Have you ever had a project where you've said to yourself, "Geez, if only this video clip looked more like an oil painting?" Or, maybe it's a watercolor effect you've been longing for. Whatever your painterly desires, and regardless of whether you've even looked at a real paintbrush, RE:Vision Effects claims to have the solution: Video Gogh.

Before I get into this week's topic, I want to give a quick shout out to all of you who graced my virtual inbox with letters of sympathy/support/commiseration after reading my previous column about my TiBook shopping experience. I apparently didn't just touch a nerve, it seems I grabbed the nerve, stretched it all the way across the room, and let it snap back like so many rubber bands. I don't think I let anyone's message fall through the cracks unanswered, but please accept my apologies if that happened to you. And to all my new "friends," whom, judging from their creative use of profanity I would venture to guess vehemently disagreed with my point of view, I'd like to extend a hearty round of thanks for engaging me in such witty repartee. However, I doubt those readers in question are likely to be with us this week, so let's just move on.

A few weeks back I wrote an installment of Prodigal Mac called "Excuse Me While I Pull My Hair Out." I'm sure many of you, as I did, took the time to print out and frame that fine work of prose, so I'm betting everyone is extremely familiar with it. However, as a service to you, the reading public, I will summarize that column in one sentence or less:

I hadn't bought a Mac since 1997 and I couldn't figure out which one would be best for me, so I begged you all for help.

There. Now we're all caught up. I received a decent amount of mail from you about that column, all of which can pretty much be boiled down to one of three responses:

I have a little test I like to call The Legend Test. It goes something like this: Let's say that the producers of a particular product decide to attach some form of the word "legend" to the advertising of their product. "The Legend of Brand X Barbecue Sauce," for example. To apply The Legend Test to a statement of this type, I place it in The Cowboy Scenario. Basically, if you can imagine cowboys sitting around the campfire at night uttering the same words without it sounding completely ridiculous, then it passes the Legend Test. Here's a statement that passes The Legend Test: "There once was a kid at school who could take out the class loser from fifty feet away with a spitball."