Under a Gibbous Moon

I don’t give a shit about the iPad one way or the other. To me it seems like a underpowered, under-featured  and overpriced laptop, but the thing that keeps pissing me off is how tech magazines and blogs seem to act like this device will dethrone the Kindle as the eBook king and lead a new revolution in the technology.

This is strange since, last time I checked, the iPad would be a step backwards. The hole point of the E Ink technology was to create a display that was actually easy to read. Anyone who uses a computer for an extended period of time knows the kind of headaches reading on a monitor can cause.

It’s no surprise since you are essentially staring into a low powered lamp. Now, though, the pundits think that people will go scrambling back to read while staring into the sun. I’ve even read that school are interested in replacing textbooks with iPads.

First, this is awesome because I want a $600 dollar device to read my $100 book and don’t tell me they’ll cut the price for the electronic version, they’ll just add a few hyperlinks and call it the enhanced edition (not to mention killing the used market). And second, since students (well not frat boys) spend hours and hours studying their textbooks I’m sure they’ll appreciate the added eyestrain.

The iPad may be everything to everybody but it’s not a goddamned eBook reader. Stop acting like it is.

I commute a bit over two hundred miles a week to work. While I know that is not a lot compared to some people, it does put me on the highway for five or six hours each week.

In that time I have noticed a that how rude or reckless a driver’s behavior is is roughly correlated to the car that they drive. While this listing is unscientific and based solely upon my own personal experiences, I believe that these observations can be borne out upon whatever highway you happen to frequent.

In approximate order of offensiveness:

1. BMW
2. Audi
3. Honda
4. Volkswagen
5. Toyota
6. Chevy
7. Jeep
8. Dodge
9. Cadillac
10. Ford

There is some wiggle room as to placement, particularly near the bottom of the list. The top of the list is pretty set with BMW being ahead by a mile. While most vehicle makes, the model makes a huge difference but almost every BMW driver I have interacted with on the road can be classified as a dick.

I think Ford hits the bottom of the list simply because there are not many of them sold out here and so there are fewer opportunities to be dicks.

Honda, Volkswagen, and Toyota are split evenly between their large SUVs (or only in Volkswagen’s case) and their compact cars (with all the teenagers who drive them thinking they are Vin Deisel from The Fast and the Furious).

Of course, within any given make, the more expensive the vehicle, the more likely they are to be a dick, i.e. the driver’s of the Corvette are more apt to being dicks than driver’s of the Malibu.

And finally, it seems that in order to qualify for purchasing an Escalade, you must be a dick.

Recently, on Twitter, I responded to Anil Dash’s rather acerbic comment (which her promptly rescinded, no doubt under duress when when Apple’s stormtroopers kicked in his door) on how Apple periodically likes to make their products incompatible with everything else. I commented back about how my Bose Sound Dock will not charge my iPod Touch.

Thirty-four minutes later, I was contacted by Bose Service who stated that they had seen my tweet and wanted to help. I figured what the hell. I figured that they were maybe handing out adapters to fix the problem (either for free or a small charge) but no, after a little back and forth I found this out.

So here I am, stuck with a less functional sound dock with my only option being to spend $99 to “fix” it or just buy a new one. Ya, thanks but no thanks.

I would like to add a note that I don’t just a problem with Bose (though I am severely disappointed with their “in ear head phones” that only stay in when you sit perfectly still”) on this but also with Apple. It takes real disdain to hand out licenses to make third party accessories and then fuck them over like that.

In this case, Apple screws over the accessory maker who then screws over their existing customer base. Like they say, shit rolls down hill.

As a follow up to my previous post on blog spam, I recently received two spam comments that were perfect examples, that and they were conveniently right next to each other to make for a good screen shot.

Click on the image for a large version

The first one is quit obviously of the IHYSETCOT variety. Luckily for everyone, this person, well bot, is nice enough to to make the links so scary looking that only the terminally stupid or dangerously curious would click on them.

The second one is of the SEO variety. It is suitably generic and appeals to the blogger’s vanity (Drat! How did they discover my one weakness!) Underneath the name you’ll see the URL bronsteinreport.com. This is the web site that is attempting improve its search engine ranking by throwing out links wildly like a frat boy sows his oats.

Now I understand that this post was exceptionally dry and what you really came to see was the latest issue of Blog Spam Illustrated, so I won’t deny you:

Don’t say I never give you anything.

Welcome to a segment that I like to call The Parade of Stupid Names. Today we will discuss the absolute lows that parents have come to in regards to naming their children in manners that will torment and scar them for many years to come.

Today, I took my daughter in for her nine month check up. Visiting a pediatrician’s office is a good place to hear the godawful names that some parents come up with (presumably while drunk). There was a little boy there whose parents are apparently travelers. They are such world treading people that they wanted to make sure everyone else knows it, so, of course, they name their son Rome. I’m sure he’ll be a hoot in geography class.

Then there was another poor kid named Jayden. Holy crap, why don’t you just name him Clay Aiken and be done with it. I mean there’s a reason why the studio changed John Wayne’s name from Marion.

Now the worst offender that I’ve heard of lately belongs to the sister of one of my wife’s friends (say that five times fast). She named her newest son Linkin, yes like the park… I mean band.

I’m not sure why some parents sit down and try to think of the stupidest, most off the wall name that they can think of for their children but I do have a theory. Just think of the one other thing were people sit down and think of the stupidest, most off the wall names: pets.

I believe that there are parents out there who think of their children in the same way they do their pets. It shows, too, like pets, they are all cute and cuddly when their born but eventually they grow up into loud, obnoxious beasts (teenagers) and by then their no fun anymore so their parents allow them to run wild around the neighborhood going in other people’s yards and impregnating their pets, I mean children.

OK. I’m done, I’ll dial back the crotchetiness a bit besides, it’s almost time for Matlock.