No Post Tonight

Okay, well, just a small one. Okay?

Apple stock went down because there's a rumor that Apple is cutting production of iPods and iPhones. Some people give to charities; some people use a lot of paper towels; some people buy high and sell low.

You can lead a horse to water. Then what?

Stupid Crap in the News

Hillary's cleavage made the news. The news media can't get a fix on her positions on war, domestic policy, abortion, or whether she wants soup or a house salad with vinaigrette, but at least we know they're staring at her tits...

There's this site called "24/7 Wall Street" that has a classic example of a clueless analyst writing for them. Douglas McIntyre writes,

"...the Mac can't be counted on for this kind of growth in future quarters. It is now becoming a big enough thorn in the side of the large PC companies that they are likely to start to push back with new products. And, overseas PC companies, particularly Lenovo, are moving into the US with new products..."

I guess nobody told him that their new products are the ones currently getting the Vista kicked out of them...

Some bozo is suing Apple for misleading marketing about the battery being hard-wired into the iPhone. I'll bet you a set of used guitar strings, it's a lawyer. Double or nothing, Apple wins...

There's this wikipedia guy who's pissed that Google has a monopoly on search. Now THAT my friends is the dictionary definition of bullshit. There are scads of search engines. Nobody is locked in to Google. Google has done some cool stuff. They're a business so they're trying to (surprise!) make more money for their shareholders – which seems to be working for them. There's nothing wrong with being altruistic, but if there's a way to make it make money there's nothing wrong with that either...

People all over the web are trying to figure out what Apple's new product will be and when it will be introduced. Here are a few suggestions:

A drip coffee pot with a carafe you can pour from without dripping.

Underwear that don't creep up.

A digital camera that idiots like me can use to just take pictures. Please. Seriously. Damn.

Also, I'm hoping they open an Apple store in Spokane. My kid is going to college there. When I visit the store I can stop by her apartment and say hi.

Apparently I'm going to get a part in the upcoming local production of Peter Pan. A pirate I think.

Wait. There are still some good crumbs left in that bag.

From the Heart of a Fan

Bill Walsh is gone.

A moment of silence, please.

Thank you.

Oh wait.

Just noticed. Zune Nation was last updated on 12/22/06. The featured story about Zune actually having some market share is an oldie. And I finally got the Zune News Site to respond.

The only real news is that Steve Ballmer is asking Microsoft's pigeons investors for patience.

Sure.

Zune 2.0 will be announced by Christmas. Maybe.

R.I.P. Asshat

John C. Dvorak is gone. Replaced by a Tleilaxu face-dancer.

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. This article says he's using a Mac. He likes it. He recommends Macs to friends.

This means that one of several things has happened.

1. JCD is dead. His work is being continued by a shape-shifter.

2. Microsoft has cut him off because his shilling has gotten too obvious.

3. He's getting ready to retire and he wants reclaim his dignity before he shuffles off.

4. JCD is using a Macintosh and he actually likes it and is willing to actually say so on a Windows-centric site.

Let's start with number four. This one would seem to be the most likely. This is also the least plausible. This guy has made a living for the last 20+ years ripping Apple and the Macintosh. This would be a lot like Richard Simmons endorsing Happy Meals.

Number three is a bit more likely, but falls short. His dignity has always been Windows-based. Mac has been superior to Windows – really superior – since OS X v10.1.
That's been enough time for him to discover it before now. Come on. The guy has been a huge critic of Apple since the mid-eighties; he had to know. If he really thought his dignity was injured, he'd have done something about it sooner.

I was just kidding about number two. Microsoft would never cut somebody off for telling blatantly obvious lies that they like the sound of. Shrill dishonesty in flattering Microsoft products and trashing competitors would never be in any way discouraged by Redmond. I've been reading John's stuff since 1987. If anything, he'd get chopped off for being too kind to Apple.

So that leaves only one possibility. Dvorak is gone; replaced by a Face Dancer from the Bene Tleilax.

Hasta la vista, John.

Zune News

Apparently the Zune News site is off line. So I decided to check over at Zune Nation to see if they have info. They're claiming that the Zune has 9% of the hard drive based portable music player market, and 2% of the overall market.

The weird thing on the site was the poll in the sidebar. I swear this is true.

What is your current portable music setup?

• iPod + iTunes
• iPod, No iTunes
• Other Music Player
• No Portable Player

The Zune Nation recognizes its own statistical insignificance. What message should the rest of us take from that?

Oops. Beer time.

Train Kept Rolling

Just got done reading Dan Eran over at Roughly Drafted. Good stuff. I like his analysis and his writing. Right now he's going on about 10 big lies the press is telling about Apple and the iPhone. It's worth a read. Lot's of FUD being spread out there.

I'd say Dan is dead on accurate. On the other hand, it just doesn't matter. All these bozos out there reading from the scripts they're handed are just shouting at the train going by. See, the iPhone is cooler than anything else out there. It's all over the TV. Yeah. Apple has figured out the power of TV advertising.

People are buying the iPhone. LOTS of people are buying the iPhone. And the iPhone is cool. The iPhone is a thong bikini on a 20-year old supermodel. By comparison, every other phone looks like boxer shorts on grandpa. People's covetous friends will go buy iPhones so they can be cool, too.

It's what happened with the iPod. Every other mp3 player is a wannabe; except the Zune which isn't even close.

It's happening with the Mac, too. Enterprise is starting to discover the Mac. Yeah. IT guys. They're saying that Vista, the next version of Windows, isn't an upgrade worth the effort or money. It's bloatware. Apple really has upgrades. Leopard really will do new stuff and be more advanced. It's true.

So, while I agree with everything Dan's saying over at Roughly Drafted, in the long run the Entners and Enderles and Dvoraks and all the other assclown Microsoft shills just don't matter. The Apple train is coming through; they're just waving a few dumbasses onto the tracks. The train won't even notice.

Just in case you missed it, Apple stock closed up almost $10 --> $146.00

I'm in heat. I'm in love. But I just couldn't tell her so.

Tag?

Okay. I'll play. I've been tagged by Cooper over at SuperConductor. Apparently the rules of this silly game are to reveal eight odd facts about yourself. I can do that.

1. I absolutely cannot grasp the importance of lowering a toilet seat or making a bed.

2. New York Cheesecake. Plain. Any adulteration is heresy.

3. My iTunes playlist has Jazz, Classical, Rock, Rap, Blues, Motown, Country, and Gregorian Chants. Sometimes I listen to ZZ Top in between Beethoven and Pete Fountain, all with equal enthusiasm.

4. I sing along with every song Aretha Franklin sings - especially Freeway of Love. I am a rotten singer.

5. I have 25 Hawaiian shirts - two with pink flamingoes.

6. I married my high school sweetheart, 26 years ago. Still married.

7. My personal heroes are Albert Einstein and Dave Barry.

8. I never watch commercials except during the SuperBowl.

There's more, but this is a family blog.

Tagging: baxtrice, timmargh, digital cowboy

Another Good Day

There are good days for being a chest-thumping stock-holding asshole Apple fanboy. What springs immediately to mind is a day when the company announces earnings that blow away the analysts' predictions by $0.20/share.

The Hack

That big bad old iPhone hack sounds pretty scary. If you're hooked up to a malicious WiFi hotspot, a hacker has a chance of maybe getting control of your iPhone.

The thing is the guy who developed the hack said he wouldn't give up his iPhone. And he said Apple already has the patch.

All the Microsofties are at it again, though. Somebody hacked an Apple product. Everyone who owns an Apple product must apologize to Redmond for ever suggesting that Apple products can never be hacked.

Actually, I've never heard anyone say OS X is absolutely secure. I have heard people say OS X is far and away more secure than any other platform. That is only partly true. It's mathematically true that there are really far fewer exploits written for OS X than any other platform. So, it's factually obvious that there are far fewer malware infections on Macs. But the reality is, that if you have a Windows (or Linux) machine turned off, unplugged, sitting under a stack of books and papers, it won't get any malware in that configuration. Ever. Which makes that particular Windows (or Linux) machine as secure as a Mac for as long as it stays off and unplugged. Also they make great doorstops.

Apple is going to blow past $150 a share soon. Still no acknowledgement from that wussy Forbes guy.

Fraidy cat.

Correction

Feckin' Hell.

Hunters of Dune.

Gaw Doll Mighty!!!!!

Hunters of Dune. It's a frigging paperback already. Get serious. I hate when family members read the blog.

Yeah. This is good.

First, let's talk about me. No wait. Let's talk about my new Mac Pro. Frankly, that's all I ever really want to talk about anyway. Okay? It rocks.

Imagine having a supermodel spot you across a crowded room. Your eyes meet hers. As she slowly begins to walk towards you the crowd parts. All eyes are on the two of you as she walks staring into your eyes, swinging her hips, licking her lips. With each step she eases a bit further out of her skimpy clothes. The room is silent. The DJ turns off the record. All that remains is the spinning light from the mirror ball. She finally reaches you, wearing nothing but high heels and a sultry smile. All that can be heard, echoing to all the walls of the disco is the sound of the two of your breathing.

She bends down to you. You can almost taste her breasts. She whispers in your ear, with breath that smells of strawberries and champagne, "Is that a new Mac Pro?"

"Yes."

"Can I...?"

"Fuck off. Buy your own."

Yeah. It's that cool.

And Now The Frigging News

Analysts and fund managers drove Apple's stock down today because they're stupid. They'll drive it back up tomorrow night because Apple is going to report ass-kicking earnings for the third quarter.

iPhone News

Hey! Feckin Hell. You can hack an iPhone.

No shit. It's a computer.

These security experts are jumping up and down like they found a used rubber in a front pew on Easter Sunday.

Puh-leeze.

If you make it your goal in life you can hack anything eventually. Even an Apple product. It doesn't make headlines when people hack other products.

An analogous headline for hacking an Apple product is "Man give birth to living battery-powered toaster-oven with preheat feature and built in egg timer."

Hacking any other product equates to "50-year old man has hemorrhoids, male pattern baldness, and a nice collection of polyester shirts."

Apple gets headlines. Microsoft gets hemorrhoids.

Zune News

My daughter and her boyfriend met someone who owns a Zune. The Zune owner reports, "It's okay."

The top story on the Zune News site: "Is Zune Dead?"

Really.

'Nuff said.

Vista News

My daughter (notice a pattern developing here?) just bought Vista to install on her Mac Book with Parallels, because school stuff requires her to be able to run a Windows version.

Daughter reports: Vista sucks.

Other Stuff

Everybody else bought "Harry Potter." I'm reading "Dune Hunters." It was written by Brian Herbert from Dad's notes. I'm pleasantly surprised. The writing is crisp. The story is interesting. It's weird but it's cool. I'm digging it. Become a full-fledged Dune freak before reading it, though. Otherwise it won't make any frigging sense at all.

I have fulfilled my vow, Christian.

Now I'm going to go fart around with my new 'puter for a while.

Ooh. Ooh. Ooh!

It's here. Mac Pro. 2 2.0 GHz Core Duos. 2 Gigs of RAM. Three quarters of a terabyte of Hard Drives. It's enough to make a blind man pee.

That doesn't mean I'm not keeping up with the news, though.

It just means I'm too busy playing with my new toy to care.

Peace.

Just a few notes

Not having a computer for a few days can change your whole reality. I've watched the Mariners play baseball a few times this week. They don't suck. They're in contention for the AL West. They have a pretty good bullpen. J.J. Putz is scary good.

Watching baseball has led me to pay attention to some of the other sports news, as well. Professional wrestlers and professional football players are gradually becoming indistinguishable. Everybody accepts that pro wrestlers are juiced and the games are fixed, while pro football players also get busted for pot, drunk driving, and dog fighting.

I have always loved professional football; ever since I was a little kid watching the Raiders and Chiefs bench-clearing brawls twice every season. I've been a Seahawks fan since my Mom sent in an entry to name the team in 1974.

With that in mind, I'd like to send the following letter to the Commissioner of the NFL, but I won't. He'll have to find it here.

Dear Commissioner Goodell,

It doesn't make any difference how good a quarterback he is. It doesn't matter if he's guilty of actually promoting or participating in dog fights. If it is determined conclusively that Michael Vick's property was used for dog fighting, kick his butt out. Not suspended; done. If it's his property it's his responsibility what goes on there.

The same for any player that can't seem to act like a civilized human being for a few years while getting paid big bucks to play a game. DUIs, assault, prostitutes. Get them the hell out. It doesn't mean a rat's ass if they run a 3.5 40 in full pads. They're assholes who don't respect the game. Put them back on the street.

A player out behaving like a public jackass who says, "I'm not a role model" needs to be "not a professional athlete." Pro athletes who don't think they're role models are wrong. They only get to decide whether they are good or bad role models.

There are plenty of talented athletes out there in the world who would love to play professionally and would give the game its due.

That goes for baseball, too – and basketball, hockey, bowling, golf, and table tennis.

Thank you.

Rip Ragged

P.S. I assume, like everyone else, that Mike Vick is innocent until proven guilty. Pro football isn't the government, though. It's a business. Pro football should drop Mike Vick like a hot potato.

On an unrelated note. Apple stock is up again. Surprised?

Oops. Coffee's ready.

The Death of an Old Friend

My G5 was an original. One of the first single-processor 1.8 GHz (with the 900 Hz bus).

It's been getting a little wheezy for a while now, but I thought it had another year in it. Saturday night it started spontaneously restarting. sunday morning it it shut down but wouldn't restart. It would just go to the spinning silver asshole of death and stop. So I decided to buy a new MacPro.

Today I fished out my copy of Drive Genius and decided to see if it could repair the hard drives. Maybe that would help. It seemed to. The 500 Gig drive wouldn't take repairs, but the 250G drive was fine. I ran the 10.4.6 installer disk. Everything seemed to be going fine.

Then I tried to restart. It won't even light up the screen. The power light won't stay on.

The G5 is dead.

I think this is a G4 PowerBook. My wife's.

It doesn't suck, but it isn't my G5.

Oh well. The MacPro will be cooler than a wool and silk Blues Brothers costume complete with Raybans and a bull whip.

Apple closed at an all time high again today because I bought a new MacPro.

You're welcome.

Did I leave my slippers in here?

Nearer My Dog To Thee

I'm using my wifey's MacBook. The G5 is dead. I have decided to do no further repairs.

The MacPro will be here in a few days.

I'm not going to try to drown my sorrows in the meantime, but I am going to see if they float.

I'll report back later.

Peace.

Rumor Roundup

Head 'em up and move 'em out cowpokes. Here's a whole passel of notions running around that may or may not be true, a good percentage of which I might make up right on this spot.

Apple...

...will introduce an iPod based on OS X. It will not have a phone in it. It may have bluetooth, WiFi, A/C, PS, AT, AM/FM/CD, 2 br, w/d, and a lovely view of the river.

...will introduce an iPhone that is not an iPod, but will come with a set of attachments for use as a personal massager in the vibrate mode.

...will reduce the price of the iPhone to $199.95 and bundle it with WinCE and Ubuntu.

...will introduce the "Infinite Loofah" line of skin care products.

...will introduce "Leopard" with all the same worldwide fanfare that is normally reserved for bridge openings and the promotions of middle managers. People will deliberately buy it in spite of a huge lack of mass marketing.

Microsoft...

...will continue to buy up as much Linux as it can, in the sincere hope that somehow this means Vista doesn't suck so bad.

...will introduce Vista Super Maximum Ultimate Professional Edition with a sparkling drop of Retsyn®. It will suck.

...will introduce a new Zune that has 802.11n WiFi, bluetooth, a .306 batting average, an ERA of 1.87, and a side of onion rings. It will continue to make a market among people who don't mind paying for first rate products and services while getting third rate products and service.

The tech press...

... will continue praise Microsoft products as long as those products melt down without killing babies and endangered species a significant percent of the time.

... will continue to riff on Steve Jobs every time a battery needs to be replaced in an iPod.

... will continue to talk about the Free Software people as though they are Mahatma Ghandi with better Karma, when in reality they just don't get the whole "free market" thing. (The golden rule of art and science: Who has the gold makes the rules.)

... will perpetuate the belief that because Jeff Goldblum could hack a hostile alien empire's computers in a few hours by merely deciding to do so, the Mac is vulnerable.

Rip Ragged...

...will introduce a line of lingerie based on the concept of Earth's atmosphere containing 75% Nitrogen, 20% Oxygen, and 5% other stuff.

...will introduce a new diet – based on the Mayan calendar – with emphasis on well-marbled medium rare ribeye steaks, egg-yolk-and-butter-based sauces, New York cheesecake, India Pale Ale, single malt scotch, and hand-rolled Nicaraguan robustos.

Okay. I've farted around long enough. It's bed time.

Apple Stock Closed at a New All-time High yada yada yada

Wow. This is huge. I'm going to go ahead and order the full meal deal and supersize the fries.

Read somewhere the iPhone is a babe magnet. Woo. Hoo. That aggravation I don't need.

The way I understood that, if I invest six hundred religious tokens in a geeky fantasy it will attract people whose main mission in life is to redirect the investment of my religious tokens from cool toys to new shoes and fuzzy toilet seat covers.

Did I miss anything?

Fortunately my body style, sour disposition, and ever-present spouse are more than sufficient to overcome the attraction that might be caused by even such a powerful phenomenon as the iPhone. Good thing. Besides, it isn't like I'm going to be getting one soon anyway. My review model never showed up, and the money I might have used to buy one was spent at the local Les Schwab store putting a set of tires on my daughter's car.

One of these days my old Razr will fall out of my pocket one too many times. Then I'll get my iPhone.

Zune News

Microsoft has a new plan where Zune users can get paid for sharing songs. It's kind of like a pyramid scheme, except that it relies on having more than one Zune user in "squirting" distance. The chance of that happening accidentally are roughly the same as the odds of having the winning PowerBall ticket knocked out of your hand by lightning. Twice.

After they hear about this bold move by Redmond, Apple will probably direct the janitorial staff to pay a little extra attention to that coffee stain in the carpet outside the break room.

Vista News

Vista has been on the street long enough that somebody, somewhere must think Vista is just the coolest, baddest, über-raddest OS on the planet. There must be at least one person Jonesing strong for it.

If you find one, let me know. So far this being exists in my head as a theoretical necessity, like people who think, "Oh Boy! Liver, wax beans, and boiled okra! My favorite meal!" They must be out there.

Shoot. We're out of Cheez-Its.

And we're not done yet

Apparently a couple of fund managers read yesterday's post, or decided to have a couple less hits off the bong today. There was a little bit of "profit taking" this morning. Then they said, "Oh Feck," and bought back a few shares after the price started back up.

Did you see Microsoft's new XBox controller? It has a big red glans (the CEO button) on the top of it. Talk about your innovation. Seems like they'd start with a less sensitive body part, maybe an elbow or a knuckle. I can just hear the TV saying, "Slower. Please, just a little slower."

Politics as Usual

The Democrats are all bent out of shape because of Apple and AT&T having an exclusive deal on the iPhone. Oh my aching toenails. Free commerce is happening that may not directly benefit my district with cash money. I must enact some legislation, call a subcommittee hearing, subpoena somebody, start an investigation. Frickin' Hell.

The Republicans are all boinked off at each other for us not pulling out of Iraq quickly enough for their pollsters, or at each other for being either stupid suck-ups or poll-driven poltroons. Washington politics: polls provide principles for pompous posturing. Pretty pathetic.

Fortunately for us, they'll cancel each other out without accomplishing a frigging thing.

No News and Lots of it

Rumor mongers are blathering some crap about a "touchscreen iPod." They're just breathless about this thing. "OOOOOOOOooooooooooh." Let's see. Apple just started shipping a mobile phone that will do everything except the maid. Now, it's big news that they might have a device in the wings that will do less stuff – cheaper.

Yawn. Stretch. AND?

When did we all get to be so rumor driven? Why can't it be okay that nothing is going on? Nothing is happening for a few days in the world of Apple.

Nothing.

Down in the dungeon they're working on something cool. When it's important we'll know. Peace out, people.

Oh, to hell with it.

Really Stupid Rumors (or Apple Closes at a New All-Time High)

The iPhone Nano. The next big star in our galaxy.

No. Seriously. If I was an analyst I might figure out that Apple's next step would be to launch a feature-free POS phone that looks like an iPod Nano. Then I'd say something like "they have a patent for dialing numbers with the click-wheel."

Ooh. Wait. It gets better. Then I'd make up a story about how Apple would be selling this little brick by the end of the year. Then I might say something about how it won't be restricted to one carrier and it would use 3G and have a 105-key keyboard and a wireless mouse and free flying toasters for a screen saver and a pair of jumper cables thrown in for good measure.

Then if I was even stupider, like say a fund manager, I'd pad my mutual fund with a bunch more shares of Apple stock based on the rantings of idiots. So what if I'm running the price of the stock up a couple of bucks based on absolutely nothing. My retirees in Florida will thank me later.

Further, if my brain was no more active than an equivalent mass of 5.25" floppies, I would report in the tech press that big things were happening with Apple based on the stock price being jacked up by rumors driven with second hand information about patents that may or may not have anything to do with a specific device in the development process.

And then, if I really had nothing at all to say, I'd start my own blog for the simple joy of laughing out loud at morons in public.

Time for another cup of French Roast. Excuse me.

Danger

The Co-CEO of Research in Motion said in an interview, and I'm paraphrasing here, "What iPhone?" Then a little later he said that Apple taking control of the user interface and services out of the hands of the service providers is "dangerous." In his office is an autographed poster of Aerosmith that he got when the band played at the company picnic.

The CEO, Jim Balsillie (Really. That's his name.), said that Apple taking control of the user interface and the services runs the risk of turning the service providers into a "commodity pipe." The column doesn't mention what commodity he had in his pipe as he made this observation. Possibly something left behind by a roadie at the company picnic.

The fact is, the service providers already are commodity pipelines. The internet, email, and voice communications are commodities. The commodity pipes we have right now don't offer much in the way of differentiation. There is no value-added with any of them, or any particular stand-out among them for customer service.

The current business model doesn't really address whether the user enjoys the experience, but whether the provider has added a nickel to that last keystroke. Rather than adding value, the current model adds annoyance and expense without making it in any way pleasant. Because, frankly, Verizon doesn't give a shit whether you're happy. They care that you make your payments on time.

Steve & Co. gives us the whole feature set at one price. We can use what we want. It all works.

The commoditization of mobile communications is only dangerous to those who make a living fleecing the public. To those of us who use it, it's about frigging time.

Summary:
In the eyes of the service providers under the current business model, the phones are dumbed down unless the customer chips in a little more for each individual pissant little feature. The customer is nothing more than a crop to be harvested. We feel it. It sucks.

In the Steve Jobs business model, the machine's capabilities are in the hands of the user for one price. The customer is a patron to be served. We feel it. It rocks.

Apple doesn't treat us so well just because they want to be Santa Claus. They treat us well because they know we're happy to pay more money for good treatment. They want our money. Interestingly, the other companies can only hold us up for our money as long as there is no real competition for the commodity. No wonder the iPhone is generating so much negative press among paid shills for T-Mobile and Verizon.

Here's the cool part. Apple just stepped onto the playing field. By Apple's very presence, the playing field is no longer level. It's up to the other guys to figure out how to compete with the iPhone.

More importantly, this week marks the 50th Birthday of "What's Opera, Doc?" The greatest cartoon of all time. Featuring the singing voices of Mel Blanc as Bugs Bunny, and Arthur Q. Bryan as Elmer Fudd singing Kill the Wabbit to the tune of Ride of the Valkyries.

Zune Update

The top headline on the Zune News Site says, "Don't Kill the 360." Honest. The Zune doesn't even make the top of the page on its own page.

Vista Update

Something about a Silverlight 1.0 Beta QuickStart. Whatever the hell that is. It sounds labor intensive.

I think it's time for me to sauté the zucchini.

Shake You Down

Hey! Recording industry. Chill out.

I just bought two (2) CDs this weekend. You guys should be okay for a few days, now. Right? I bought a Robert Johnson compilation, and The Best of Taj Mahal.

Then I ripped 'em into the playlists, and cranked 'em up. These tunes will end up on iPods, shared wirelessly on wifey-poo and the kid's computers, as well as playing through the AirPort Express down in the living room on the big stereo.

Interestingly, I could have bought both albums on the iTunes Store for more money. I paid $10.99 apiece for them at the local record store. On iTunes the Robert Johnson album was $9.99, and the Taj Mahal album was $13.99. I would have paid $24 on iTunes, and buying the discs only cost $22.

I'll bet you think I'm going to come to some kind of point with all this, right? That's what I thought, too. The fact that there isn't really a point, is the point.

The recording industry is missing an important opportunity. Steve Jobs is out being everybody's friend; offering to end DRM; putting a nice face on music downloads; keeping the price of most downloads at $0.99 a song. The record companies are playing Snidely Whiplash to Apple's Dudley Do-Right. Prosecuting the planet for failing to pay them their tithe.

The recording industry looks more and more like organized crime every day with their ASCAP/BMI protection racket shaking down every Jiffy Lube with a local radio station playing in the oil bay.

The fact that I just bought two albums without even noticing the label or trying to buy them on iTunes is significant in that, even knowing all this, I just don't care. I'm not that different from the average music buyer. When the average music buyer does start to care, and if the average music buyer thinks the RIAA is a bunch of money-grubbing scuzzballs, the recording industry is going to get creamed.

The people who don't give a rat's ass about paying for what they get are already ripping their music off at will. Hackers will continue to make it easier to get good stuff for free. As long as the recording industry is the villain or the victim, they're going to continue to lose – as more and more people pile on, and more and more bands use the internet for distribution.

The only way for the RIAA to win or even stop the bleeding is for them to become "the good guys." Not Snidely; not Nell tied to the railroad tracks; Dudley Do-Right of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Good luck, kids.

Friday the 6th

In one week is Friday the 13th. And of course you know what that means. Yup. As of right now there are only 25 days left in July. Mark your calendar.

New business.

I'm a mutant. I just don't get it. One week after the frigging iPhone is released there are still people out there screaming about deal breakers. If you're on the fence about buying an iPhone you should definitely read this post.

If you know what 3G is, and have personally experienced its blindingly fast speeds, and have access to it 24/7 – and don't mind keeping your mobile phone plugged in almost constantly or carrying around a supply of batteries everywhere you go – don't buy an iPhone. It sucks.

If you've gotten used to all those hyper-reliable, easy-to-use, world class programs that third party developers have written for Palm, BrickBerry, WinCE and Windows Mobile, don't buy an iPhone. It's shit.

Note: Please send me a list of those gnarly cool applications, so I can forward them to all my developer friends. Okay. You caught me. I don't have any developer friends. It's okay, though. You don't have any great applications either.

If you can't live without your thumb pressing two-letter combinations on dinky-shit little plastic keys. Dso alkl youtr typinfg looks likje this';. --- don't buy an iPhone. Garbage. Pure garbage.

If you were holding out for a phone that you could use to steal corporate data files, well, the frigging iPhone isn't a USB drive. In a couple of weeks 512K flash drives will be available in machines in truck stop rest rooms next to the exotic colored ribbed condoms (three quarters). Don't buy an iPhone; email all the payroll data to your house from your office, idiot. Better yet, use a pen; write peoples' social security numbers on a notepad.

If you've tried downloading music on a cellular connection you know it takes far too long to be a satisfying and enjoyable experience. Apple technology is designed to eliminate those "Feck this shit" moments. Don't buy an iPhone if you need to bitch at a logo on a piece of hardware for a software problem. Apple doesn't play that game.

MicroLimp Update
IttyBittyErectileDysfunction is going to shell out One Point Something Billion dollars to fix hardware problems with the XBox 360. A fecking BILLION. Boys and girls, I don't care how you do your math, that's a lot of simoleans. As a resident of the same State of Washington that TinySoft resides in, I really worry about the lost tax revenue that would result from them laying off a CEO.

Now I'm Serious

Really.

This link will take you to something you should read. It's time to understand what the war in Iraq is really about. Read the whole thing. If you read the whole thing and still believe the drivel in your local paper, well, okay. But read it first. If it doesn't shake you, you're not human. I had to daub my eyes before I finished it.

Oops. One More Thing.

Did I forget to mention that Apple closed at a new all time high?

With all the iPhone hype something slipped my mind; Apple is still selling computers and iPods and Apple TVs and movies and music.

Universal wants a new deal with Apple. Too late. When the record companies owned the game, they could have innovated. Durable media is all but dead. The record companies could have seen it coming and found a way to profit from the new reality. They didn't. Record company executives are not visionaries. They only exist to profit from people with talent. The internet is eating their lunch.

Digital distribution is here. People will download music and pass around CDs and hack DRM. The only way for the record companies to stem the bleeding is to either play along with iTunes or come up with something better. Subscriptions have been tried. They don't work.

Apple knows what we want, and is determined to sell it to us the way we want it. They will. Not because Steve Jobs is some beneficent deity, but because what we want and how we want it is a straight line road map to our pocketbooks.

The tech press is all abuzz that Apple needs Universal more than Universal needs Apple.

Quick analysis: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Derivation: Without using a search engine, name another non-subscription online music store. Just one. I'll wait.

That Was Weird

Hey. In case you didn't notice, everybody is using the iPhone as an analog to everything.

1. The iPhone is selling well. This means that:

• The American consumer is stupid.
• Apple is brilliant.
• Steve Jobs is P.T. Barnum reincarnated.
• Gens X and Y are tossing their retirements down the crapper for instant gratification.
• All of the above.

Answer: Trick question. The iPhone is selling well because Apple made a phone. It does what it says it will do, and it does it in a cool way. As opposed to something with a lot of ginchy features that only work half the time and require a degree to fix.

2. Reviewers are raving about the iPhone, because:

• They want to curry favor with His Steveness.
• They're shills on the Apple payroll.
• They've been taken in by the Reality Distortion Field
• They really don't know anything about tech.
• The iPhone is really awesome.

Reading around the web reveals that a whole bunch of people think the iPhone is just plain groovy. It's 21st century tech the way us boomers were raised to believe it would be. Every other smart phone looks like a broadaxe or mallet next to it. The last answer seems to be the popular concensus.

3. The iPhone is:

• A slickly packaged toy.
• Disabled because it only works with AT&T
• Disabled because everyone who wants to can't write a lame Tetris knock-off for it.
  
• An overhyped piece of shit.
• Selling faster than Viagra in a 'clothing optional' rest home.

That one answers itself.

Hey! Dumbass analysts, pundits and prognosticators! Apple is about to take over the world of tech. In case you guys missed it, Apple invented personal computing some thirty-one years ago. Steve Jobs has a road map for where we're going with all this stuff. By the time all you "tech experts" figure out what happened, Apple will be trading at (split unadjusted) $1000/share and the entire non-construction-or-steel-producing business world will be begging for the opportunity to kiss El Jobso's little red Levi's tag.

You read it here first, folks.

Big News

Scooter Libby didn't go to jail.

Apple's iPhone inventory is going away faster than George Bush's approval ratings.

Raw Data

Google hits for:

"OS X sucks": 565

"Vista sucks": 184,000

"iPod sucks": 14,100

"Zune sucks": 14,700

"Apple sucks": 32,600

"Microsoft sucks": 87,800

Seems right to me.

Check please.

The Analysts

The analysts and fund managers are at it again. They just can't stand good news. Apple is selling iPhones by the swillion and the "financial professionals" are just certain that there's a sasquatch behind the rose bush.

"Lookit," they'll say, "Whaddabout the Prada huh? What about that? And that Linux thing nobody can remember the name of. What if Sony makes a phone? Huh? Or Microsoft?"

Hey guys. Listen up. The Prada is as close an anyone is to the iPhone, and it looks like butt. The rest of those phones are imaginary. The Linux phone? Puh-leeze. There's no such thing as a functional open source business model. Communism sounds great in theory, but it doesn't pay the bills very well. By the time anyone manages to make a reasonable knock-off of the original iPhone, Rush Limbaugh's first iPhone will be in the Smithsonian.

Pretty soon the knock-offs will come. They always have. Remember Windows 95? It looked like a pretty good stab at Macintosh '85. It was a little rough around the edges, but cut Microsoft some slack. They only had 10 years to perfect it. Windows XP? It was supposed to approximate OS X. XP was named accidentally from an emoticon in internal emails. People would send emails that said, "Have you seen the new Windows XP?" Eventually it just stuck.

Apple is not afraid of Microsoft when it comes to innovating. Simply because Apple actually has some experience at it.

Everybody, including Microsoft, will try to copy the superfluous parts of the iPhone's interface; touch screen; cute icons. Some companies may try to include a few items of actual functionality, like visual voicemail. Then they'll add a bunch of ginchy crapware that looks bad, runs worse, and serves no valuable purpose, like a crippled mobile version of GIMP.

Of course, by then, iPhone 3.0 will be on the street.

Stevie Eats World.

Another round over here, please.

Updates
Mac: Same.
iPod: Same.
Zune: Sucks. (brown, red, pink, black, white)
Vista: Sucks.
Apple TV: Haven't heard anything new.

Disaster

Eleven – out of the half a million – people who bought iPhones this weekend report that the devices failed to operate completely independently of human input. The iPhone proved susceptible to human idiocy. This design flaw caused the iPhone to fail to perform perfectly for the eleven individuals who were just too stupid to follow the simple instructions.

Additional problems were caused when everyone – and his Uncle Mike – tried to log on to the same server at the same time to set up their devices.

Raw Benderly has reported that the iPhone's sales won't be hurt; the Apple hype machine will bury the malcontents.

Other reporters have noticed the anomaly of such successful sales, even though all the iPhone brings to the table is superior software wrapped in excellent hardware and a phenomenal marketing blitz.

The iPhone continues to sell well despite contamination left behind by consumers and writers with the IQs of equivalent masses of sliced lunchmeat.

Fortunately, the anticipated India Pale Ale shortage failed to materialize. I'll be on the patio.