Posts (page 3)
I am completely underwhelmed by Apple's newest iPods, with the exception of the darling little postage stamp Shuffle v2. I know I am not the only one waiting to upgrade their own iPod with the one long-rumored to be "coming soon," and the wait will go on a little longer.
The new Nanos are the biggest letdown, as far as I'm concerned. I never liked the design of the old iPod Minis with their ugly brushed metal sheaths in candy-coated colors. The original Nano was leagues better looking than those and I think that accounts in major part for the Nano being the biggest selling iPod in the family. They were slick, sleek, and sexy. The new Nano, mimicking the look and feel of the old Mini as if somehow it snuck into the henhouse and mated with a white Nano v1, looks like an Asian knock-off. The flattened tube is no match for the smooth, rounded corners of the old design.
The new Shuffle, however, does everything right in improving on its older design. The Shuffle was also incredibly popular, most likely because it was the cheapest way to buy into the iPod family, as well as being the perfect, weightless accompaniment to a workout on the treadmill or out on the street. Plus, if someone wanted to steal your Shuffle, you could grab another for less than $100 and you didn't lose a library's worth of digital tunage.
The new incarnation is not only smaller and better constructed, it's just damn cute! Although I already own a v3 40Gb iPod and a v1 black Nano, there's something intriguing and downright blingworthy about the new Shuffle. It's the Hello Kitty of the iPod family. You can't explain it, you just want one.
Turning now to the iTV, shown as an uncharacteristic teaser for a product you can't even buy yet, I wonder if it's Jobs answer to the small but powerful coterie of PVR fanatics salivating over TiVo's new Series3 HDTV jobber, available starting today for a ridiculously pricey $799 plus service fees.
The new TiVo is everything one would want in a cutting edge, future-proofed digital video recorder. Dual CableCARD slots, HDMI and optical audio support, home networkable and eSATA-drive ready, those who can afford this monster (and can understand what all that aforementioned digispeak means) will be in constant hard-on mode for a few months until either the price drops on this box post-Christmas, or TiVo's deals with Comcast and other cable providers finally yields something concrete to replace the excreble excuses for HD DVRs currently offered.
(As a renter of Comcast's lame-ass dual-tuner DVR and its assinine, broken and in all ways awkward software, I am seriously considering re-upping my early adopter license and flush over $1,000 down TiVo's drain to get my hands on this thing if only to save my scalp from more hair pulling because I didn't get the final episode of "Hell's Kitchen" recorded, or because the thing can't help but record every episode of The Daily Show every day because I can't tell it a specific time to record it -- I could blame Comedy Central for not indicating which broadcast is first-run and which is a repeat, but I hate Comcast more.)
So, is Apple's 2007 iTV going to be a little $300 video-ready wireless plug-in that your Intel Duo Core Mac Mini can sit atop, happily gobbling down HD signals and providing some simple, smart front-end software to manage all your music, movies and TV in one little silver-edged box, or is it just another single-purpose interface that Apple thinks we need to watch our iPod Quicktime movies and that's it?
Please, let it be the latter. Meanwhile, I'll wait out the TiVo upgrade until I've pulled the final hair out of my head.
He got her as she sank the thirdtime and swam to shore.
It was gray autumnalNovember: the mountain forests
were quilted
with dry brown leaves.
He lay upon one luxuriously, breathing thehot mattress,
and drawing his
(small)
legs up lazily.
"Keep yourdamned dirty hoof out of my mouth.
Before anotheryear well all go to the poorhouse.
(Woman,)
what are we coming to?"
It was gray autumnalNovember: the mountain
forests were
quilted with dry brown leaves.
"Ill never be able to forget his birthmark,"
Eliza whispered,
"Never, never."
TheSquare
in the wan-gray frozen morning
walled round him with
frozenunnatural
smallness.
And Altamont
lay gray and
withered in thehills,
a bleak
mean
wintry
dot.
The car
(still climbing,)
mounted the flimsy cheap-boarded brown-graysmuttiness of Skyland Avenue.
He
went home one Friday night with a chill,
said the motorman,
and the next Tuesday he was gone.
In the autumn, they barrelled huge frosty apples in thecellar.
He lay upon one luxuriously, breathing thehot mattress,
and drawing his small legs up
(lazily).
They sang asong;
the plaintive distant music haunted him.
"Why, he was a big healthy man in the prime of life,"
said Gant.
A negro bellboy sleepily wafted a gray dust-cloth across theleather.
she said,
"wave good-byto your papa."
But,
seizing a handful of
cut
sticks
and the oil-can, he lunged
(furiously)
toward the sitting-room.
The settlement was plumed delicately with ahundred tiny fumes of smoke.
Once, when Eugene waspast two, Eliza had gone to Piedmont as witness in a trial.
"If it ever lands on you, you bastard, youllthink it is a mules,"
said Gil.
Gant lavished upon it his abuse, his affection, and his prodigalprovisioning.
"Jim Bowles died while you were gone, I reckon,"
said the motorman.
(Its pretty strange when you come tothink about it.)
"Thought I hadnt seen you,"
said the motorman.
There was a crescent humming on the rails.
I shallnever forget the Old Hog as long as I live.
Eugene looked,
horror
swarmed like poison through his blood.
They sang asong;
the plaintive distant music haunted him.
Years later,
Steve,
returninghome,
said:
"That sections all built up out there now. The twowomen gave loud cries as they saw each other, and rushed together."
Years later,
Steve,
returninghome,
said:
"That sections all built up out there now."
He looked asif he had never known a days sickness in his life.
Eugene began to observe the food and theseasons.
she said,
"wave good-byto your papa."
The song is called "We're From Barcelona." The band is called "I'm From Barcelona." Entire lyrics as follows:
I'm gonna sing this song with all of my friends
And we're I'm From Barcelona
Love is a feeling that we don't understand
But we're gonna give it to ya
We're late for the start
We'll wait for your heart
When the night comes
And we'll bring you love
You'll be one of us
When the night comes
And some La La La's. Rinse. Repeat.
It's impossibly catchy, so of course they're from the land of ABBA.
Enjoy!
Howard Jones, that multi-keyboard playing parrot-haired mainstay of VH-1's Attack of the 80's made a new electronic album last year, and on a lark and out of mere curiosity, I downloaded "Revolution of the Heart" to see if the lad was making that same candy-coated air-filled electronic sugar as he was before -- and of course he is!
Take a sampling of the opening track and then go find the thing yourself and dig out your skinny ties (they're back!) and hair mousse and get down with some incredibly Anglo-white impossibly optimistic key twiddling electropop!
Thanks, Mr. Sun!
That lobster cocktail Fleur had given him the Sunday before last
Don't worry
we'll snare the just-right cuckoos
somehow
There they'd be in
the dark
floating about
It was Michael's own
(subconscious thought!)
And, with
a nervous movement,
he felt for the codicilin his breast pocket.
There they'd be in
the dark
floating about
The French and the royal family
have a very sound habit
of getting it over early
Bit too full-blooded, sir, and that's a fact
The woman was still
in the same attitude;
the same florid scent
was in the air
He never saw his nephew
without wondering
when
he would say
Look here, Uncle Soames, I'm up a stump
George stared up at him a long time before he answered
You can chuck my books
over to some other publisher
Bit too full-blooded, sir, and that's a fact
He recalled the nickname
George
had once given him
the undertaker!
And, still
with closedeyes
he added: I couldnt help it
It was Michaels own subconscious thought!
Taking it under his arm, he moved
his tired
legs in the direction of the Bridge
Certainly he had not
seen
him
in the bay window for months past
Its a lot of money
Soames could not help saying.
Well, he said,
(holding himself hard together)
dont forget I love you
awfully!
There were other reasons conducing to light-heartedness:
The face in the glass turned round, and became the back of a clipped sandyish head.
He took up the other
and did the same to it
He stood at his dressing-table
took one up
and looked at it.
This Flower, whose fragrance tender with sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor the darkness everywhere;
True Man, yet very God, from sin and death He saves us,
And lightens every load.
"Dearly Beloved" is part of Peaches Christ's annual short film fest on August 19th at midnight. See you there!
