I'm Redecorating.

I was going to rearrange the furniture, but I like the armoire right where it is.

And while we're on the topic, was somebody bringing me a fresh beer?

Let's talk about important stuff.

Apple TV: Fortune thinks it sucks. I think Fortune sucks. I also think YouTube sucks, but who am I? Apple TV is Apple, doing TV. Apple will listen to the screams of horror and tweak it until they get it right.

iPod: Next question.

iTunes (Plus, U, etc.): All the others will say, "Hey. We're offerring all the same stuff they are. We have stuff they don't even have. What the fuck. Over. (explanation to follow)

Mac: Every other computing platform on the planet can only hope to gain the coveted right to be compared to the Mac. Frigging losers.

iPhone: Let's see. The iPhone is world class software wrapped up in the world's best industrial design. The competition is the LG Prada: crappy hacks running on a cheesy imitation.

Leopard: Could be renamed "Leapfrog." Okay? Leopard is in the enviable position of throwing its full weight against the door and finding it open. There ain't shit to compete. Windows weenies using old Vaios are going to see this in American Lit 201 and go, "MOM. I need one of THOSE."

Vista: Nope.

Zune: What?!

That table thing: I just have to ask myself, "Why?" Was there some pent up demand for a digital ottoman that I missed?

Zune: What?!

Ubuntu: Sounds like dogs fucking when I say it.

Oops. Time for my medication.

Oh yeah. That explanation. Apple (Steve Jobs) watches a market not develop (mp3 players, digital media distribution), figures out why people aren't interested, and then enters with both pistols blazing. Apple knows the living room is fertile soil. They've made a guess at the reason. By the time anyone figures out what works, it will be Apple's to lose.

Two? I hafta take two of those?

I guess I'm going to bed.

Oh yeah.

Rich Karlgaard will never acknowledge it. He's a wuss.

I called it in December when Apple was trading at eighty-something.

I think the bum owes me a box of Henry Clay Brevas a la Conservas and a bottle of Laphroiag.

Apple blew past $120 today.

The offer of double or nothing for $150 by Christmas still stands.

No guts, no glory.

Rich?

Sissy?

It's okay. Two moral victories is better than just one, anyway.

Reader Questions

Dear Rip,

My Uncle Mike is getting married again after being divorced from Aunt Minerva for almost twenty years. He's been shacking up with his new wife, Jinny, for almost fifteen of those years. The whole time they've been living together he's been tom-catting around the town. Dad has been planking Jinny on the side for the last five years, and Mom became a lesbian because she says most guys' dicks are so small the difference hardly matters.

My question is, what do you think about the new unprotected music on iTunes?

Signed,

Confused
--------

Dear Confused,

If you have some weird need to make a bunch of copies of your music, unprotected is important. I can't hear the difference in fidelity between 128k and 256k music, frankly. I don't make many copies, so the extra thirty cents doesn't make sense to me. It's really a judgment call on your part.

Also, I think Coldplay is insipid.

*********************

Dear Rip,

With all the recent unrest in the Middle East, Russia getting pissed at us, all that stuff in the revelations coming true, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs making friends, the price of gas, and that really weird lonk-lonk-lonk sound my car makes these days when I'm trying to shift without the clutch, do you think it's worthwhile to add RAM to my G5? Maybe I should just spring for a Mac Pro.

Is the world coming to an end?

Signed,

Anxious
------

Dear Anxious,

The world is coming to an end. Probably next week. If you order the new RAM early and get it FedExed overnight, you'll have it Monday. You won't be able to download hot girl-on-girl action any faster, but it will render faster so it will seem like it.

Pervert. Get a life.
**********************************

Dear Rip,

Is it true that you are really Steve Jobs?

Signed,

Really, really, really, really stupid
----------------------------

Dear dumbass,

Yes. I'm also Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the frigging Tooth Fairy, and a Microsoft Application that won't crash your computer.

You dork.

It Gets Better

Steve: Wow. Microsoft sure is a great company.

Bill: Gosh. We sure are. We sure like Apple, too.

Steve: Gee whiz, Bill, you sure look nice in that shirt.

Bill: Nice of you to notice, Steve.

Steve: Gosh we sure get along well for bitter rivals, don't we?

Bill: We sure do.

Mossberg: (shouting) You assholes are going to send me into a diabetic coma.

Kara (Sara?): This is about useless.

Hands to Heaven by Breathe comes up on the PA system. Steve and Bill slow dance their way off stage.

Did I mention that Apple stock closed at over $118 today? Another all time high? Now I have.

D: All Things Anticlimactic is over.

I think I'll turn in.

Today's News

D: All Things Digital (excerpts)

Steve Jobs: (chuckles)

Walt Mossberg: Ha ha.

SJ: Microsoft is a steaming moist turd on the angel food cake of life.

WM: Ahem.

SJ: Apple TV, the iPhone, OS X, iPods, the iTunes Store, and the Macintosh are taking over the world.The rest of the digital universe will bankrupt itself in futile efforts to stand unembarassed in our shadow. Rabbits! Oh, how they fear me.

Microsoft is the mind-killer.
Microsoft is the little-death that brings technological obliteration.
I will face Microsoft.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where Microsoft has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

FEAR ME YOU HEEDLESS BASTARDS!

Note: Not exact quotes.

At some point Mr. Jobs – at Mr. Mossberg's behest – demonstrated the ability of state-of-the-art digital electronics to display low-resolution, amateurish video.

Great show so far.

Later: Gates vs. Jobs

I'm out of Kleenex® again.

PC World Says Something I Agree With

PC World has this thing called "The 10 Commandments for Blogs and Wikis." It's fairly recent. I like it.

You could do okay on most blogs just living by the set of rules they posted over there. Pretty common sense stuff, really. I try not to be too big of a jackass on other people's blogs.

Here at home I scratch where it itches. But then it says right in the title that I'm opinionated and stubborn clearly
enough for the people I'd look up from a Jumble Puzzle to talk to anyway.

Everybody who comments here has been wonderful (all six of you). No complaints at all from me. There has only been one guy come on here and attempt to change my mind on anything. He was all science and facts and shit. Who needs that? I have my opinions and a cold IPA. I'm happy.

The spaghetti's done.

Place Your Bets

Some days you just have to sit back, smile, and say, "Oh. Yeah."

For today, Apple news is so meager that it doesn't even warrant a separate comment from your favorite obscure opinionated blogger. Well the stock had an all-time high closing price, but other than that, not much to talk about.

So here, in no particular order are a few unsolicited and frankly unapologetic opinions:

I'm buying Intel stock. For the same reason I bought Apple (8 years ago). Intel innovates. Everybody else follows. Owning shares of innovation is good. Also, Apple's growth is good for the 800-pound gorilla of processor companies.

I should have bet Rich Karlgaard that Apple would hit $150 this year. That would have made it a challenge. Oh well, he hasn't acknowledged the bet anyway. Apple's going to blow past $120 before lunchtime on 6/11. I'll sell a share and go buy my own scotch and cigars. It isn't like any real movers and shakers would delay a good bowel movement to find out what I think anyway.

Maybe he'll go double or nothing for $150 by Christmas. Hey Rich. Still scared?

Independence Day will see the press scourging Apple for not making enough iPhones to meet the demand. You read it here first, assuming you're reading this. If not, you missed it.

Dell is already offering Ubuntu instead of Windows and charging a Windows "tax." I give it a year before either HP or Dell or both build their own Operating Systems. They'll be glorified Linux distros, but they'll beat the belly-button lint out of Vista.

Hey Open Source guys. The Free Market dogma is about to take a big dump in your karma. Novell, Google and the like have sort of decided that making mortgage payments is more important than gathering pollen for the hive. Watch for Dell, HP, Micron, Toshiba and Sony to do the same. Ethically, all those guys have a responsibility to share with the geek-commune. There's an old Hollywood adage that sort of defines how that will work out:

Lunch first. Then ethics.

Good luck.

Live at All Things Digital

Ladies and Gentlemen.

Tonight, a no-holds-barred cage match between two titans of the computer industry. In the graphite corner, wearing a black turtleneck, jeans with no belt, and New Balance sneakers is Steve "Dude, I invented the frigging iPod. Heard of it?" Jobs.

In the white (really, really white) corner, wearing a 100% cotton polo, poplin trousers, white socks and brown loafers, is Bill "Microsoft Rules" Gates.

Questions for each contestant from Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg:

WM: Bill, what does Microsoft intend to do about the fact that it's bleeding money as a result of its third rate products getting their asses kicked in the marketplace.

BG: The Zune is clearly the best mp3 player on the market and Vista is selling way better than we expected.

SJ: (smirking) Oh yeah. No question. You can tell that the Zune is far superior to the iPod. The reason they've only sold like 65 of them is that people just don't understand how really excellent they are. No. Wait. Reality check. Zune is great because people see them and are reminded that they meant to buy an iPod while they're at the store.

KS: Steve, since everyone knows Apple is built almost exclusively on your "reality distortion field," would you be willing to tell us your secret for building a one-hundred-billion dollar market cap based solely on hype and fluff.

SJ: Certainly. It's easy. First you need cool-looking, reliable, innovative products that work correctly right out of the box even if the buyer is a sixteen-year-old crack head with a mouthful of Cheetos. Then you upgrade your software regularly, and trust the customer. Apple customers who bought Tiger, for instance, could have bought one copy and upgraded a hundred computers. In spite of that we sold lots of copies of the family pack license that "allows" multiple computers. After that, it's all reality distortion.

BG: Have you heard about Microsoft Math? Great little application. Windows still owns the planet. Check our market share, granola boy.

SJ: (laughs)

WM: Bill, Dell is now going to be selling computers at WalMart with Linux installed. Are you surprised at how bad Vista sucks?

BG: Vista is a leap forward in technology. Dell has made a business decision, and as one of our important partners we'll honor that decision.

SJ: Grab your socks, Mike. This'll only hurt for a minute.

KS: Steve, what is your nightmare scenario in the computer marketplace.

SJ: If Dell and HP each started developing an OS from Linux or Unix, and really started taking control of the whole widget the way Apple does they could really give me some competition ten years down the road. In between now and then, I'll be taking market share away from them so fast it'll be hard for me to keep up with the manufacturing and distribution (pulls the back of Bill's tighty-whiteys up and over Bill's head), because Windows is an utterly antiquated OS and a marketing flop.

BG: Asshole.

Microsoft to Novell: Bend Over and Leave the Driving to Us

Am I missing something?

As of November of last year, Microsoft will help Novell market the work of the Linux community.

Novell will share the profits with Microsoft. There is no mention of Novell sharing the profits with the great open-source salt of the earth.

The shining faux brass trophy of the cyber-proletariat is going to be marketed by Microsoft and Novell with no more regard for "the people" than Exxon-Mobil bumping up the price of regular-unleaded to $5.00 a gallon.

The contract specifically disallows Novell from doing everything the open sourcers are doing (WINE, OpenOffice). Consequently, when the courts tell Microsoft to pound their open source lawsuits up their asses, Novell is still screwed. They'll be hamstrung by a contract that doesn't let them keep up with the open source weenies.

What does this do for Novell? As near as I can see, it saves them the cost of a few lawyers for a while. In exchange for that economy they get to spend a few years over a barrel; they're not even getting a courtesy reach-around. The open source community will heap scorn upon the name Novell for all of eternity; Microsoft will give Novell the same respect the Sardaukar bestowed on the Suk Doctor, Yueh.

I hope if I ever sell my soul to Satan I get more than a set of steak knives and coupon for free fill-up.

What does it do for Microsoft? Nothing. Everybody hates them already anyway. They're going to pay a lot of money to lawyers pursuing these meritless lawsuits. Then they'll get creamed.

Horsemen heralding the Microsoft Apocalypse are beginnning to come into view...

iPod
Vista
Zune
Linux
Dell-Linux in WalMart
iPhone
Leopard

And you thought there were only going to be four.

The popcorn is done.

Sissies

If you want to be a fanboy and hang out here, ya gotta be tough. I know. You don't want your boss to know you've been reading this politically incorrect crap. Too late. I already sent him the whole frigging history. And your comments. You're in. Get over it.

News of the iPod Killer

The Zune development team is offering amnesty for employees who give up their iPods and switch to Zunes. What kind of amnesty is that?

Here. Wear this clunky piece of shit that adds DRM to mp3s you ripped from your own CDs. You can be one of us now. Go ahead. Hang this brown-transistor-radio looking brick around your neck. What difference does it make? You're on the Zune development team. It isn't like you were going to get laid, anyway.

Additionally, team members who turn in their functional devices before midnight tonight will get a Microsoft Windows Logo piece of tape for their horn-rims, a new pocket protector and a lifetime supply of white crew socks.

Being in at the Rip Ragged, or being in at the Zune Development Laboratory and Zitfest? You pick.

News of the iPhone Killer

iPhone killer. Yee. Haw. Everybody is scared of the iPhone. So far Apple hasn't sold a single one and all the cockroaches are scampering out of the light. I'm well into July's research budget. I googled "iPhone killer" and came up with a few challengers. Here are some of our contestants.

Google the Helio Ocean. It looks more like a PSP than a phone. It has a slide-out keyboard, a shitload of buttons, and it was supposed to be available last month. Seen one? Me either.

Then go find the Neo1973, made by OpenMoko. It's supposed to be a Linux-based phone. It was supposed to be shipping in March, or thereabouts. It's cheaper than the iPhone, shipping sooner, running Linux. It's practically the same thing, and it's frigging open source. You can get it in green, silver, or orange. So ask your friends to show you their's.

If you really want to piss away perfectly useful bandwidth, engadget in January showed pictures of an iPhone next to an LG Prada with the caption "...separated at birth?" The funny thing is that they seem serious even though the pictures clearly show that one of the two looks like a science fair project, while the other one will be in the next James Bond movie.

News of Dell

Dell is going to sell computers with Ubuntu installed. They're going to charge a $50 "Windows tax." The world of Windows computing is disintegrating before our very eyes. In case you need a translation:

Dell: Ballmer, stick it up your ass.

Windows is soon to be the OS the poor can't afford and the knowledgeable won't use. That means the entire Windows market will soon be the affluent stupid: The government, and corporate IT. That will sustain Redmond for a while, but pretty soon they're going to need some more industry over in East Seattle.

Important Stuff

17 Days until the WWDC Keynote.

Twice in one Night? (¿Dos veces en una noche?)

Wow. I'm kicking it now.
Estoy golpeando el asno con el pie, ahora.

Did you hear? Of course you did.
¿Usted oyó? Por supuesto usted .

Dell is going to sell computers at Wal-Mart.
Dell venderá las computadoras en el Wal-Centro comercial.

And tomorrow's Friday.
Soy cansado.

The iPhone Killer

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Did you see it? The LG Prada? The iPhone killer? I have tears in my eyes.

It's a cheesy, cobbled-together, limp-dick creation based on ill-conceived perceptions of the iPhone made by a Pointy-Headed-Boss of the Dilbert variety.

That's the longhand way of saying it sucks. You can just look at the photos – the company's own marketing photos – and tell it sucks.

iPhone killer.

Here's the funniest part. There is no iPhone. Apple hasn't sold a single unit. Not one. All of these other cell phone companies are prepared to drive themselves into bankruptcy to compete with a product that no one has ever bought.

What does that tell you?

They're scared shitless.

Damn it's good to be an Apple shareholder.

iPhone: Apple (AAPL) Makes The Wrong Moves

That's the same headline as the story over on Wall Street 24/7, by Mrs. Sullivan's boy, Todd. It seems Mrs. Sullivan left the PeeCee out and plugged in again, and the little bugger got hold of it.

The upshot of the article is pretty much summed up by the title. No I'm not going to link it.

He's completely full of shit.

He was heartened that a previous prediction of doom for the iPhone that he made has been bolstered by new information in USA Today. No kidding. USA Today spoke, little Toddy went to sleep with a smile.

He says that the only way you can get an iPhone is if you are one of the 47 million AT&T subscribers. If you aren't an AT&T subscriber, you can't have an iPhone.

Todd, I hate to be the one to tell you, buy most people weren't born with a wireless carrier's logo indelibly stamped on their asses. 47 million is is not an immutable number. AT&T might sign up enough people to make up the difference between current subscribers that want iPhones and 10 million.

if you're and Albertson's shopper, but you want Safeway brands, you go to Safeway. People can move to America because they don't have a Kansas in their country. Verizon customers can become AT&T customers. See a pattern developing here?

If you have any friends, see if any of them has ever had more than one girlfriend. Maybe they can brief you on the concept.

In the meantime, it only benefits me if people make trades based on that rehash you presented, but I do hate to see people make bad decisions only because they got bum doped.

Other than that, great article.

It's time for my medication.

Oh For Crying Out Loud

Alright. Dammit.

Steve. Stick to consumer electronics. Stay the hell out of politics.

If Al Gore runs for POTUS he'll get the political shit kicked out of him by whoever the Republican is. All this global warming bullshit just ain't playing in Peoria. When his "Save the Frigging Planet" concert tour took him to NYNY, some folks had to put their snow shovels away to go hear him blather. Add in that he has the sasquatch of carbon footprints and he comes across as a pure hypocrite.

Did I just say "global warming bullshit?"

Good.

Moving right along

There's a new site. Apple Investor News. It has everything you could want, except CARS, FSJ, Macalope, and of course, Rip Ragged.

I just read an article linked on there. It's by a guy named Bill Belew on some Japan-centric site that says Japanese phones are way better than the iPhone. Specifically the NTT DoCoMo i-mode phone can:

Pay for tickets on a train, plain, bus, concert, movie.

Serve as a membership card to a golf course, gym, or club.

Buy stuff from vending machines.

Play games.

Serve as an apartment, car, office key.

Get a boarding pass to a ferry.

Buy everything that a credit card can.

Open the garage door.

Be a remote control for home electronics.

Read my eye, face, fingerprint for security purposes.

Offer two phone numbers, and two email addresses in one phone

Be remotely locked if lost.

Huh. Big Fat Hairy Deal. They do all that shit in Japan. In Japan you need something small that does a bunch of different crap because space is at such a premium. I have three bathrooms in my house and two of them are bigger than a lot of Japanese apartments. In America I have room for two phones, a credit card, some cash, my keys, a cup of Starbucks, AND a place to sit all in one room, and I still have six or seven other rooms I'm not even using. In Japan they have a phone that opens garage doors and buys cigarettes.

I don't want to trade.

That Apple Investor News site is pretty cool anyway, though. Check it out. http://www.appleinvestornews.com/page-one.html

It's When the Heart Stops, Dammit

Further proof that brain death isn't really the end:

Over at MacDailyNews there's an article about some stuporous investment analyst in Tel Aviv who recommends selling Apple stock. You can go over to MacDailyNews to read the article, but I wouldn't waste a hit going to the analyst's article.

MacDailyNews took the good time and trouble to rebut her decision-making criteria one item at a time.

Which I suppose is a good thing to do. Some folks might profit from an in depth analysis.

I read enough of the article to realize that it wasn't a cut'n'paste from The Onion.

The analyst who made the "sell" call used specious facts and a highly entropic reasoning process. Not to cast aspersions, but somebody who advises people what to do with their money shouldn't have his or her head that far up his or her ass. I don't really have anything against blonds, but I'll bet she is.

News of the Zune

I know I don't link stuff very often but sometimes exceptions must be made. This is so funny on so many levels, I just have to link it. Just telling it wouldn't work. You wouldn't believe me.

iPhone Update

A few more iPhone drawbacks:

It will not play PSP games.

Beckham is out hawking the Razr2 for Motorola. That sucks, even if you hate soccer. I do.

If you are carrying an iPhone you must bend at the knees to avoid back injuries while lifting heavy objects.

Eggs stick.

When using the iPhone as a vibrator for "personal massages" the battery life is not quite long enough, if you catch my drift.

You can lose it anywhere. I mean anywhere.

Hitting an iPhone more than three times with a ballpeen hammer will almost certainly void your warranty.

Also

Today is May 21, 2007. You know what that means? It means tomorrow is Tuesday. If you're sensitive to such things.

Weekly Forecast

In the week to come:

Rob Enderle, John C . Dvorak, Paul Thurott, and/or some yet-to-be-named dingbat will announce the coming death of Apple. This will be based on obvious-to-all missteps by Steve Jobs, Apple, the board of directors or Phil Schiller.

The following is an incomplete list of possible complaints or negative observations. Most of these are pre-owned. That's the best source of ideas, since the analysts lack originality as well as cognitive reasoning skills.

The iPhone:

Doesn't have enough memory. We need at least an 80 Gigabyte Hard Drive on our portable devices. You might not be able to put all the movies you own onto a smaller drive.

Doesn't have a mechanical keyboard and goodness knows we can't live without a keyboard on our wireless communication devices.

Doesn't run WindowsCE or any of those other market-proven inferior operating systems.

Isn't big enough.

What we really need Apple to introduce is a handheld 61" 1080p that can stream every movie ever made on demand anywhere in the world free without interrupting our telephone conversation. Of course the miscreants would then blame Apple for the difficulties of watching it in coach.

On the other hand any phone running Microsoft's clunky system will get a pass if, when it explodes, no children are killed.

The AppleTV

It isn't a DVR. If you want to watch on-demand M*A*S*H reruns with local used car ads you'll have to work out something else.

Nobody is going to pay money to buy videos online. I think this is the same nobody who was going to download TV shows and pay $0.99 a song for their music. Dammit.

It doesn't do the same things as Windows Media Center. This is a bad thing according to the dipshits. (Raw Data: "Windows Media Center" Google hits: 1,760,000; "Apple TV" Google hits: 6,110,000).

Windows Media Center is the industry standard. Failure to adhere to an industry standard is bad. Never mind that the industry standard isn't selling as well as Barry Manilow boxed sets at a Metallica concert.

The Macintosh

Apple's delay of four months releasing Leopard is exactly the same as Microsofts 5 year delay releasing Longhorn/Vista. So shut up all you smartass Apple fanboys. We don't want to hear any more carping.

The idiots will make that equation (and have). Because in the land of stupid analysts (Microsoft apologists) there is no difference between:

1. A four month delay updating the most stable and malware free OS currently on the market with a product that leapfrogs everything currently available; and that will run on five-year old machines.

2. A five year delay updating THE malware magnet with a piece of bloatware with largely cosmetic features that requires hardware upgrades, if not a whole new computer to even run. (Note: A friend has upgraded to Vista. He bought a new computer with it installed. He had to upgrade the computer to 1 Gig of RAM after he bought it because it didn't come preconfigured with enough RAM to run Vista effectively.)

An idiot can call that "the same thing."

The iPod

Apple hasn't significantly upgraded the iPod line in quite some time. Whereas, if you listen very closely, there are rumors of a new Zune -- maybe two. Watch your ass, Apple. The Zune is gonna getcha.

Working into June's research budget I checked the Zune news site. The top story is that Amazon is going to sell songs without DRM. But don't worry. If you have a Zune the DRM will be automatically added.

Apple in general has jumped the shark

Let's face it. In idiot analyst land, everybody is just about all worn out with the Apple oeuvre. They all know that Apple is just a bunch of hype and glitter anyway. The stupid public is getting sick of being taken in by Steve Jobs' reality distortion field and now they'll wander off with that I-ate-too-much-valium look on their faces to the next big shiny thing.

Things the analysts may miss in their deeply detailed diatribes:

The iPhone is a unique product that has the feature set the average person actually needs with a little bit of gee-whiz added.

Ditto the Apple TV.

Apple's products work, out of the box.

Most people can use Apple's products with no help and no manual.

The industrial design of Apple products is excellent.

The fit and finish of Apple products is without peer in the PC marketplace.

And

I'm going to get another cup of coffee.

Brief Brief

News: FCC Approves iPhone.

Direct Result: Apple stock up $2.10 to another all time high.

Indirect result: Several "tech" analysts are talking about how badly Apple has boinked the housepet.

These same Wheel of Fortune rejects will declare the iPhone a failure even if Apple sells it's whole production run in the first week.

This isn't because they will interpret the facts differently that you and I. This is because they have predetermined that Apple is fucked. They will invent facts and then apply broken logic to them. The results will be called "opinion" and "analysis" by those who consider it a valid methodology.

I'll just call it shit.

In a Jeopardy! challenge between the "analysts" and Paris Hilton, I'll take the National Twat.

Wednesday Stuff

I went over to the Macalope. You should.

He reads stuff that I don't. Anyway, it seems like there are all kinds of people out there on the web predicting that the iPhone is going to be a huge flop. The iPhone, according to some real dimwits, is going to be the ruination of Apple.

Oh please.

Some asshole said he considered it too much of a hassle while driving his family around listening to the iPod to turn off his music to answer the phone. Yeah. Especially if you're right in the middle of eating a hamburger, shaving, getting a blowjob, and trying to change lanes. What a dork.

I'm willing to bet a vintage pair of Reeboks that five million people who want iPhones don't get one until July because they didn't get close enough to the front of the line. Round about the time Apple's stock hits $115.

For those who don't get it, let me explain:

The iPhone is going to kick some serious ass. The cell phone people have had over five months since His Steveness debuted the communication paradigm of the 21st century to come up with some innovation of their own. In that five months their response can be summed up mathematically as:

Zip-point-shit.

They've repackaged some old junk in new forms. Compared to the iPhone, the Razr2 looks like hairy pimpled butt.

It's true.

In other news --

Did you know there's a pink Zune? It's perfect for those occasions when Guy's Night Out includes "Cats."

Update on Almost Everything

Motorola

Motorola introduced something something Razr2 something something thinner something easier. Something something bottom line something. Consumers something something features something something Apple [AAPL - not a link - this either] something iPhone.

Ed Zander something something, "Carl Icahn [something something] asshole [something] and he can kiss my [something]."

Details are still sketchy.

Micorosoft

Just learned via FSJ that Microsoft Math has been introduced. There is no news of a Mac version of Microsoft Math v 3.0. This is really sad. If you didn't know that Microsoft has announced Microsoft Math v 3.0 it really doesn't matter. If you're reading this you're probably on a Mac and have no need of that information.

There is apparently no Zune news. At least there isn't any here.

Bill Gates is just thrilled about Vista. As near as I'm able to discern, Vista still sucks. In a bold marketing move, Microsoft's Department of Unimaginative Products Names has come out of their weekly meeting and have decided that it's Mike's turn to bring doughnuts next Tuesday. They will rename "Longhorn Server" to "Windows Server 2008." This was determined to be the one name least likely to offend anyone. The originality is almost palpable.

Linux

They're still working on the Indy Car thing. They should be closing in on $15k by now. A more precise number would require someone to give half a shit, and it's the maid's day off. Oh well.

Apple

Apple is updating the MacBook with faster chips. I just read the spec sheet. I'm almost ready to own a laptop.

Seattle Seahawks

Jim Mora has been permitted to talk to reporters. He was not allowed to say anything that could be construed to be in any way offensive or controversial. Full text of the interview:

Reporters: Hey Jim. Mr. Mora. Can we have a minute?

JM: Hi. H - I. Not H - I - G - H. Not "Hi I want to coach the Huskies." Just hi.

Mr. Mora then was unavailable for further questions due to an untied shoe and a frantic search for some Gatorade.

Monday Discussion

The iPhone Cometh

Steve Jobs said the iPhone will be available in June.
Somebody else said AT&T said it will be available June 15th. I'll bet the rest of my sandwich that call is within two weeks, one way or the other. Any takers?

For the two readers who weren't here in January (you know who you are), here is a nearly complete list of things an iPhone will do:

1. Make phone calls
2. Email
3. The internet
4. Play video and audio content from iTMS
5. Hold down a stack of papers in a breezy office
6. Impress people who find such things impressive
7. Fit neatly in that little pocket on the side of your gym bag or purse
8. Protect your counter tops from hot dishes and pans
9. Stack neatly in a corner
10, Prop up that wobbly table leg
11. Excellent cutting board for soft aged cheeses like gouda and edam

Things you should not do with the iPhone:

1. Swim at depths of over 200 feet
2. Place in the dishwasher (particularly if using the Heat Dry option)
3. Tease a polar bear
4. Skydive without a parachute
5. Tug on Superman's cape
6. Piss into the wind
7. Pull the mask off the Lone Ranger
8. Mess around with Jim.

Things you cannot do with an unaccessorized iPhone:

1. Squirt. (Even if you do spot a Zune in the wild)
2. Deflect bullets (unless worn inside a Kevlar vest)
3. Shave
4. Commandeer Air Force One
5. Obtain desired results from "It's Morphin' time," or "Shazam!"
6. Connect wirelessly to any Commodore computers, including Amiga, or the TRS-80.
7. Contact the transporter room (despite the lack of intelligent life on this rock) and get beamed up.
8. Play CDs, DVDs, cassettes, 8-Tracks, vinyl records, or antiquated Microsoft file formats like .wmv.
9. Call your broker and short sell 100 shares of Apple.

Gloating is not just acceptable, it's practically required. That's what I intend to do when I have mine, anyway.

Did I mention that Apple shares are up again today?

Well they are.

The New Zune

Some people are calling it Zune 2.0. If you go to the Zune websites, you have more time to waste than I do. What I mean to say is, they aren't saying much either. They all seem to have the same strategically placed leak.

As near as I can tell, Microsoft intends the sources (who all agree) to leak that there will be another Zune or two. At least one will be flash-based. The other one will not be a rebranded Toshiba Gigabeat.

So there you have it. Great news for everyone who was hoping that Microsoft would introduce multiple new Zunes including a flash-based model and one that isn't a Toshiba Gigabeat.

This has the potential to take over the news from such developments as Britney's rehab, Paris Hilton's imprisonment, and the fact that the highest temperature in Chicago was recorded on July 13, 1995 at Midway Airport. It was 106 degrees.

And you thought I wasn't paying attention.

A modest proposal

The date: December 27, 2006

The bet: I offered to bet Rich Karlgaard, Publisher of Forbes magazine, a box of cigars and a bottle of single malt scotch that Apple would hit $120/share in 2007.

The price of a share of Apple at the time: 81.52

The reason for the bet: Mr. Karlgaard suggested in his colum that Apple investors should sell.

I was willing to bet him then that it would make almost a 50% gain in a year.

He wasn't willing to bet it wouldn't, even though he published a column in his esteemed digest stating that Apple investors should take their profits and run. Seems to me that a guy in his position making observations like that ought to be willing to put at least a few bucks where his mouth is.

Maybe he thought I was kidding.

Or maybe he's just a wuss. That could happen.

Also...

Mac Daily News is reporting that Macworld has an AppleTV Superguide available. With all kinds of tips and tricks and stuff for how to get the most out of an AppleTV. I'm not going to buy one for several reasons:
1. That's tantamount to reading the manual. I don't do that.
2. I'm saving my money for an iPhone.
3. I'm saving my money for an AirPort Extreme.
4. I'm saving my money for a new MacPro tower.
5. It's $12.95. That's three glasses of IPA at the local watering hole.
6. I don't have an AppleTV yet.

Everybody else should probably buy it, even people who don't, technically, own a TV.

Even wussy publishers.

Shareholders Meeting – Steve Jobs to Greenpeace:

Shut the fuck up. Seriously. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

Fucking clowns. You people are beyond retarded. You're an embarassment to real environmentalists. Try not to hurt yourselves leaving the building. No fooling. Get in your shitbird little Prius, go home, and hire somebody with a clue.

Damn.

Other Stuff

His Steveness gets fifty cents per year just for showing up.

Sir Paul, Welcome to iTunes.

Yahoo's CEO does not want a Zune.

Vista still sucks.

Over on the Macalope you can still put in your two cents on the whole useless PC World Love/Hate thing if you want to.

And...

It's been a slow day. I heard that the iPhone will be out on time and Apple might rent movies on iTunes.

That calls for a celebration. Alka-Seltzer for everybody.

The New Zoom Thingy

I just went and wasted the entire rest of the research budget for May. Really. I went to "Zune News Site" dot com. I was looking for information about the new Zune. There isn't even any news about the old Zune. The top item -- I swear this is true -- I'm not making this up. The top item on zunenewssite.com is from the Snohomish County edition of the Seattle Times: "A houseboat and trailer in the 21900 block of Oak Way were impounded after the city received no response to a May 5 parking-violation notice." If you scroll down the Snohomish County page you get to (really I swear this is a direct quote):

Thursday: Somebody stole a Zune MP3 player, $20 in cash, a jacket and assorted CDs from a vehicle parked in the 400 block of Holiday Street.

That news is the frigging Zune Headline on zunenewssite.com.

Just below that you can read a Seattle Times article where Bill Gates (visionary) says that media is moving to the web. Only a Seattle paper would devote any ink to Bill Gates predicting the recent past.

On every page I went to (three) of this site the top ad is a picture of a pink Zune for sale on Amazon. It has a butterfly on the display. 'Nuff said.

Real Stuff

Okay, here's some real news. Microsoft is killing the Portable Media Center, the earlier version of "iPod killer?" Remember that? Boy, I sure hope they still support it, because if they don't there are going to be fifteen or twenty really pissed off people. Two in northern Michigan alone.

Every time I hear "iPod killer," I picture a soldier, alone on a grassless beach, armed with wits and a pistol and charging a battery of machine gun nests. About a mile inland, shirtless native girls are serving umbrella'ed coconut shells full of rum to iPod and several of his friends. You can't win when your best option is suicide and the opponent doesn't even notice.

In other news, a Danish consumer protection board has found a design flaw in the iBook G4. That's on Mac Daily News, so it isn't technically research. I was going to read that anyway. It takes a year for the flaw to show up. I'll bet if Windows machines lasted that long they'd probably have similar problems.

I already had dinner, so technically I could ramble on for hours. I won't because, technically, I ran out of things to say long before I started typing. I just remembered that I don't have "Only the Lonely" by the Motels. Now I do. Weird. For some reason I thought that was The Pretenders.

I'm reading John Gruber now. Just geek stuff.

Oh well. I'm off to the Tera Post.

Rumors

I heard that Paul Thurott wrote something about the Love/Hate thing on PC World. I thought I'd go research it a little and save you all the trouble. I wouldn't want all of my readers (eight, I think) to waste their precious time and bandwidth reading that stuff, so I spent a full minute in Google looking for it. That's right. I dashed myself on the jagged wave-swept rocks below for you. I even went to Paul Thurott's Windows SuperSite. It says on top of the home page that Microsoft has finished Vista, so it's right up to date.

Anyway, I didn't find anything that he said about anything. I'd look some more, but I've already used up a full minute of May's research budget. It's hell to have half the budget gone this early in the month.

On another note, according to a PC World thing that just came through on NewsFire, Americans aren't benefitting from Web 2.0. I thought that was pretty sad. Near as I can tell we're still in Web 0.0.9 (b). If this is the release version, it sucks. It's buggier than an Ubuntu convention.

Web 1.0 shouldn't have great big "Play" arrows in the middle of bad home movies cluttering up the bandwidth. Also, it's going to have to develop some kind of way to establish the credentials of some of these bozo "analysts" who claim to know their stuff when they're really just self-important flame-baiting blowhards -- not to mention anybody like Raw Benderly, J.C. Dickweed, or Turdbot by name.

Other Stuff

Got this from Fake Steve Jobs (Oh come on, the link is three inches away. Roll your mouse over there and click it.): The Linux guys who are trying to raise $350,000 to put a penguin on an Indy Car have collected $11,242.63 with 13 days 'til race time. By my calculations that is exactly the price to write "Linux" with a Sharpie on the dashboard of a desperately poor team's car in small, neat, sans serif lettering.

Microsoft is going to introduce a new Zune. Wow. It's expected to have more impact on the mp3 market than, say, the controversy over Pluto. I doubt it.

When the iPhone ships in June, Apple will be selling the world's first fully functional wireless home neural network. Information, entertainment, and communication all wirelessly connected to the world via the internet. For those keeping score at home, Apple is kicking ass. Official measuring stick: Apple stock is over $105. That's 735 in dog dollars.

All the Windows fanboys in the world can call us names if they want to, but we have the coolest stuff.

Neener. Neener. Neener.

Almost Forgot

It seems that when anybody decides to curse or praise Apple they always forget the one big thing:

Apple innovates. The computer industry follows. It's been that way since 1976. It's still that way now. If you want to know where the computer industry is going, just buy a Mac.

An immutable verifiable historical fact can be the ranting of a slobbering fanboy. It's still a fact.

Love/Hate Relationship

I just read the PC World things about the Love/Hate relationship with Apple. I don't recognize whats-his-name, but there's a five syllable name that I seem to remember from the late MacAddict. Here's a brief synopsis of the whole thing, so you don't have to go to PC World and give them useless hits.

They hate Apple because:

1. Apple thinks stealing their trade secrets and publishing them for profit is bad.

2. Apple doesn't make a lot of empty promises followed by lame, late, and non-existent product releases.

3. Apple blames other people for Windows viruses, unlike Microsoft. Huh?

4. Apple has achieved brand recognition with the "i." That sucks.

5. No Blu-Ray drives. Unlike all those other computer makers who have been including Blu-Ray drives since...

6. Apple isn't perfect. (Note: I hate that, too. Bastards.)

7. Apple doesn't announce a schedule for security updates. Microsoft does. [I'm guessing that both Apple and Microsoft consider that it takes a certain minimum number of things to fix or patch to make an upgrade cost effective. Statistically speaking, Microsoft can more accurately predict the achievement of that number than Apple can. When you average 5 or 6 a week, it's easier to project a calendar than if you average 2 or 3 a month.]

8. No good for gaming? Okay. There's one I'll buy. I never got Half Life for my Mac. I lived. I can't play Eve Online. I'll manage.

9. Limited selection of machines that run OS X versus a wider variety of machines that run Vista or XP.

10. Doesn't play well with others. Of all the reasons, number ten is the lamest. It is easier to set up a Mac on a Windows network than it is to set up a Dell running XP on the same network. It's easier to set up a Dell running XP on a Mac network than on a Windows network. WMA is the audio format used by the rest of the world? Puh-lease! AAC and mp3 are the only formats anybody outside of Redmond gives a vista about. WMA is used extensively by all 37 Zune owners.

Things they love:

1. Apple's products are well designed.

2. OS X is the best OS.

3. Apple's products are reliable.

4. Steve Jobs isn't a puss. [I think Steve Jobs actually believes what he says. Some call that "honesty." It makes it easy to be courageous if you believe what you're saying.]

5. You can run inferior software on Macs now. [That isn't new. I've had the ability to run Windows on my Mac since late last century. Apparently PC World missed that one.]

6. Fake Steve Jobs. They love Fake Steve Jobs. I think FSJ is cool too. FSJ is one of my heroes. But, if you love Apple because of FSJ, then Santa Claus should be all the motivation you need to become a Christian. That one slips past me.

7. Apple has cool stores.

8. No malware.

9. Cool ads.

10. Great accessories from third parties.

Summary:

Two PC World writers were out of stuff to write. Instead of developing a real story they made up 10 things that are kind of negative if accorded any meaning, and ten things that would be kind of positive except it's all old news.

Synopsis:

The negative stuff is all bullshit (except the one about gaming).

The positive stuff is all old news (except the one about FSJ, which is just weird).

Dinner is ready.