In which I take on my gripes with the iPad

First, the name: it's stupid. It sounds too much like eye patch. If they'd released a bionic eyepatch, that would have much better.

Anyway, on to the real stuff. I'm typing this right now while sitting on the ground and typing on my laptop. My laptop which runs a full MS Office suite and has a hard drive that can store things to it. I like the keyboard. I like to sit up while typing. If I'm laying down, I feel like I'm texting. I'm not sure I'd ever get used to typing anything more than texts or tweets on a virtual keyboard. Maybe I will, but right now I don't think I will.

If I want to lay down on the couch or in bed and go through the internet, complete with flash animation and plug-ins and multi-tasking, I can easily do so. Replacing that experience with a larger iPod won't cut it. I'm sure it will be nice for casual web browsing assuming you don't want to view flash-based websites or hulu, etc, but I don't think I'd enjoy it.

Putting aside ALL of the massive, completely overblown hype, and knowing that Apple deliberately makes its first-gen stuff really crappy so it can sell really easy to make upgrades for double the price like 6 months later, I'm still very disappointed. The line "You will be very surprised how you interact with the new tablet" is so far the lie of the year. That's the line that I've based all my hype on, and it's a crashing disapointment. There's nothing new about the way you interact with the iPad. In fact in the presentation today they made a huge deal of the fact that 75 million people already know how to use it because they use iPods and iPhones.

So out of spite, I'm going to site the iPad out. Until they come out with something that surprises me in the revolutionary way I will interact with it, I will remain $499 richer.

Happy 84th Birthday Grandpa Hoopes

Sorry, I'm very out of practice.

500 Days of Stupid

I have a score to settle with the critically-acclaimed 500 Days of Summer. [Spoilers Ahead]

It's a well-made movie that thinks it's too clever by half and is about unlikeable, extremely narcissistic characters.

Why does every movie try to make Zooey D. into a super woman who can turn every head on a bus? And then when you get to know her character you find there's really nothing likable about her. She won't let anyone get close to her at all, she thinks pretending Ikea is a real house is really funny, she toys with men's emotions, is completely caged-in, emotionally, has boring taste in music, likes quirky things because they're quirky and not because of any particular meaning, refuses to support her boyfriend (whom she utterly refuses to validate is her boyfriend) when he sticks his neck out to defend himself, and when she's conflicted she buries it all under lies.

She then informs her now ex-non-boyfriend that her entire story about never wanting to be with anyone was a total lie by inviting him to a party and humiliating him in front of everyone by parading her engagement ring around.

As for the guy, it's hard to feel too bad for him seeing as how he completely ignored a hundred blazing red flags but pushed forward with a risky relationship anyway and then was shell shocked when he got burned. Plus there's not a single conversation he has with anyone in the movie that isn't about him and his problems.

In the end of the movie, no one's grown at all. Zooey's married to some other guy but is still the same 'isn't life magical' twit that we grew to hate in the previous 2 hours. The 3rd Rock from the Sun guy, whatever his name is, destroys a promising career with no back-up plan and is getting turned down left and right for architect jobs because he has no schooling and doesn't seem to realize that an ability to draw buildings isn't the same thing as designing your own or knowing how to engineer one. Everyone lives in a pretend, pretentious world in which The Smiths was the best band ever and true love means getting everything you want and never having to make a single compromise.

Excellent commercial

This commercial's gained national attention. I have to admit it would have to be my favorite in recent years:



I think Hillary would approve.