Walking into the office with my first cappuccino of the morning, I immediately noticed the disturbing sight of a big black bug crawling up the wall. Actually crawling might be an overly optimistic verb choice. It had made it to about my shoulder height but all momentum seemed to have ceased. As I stared at it, my mind played through the two obvious options. Expected: get a tissue and enrobe it for a quick death. Less Messy: Get one of the cats to take care of it.
Being the squeamish jerk and a user that I am, the latter of course went into motion. I called Alice, who poked her head around the corner. But she didn’t get my point as I gestured wildly at said bug shouting, “Get it. Get it” I thought that maybe I needed to make it move to catch her attention. I know she’s not queasy. I’ve seen her pounce mercilessly on the odd fly that manages to get inside rather than blowing right past our windows into Utah (thank you incessant Pacific winds). So I went to prod it but instead of moving, the thing popped off the wall and fell behind a stack of books.
Maybe it was already dead, I thought as I scrambled to move the stack. When I couldn’t find it, even after repeatedly shaking each book over a trash can, I had to accept the painful truth. The big black bug had escaped my foolish, selfish plan.
(Just to be clear, I have nothing but the deepest contempt for Consumers Reports. I see the ninnies who listen to them as simply are too stupid to think for themselves. Really, we would be better off if the magazine shut down and the dopey readers were naturally selected offstage by a bunch defective products that they didn’t have sense to avoid.)
I’m amused that @kathygriffin uses the twat term. Otherwise, I couldn’t care less about The Twitterâ„¢ if it suddenly grew mammary glands and a vagina.
(Yes, I am fully cognizant of the irony that WP will automatically twat this post. Such are the contradictions that make me fascinating.)
A great legal mind at the National Pork Board clearly has more time than sense when a 12-page cease and desist order gets generated because of a make believe product. You might have seen the story someplace else at this point since it’s several days old. Not exactly fresh. But it’s canned meat we’re talking about so what do you want?
To say that I’m a long-time Apple fan is an understatement. I’ve used Macs since the very first 128K in 1984. Daily for 20 years now. I’ve owned so many Apple-branded products, I no longer remember all of them. Hell, I still have a working Newton.
Given my history, you’d probably expect me to be celebrating today. Nope. Not even close. I went to an Apple store last night in the hopes of solving my iOS4 battery woes. Turns out 10 or so fools had already planted themselves on the grubby sidewalk. I presume in anticipation of this morning’s iPhone 4 launch. I didn’t confirm why they were in line though because I couldn’t stand to look at them, much less hold a conversation.
The mania that’s developed around Apple’s product launches. The breathless coverage of the company’s every move. The idolization of Steve Jobs. It’s all starting to make me wish for another Power Mac G4 Cube. A technical and aesthetic triumph that’s ignored by the masses.
Yes, I’m an early adopter. I got the original iPod, iPhone and iPad all on their respective launch days. But I never, ever stood in a line much less camped out. That’s just stupid. We’re talking mass production folks. There will be millions available in weeks, if not days. And I guarantee that iDevice you’re so eager to get will be landfill fodder in exactly one year.
(For the record, the Apple Genius confirmed that the battery drain I’m experiencing is abnormal. He agreed to replace the handset except the store was out of stock. Hopefully, I’ll have a new white 32GB 3GS in a couple of days.)
On Monday, my iPhone 3GS ran for 12+ hours on a single charge. I upgraded last night, let the phone charge all night then unplugged and left the house after 8 AM. By 12:40, I had gotten the 20% battery warning. After a complete recharge, it’s still using 20% of battery life each hour. I checked my mail a couple of times and looked at a web page tonight. Nothing unusual. Most of this past hour, it was on the coffee table with the display off. I’m going to restore it and see if that solves the problem.
For what it’s worth, Rich’s iPhone got the same upgrade last night. He went all day and still had 80% of his battery remaining tonight.
Sure, Joe Barton proved himself an idiot today. And made idiots of all the Texas Sixth District residents who voted for him. But even though he’s getting all the headlines, he’s hardly alone. The important element of today’s story is that everything he said simply parrots what the Republican study committee, which represents the two-third of Republican members of congress, published yesterday. Keith Olbermann says it much better than I can.
Maybe this disaster will wake people up to the fact that the Republican leadership will say or do anything to grab power. They don’t care about ethics or ideology. It’s all about who can give them the biggest contributions and taking the opposite position of the Democrats. They don’t care if opposing means lining up with pure evil.
