Apple flexes its middle finger

Apple recently released a slew of new crap. I love saying that, since just about every damn person I know is a Mac user. This new overpriced lineup includes:

• MacBook Air Jordan Status Symbol: “I’m too sexy for my optical drive; can I borrow yours? here, just run this install CD that I carry with me everywhere, then reboot your computer, then join the same wireless network as me, then here, put this other thing in your CD drive that I need to use, and, oh forget it.”
• update to the MacBook Pro which gives the trackpad that “new multi-touch smell.”
• update to the MacBook which means anyone who bought a new MacBook over 14 days ago got something slower and with a smaller hard drive for the same price. But they got a remote for free. More on that below.
• Time Capsule which is the only way that Leopard can run Time Machine and wirelessly back up a Mac to an external hard drive.

So here’s the problem with all of this, and it’s also a large part of why I recently sold my Mac and bought a Toshiba running Vista: Apple bills itself as the “feel good” company of the media world; they’re the Montessori School of personal computing. In fact, I always felt like I was using someone else’s computer when I was using my MacBook… like “My First Computer” by Hasbro. This means that their products are universally easy to use, and they would love for you to believe that they are on your side, helping you get those photos sorted and emails written and internet surfed.

But what happens when Apple decides to stop taking users’ input and start making money? to start turning a huge profit? to turn themselves into a media company, giving away access to their online music download service in every Starbuck’s location? to make soft, glowing, feel-good-ery software and hardware, priced about twice as much as the “PC” side, but that doesn’t really work all that great?

Here’s what happens: they stop including a remote control with their computers and charge you $19 for one so you can use the features that they tout in their ads. They promote wireless backup as a key feature of Leopard’s Time machine but then yank it out of the specs the night before the new operating system is released. They release a new product called Time Capsule, which is now the only way to do this wireless backup that was promised last year; it’s $300 and (surprise!) it works with your existing external hard drive as well… but you can’t use that same hard drive with Apple’s own Airport Extreme for wireless backups. They make three different routers but only one that supports streaming music wirelessly from your computer to your stereo; they actually recommend that you buy two different routers, for a total of $279.

I’ve been using my new Toshiba for about 6 weeks now, and I’ve had no problems. I have no viruses, I have no spyware, no adware, it’s fast, it has a 200GB hard drive, a webcam, a multi-format DVD burner, 3 hours of battery, a 15.4″ diagonal screen, it weights about 6 pounds, and it was $850.

Think different, indeed. Think again.

the spork

oh, I have so much to tell you all. it’s been about a year since I wrote, and I fear I’m becoming that guy who says, “I started a blog” and then never updates it past the first three entries he made when he really, really had to rant about something stupid. like me, with Picasa and Facebook.

I was at a party last weekend and ended up in a discussion with a friend about sporks. The spork, to me, looks like a plastic spoon that’s been circumcised with pinking shears. The spork is basically a spoon with a zigzag in place of the rounded tip; this zigzag is completely useless for doing things one would normally do with a fork. You might be able to pick up a single french fry with a spork, but then again, what would the spoon part be for? your potato salad?

So my friend and I landed here: is it a spraw or a stroon? you know, that weird 2 foot long thing you get at 7-11 with which to consume your Slurpee®.

Discuss.

thanks, Steve!

icebox cake

I first had this dessert in the summer of 2006 at the beach house of a friend in Connecticut. It was made by the mother of my friend; she’s full-blooded Italian, and she knows her way around a kitchen. I’ve never forgotten that experience (going to a beach in Connecticut does leave one with lasting memories) and I’ve been eager to recreate this dessert on my own. Tomorrow, at 11 am, I shall. Here’s the recipe:

• 3 boxes My-T-Fine Chocolate Fudge Puddin Mix
• 3 boxes My-T-Fine Vanilla Puddin Mix
• Milk, per box instructions
• Nabisco Graham Crackers
• baking dish

My God, I can already see all that puddin. Bill, eat your heart out:

Layer the baking dish with the graham crackers and puddin in whatever order you want. The puddin should be warm when building the “cake”, and it then all goes in the fridge I mean icebox. When it cools, the puddin will have thickened, and softened the graham crackers. It’s best with Cool Hwip. You can’t have pie without Cool Hwip.

cats’ asses as art

UPDATE! I have now been contacted by two people who have visited the Catwear store. I’m a little proud.

Ah, cat people. We all know one or two, and once you go to a person’s place for the first time and find out they have (a) cat(s), you can usually say to yourself, “I could have guessed as much without having to come over here.”

I tolerate cats, but only those who acts like dogs (i.e. play catch, let you pet them). I was raised with dogs, but I know that my mom’s side of the family has a long history of cat ownership. I have no idea why people name their cats; were I forced to own one, I would name it “The Cat” and introduce it by name. My blind date would say, “Oh. you have a cat. What’s it’s name?” and I would say, “that’s The Cat.” My date would leave, and I would get back online.

So it was with great joy that I received this from Chris the other day:

which reminded me of a photo I took while in Portland, Maine last year:

The part of the sign that got cut off reads, “Clothing for the Independent Woman.”
I’ll say.

FAILING OUR KIDS

“What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.”

That’s how Our Leader George W. Bush recalled the NAACP’s slogan, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” during a speech. I think I can beat that. This is a billboard in New Haven, placed there by these people. See if you can figure out… yeah, there’s something not quite…

This ad has gotta go

Come on. The new city-wide ad campaign for the New York Lottery (which is about as useless as ad campaigns for toothpaste or Pepsi; won’t poor people buy these things anyway?) features a photoshopped little man with a tiny body and bulbous bobble-head. He’s creepy enough to have been mentioned here, and his freakish mug has been lining subway cars for weeks. But today, I saw this huge ad:

twice within the space of 3 blocks. I understand the concept behind the ads, but really: I don’t want to look at this sad little man, cupping his crotch in anticipation of an accident.

one gross side note: the physicality of cupping one’s crotch while doing the peepee dance says to me that, should an emergency occur and the body’s reflexes cause the bladder to void, one could simply pinch one’s penis to prevent embarrassment. I disagree.

What the hell are they selling here?

Blame it on the train.

Riding between Brooklyn and Manhattan on the Q train, like I do every day, means crossing the Manhattan bridge; this gives the occupants of the train about 2 minutes of cell phone signal.

Today, it was 10:05 am when the train popped out of the tunnel and over the bridge. I don’t usually ride the rain this early in the day, and the few times I’ve done so in the past, I’ve been so groggy that I could barely pay attention to the Fresh Air podcast on my iPod much less the goons around me. But today, caffeinated and alert, I noticed a Pavlovian response to the now-present daylight on the train: almost everyone pulled out their phones and started talking, typing, checking, fiddling. The best part of this experience was the excuses I heard from two people near me, each of them on the phone with work. One was running late due to a “signal problem on the train” (a lie) and the other would be there “in a few minutes” due to “a sick passenger on the train” (a bigger lie).

I believe there is a scale to lying. It can be used to weigh things (the need to lie vs. the need to tell the truth) and it can be used to judge the lie itself. Religion and popular culture can provide us with a clear understanding of this scale:

Mother Theresa <———————————————————————–> Michael Vick

If I leave my apartment late because I was irresponsible, is blaming the train a lie? or more to the point, is saying I was late “because of the train” as much of a lie as “because of a sick passenger on the train”? I could have been on time had I been more responsible, but why bore my boss with that? Blame it on the train.

Eddie live: Amen, sister

Eddie was “off the clock” tonight, as it were, and was wearing man-garb. no makeup either, but his eyebrows were waxed as if to say, “I’m wearing something frilly underneath.” My friend Elizabeth was swell enough to provide me with this great link. Feel free to post others in the comments (hint, hint). The show was hilarious, the standing-room-only audience loved him, and I’m going to bed.