The Second Coming of Steve Jobs

I think I'll repost this when the next iPhone comes out, but since I couldn't get this out of my head last week, here's Steve Jobs descending from heaven.

The Magic of iPhone

One of the greatest features of the iPhone has always been left out of the user guide.

I know it's uncouth, but everyone, soon enough, grudgingly admits that the iPhone changes forever the way they go to the bathroom. It's a Doo Doo Revolution, folks.

I don't get to have a phone on me at work, so locked up in a cubby, my baby doesn't do me much good on a bathroom break and I feel … disconnected. Not just because I don't have email to check or Birds to Anger, I think it's honestly because suddenly I have nothing to do or think about except what I'm already doing.

Honestly, I don't need to be so keenly aware of what happens while I'm sitting on the toilet. I don't need more than cursory sensory input of the whole process. I know what's going on. If there's a problem, I'll notice. I really just don't need to be involved with this process every step of the way.

Distract me with games or information, anything but what I'm siting down for.

That is the beauty of my magic glowing rectangle. That is why I love it and desire to never be apart from it. Thank you, Steve. And Gods bless you.

Being on the Right Side of the Generation Gap

So for the first time last night I dreamt I was watching a scary movie and, instead of fast forwarding with a remote or instantaneous dream powers, I skipped through the legitimately scary parts by pulling up the control toggle and dragging the button along the progress bar.

For the first time I fast-forwarded through a dream using a computer instead of a television, and this seemed completely natural.

Oh thank god, I was worried I might be one of those people who still dreams of VCRs or something.

Praise be to Steve Jobs, who, after three days has now ascended to the heavens and taken his rightful place as the god Technoset, just as Tesla, Eli Whitney, and Archimedes before him.

All hail Lord Technoset!

A Tribute 

Thank you, Steve.

You made a calloused heart believe in magic again. Your small, glowing rectangles rekindled the fire in my eyes that died at the hands of a world without jetpacks, flying cars, and robot butlers.

You reminded me that style and substance are not mutually exclusive, that an anal-retentive demand for perfecting unrealistic expectations is sometimes appealing.

No icon will ever again match your credibility or your dedication.

iLife '55-'11

On Headlines

"Steve Jobs and Obama Meet In Palo Alto … What Did They Discuss?"

"Hey, Bill, what's a white woman's vagina look like?"
"Damned if I know, Barry."

The fuck do you think they talked about? Obama asked how tech was going, Steve jobs told him the shiny white Apple path towards a lucrative singularity. Then they sat in a long silence in which both recognized the tenuousness of their grasps on power, both alone in the room with the other and then in the greater scheme of the world.

And then Barry shed a single, Amerindian-esque tear. As his waterdog runs into the room, trailed quickly by Sasha and Malia, then by Michelle, he wiped the errant saline from his cheek and returned from the brief moment of non-composure he had permitted himself.

On Tech News

This week everyone's pretty excited for the iPad debut, which is now completely overshadowing earlier news that the iPhone can this year expect major updates in both hardware and software, including a likely release (of a possibly lesser model) to CDMA networks like Verizon.

Yet once again I already know what I'm excited about. The iPad can suck it. I don't need one.

What I am going to need is some of the apps that develop for it over the next couple years. First up? The new Netflix app which supposedly will be available for iPhone and iPod Touch shortly.

Why? Because when it comes out everyone will suddenly have access to free streaming movies over WiFi networks, and that means that within another year they'll have access to free streaming movies over 3G and 4G networks, and that means cloud computing will take over video entertainment forever. When iPhones can stream any TV or film instantly, that's game over for a lot of people, but it's also an awesome step into a future that's trying desperately to make up for the fact that it didn't get us jet packs. Remember that scene in Family Guy's "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story" where some guy gets Mork and Mindy beamed straight into his head? Yeah, it'll be like that.

What I find hilarious is that you get the app for free and your own Netflix account for like $8 a month. So worth it. And yet I still just stole Dean's loggin ID and password so I can watch things for free.

Ironically, he stole that password from the account he bought his girlfriend for Christmas last year. What I'm saying is, eventually we're all just going to steal someone else's Netflix account.

Of My Ridiculous Relationship With Computer Products

When I was four my father did not help teach me how to read. Instead, he taught me to type by rote the precise series of keystrokes necessary for MS DOS to run Commander Keen from 5" floppy on an old (then new) IBM desktop with maybe a 256 processor.

When I was twelve I had a classic beige Dell that ran Windows ME. Through some bizarre occult ritual performed on the device before it arrived at my home, this little box was the complete opposite of every other ME machine, that is, it actually ran programs. But not just programs that didn't run on other ME machines. Any program. Because ME was the last Microsoft OS to run with a DOS base, I could play all my early-nineties CD-ROM games, floppy games that'd been transferred to 3¹/2 floppy and a host of other games that should not have functioned properly.

Most recently, after a full 18 months of talking up the little gadget, I convinced my mom that an iPhone actually was the cheapest method by which to upgrade from admittedly wonderful and always in-service Verizon EnV and sleek clamshell models to something that could receive weather updated and browse the internet. And replace her maxed-out iPod. And her old Palm Pilot. And her expensive coverage plan.

Anyway, the point is I got an iPhone and I was as happy and a dung beetle with the world's largest 3G-enabled dung ball.

Aaaaand a friend of mine in a CS major who also works for Apple. For my birthday, he said he'd jailbreak my iPhone for me, something at which I had already failed repeatedly.

And then he did too.

I seriously have like the fucking Alcatraz of iPhones. Shit is impenetrable.

Fine. I can live happily without. So I don't have tethering and I can't make it play the sound of the Power Rangers communicator every time a get a text message. I've learned to deal.


Well tonight I came back from a 30 minute dinner to fine my hard drive clicking and every program not responding. The cursor moved, as little good that did me. Gentling tapping the beast did nothing, shooting down my go-to Fonzie method of machine maintenance. I had to to a hard shutdown. Then … nothing.

I got the white start-up screen and a little flashing folder with a question mark. According to the documentation this was either a Mayan glyph representing creation or my computer telling me it could not find the hard disk to start from.

Some frantic calls to Apple Friend later, I took the "couldn't hurt" approach; I unplugged the power and used a coin to release the battery from the rest of the laptop. I was disheartened to see Apple's fine construction prevented me from getting at any of the wiry bits without taking a real screwdriver the the body case. I was left with only one ultimate last-ditch doomsday sudden-death hail Mary desperation play:

I rubbed off the battery contacts and blew into my MacBook like an old Nintendo cartridge.


And I'll be damned if everything wasn't perfectly fine after a slightly drawn-out start-up and some minor prayers to the 'puter gods and a small goat sacrificed at a golden alter of Steve Jobs.

Guess I'm buying a new back-up drive tomorrow.

And a goat.

Sound A Doggy Makes: The One-Yeariversary

For those of you who care, the one-year anniversary of The Sound A Doggy Makes is coming up on the 27th.

I'm planning something good, once I figure out what it is, but frankly after a year of daily blogging I've run out of old ideas. We just gotta hope I think of something hilarious in the next few weeks.

More problematically, Apple has announced that they've moved there big announcement event for the Apple Tablet and some other less important junk from the 26th to the 27th.

Clearly Apple is attempting to overshadow my momentous day in the eyes of the press. I love you, but FUCK YOU, STEVE JOBS. FUCK YOU.