Big News (none.)

For a second day in a row, absolutely nothing is new.

Unless you count that Apple has made it official that there will be an SDK for iPhone-native apps released in February. That made headlines all over the place. "Apple Changes Their Mind," and crap like that. I don't remember how I knew, but I read on the web – way back in the wild and woolly days of January – that El Jobso had the plan to ship a developer kit from the git-go. I know I read it, because I don't remember ever even wondering if it was going to happen. Ever.

Then there was that thing about Greenpiece getting caught in the bathroom flipping pages with their free hand. Turns out Apple isn't violating anything, anywhere with the ingredients in the iPhone. Apple is compliant with every dipshit greeny rule on the books, and with their own stated promises. Any expectation that the facts will have any effect on Greenteeth's behavior is just silly and misplaced. They're far too smug and self-satisfied to see any problem in their reputation as raving lunatic assholes. I guess that is kind of newsy, but so predictable that it doesn't really warrant the waste of much bandwidth. The sun came up in the East today; Somebody, somewhere farted really loud during an important presentation; Greenfreaks arrogantly assumed they could bullshit the whole planet with their dross. Not news.

Well, then there's some bitching from people who bought brandy-spanking-new Macs before the October 1, magic moment, who think they're getting ripped off because they have to pay full price for Leopard. Waaaa. I bought my Mac Pro in August, knowing full well that I would probably have to pay full price for the upgrade to Leopard. I lived. $100/year to keep my family's Macs up to speed with the best operating system on the planet doesn't seem like much to me. Hell it costs more than that to feed us for a couple weeks.

Go buy a Dell and live with Vista. Piss ants.

Intel's stock price just went up like 5% today. That might be big news if it wasn't for Intel spending 22.1 billion (yeah, with a b) on R&D from 2001 to 2005. That's more than three times AMD's current market cap. Who do you think is going to advance processor technology faster? Who do you think is going to be running behind the elephants with a bucket and a shovel? I'm no rocket surgeon, but it seems like pretty easy arithmetic to me. Yes. I do own some of it. The only thing that's surprising is that it took so long.

There. I'm done. Oh wait. One more thing. The Mac jumped up to 8.1% market share in the third quarter of this year. Apple is now the number three computer maker in terms of sales, behind Dell and HP. I can't wait to see what the 4Q numbers look like.

If I owned Dell, I'd close up shop and give the stockholders back their money. Well, most of it anyway. I'd probably buy myself a nice island and an Italian sports car (or two) first. And some scotch. And a box of Henry Clay Brevas a la Conservas.

The trick is to let the Ballpark Franks simmer for an hour or so with the Van Camp's Pork & Beans to meld the flavors together. Serve with a big old squirt of French's yellow mustard. Also it should be accompanied by a bottle of Coor's Banquet Beer, chilled to about 33ºF. That, my friends, is redneck gourmet at its finest.