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Archives for March 2004
Redefining Support
Is the Cake a Breath Mint?
I have to admit that this is pretty damn offensive. What were they thinking over at Virgin Atlantic?
Gene’s Back
Gene is back from London and his travel observations may be the best blog post I’ve read all year:
I don’t have much to say about London. It wasn’t really British enough for me. It was like America, except with uglier people and better pubs.
In the Garage
I’ve been playing around with GarageBand over the past few weeks and I must say that I’m quite impressed. The interface is extremely intuitive, if a tad cluttered with useless visual elements and the bundled loop library is pretty good–even though I think I’ll still end up springing for the $99.00 “Jam Pack” in the end.
My only real complaint is that the loop organizer doesn’t allow for tagging of the harmonic progression of loops (e.g. ii-V-I, I-vi-IV-V, etc.).
I’ve been listening to the Kronos Quartet’s Howl, U.S.A. album lately, which inspired me to work around spoken-word samples. I ended up using passages from some of Reagan’s best speeches, along with some of the better loops in the stock library to create this MP3. It’s still rough around the edges, but it’s been a good exercise in learning GarageBand. Feel free to tear it to shreds.
Slightly Irregular Puppies at Half Off!
The wife and I took a trip to The City™ (Manhattan) over the weekend to go to the Cooper-Hewitt. While we were driving around looking for parking we saw the following sign:
Maybe I’m being irrational, but I don’t think I would even consider buying a “discount pet” unless I planned to use it as bait.
And You’ll Stay Plastered…
I watched Real Time with Bill Maher tonight and I was completely hypnotized by the mounting tension between David Frum and Gore Vidal, both of whom were guests.
Things got so out of hand that I was half expecting a re-enactment of the famous Buckley-Vidal exchange from ‘68, with Frum sitting in for Buckley.
Strange Request
The following is an excerpt from an actual email I received today from an old college friend:
I have a special request to ask of you. I have become a semi-finalist in the second season of the “Apprentice” and have to list people as my “worst references.” It just requires a name and phone number. I was wondering if you would do me the honor?
When someone lists you as their “worst reference” should you be flattered or offended?
Shopping List
Today General John Larsson of the Salvation Army announced at a London press conference that the organization intends to use Joan Kroc’s $1.5 Billion donation for the following acquisitions:
- 12 AH-64D Apache Attack Helicopters at $56.25 Million each
- 4 remanufactured AV-8 Harrier II Aircraft at $21.6 Million each
- 1 B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber at $690 Million
Larsson indicated that the equipment will form the foundation of the new Salvation Air Force.
Jay-Z Undone
Hey Weezer fans, check this out before the lawyers have it pulled.
I’m personally thinking of going to town on Tori Amos’s Under the Pink with the Jay-Z Construction Set. We’ll see how it turns out.
Jackson Leading Dukakis
There was a short-lived TV detective show that I remember airing in 1988. It was called Probe and it was a product of a collaboration between Isaac Asimov and William Link, the creator of Columbo.
I remembered the show so fondly that recently I took it upon myself to track down recordings of all seven episodes. They arrived last night and I watched the two-hour pilot for the first time since it originally aired. What I didn’t imagine was that I would enjoy the 16 year-old commercials as much as the program.
- Jesse Jackson leading Dukakis as we approach Super Tuesday, at 11:00!
- The California Raisins
- The Wonder Years, premiering in March
- The Pizza ‘Noid
I was also completely amused to notice that one of the characters in the show–who plays a secretary–doesn’t even have a computer on her desk at work.
Why AppleCare Sucks…
So early last week Jack (one of my employees) was having some problems with his 12″ PowerBook powering up. He thought it might have been as issue with the battery, so he took the laptop into the Apple Store in Clarendon and asked if they could swap out the battery–since we paid $349.00 for AppleCare, the premium extended warranty.
They declined and told him to ship the machine to Apple for service, which seemed inconvenient but tolerable. He called Apple and they shipped us a box. We promptly shipped them the laptop.
A few days passed so Jack checked the status online. There appeared to be a delay, so he called the support number. There was some cosmetic damage to the machine (due to the fact that it runs hotter than a toaster) and they wanted to know if he needed the case replaced for an additional $650.00. He indicated that he didn’t want the case replaced, but he needed the machine fixed as soon as possible.
The laptop arrived today and it still isn’t fixed. There was a form inside indicating that we declined the repair. So the machine has already been out of commission for a week and Apple screwed up.
We called Apple customer support this afternoon. They acknowledged fault and asked us to ship them the machine for repair. They indicated they would expedite the repair but they refused to guarantee that they would have the machine back to us by any specific date.
That’s the dirty little secret about Applecare. Apple doesn’t make any promises regarding the wait for repairs. It could take a month.
For $349.00, Apple should really provide onsite service for Powerbooks. Dell provides three years of next-business-day on-site service on comparably priced laptops for over $100.00 less than what Apple charges for AppleCare. And at the CompleteCare level Dell even covers accidental breakage and damage resulting from spilled liquids.
All you get with AppleCare is free phone support and three years of sub-standard wait-and-see mail-in repair service.
Apple really needs to step up to the plate on this–or I’ll be buying Dell Latitudes for my business from now on–and telling my friends to do the same.
An Open Letter to Film Critics
Dear Film Critics,
I have a message to those of you who felt compelled to write thousand word screeds on your shock and dismay at the graphic violence depicted in Mel Gibson’s The Passion.
What the hell were you expecting? The film is about a crucifixion for crying out loud.
You’re all idiots. Every last one of you.
