By David Topping

In the barter section of Craigslist’s Toronto classifieds, some people are content to trade a small pot of “slowly cooling American fiddleheads, marinating in Gay Lea salted butter” for one or two “nice rounded goblets” of Stella.
And some, like this gentleman, want more:

UNLIMITED LOVE AND MUSIC FOR newMAC LAPTOP (TORONTO)

Reply to: sale-694042090@craigslist.org

Date: 2008-05-24, 11:49PM EDT

Aspiring composer of symphonies needs new Mac laptop for composing purposes and in return I pledge my undying love for an understanding and apreciative woman.This is an honest posting and I hope to find my love match this way.I speak english and french

Ladies, ladies! One at a time! Before you go reverse prostituting yourself, you first must consider how to best accommodate the shining beacon of a man willing to give you undying love and unlimited music.
What kind of new Mac laptop would best suit an “aspiring composer of symphonies”? Sure, the MacBook Air looks sweet, but there’s no built-in CD drive or Ethernet port and only one USB port, which might pose problems if your new beau likes burning discs, using the internet to browse or distribute music, or connecting more than one musical instrument to his machine at a time. The regular MacBook could work, but its screen is only 13″ wide, which might get annoying for anyone spending lots of time with many tracks in a program like Garage Band. That’s why we’d recommend the 17″ MacBook Pro: it’s big enough and powerful enough for the task at hand, and, at only $2899, is a small price to pay for the opportunity to hear unending symphonies devoted to you by a dude you’ve never met or seen before.
Capture of Justin Long from “Office Stress,” one of Apple’s “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” ads. Tip via Digg; hat tip to Robin Hatch for the fiddleheads link.