Greetings from the Future

So is getting this thing more orgasmic than when you got the iPhone?

@blogenfreude: Nah. The iPhone was like the first Mac. This is more like a major convenience.

I think. Honestly, setting up that photo was the first thing I did. Haven’t actually played with it yet.

Yoda Pez approves, but what does Cat Stick think?

Team Cat Stick!

TJ/Whoa. Just saw a movie called Modify. Veeery interesting!

@WhateverthefuckNabeesko’snewnameis: We seem to be on the same movie/TV schedule. I just finished Season 5 of Weeds. Wow. No spoilers. Now I’m about to hunt down part 2 of Che.

… and a Close Encounters LP? How geeky … oh alright, I have one too. And Star Wars,

THAT is AWESOME!! Congrats!!

…lucky bastard.

Awesome Yoda Pez pic.

And now, let’s try the lap test…

Keyboard very sensitive — gotta keep fingers above the screen — but much easier to type than an iPhone.

@HugKennyLoggins: Dude, fuck Kenny Loggins!

Nice to see you.

The screen is very beautiful. And for “tabbed” browsing, you get thumbnails of open pages — similar to iPhone, but on one screen.

@nojo: So life without Flash is tolerable?

@JNOV: We’re somewhere in Season 4 … damn I love that show.

@Dodgerblue: and that’s sort of my question – what does the lack of Flash mean? I’ve heard people talking about it, but I have no clue …

Back on the Mac while I futz with setup…

@Dodgerblue: I’ve been spending a lot of time browsing on my iPhone for almost three years, and never missed Flash there. Probably because what I do is read a lot of blogs.

@blogenfreude: As a practical matter, lack of Flash means you miss all of those wonderful animated expanding instrusive website ads that Flash enthusiasts seem to crave. You don’t miss embedded YouTube videos, since iPhone/iPad handle those anyway.

@nojo: I’ve read debate about whether the IPad or Kindle is easier on the eyes. I’m not sure I care, because the Kindle is a one-trick pony.

Me want. But inner puritan say: Now do we really need to spend moey on this gizmo when people are starving in Burbank? Hmm? And I say but… but… but…

If only I could think of something to do with it.

@Dodgerblue: The line seems to be that a backlit LED screen is harder on the eyes than the “e-ink” Kindle, which is unlit. Me, I’ve been reading off the iPhone from the start, and you can always adjust the backlighting to taste.

And I’m very fussy about this. I used to say that monitors were like reading off a lightbulb — not just the light, but the flicker of a tube. If you’re comfy with a laptop display, an iPad’s the same thing.

@Benedick: If only I could think of something to do with it.

That’s actually the relevant question that both ravers and haters overlook. If you don’t know what to do with it, you don’t need one. I know exactly why I need it, which is why I blew the bucks on it.

…and now that I’ve been anxiously awaiting it all day (and three weeks), I’m going to wash dishes. When I settle in with it later, it’ll be for the long haul.

@nojo: I get that. I’m actually sorry this didn’t come out before I bought the OH a MacBook. He complains endlessly about its complexity and only uses it for email and reading the Times. This would have been perfect. As it is I like to carry about my Air even though it does make me feel as if I’m in an ad for Dior perfume.

I can’t imagine what that iPad reminds me of.

http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/2001b.jpg

“iPad, open my garage door!”
“Sorry Nojo, but I can’t do that.”

@Benedick: only uses it for email and reading the Times

Bingo!

Haven’t set up email yet, but that’s one of the things I’m looking forward to — it promises to be a lot more manageable than the iPhone. (Email’s fine on the iPhone, I just hate typing on it…)

@ManchuCandidate: You’ll have to hunt it down, but folks were pasting the iPad into that shot back in January…

@blogenfreude: The poster child for Flash is Hulu, which uses it to deliver video. If you visit Hulu a lot, you won’t be happy with an iPad, which doesn’t display it. Me, I never visit Hulu.

@nojo:
I’ll wait for the iHAL9000

@ManchuCandidate:

Also on the Star Treks

But the iPad’s screen is bigger. :)

About an inch shorter than a magazine, if anyone wants another point of reference. (Minus another 3/4-inch on all sides for the bezel.)

My iPhone is lonely and bitter.

@Dodgerblue: For starters, the iBooks app has its own brightness setting, very conveniently located. Too soon to tell how well that works over time, but it’s a good start.

@nojo: Now you can read the Glen Beck oeuvre on iPad. Kewl.

@nojo: NCAA games are streaming live on the internets. Could be awesome on the IPad. Here’s the link: http://mmod.ncaa.com/video/std?ttag=mmod10_on_all_goog_twt_0009&ts=1270333348&t=f895fba7fb9f27019c28c6d8acb3aff5&w=90

@Benedick: “In the second century of the Christian Æra, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.”

Beck? No thanks, I’ll take Gibbon.

Project Gutenberg built into iBooks is really sweet.

Meh. Apple II forever!

@Dodgerblue: Alas — for you, not me — NCAA looks like Flash/Silverlight only, so no March iMadness this year.

@rptrcub: My mom may still have an Apple III in the closet…

And, um, WOW. Audio is very good — had to turn it down for that clip.

@nojo: Fast-paced game. Mich St 22 Butler 20, 5 min to go in the first half.

Early line on the browser: FUCK YEAH.

One Yoda to rule them all.

Also: no iPhone, no Mac, no intent to get an iPad…I feel like I’m slipping farther and farther from the zeitgeist.

@flippin eck: We still like you.

@nojo: So how’s the ALW 4evah! app streaming scenes from Love is Forever?

@Benedick: My Cellblock Tango clip sounds pretty nice.

@flippin eck: Many years ago, I had a serious debate with myself whether to get an answering machine. It’s been all downhill from there.

@nojo: God. Chicago is so gay. That goes for the town, too.

@flippin eck: I only have an iPhone because my work wouldn’t replace my ailing RAZR with anything else, and you can only nurse a dying battery so far. I feel like 9/10ths of a social outcast in groups any more, because I don’t watch TV (and therefore don’t hear about and therefore don’t watch movies). I have so much more free time, though.

@nojo: My mom didn’t get an answering machine until 2000 – welcome to the 20th century Janet ….

@flippin eck: @IanJ: I have an iPod Touch and that’s about the extent of it. I like Apple products but Mr. Cub’s anti-Apple stance is starting to wear off on me, his attitude stemming mainly from certain very cultish rabid fanboyism of a few friends (not accusing you, nojo, btw) where Steve Jobs can absolutely do no wrong.

Steve Jobs is not among my favorite people right now thanks to the fact that I had to reformat my iTouch yesterday, and I totally had to redo my music playlists to jam only the necessary amount of music on it (it’s an 8GB, I have 12GB on my HD) — like choosing which baby to slaughter.

Still, the iTouch is very handy for looking at the interwebs when you’re bored in a free wifi hotspot.

@Benedick: Could you come along to my next holiday get-together and explain this to my relatives when they ask why I’m still single?

@IanJ: I do waste a fair amount of weeknight time on teevee, but 85% of my viewing is PBS…still no help with pop culture. My secret is an occasional scroll-through tour of Defamer or another entertainment blog to stay in the loop. You don’t actually have to watch most TV shows or movies to get the references.

@rptrcub: I’m sorry, I was checking out the Lost pilot in the streaming Netflix app. What were you saying?

@IanJ:

That’s alright. About 99% of teevee programming is total dog’s bollocks these days. That’s why the FSM created deeveedees. Praize!

@blogenfreude: My mom just bought a new answering machine, because the mailbox bundled with her digital phone line just seems too complicated.

TJ/ First the Catholics v. the Jews, now the Anglicans v. the Catholics. The Protestants are standing around thinking “this is one of the bestest Easters EVAH.

And the muezzin are standing, on the radiator grille….

@ナビスコ: <— Que ça?

@Benedick: How dare you mention that filth in my presence. After all we’ve meant to each other.

I’ll get one, but I’ll let saps like Nojo work the bugs out first.

And it’s Butler on to the final, another NCAA outcast going where Indiana State did way too many years ago for me to be carrying a grudge. Almost.

@Benedick: Wait! ALW is responsible for Joseph and the Amazing blargh bullshit dreamcatcher? I hate that man.

ADD: ZOMG! And he’s also to blame for tone-deaf JNOV Mom wailing about how she didn’t “know how to love him? Cuz she’s had so many men before in very many ways — he’s just one more”??

I’m sending him my therapy bills.

Butler? That reminds me: Architectural Digest has photos of Gerry Butler’s New York loft and it’s jaw-droppingly atrocious. Is there some 18th century Italian Whorehouse Revival style that I missed? There’s only a few photos online, so you’ll have to read the issue at your local Barnes and Noble for more–don’t buy it, that’ll only encourage them. Liberace must’ve commandeered the designer’s body through demonic possession (“Your mother sucks cocks on the corner of 8th and 23rd street”). And Mr. 300 can quit being coy about his seshuality–the apartment’s in Chelsea for fuck’s sake. Very handsome portrait on the cover, tho.

@JNOV: The same ole Nabisco, repackaged for Asia in nihon-go. Or at least I think it is; could just as easily say “tasty vanilla wafer”.

I am completely unable to change my gravatar, and although I still like Che and Fidel wearing their hipster shirts, I think it is time for a change . Although I linqued that account to my IRL gmail, logging in is impossible since I forfeited my nabisco gmail account.

@Original Andrew: What is that “style”, Early Olive Garden? My eyes. It’s such a train wreck I may have to pick up AD for my in flight reading.

Hey cool, a tech talk, and the idea came up, your decision on what you need should be based on what you do.

Here is what I do with my toys:

1. I like the ipod, so I can take all my music, in the car, on the boat, anywhere, thats big. And my old Ipod’s battery is about shot, so I am due an upgrade for that purpose.

2. I love my kindle, I have only had it 6 months, I love that it goes a week without recharging, I have hundreds of dollars worth of books already.

3. I have a Sirius stilleto, and I adore Sirius radio, and the stilleto lets you keep copies of up to 100 songs you like, and it records all the music you listen to, and if you are not getting reception, it will play it all randomly, as if you are listening to your favorite station, I love this thing.

4. I have an LG touch screen phone, but all I use it for is the phone, I don’t even text, I don’t like surfing the web on a tiny screen, I hate typing on tiny keypads and tiny touchscreens.

So, I like having books and music on a portable device that I can play through the output on whatever system is nearby, my home stereo, my car stereo, my boat stereo, I never listen to music through headphones.

I like a real keyboard.

I have never used the internet from a portable, because the small screens and small keypads annoy me, but I would, if the screen and keypad were bigger.

I would love to be able to get Pandora everywhere in my life, I would have a Pandora chip implanted in my brain if I could.

Sometimes I talk on the phone.

I keep coming back to a netbook. I can keep all my ipod music and all my kindle books on it, I can type, I can see. I can play Pandora. I can surf the web and email. And they are cheap.

Am I wrong?

@ナビスコ: Technically, Anglicans are Protestants. We just like the pretty outfits and rituals and incense.

@Mistress Cynica:

Be sure to steal it. As mentioned above, buying it only encourages them. I usually enjoy AD for the sheer escapism. Sadly, if I had a porn buddy, they’d only find about 20 years of Met Home issues.

I hope you have a fantastic time on your trip. Have you set the record for number of Stinqers met IRL?

BTW, whats the score in the duke game? God I hate Duke.

@Mistress Cynica:

It’s like Versace, only seasick and in hell.

I choose Apple because it helps me be productive. More productive. That is all. I like their products for their extreme functionality. And plus the way the little upside down apple on the lid is freakin awesome.

We only watch reruns of That 70s Show, Judge Judy, or Bergmann movies on DVD.

@Original Andrew: He was also the Fantom in Phantom of the Oprah. Not that the ability to sing and dance is any indicator of his sexuality. Because he can’t do either.

@JNOV: We’ve all been scarred by ALW. It’s not for me to point fingers.

@rptrcub: If you haven’t used it you should try Pages. Best word processor I’ve ever used. Reason enough to buy a Mac.

No I go bye bye.

@Mistress Cynica: I thought the only sticking point between high church, anyway, and Roman Catholic, was apostolic succession, we believe in faith and works, don’t we?

@Promnight: I use a netbook pretty happily for all that (or I could — I don’t actually store any music or books on it). I have an HP mini 1000 and am quite happy with it. Far and away the best keyboard of the contemporary crop when I got it late last year. The netbooks are otherwise nearly identical, so you have to judge by things like keyboard and screen and available ports or whatnot.

@Promnight: Duke’s up by 15, and WVU’s Butler is hurt. This is only good for my bracket, not for basketball.

@Mistress Cynica: I guess I meant the protestants who didn’t wear pinkish purple outfits (btw, what color is that, anyway?). I rented office space from the Anglican church in Seoul some years ago, it was a dump but the music was occasionally nice.

@rptrcub:
The fanboys are annoying in any form. See Star Trek, Star Wars, etc.

iLove my Macbook and will never go back to PC except for work purposes.

iXpensive though, but iDon’t mind as iD rather pay for no aggro (no failures in 2+ years of my Macbook.)

@HugKennyLoggins: Why do people lie?

@redmanlaw: Be nice to Huggy. He gave me Yoda Pez.

@nojo: You fuquer. I dreamt about iPad’s all night.

@Promnight: I’d recommend a new battery (use iFixit for parts/instructions) over a new iPod, but that’s just me.

I’m thinking our dear Noje slept all night with one arm about his latest fixation necessary work tool. And spent today geeking all over it learning its ins and outs. Let’s hope he surfaces sometime before Thursday has had a thoroughly satisfying gaming learning experience.

I for one am not in the least jealous. I wish him many happy updates.

@Benedick: 26 hours on, I’m still trying to drain the fucking battery, a geek habit that builds fortitude in a gadget. Even with video running non-stop the past two hours, it’s still at 8 percent.

Yes, I know, the Kindle lasts two weeks. But it doesn’t play Steven Wright.

Ten years on, it seems the future had other things in mind.