This Boidem column purposefully doesn't carry a specific date. It doesn't even have a number. Though it's certainly a column, and one that adheres to the basic Boidem format, it stands outside of the numbered columns. Basically it's a place holder; if not an excuse, then at least an explanation, for a rather gaping hole in the Boidem's continuity.

Because it doesn't have a date, however, it also allows me to choose any date I wish to give it (within the bounds of logic). So, I've chosen January 22 for the rather simple reason that it offers me an elegant date tie-in. It was on January 22, 1984, in what is considered among the most classic of Super Bowl, or any, advertisements, that Apple announced the Macintosh. Today, of course, windows-based computers are ubiquitous, until it's hard for us to imagine any other sort, but it's certainly worth remembering that it wasn't always that way. The Macintosh set the stage for Graphic User Interface based computers, which essentially meant that all us non-techies could now use one. So January 22 really is an auspicious date - and a nice one on which to mark the (possible) return of the Boidem to attempting to continue examining the ways in which "the rest of us" use digital and online tools.