The Members Forum

I practically floated into the Apple store. That's how excited I was to leave Black Friday with a new iMac. The salesman needed merely to gesture to the 21-inch flat screen on display, and I was sold: out the door, box in hand, convinced I had turned a corner in my career.

Two weeks later I'm back at Apple headquarters -- my teeth worn down, my face prematurely aged from endless hours of sleeplessness and technological frustration -- certain that the iMac was the worst purchase I'd ever made.

The idea started in San Francisco. I was at KGO, ABC News' Bay Area affiliate, appearing on "The Ronn Owens Program" to talk about my recent military reporting, which sparked a Congressional hearing. "I'm working with a video editor right now," I told KGO's news director, "to compact the hearing into a brief clip that can go viral on YouTube." The director, Kevin Keeshan, twisted his head, wrinkled his brow and stared at me in utter confusion. "Why don't you edit it yourself?" he said. "Well," I stammered, "I don't really have a strong enough computer to do that. I don't even have video editing software."

Keeshan laughed. "I'll tell you, every intern here who applies for a job can video edit," he said. "It's sort of a standard skill."

I slinked out of his office and flew back to New York determined: I was going to buy an iMac, teach myself Final Cut Pro and tackle my next video project alone.

My iMac and I got off on the wrong foot. Turns out there's a video camera embedded in the screen, and before I could boot her up for the very first time, she wanted to take my picture. For "identity purposes," she said. I stumbled to the bathroom, brushed my hair (and my teeth), exchanged my raggedy Raiders t-shirt for a professionally ironed button-up and returned to my desk, smirking at the turn of events. My old PC didn't care if I called the Pentagon in my bathrobe. My iMac apparently had registered with Match.com.

The Huffington Post has the Editorial HERE!