Movie report

I didn't mention it before, but we saw Watchmen in Imax a few weeks back. Cool movie, very dark, worth the trip for Imax. Of course, I read the book about 25 years ago. Hated Silk Spectre's wig - it looked way too fake. Rorschach was, as reported by most critics, awesome. The ending change wasn't bad, considering that it would have been tough to create the monster, even with CGI - plus it would have forced a lot more backstory into an already long film.

Most recent Apple TV rental - Mamma Mia! (which was a blast). Jane and I really enjoyed it, David not quite so much but he liked the singing. Poor Pierce Brosnan. He gave it a game effort, and he really is a sorely underrated actor, but he sang like a strangled bison. Thankfully he remained close to on-key, but I've seen the list of people I can out-sing and it's a short one. I do believe his name is on it, though.

In general, we've become big Apple TV fans here. I don't even have a DVD player hooked up right now (not enough HD analog inputs on my sound system and I can't convert HDMI to Component) - the only ones we have that have been worth repeat watching have been ripped by me and uploaded to the Apple box. Everything else we watch is on-demand from either iTunes on the Apple box or Amazon via the TiVo.

I have seen the future of content delivery, and shiny discs are not it.

Addendum/Correction/Post Padding

First, the correction: Right Guard is no longer a P&G product - they divested it when they bought Gillette. I'd forgotten.

Now, to add in a theme of mine (and annoy my folks - heh), as those of you who read this blog are aware, I'm a motorsports fan. In particular, I like NASCAR (the other stuff I'll watch but it's the stock cars I'm into). Unlike most, though, I have drivers I like but no loyal-to-the-end favorite - and I also have no loyalty to their brands, either. So you won't see me walking around in a DuPont jacket (like my son does) or wearing a Mountain Dew AMP hat (like Junior Nation does).

But I do have a couple of drivers I like more than the other. In particular, I've always liked Tony Stewart - he's got a temper, he's kind of a schlubby-looking guy, and he'll drive the wheels off anything he gets into. Drives really old-school. But his old team was sponsored by a company that annoys me (Home Depot) and his owner was a sanctimonious born-again douchebag (Gibbs Racing). Then Tony left to form his own team, picked a number that was a tribute to one of the all-time great drivers (14), and all seemed lined up to finally embrace a driver's team. But then he wound up with Office Depot and Old Spice as his primary sponsors. Well, Office Depot is so far behind Staples it's a joke (I do all my business at Staples - and Office Depot just pulled out of my region for the second time in a decade), and Old Spice is a P&G brand. So much for the #14 t-shirt - neither of those are brands I would want to promote!

Still root for Smoke on the racetrack, though.

Not to mention that by explaining all this I've padded my April post count to a whopping three. Yow!

In the news

P&G profits are down... at least part of that is because of us, so I'm proud.

More seriously with that thought - we don't boycott them entirely (even though that's my wife's ex-employer) but ever since she got her notice almost a year ago we've generally tried to buy the alternative/generic product in any category where we'd otherwise be buying a P&G product. What's amazing is just how many product categories they are in - it's really tough to avoid their brands.

The biggest thing for us was replacing Tide, Cascade, and Bounty paper towels with the Costco-branded alternatives. Even if P&G manufactures those for Costco (which I don't believe they do), they should make less money that way. On the other hand, I'm still using Right Guard and Gillette shaving cream. One does not grow a full beard for that sort of principle!

I know better than to think that we actually make any difference at all like that. But it's the gesture more than the reality that matters sometimes. I still haven't bought a Boston Herald since they ran the picture on the cover of a dying Victoria Snelgrove in 2004. I didn't read it often and they really don't care about my avoidance, but it matters to me and that's all that counts.

First real sign of spring

I went to the MIT Flea yesterday. That's when spring really starts. Everything else is just a warmup.

Hardware hackology

The major afternoon project - I went out and upgraded my Time Capsule to take a 1TB drive.

Cost of a Time Capsule: $299

Cost of a 1TB Time Capsule: $499

Cost of a 1TB WD Caviar Green drive: $110

Leftover 500GB Caviar Blue (what was in my Time Capsule before surgery): Useful.

It was pretty easy - You do need to peel off the rubber bumper on the bottom first, but there will be enough glue left over to easily stick it back on. Then there's a host of small Philips screws to remove, and the drive swap itself is quick. There is a temperature sensor you will have to re-place, and standoffs mounted to the lower drive chassis that need to be removed and moved to the new drive. But with the Caviar Green in place, operating temperature seems significantly lower, and the box is quieter as well.

And the point is?

So Microsoft's agency (Crispin Porter) is now directly going after Apple. Great. Don't you think they could have found something better for "Lauren, who is a real person" (but is also an actress and has a union card)?

The flip side is that there's plenty of areas Apple doesn't compete well in - and the low point of the market definitely is one of those areas. Though the HP she picked is a turd. In her defense, she comes across well and is cute. She lives in the netherworld of "not cool enough for Macs, but cool enough to have a VW", and that's a good-sized market.

She is an actress, after all - I agree with the Infoworld Cringely (as opposed to the "classic" one) and think it'd be fun to check up on her in a couple of months.

Just to reinforce my smug

I was off by a week, but the iPhone software 3.0 announcement was pretty much right on track with my earlier comments. Neener.

Dumb tech quotes of 2009, part 1

From this Bloomberg article:

“Think about it -- If you bought the first iPhone, you bought it because you wanted the coolest product on the market,” said McNamee, 52. “Your two-year contract has just expired. Look around. Tell me what they’re going to buy.”

(Roger McNamee is with Elevation Partners, the major investor in Palm)

Uh, maybe another iPhone? Probably the 2009 model?

Because they like their iPhone, Roger - plus they'd have to give up/rebuy all their applications in order to switch to a Pre. It's called "lock-in. Apple has it. If you guys had done something over the last 4 years besides crappy PalmOS Treos and "me-too" Windows Mobile clones (remember? Palm gave up on their "OS of the future" strategy about a dozen times in that stretch) you could have gotten there yourselves.

Had I only known

I ordered Jane's Valentine's Day flowers through ProFlowers. Well, the price wasn't bad and they arrived in good shape. But had I realized that I'd get email from either ProFlowers or one of their affiliates virtually every day since, and that "unsubscribe" doesn't seem to get noticed by them, I might not have bothered ordering the flowers online at all. They are pains in the ass of a high order.

Just a warning...

Another shoe may be dropping soon

Apple updated almost everything this morning. New Mac Pros, new iMacs, new minis, all pretty much as expected. They also added a few other goodies. The 15" MacBook Pro had its processor speed bumped up a tiny bit in the middle configuration, 256GB SSD is now available for the MacBook and 15" MacBook Pro (it was initially only available on the 17"), and there's a new wired keyboard sans numeric keypad. No wireless keyboard with the pad yet, though. Rats.

Also added were new models of both the Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme base station, now supporting goodies like a second SSID for guests (that's firewalled off from the main network), and dual-band operation. Cool. I wonder if any of those features will make it via software to the current model (like maybe the guest network support).

They also added a trick for remote access to a Time Capsule via .Mac that looks interesting.

Now for the other shoe. A lot of whispers have been going on the last few days that Apple's planning an event for 3/24. Well, if that's true then there's something else coming out that's basically not a Mac. Because the entire line is now refreshed since October when the initial unibody laptops came out (the 17" and nVidia whitebook were in January, now everything else consumer today). Xserve wasn't updated today, but that's not a big deal. No pressing reason to move it over from Harpertown to Nehalem right now anyways - and that alone doesn't justify an Apple event.

My guesses: either an announcement that Snow Leopard has gone GM (with a release date 30-45 days later) or something iPhone-related. Either which way, if there is in fact an Apple event this'll likely be the last major thing from them before WWDC midyear.