Goddess, I Am.

Owning a Mac is like raising a child. It requires expense after expense, not necessarily because it demands it, but because you always want what’s best for it. I thought my darling Gaius was a handful, but really, it had absolutely nothing on Octavian.

Octavian, by the way, is the Macbook Pro that I upgraded to a month after I got Gaius. Yes, I managed to work up the courage to tell The Husband, and yes, I really couldn’t help myself. Octavian is, without a doubt, the best laptop I’ve ever owned, and I’m completely in love with him, almost to the point of altar-worship.

But I digress. In the 4 weeks that I’ve had Octavian, I’ve bought accessory after accessory. And because Octavian IS a fabulous 13.3-inch Macbook Pro – the first of his kind – most of them do not come cheap.

Here’s the rundown of, umm, ‘damages’ . . . so far:

1. A pretty pink Sumdex laptop bag – P1,850 (approximate $38).

Now, I had a perfectly good laptop bag that I bought for Gaius. I couldn’t bear the thought of Octavian getting a hand-me-down bag from Gaius, however, so I convinced myself that it was not padded enough for skinny, little Octavian (which it really was), and sold it to Chin, who I am hoping is perfectly happy with it.

2. A scarlet CaseLogic laptop sleeve with a fantastic flower detail – P1499 (approximately $30).

I wanted to give Octavian in all his aluminum glory extra protection; hence, the sleeve. Now, I am completely aware that one can buy a perfectly functional sleeve somewhere between P100 (CDR-King) and P899 (the plain CaseLogic ones – no pretty flowers!), and I really was all set to go for the latter. However, I took one look at the red one with the flower in SM, and my self-control ran off, never to be seen again.

From time to time, in the dead of night when it behooves me to take stock of my life, I find myself wondering whatever possessed me at that very moment. But then I take one look at the beautiful scarlet sleeve and how good Octavian looks in it, and all is right with the world once again. Oh, and did I mention it was reversible?

3. A screen protector – P950.

I know, I know. One can get a screen protector for P100 (again) from CDR-King. In fact, I did get one for Gaius. The problem was that it was a DIY install, and it was so badly done that I didn’t want to risk it again.

So off I went to Digital Walker (Digital Hub in some places) in SM Cyberzone where I get a cool 10% discount, simply because I’m a member of the PhilMUG (Philippine Mac Users Group) forums. (I also bought Octavian from them, and Charlie, the owner, gave me discount of almost P11,000, which was a lot more than the usual 10%!) The guy in charge of the Cebu store personally installed my screen protector, and he did it so well that you won’t even know it’s there! There isn’t a single bubble or speck of dust trapped between the protector and the screen itself. I’ve never seen such a stellar screen protector installation in my life!

4. A silicon keyboard protector – P500 (about $10).

My life revolves around my laptop since I work 16 to 20-hour days with nary a weekend free. I even take meals with Octavian on my lap, which makes a keyboard protector an absolute necessity, myself being a scatterbrained klutz.

Thankfully, I found a keyboard protector from China on eBay that’s been made especially for aluminum unibody Macbook Pros. It features black keys on see-through silicon, so Octavian’s keyboard still gets to glow in all its prettiness. Plus, I don’t have to worry about spills and crumbs anymore!

5. A trackpad protector ($9.99) and a pretty logo ($4.99).

It has always been my intention to keep Octavian as bare as the day he was born (or at least, the day he was bought), but when I discovered SkinStyler, my resolve literally flew out the window. After all, how can I resist the oh-so pretty Apple logo of old on Octavian, instead of the newer and oh-so generic white one?

The trackpad protector was a bit of an afterthought. I figured if I was getting something shipped all the way from Malaysia, I might as well make the most of it. I’m very happy how it turned out, though. I didn’t go for the more colorful designs, even when I was sorely tempted to do so, because I figured it’ll look all wrong on Octavian’s original color scheme. The logo is ostentatious enough as it is.

6. A cooling pad – P280.

Because I have so much to do all the time, poor Octavian has to work almost non-stop every day. If he was a Windows-running laptop, he probably would’ve died of sheer exhaustion by now!

But again, I digress. Octavian does tend to get really hot when I run OS X and Windows on VMWare Fusion simultaneously, and I figured he needed a bit of help. I was initially all set to get me a Belkin cooler (P1500), but I’ve been assured that any cooling pad will work just fine. And because I’ve already spent quite a lot in less than a month, I figured it can’t hurt to get a cheap one.

I got a nice, compact, foldable one from Global Village, and so far, I’m very happy with it – at least, until I saw the same cooler in pink at CDR-King. I can’t justify getting another one right now, though, especially with a reason as trivial as color, so I’m sticking to this boring black one for the moment.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Octavian’s expenses are coming to an end. Since I bought the cooling fan, I now need a flat surface to put it on when I’m working on the couch. I have my eyes set on something called the iLap, but I’ve been told there’s a P600 CDR-King version, so I’m going to check that out. Right now, I’m just using Octavian’s box, and it’s so unfashionable, not to mention uncomfortable.

I also want to upgrade Octavian’s measly 160GB hard drive to 500 GB because I’m downloading so many movies and it’s filling up fast. And oh, I want to upgrade my DDR3 RAM from 2GB to 4GB for no particular reason other than I can and it sounds like a good idea. And I will also want another bag or two down the line because one can’t have too many laptop bags, after all.

I swear, if Octavian can go horseback riding, I’ll gladly buy him breeches. Heck, I’ll even send him to college, if he wasn’t so smart already.

Really, with a Mac, who needs children?