lazy that it was easier to buy a new one than to explain, given the language issues. But mostly, I was seduced by the sheer prettiness of the new ones – single-block aluminum body, glass (?) display.
The only problem is, the new one doesn’t know it’s mine yet – this is because the old one has a firewire 400 socket and the new one has a firewire 800 socket and I only have a 400-to-400 cable. Hopefully I can find a converter tomorrow, so they can talk to each other (translation: use Setup Assistant to get my files and preferences onto the new machine).