Tardy Again

Sorry for the absense. No excuses this time. Why try and appease my guilt? Is there anything to gain in that?

Exactly.

Anyway, it's late and I have to go and get the laundry. Before I go, a few quick things for you.

Funniest Event of the Day: Tracy and I are reading in the living room as a siren wails past (not funny). As the siren fades, I hear some familiar sounding music, playing loudly, from the end of the block. It's a verse, which I am notoriously bad at knowing, so I focus on it to try and identify it. And I'm rewarded by the sudden mental image of someone (likely Russian, given my neighborhood) rocking hard to "The Final Countdown."

Awesome.

Ever wondered how best to explain our lovely planet (or at least our lovely species) to aliens from the planet Tralfamador? Here's your answer, worth a solid 7,000 words.

This is not only a great example of the very best kind of focused critical thinking, but one of many reasons I admire Errol Morris. Every student should read this for inspiration.

And lastly: When your logo isn't your logo. Ha ha ha.

MirrorSpace

Wow.

For the record, I do have a MySpace page.

And I hate MySpace.

It's no so much the idea behind the "social networking" site; really, my issues are with A) the stupid, stupid, stupid default look and customization options, and B) It's trendy and totally overrated. Pretty much every site looks (and functions!) like garbage. Yes, I appreciate an easy way to reconnect with old friends, post your pictures and have friends comment on them, and share yourself with the world. I understand those desires, dear reader, and even share them!

That's why I keep a blog.

I have a Flickr account where I post pictures (though I've maybe only posted one; I intend to get better about this soon) and a blog where I post updates & thoughts, in a much cleaner format, for anyone to read/comment. Best of all, you don't even have to get an account to read this, or respond.

But a lot of people, my friends, love MySpace. And I respect that. And so I have a page... with one photo, that links directly to this blog. Because my goal (however short of the mark I fall) is for this blog to be my digital representation on the internet. So I use MySpace as a redirect; anyone who finds it, will find me here.

That being said... there comes a time where everything's purpose is revealed. Today Adam left me a MySpace comment with a link to... I'll let the page speak to myself. [WARNING: mute your computer before clicking through!]

I can't put it any better than Adam...

Everyone, meet Tyler, The Bizzaro Hutson.

Hotel Disappointed

Wes Anderson's short film "The Hotel Chevalier" has premiered on iTunes.

If you are so inclined, click here to launch iTunes and download it. It's free, so don't be shy.

Mmm'kay.

You've all watched it then?

Good.

Soooo... I really wanted to like this. I did. I laughed pretty much right off the bat. Loved the exchange with the room service person, asking about the grilled cheese. Great. I was feeling Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman's phone call... I liked the vibe.

But then Wes Anderson and his editor forgot how to edit.

Let's take a step back for a second. I love movies that take their time and let scenes breathe. I like long takes, or shots where the camera reframes several times. Want to see a great example of that? Go see Children of Men.

But this? This is just sloppy. Almost every take is full of dead space, and goes on just... a... little... too... long. There's a reason few director's dare to attempt this stylist choice— it's friggin' hard! Extensive rehearsal is necessary to get camera and performance to move at the proper pace, with carefully synchronized timings. You can't just write a scene, set up a camera, and go.

"The Hotel Chevalier" has no energy. Yes, it's about two melancholy, depressed characters, but the film still needs to move. Bill Murray's character in Rushmore is just as sad and pathetic, but his scenes have actual life to them. Here, Portman and Schwartzman feel limp and boring— a total disservice, as they are both fantastic actors.

Editing is how you add dynamism to scenes such as these.* You juxtapose images, cut across time, and give us a quicker glimpse at these sad, slow lives. Give me a day and an Avid (or FinalCut Pro system) and I could give "Chevalier" the graceful edit it needs.** Because there is some amazing stuff in this short; it's just that it's still got the gristle and fat surrounding it. Someone needs to dress this steak to make it palatable.

This is a special shame because so much of it is good, or almost good. Fantastic set design and decoration (quelle surprise!), great actors, solid performances, a (mostly) solid script, great ideas... and it all falls apart. Despite a beautifully naked Natalie Portman, sporting a 2005 (V For Vendetta)-era haircut.

"The Hotel Chevalier" feels like a parody of the director's other, better work, and it's sad to me that he directed it. It plays just like a film student trying way too hard to make a Wes Anderson film, and simply not getting it.

Sigh.



[* I may be biased on this count. But dammit, I still think it's true!]
[** This sounds arrogant, I know. I'm not saying I'm the best man for the job; I'm just saying I could do it. And a whole helluva lot of other people could do it far better than me. But please, someone, do it.]

Video Break

This is why I love Wes Anderson.

And a reminder: at some point later today (Wednesday 26 Sept.), "The Hotel Chevalier," the short film "prequel" to The Darjeeling Limited, will be available as a free (!) download on iTunes. It's supposed to have a delightful scene with a partially clothed Natalie Portman (!!!), and just be good 'ole Wes Anderon in general.

So I'm there.

What Happens In Nippon...

Agent: Brad, buddy, I got a couple'a commercial guys beggin' to score a few hours of face time.

Brad: Hey man, I can't let my audience think I'm a sell out! I need to protect my principles!

Agent: Baby, I hear you! Who do you think I am? These are Japanese commercials!

Brad: Really?

Agent: And we're talking millions!

Brad: Let me get this straight. For a free trip to the Orient, and a fat paycheck, all I've got to do is show up and act goofy? Count me in!


Ladies and gentlemen, behold: what your favorite stars work so very hard to hide from you.

My favorites: Nic Cage, Ah-nold, and Harrison Ford.

Ubytek Czasu

David Holland introduced me to one of the most collosal time-wasters I have ever seen: The Polish Poster Shop.

Basically it's a collection of Polish movie posters for American movies. Sometimes long after release, not even for direct box office promotion. For all I can tell, it's mostly just for fun.

Awesome, awesome, and awesome some more.

For example, this is the scariest thing I have ever seen. Never before have I simultaneously A) Wanted something so badly, and B) Never wanted to look at it ever again. Quite the combination.

Other notables: Short Circuit 2, Crocodile Dundee 2 (complete with The Departed— styled cityscape), Willow, Star Wars, and David's favorite, Innerspace.

To continue listing the ones I really like would take a dog's age, so I'm going to have to leave you with that.

Happy hunting!

iMac Hard Drive

I think I've found my replacement hard drive: The Samsung HD501LJ 500 GB SATA drive.

The price is right, and with 446 5-star ratings at NewEgg (77% of the total ratings!), I feel like I'm getting a solid product. Hey, I like Samsung RAM, I want a Samsung TV more than just about anything, so why not a Samsung hard drive?

The time is most certainly now, as the iMac struggles more and more each day. I did a Carbon Copy Clone of the existing internal drive last night; so I am ready. Time to bite the bullet, order the drive, and spend the 110 bucks.

Unplugged

Sorry about the weekend absence, everyone. After a long couple of weeks of working weekends and long nights, I just needed to unplug myself from the Matrix and not sit in front of a computer for a while. And I pretty much did just that-- I barely checked my e-mail, and did pretty much zero websurfing, except for a quick IMDB check at one point.

Not too bad for the internet junkie, eh?

I do apologize for the lack of content, though. Had I been a smarter man, I would have planned ahead and had a few posts ready to go, so I could upload with a single click and keep you, my reading audience, happy.

Alas, though, for I am dumb.

As far as updates go... I did see Eastern Promises this weekend, and I was pretty impressed. I love seeing Cronenberg's style reigned in a bit... not nearly as wacky and out there as Existenz or Dead Ringers, but just as disturbing in a small, intimate and real-world way. Love it. Keep your eyes out for one of the most brutal and raw fights I've seen in a while... very evocative and intense, as it absolutely feels like a matter of life and death. Also, this film is notable for it's excellent makeup— Naomi Watts actually looks like a person, with skin imperfections, which really only serve to make her even more beautiful. And Viggo's fake tattoos must be seen to be believed...

Well worth the time and price of admission.

Looking forward, I do intend to resume my near-daily posts, so keep on my ass about it. As always, thanks for tuning in...

CSS & Templates

This is one of the things I hate about using web templates, and Blogger specifically.

I wanted to use a blockquote in the previous post, so I used the blockquote tag. But the Blogger templates are broken; all text after the blockquote tag had improper leading between the lines, resulting in ugly compressed text after this quote.

I had noticed this problem on other Blogger default blogs; "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs" suffers from this broken code, for example.*

This kind of issue is why default templates get so much crap. They tend to be barebones in their technical execution, and excessively overdesigned in their appearance. Like an inbred peacock, you get a messy and defective genotype, with a gaudy and excessive phenotype.

You can tell I was a geek in school, right?

I mean, I don't love this template. At this point, it's a stopgap until I can design my own CSS/PHP template to use instead; I just need time to do that. It has a lot of graphics that have nothing to do with me or my blog (aside from the fact that there are lighthouses in Maine). And since I didn't make it, it isn't personal.

That's not to say that templates are a bad thing; they are what let 90% of web users/bloggers get started, myself included. Coding is hard and time consuming to learn to do and execute, or expensive to pay for. Templates allow the Everyman to access the web as a producer of content, not just a consumer.

But dammit it's frustrating when the templates aren't that good.

Anyway, I dug into the code and gave this site a quick blockquote fix. I like the look; not the most original or beautiful, but functional, individually coded, and not broken.

Hallelujah.


[*This is a fantastic website, and deserves to be read early and often. Wonderfully commentary not just on Apple, but the whole tech industry. Hilarious and insightful, a rare combination.]

Don't Touch That!

Yesterday's electronic NY Times had this linked on it's front page:

On Saturday night [in Carangas, Peru], a fiery object fell from the sky. Stunned residents said they tracked it to a fresh hole in the earth that was more than 60 feet wide, 15 feet deep, filled with boiling water and steaming with noxious fumes, according to a statement from the Health Ministry.

And then people started getting sick: more than 150 reported symptoms like dizziness, vomiting and skin lesions, according to a government statement quoted by Bloomberg News.

Say WHAT?!

If you're thinking that this sounds just like The X-Files, you are not alone. That was my first thought, and Mike Nizza says the same thing in the first paragraph of his piece, an entry in his column, "The Lede."

And being the geek that I am, I can actually tell you the *exact* episode this relates to.

The X-Files, Season 4, Episode 11: "El Mundo Gira" (trans: "The World Turns"). Something explodes in the sky over a shantytown in southern California, followed by a microburst of hot, yellow rain. The rain ends up being an organic enzyme that catalyzes fungal growth; two brothers end up as carriers, mutated by the enzyme, who can cause mold growth on anything around them. They have become the chupacabra, or "goat-sucker," a mythical Latin American monster.

I'm not saying the chupacabra is about to start rampaging through Peru, but the events of this week are startlingly similar to this episode of my favorite 90's show. It's weird sometimes the life imitates art.

Am I seeing the parallel because the show itself pulled its ideas from strange headlines, and history often repeats itself? Or because it lucked upon prescience 10 years ago? Or because I tend to see everything in a way that relates to pop culture, specifically TV/Film?

Who knows.

But it's an interesting story regardless.

The original entry I read is here; and a follow-up by the AP is here.

Woops

Sorry for the lack of updates yesterday Work got busier than I had expected, and the home computer situation, with the failing drive, isn't that good.

So here I am today, but I should have a few postings over the course of the day. We shall see...

Yarr!

[UPDATED BELOW]

Yes, it is International-Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day, so in honor, I look like this:



In other news, AT&T has still not finished the "Number Transfer" process, meaning I can make calls from my iPhone, but can't receive them— yet. This is annoying, so I am keeping my original phone on me, too, which can get calls. If you can't reach me, though, just shoot me an e-mail. My iPhone gets those, too.

Yesterday I purchased Red Sweater Software's MarsEdit 2, the blogging software I had been testing. I love it so far: it's a very simple piece of software, that does exactly what I need it to. It's quick and easy, and stays out of the way. I had a bit of a hitch getting Blogger photo uploads working, but that's because I hadn't yet set up Picassa (Google's Flickr), which Blogger needs for imbedded pics these days.

But what's really cool is this: In the purchase for, there's a comment box, in which I gave a short thanks, as well as feature request. Not five minutes later (seriously!), I had gotten an e-mail response from Daniel Jalkut, the designer/publisher of the software. He had read my comment, and responded to my ideas directly.

Awesome.

If he's that in tune with his customers, consider me loyal. And this is a guy who's software is being used by John Gruber, and being mentioned on his Daring Fireball blog, so I can imagine he gets some moderate traffic.

[UPDATE]
Sometimes all you have to do is bitch; I put up a blog post about not receiving calls on my iPhone due to slow Number Transfer by AT&T, and 30 minutes later I can receive calls. I love technology. Feel free to call me once again, everyone.

Happy Day

The picture says it all...

More later on AT&T and my thoughts thus far...

Wesleyana Musica

I heard about the following song twice today... schoolmate (and current LA friend/co-worker) Leanne mentioned it to me this morning, and my good friend (and college housemate) Kevin actually e-mailed me the song... seems a few Wesleyan University students (Past? Present? Future?) figured they could rock out a few beats in GarageBand and have some laughs.

See? This is why computers, and the interwebs, are particularly awesome.

I have no idea who wrote/performed this. I wish I did, because I would love to attribute this correctly, and help contribute to this person's (people's?) 15 minutes of fame.

Now, it may not be the best music you've ever heard*, but I tell you what: to a former Wesleyan student, this is pretty damned hilarious. Especially as I myself lived on Fountain Ave with Mike Kevin, and Ryan, with Tracy, Patti, Bryn, and Kristen living two doors down.

Ah college.

Definitely recommended for anyone who spent time on our campus, here is "Party On Fountain."


[*Though it does remind me of "The Lonely Island, specifically "Just 2 Guyz."]

NY Times Liberated!

In case some of you didn't hear, the New York Times made an announcement today regarding their online access model.

As of midnight tomorrow night, all current content, and archives 20 years old or less, will be free.

Free gratis, as Al Swearengen would say.*

I'm excited about this; I have missed reading Op/Ed pieces over the last two years, and have been too poor to pay the subscripion fee to TimesSelect.

No joke, just last week I started thinking that it may be worth paying now.

Lucky me, I waited.

Open information is the wave of the future; notice I don't say "free" information. Because the NY Times is getting paid for this access; we're just not the ones paying cash. We're paying in units of attention and pageviews, which advertisers are happy enough to convert to monetary currency on our behalf. We pay by looking at (and occasionally clicking on) the ads the Times pepper throughout their article. Sadly, this means I'll still have to go through multiple pages to read long articles. But, they still have a "Print Page" CSS layout that does it all at once (if not optimized for screen), so I'll live.

Ads are here to stay, and I for one am much happier to pay the NY Times via my attention and eyespace than currency, at least in this context. Their current layout isn't too bad, and I find this to be a fair trade.

This is as close as we get to having our cake, and eating it, too.


[* If you don't get this reference, go here or here, posthaste!]

Special Thanks: 17.09.2007

Thank you, once again, Sandrine. Take a quick look at the previous post and you can see why I am so grateful.

And thank you Sahra, for all of your work coordinating 2 separate families, in 5 locations, and their single trip to Hawaii. We all owe you a few drinks once we get there. I hate doing this sort of stuff, and I bet you do, too, which makes me all the more appreciative of how wonderfully you've managed to make it work.

Thank you.

Oliwni.

Field Trip Part II

About that trip to the Apple Store yesterday?

Oh yeah, baby!

Field Trip

Getting ready to head off to work... but at some point this afternoon...

Going to the Apple Store, too.

And we'll just have to see what I may (or may not) come home with...

Catch you on the update.

Farewell Hotdog

Tonight was John Harris' last night at HCE. He's leaving us for the far off shores of Japan, where he'll be teaching English.

Way to take advantage of your youth, Hotdog!*

If we're lucky, when he comes back to town in 3 or 4 months, he'll want to come back and work Post. If he's lucky, he'll end up married to a wealthy Japanese babe and be able to buy back all of the comics Will's selling on his behalf.

But either way, someone wins.

John is mulling over starting up a blog/photo group, so hopefully I'll be able to set up a link at some point. I know I'm hoping I can see what kind of mischief he gets into in the Far East.

Those of you familiar with my more awkward years know that I spent several weeks in Japan as a small-scale exchange student. I actually spent most of my time in a small town in the northern Aomori prefecture; we only flew in and out of Tokyo, where John will be based. So I'm fairly curious to see what that life is like.

We'll miss you, Hotdog, and we sure are jealous.



[* John got his nickname (Hotdog) when the Post Dept. decided everyone needed Battlestar Galactica tags. I can remember who everyone was (Will was Tigh, Josh was Apollo, Holland was Anders, I was Chief Tyrell, and so on), but Hotdog's was the only one that really stuck. Although anyone who wants to call me "Chief" without being condescending is more than welcome to.]

Special Thanks: The Premiere

Movies get special thanks. So do books, newspaper articles, even DVD bonus features.

So why not our lives?

Consider this the first of *many* entries in my own, personal, Special Thanks.

Thank you, Sandrine. You rock. And you'd better believe I'm getting you back for this one. You are far too kind, and I'm lucky enough to benefit from it.

Thank you.

Help

After conferring with both Jacob and Josh, it's looking more and more like my initial diagnosis was right: the hard drive on my venerable iMac G5 is dying. Luckily, I can get an easy (and cheap!) fix for that, and feel pretty comfortable doing the repair.

The question then becomes, what drive to use? I'm too tired to do the research right now, so instead I ask you, my beloved reader(s?): what brand hard drive do you recommend?

I am eyeing this model from OWC; I've bought several OWC drives over the years, and have been happy with the quality of the product. I can never remember what the general consensus on Maxtor drives is, though. They have a Western Digital for the same price; is that any better?

I'll start trolling the web tomorrow and see what I can find, but in the interim, any thoughts?

Referral

Quick addition.

I linked to his blog the other day, but I have to come back for more: Jamie Antonisse's blog rocks.

It isn't big or epic; just a very natural personal weblog. No custom CSS, a very default-ish look, but damned good writing. I wish I had a writing style as natural and pleasant to read as Jamie's. His is the ideal personal blog to me: it shares personal details and is about his life, but is entertaining to read beyond that, because the content and style are good. Worth checking out from time to time, and hopefully, if traffic and comment volume increase, he'll make posting a more regular habit.

As a side note, Jamie, like me, goes by his middle name. So we rock. Together.

And Again

Two days behind in a row...

Let's just say I hope a lot of you are planning on buying the Lost Season 3 Blu-Ray set. I didn't even come home on Monday night.

In related (?) news, I think my iMac may be wearing down... the hard drive has a *lot* of trouble loading. and I get slow, buggy response from the machine for the first 5-10 minutes after waking it from sleep. It can hang up sporadically during use as well; wait a few minutes, and it recovers.

This seems to be the hard drive to me, but I'm not sure. I'm fairly good with computers; I could probably deal with swapping out the hard drive myself, but I wonder if that's the problem, or just a symptom. I don't love the idea of paying $150 to get the machine assessed, meanwhile not having it available for Tracy while I'm at work. Again, though, I don't want to just buy a new machine for almost 3 large when this one is salvageable and might last me a solid year. Ugh. Decisions like this are *not* my favorite.

With an HD TV, Blu-Ray/HD-DVD (?) player, and possible iPhone looming on the horizon, as well as a trip to Hawaii (more on that later), I really don't want to have to worry about this. Please, baby, just a few more months!

Heroes

I tried watching Heroes on NBC when it first aired. I had gotten ahold of a screener of the original pilot and was thoroughly unimpressed⎯shoddy writing, bad acting, and some terribly wirework, plus a fairly limp plot. Good ideas in a bad framework.  So, when the (at this point) modified pilot aired, I gave it another shot, hoping they'd tighten it up.

They didn't.

The first three episodes are pretty uniformly terribly. The fourth starts to perk up, particularly with an awesome ending, but was still pretty bad.

So I gave up.

But a lot of people were calling it great. Friends of mine, whose opinions, I trust recommended it to me. And I remained curious. Curious enough to buy the whole season on iTunes, but not to watch it.

Until this weekend.

I'm into Episode 9 (I think), called "Six Months Earlier."

And Heroes is a pretty good show.

The first four episodes are just as terrible as I remember. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. But the writers seem to have realized it themselves, and started pulling their shit together. Mohinder still drives me nuts, and the dialogue can still fall flat, but the simple feat of making Peter Petrelli interesting and likeable (!) deserves recognition.

So I'm into it. I'm not hooked, and, at least at this point, it hasn't reached the "must watch" status of Battlestar Galactica, or even Lost or previous seasons of 24. But I am liking it, and provided I finish Season 1 by the premiere two weeks from Monday, I'll be watching Season 2.

Any of you fans or haters? I'm curious what other opinions are...

Boss AWESOME

Here's a little nugget of goodness, courtesy of Jamie Antonisse over at the (aptly named ) Jamie Antonisse Blog. It's a music track he composed for a video game he's working on; as a student at the USC Video Game Design School, this is all part of his curriculum.

Bastard.

Another bit of prelude: Jamie is a wizard at GarageBand. Swear to God. You've never seen anyone use their mouse to create better⎯or funnier⎯music. He does it by dragging/setting each note by hand, and chopping up sampled loops. It's awesome. If I get permission to put some of his earlier tracks up, I'll try and do it. He's doing the score for the entire game (I think), so there's another reason to try and play "Wrath of the Transperator" when the B-Game Competition goes live.

Until then, I am proud to be the first (only?) mirror of... BOSS FIGHT!

3:10 To Yuma

Short post tonight.

3:10 To Yuma was, in my humble opinion, one fantastic flick. Excellent performances— Christian Bale continues to be one of the best working actors out there, Russell Crowe used his charaisma in a way completely appropriate to his character, and Ben Fostor stole all of his scenes as the psychopathic Charlie.

Yuma is not seeking to reinvent, subvert, or lampoon the Western genre. It is simply a very good classic Western, made with modern sensibilities. If it seemed a little... cartoony at times, that's because the Western story is the American creation myth; archetypes play their dramas out on the frontier landscape. Ben Wade can redeem himself so fully because he already is a legend, or a version of a legend; Christian Bale is the same struggling frontiersman, too weak to support his family, who can learn to be enough of a man to take a last stand. I've heard complaints about a certain horse hearing a quiet whistle from a few hundred yards away, while a train roars by. Folks, that's not literal, that's symbolic. This is a Story about who we are.

Marco Beltrami's score seemed to really sum up my feelings on this. It's got the classic sounds we all expect a Western score to have— brassy horns, twangy guitars, the same chord progressions Morricone uses. But it's still it's own beats, and serves the story being told here, with strong percussion and a clear action rhythm. It sounds modern, to be sure, but is no doubt classical, and instantly recognized for what it is. And so the film is an exemplary Western, modern not in its structure, but simply in its timing and style.

Already...

Sigh. Missed a day already. But at least I'm expressing regret and, instead of ignoring the problem, dealing with it. Half the battle. Or at least I hope so...

Yesterday's absence comes with a reason, however. I went with Josh R. to the new Best Buy in Sherman Oaks, to look at HDTVs.

Now Hutson, you say, Isn't Best Buy another corporate Big Box with crappy selections and high prices? Well yes, dear reader, it is. But it is also the only place you can really see big electronics in person, and with something like a TV, you'd better believe I am going to see it before buying. Besides, this Best Buy has (in a single week!) already developed a reputation as a big store with a wonderful selection, so it seemed a good place to go.

Long story short, I fell in love. Walked right in and saw the best HDTV I have seen yet, playing one of my favorite movies, Batman Begins. A sign from heaven, confirmed when it then switched to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Samsung LN-T4665F!

This TV has, without a doubt, the best HD image I have seen in a consumer model. Amazing blacks, very crisp images, 1080p capable, amazing color fidelity. In fact, I haven't seen any flatscreen at all that compares. And seeing as I look at this stuff every day, I like to think I have an informed opinion.

This is the set to get. It's a great value, and a simply remarkable picture. I will be getting one soon... I promised Tracy it'd be this "winter," so as soon as we hit the equinox, I am there!

Amazon is offering a deal right now, and I can't recommend this TV enough. If you can, go see it, and prepare to be amazed.

iPod, Therefore iPhone

Big day for the Apple Faithful!

Steve Jobs updated the iPod Shuffle (new colors, same storage/price), the iPod Nano (new colors to match shuffle, new storage, new form factor, new OS), the iPod Classic (né iPod) (IMMENSE storage update, new form factor, new OS), introduced the all-new iPod Touch (iPhone sans phone, camera, weather/stock/maps widgets), and unveiled the iTunes WiFi store, where you can buy songs over WiFi with the iPhone and the iPod Touch.

But the big deal, to me, is that they dropped the price of the 8 gig iPhone to $399.

Here's my story. For years, now, I've said I want two things: a widescreen iPod for videos, and a high-storage iPod for my entire library. Including songs and videos (and a growing number of podcasts), I'm looking at 130 gigs of material... no small feat. And I always assumed they'd be the same device. iPhone comes out, and I think "Cool, when they make a hard drive version without the phone, I'll get that as the new iPod." Figured I'd be set.

Then Apple went and confounded me by making these items two separate iPods. If I want widescreen, I need an iPod Touch. If I want space, I need an iPod Classic.

I see Apple's reasoning-- they need battery power and small space requirements for the Touch, which means flash storage. And maintaining the Classic line allows for the high-storage models to be available, which Apple can't yet replace with flash. Plus, they get an added benefit of maintaining a "premium" status with the MultiTouch interface, which is good for it's own tech cachet. So two devices it is.

Another benefit to Apple in this circumstance applies directly to me. Now that the Touch offers only 8 GB and 16 GB, an iPhone is only a little smaller and a little more expensive, for phone functionality. So people can be seriously tempted to get the Phone, and help build Apple's marketshare in that new market. If they don't, they are still buying an iPod, and Apple wins.

Looking at my usage, I realize something. Since getting my laptop 10 (!) months ago, I have used iPods less and less. The shuffle I got in March gets more use than my 5G (60 GB) iPod. Because when I do most of music listening, I have my laptop, which has all of my music anyway. So now, do I want Touch controls enough to carry an iPod as well as a phone? Well, no-- the internet functionality I need is limited to WiFi, and I usually have my laptop in the office, so I don't need that. I don't want to buy an iPod touch just to have a phone in my pocket too. COnvergence is suddenly seeming more and more appropriate...

So you got me, Apple. Looks like, at your new lower price, I may have to buy an iPhone. I'm going to wait a few weeks, and think about it, but I'm feeling the winds of change a blowin' my way.

Bastards.

Nine Months In...

Hello All-

Here's a little experiment. We're here in the Month of September. I've had this blog rolling for, technically, 8 full months now, and I have something like 10 posts.

WEAK.

So here, in the (formerly 7th) 9th month of the year, I make a firm attempt.

I will post every day of September, from this point forward.

Aiding me, I have a new tool: MarsEdit.

Basically, it's a blogging application I can do all of my composing, tagging, and posting through. I'm fairly optimistic that, with this app, I'll be posting more frequently, and with a higher level of quality.

Was the Blogger Dashboard that complex or annoying? No, but the step of going through a web interface slowed me down. On the one hand, going through a browser portal isn't a dedicated act: I can quit Safari and lose work, or get distracted into other webpages. It doesn't feel as "official." On the other hand, the act of logging in and navigating to the "Compose" page takes several clicks and entries; with MarsEdit, I launch an app and go.

So, we'll see if the psychological game pays off. As I've stated before (in person, if not on this blog per se), I want this to be a true window into my life, a real tool for friends and family, as well as myself, to be able to use for communication/getting informed.

Stay on my ass. E-mail me. Post comments.

I need your help to do this.

;-)