Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

June 21

For the third week running, the news consortiums and general Apple status-quo have made for a week not fast - not slow - but just damn wierd. This week I started things off sitewise by removing a goodshit post that seemed suspiciously too MacJihadeque and did the total straw camel play of "begging" to be saved - so I exterminated the post from the rank and file like stepping on a bug. Speaking of bugs - MSNBC had a dilly to report the other day via RedHerring's notice of a Mac based educational software title. In this case it was Panasonic Interactive's title "Secret Writing Society". It seemed that between the Windows 95 version and the Mac version - a particular hardware flaw in memory and task management made this product a little more educational than most parents were bargining for. The program was designed to encourage kids to write stories and as one of the rewards, it would recite what had been typed in. As anyone with early voice synthesisers and software programs will attest - the first thing most 7-11 year olds will do is run through the entire vocabulary of your average longshoreman on leave. This program's solution was to hold a data file of all these "forbidden words" and prevent them from being spoken if entered - at the very least. Well there was one small hitch. It appeared that within the hardware design of the "superior" Macintosh was a flaw in it's "multitasking" and "memory mangement" design which allowed the whole dictionary to regurgitate out of the monitor like pea soup from the Exorcist. Forget drawing lines in the sand declaring Bill Gates evil - this sucker made the ever user-friendly Macintosh act like Lucifer himself - or at least Marylon Mansion. Panisonic representative Kari Gibbs reported that it didn't happen that often and only in certain special Mac-related cases. Reviewers and parents countered that it did it when merely double clicking on a word! So the next time you hear Johnny come home from his Apple endowed school - just keep in mind that it may not have been in the rear-most seats on the bus - away from the driver's supervision (or reach) - where he learned to talk like that. In the meantime all bars of soap can be forwarded to Apple in care of Steve Jobs with today's digest attached if - perchance - the free update/fix doesn't sit well as gratis for concerned parents and their sailor talking children.

June 22
More MSNBC (after all MacWeek has been getting way too much attention these days). They report that the Software Publishers Association is now leveraging it's failed position as keeper of the moral flame against rampant software piracy - in sad irony to the drug wars in success results - has now found a new dog to kick around and beef up both it's political credibility and it's position with the publishing communtiy that hasn't given them the time of day for nearly a decade. GO AFTER GATES - THE EEEEEeevil ONE! Oh puleeze. They want the Justice Department to expand it's anal-probe into the nether regions of Windows NT in addition to 95 and 98. Why? There's gold in them thar-soundbites by golly! I'm not sure whether this is a Nixon/Checkers one of those - or just plain MacArthyism run amok - but I didn't like the SPA before when they looked down their nose at single copy in use - home/work installations until the obvious work habits of the average American rang home - or if they're on the Dole with NetScape who now is getting the snot beat out of them in the enterprise market. Either way - it's political grandstanding that threatens my choice in the marketplace which until now has been mostly capitalist and otherwise free. Well, if the SPA jackboots are going to march, then I might suggest going Selma over their ass. Let's talk piracy and warez baby! Don't buy ANY software, and see what the industry does in short order if it's made aware with e-mails aplenty that - if they're not going to let the user choose their software - then we're not going to pay for it. This is of course more than a bit of chest beating because everything I need is freeware anyway - or at least shareware in the PC world. The rest? Oh that - I can get that from Microsoft of course. Geez think how much deeper in the cost hole I'd be if I developed internet apps and web pages on the Mac - good god! Oooo ick - makes the hairs on my testicles all "funny". But it just goes to show you. where the DOJ draws the line against monopolies. It's almost as if MacOS 8 didn't exist - nice rollout Steve, big impact there. All the legal mucky-mucking isn't for the consumer's benefit - it's for the corporations. For the customer not choosing to buy overpriced underpowered software? You're fucked - so get out of "the man's" way goddamit! Uncle Bill has deep pockets - yeeeha! Even deeper than the tobacco prohibitionists are wasting their time over. So fire me up a 100 filtered and let's brew up some moonshine and make a run for the developers in Canada - damn straight! Ok, I didn't have an appropriate ending for this day. But tomorrow - I'll sum up brilliantly - just you wait and see! Ah fuckit - it's going to be a wierd week. I warned you - but you didn't listen to me! WHYYY DIDN'T YOU LISTEN TO ME???!!!

June 23

This just in on my personal wiretaps, it seems the 3rd party printer market is having a field day on Apple's latest death-watch - their vanishing breed - the imagewriter/stylewriter/laser/cuisinartwriter line of product. Now they can sell their priced less wares and not compete with the makers of the damn OS. Well - before you start running for the Jamenson Irish Whiskey at this particular wake, I gotta tell ya. Not EVERYONE has been invited to this dirt nap affair. You see, in order to keep a panic from rising up and grabbing media attention - Apple has created a most favored link status on their site for the printers they love the most. And this is fine and dandy for most of them out there - except for one so far. Hewlett Packard. Oh dear did the guest list miss a biggie! HP has probably sold more printers for the MacSet than all the others put together - apart from Canon engines perhaps. And it's this last little conflict of interrest which may explain for the second time (the first being on Gil Amelio's watch) why they're tightening the thumbscrews on HP. You see, Canon was a major owner of NeXT. In fact they kept them on life support for at least 3 years out of their own deep pockets. Now that NeXT is Apple - and Apple is NeXT with Steve in charge, HP isn't exactly polite company in front of the hired help. Well Canon conspiracy or not, HP is still twisting in the free-winds. Think they'll have that USB interface complient Mac driver savvy printer offering in time for the iMac? Think - say it with me and Chiat-Day - Different!

June 24

You know, besides shutting idiots down in your own private chat area - when you're not helping others in need of a job as ex-apple people, and getting the ego trip that only Mother Teresa could dig - the real payoff is having a nice soapbox to completely piss the hell out of the MacJihad. It almost makes the two whole hours invested a week worth it. Well, this is a bit of a re-run and re-cap combo I merely mused out loud at MSNBC's BBS about the word Monopoly being uttered with Windows 98 in regards to the "I guess" utter failure of the Mac OS8 rollout, Sun's - a pithy of a company "for sure" - Solaris, Gasse's OS offerings and what ever else is out there in rabid fanbase force. I followed it up with "X windows? Forget it. BeOS? Never heard of it. Linux - wasn't that a character from Peanuts?". I'm only crowing on about it since it not only created a TIDAL WAVE of follow-ups from a mere 9 line post - but got the webmasters into the fray to defuse what was an otherwise timebomb of MacJihad members waiting with baited breath for someone to slight their OS in light of DOJ ignorence of their own cause. Fun? You bet. A curious malestrom? Perhaps for the uninitiated - but when you've been doing something as odd as this site for nearly a year - you not only learn to deal with it - you know which buttons to push. Just call me Defcon One baby (Ms. Jackson if you're nasty). Ok I didn't have a good ending for that one either. Either I'm tired, or am in too wierd/good a mood. Trust me, I only act normal when I'm pissy. It's when I'm happy that my friends start walking on egg-shells. So now you know. Gee that seemed to work - I wonder if it's been done in radio lately? WHHYYY DIDN'T YOU LISTEN TO ME (dig out your Ren and Stimpy tapes if you're still lost)???!!!!

June 25

A Xerox Star is reborn according to a wierd retro movie watching lovefest for Star Wars or something. At least according to the LA Times it would seem. In California - the people who put the whine in wine country for the MacJihad - there was a warm and fuzzy fest for the people who either owned, stole or inherited a Xerox Star - otherwise known as the singular commercially produced offspring of the Xerox PARC Alto nearly 10 years after the fact. Well shut my mouth and call me cornpone - I thought the MacJihad had a corner on lovefests for the computer that "inveneted" the GUI that Bill Gates so cruelly ripped off. Guess not boobies - because there were more than a hundred out in force to witness a box that in 1981 did "windows", "cut and pasted", and get-this did "icons" when it didn't send document over and ethernet to a laserprinter. Of course it did this for nearly double what it cost to do it on the other fore-runner to the Mac - the 10 grand Lisa - but pay it no mind you George Orwellian, Chairman Maoist's elitist historical revisonary scum. Mac was first goddamit and Bill Gates fucked you all up the ass cheaper too boot - DAMNTHEMALLTOHELL! Don't you forget it! Aside from the user and developer soundbite from Robert Belleville was "this is what took the Mac 10 years to catch up to and Windows 15", from a sod who went on to actually help BUILD the Mac, it was interresting to think that for a product that debuted in 1981 he was refering to the Mac as an also ran until 1991! Also - to be honest and morbid - what made me interrested in the LA Times piece was the horrible thought that I might be gumming my dentures and doing the same thing in front of a NeXTstation at some sickie reunion. The horror! The horror! WHYYYY DIDN'T YOU - oh never mind.

June 26

The MacJihad have hacked another site, this time one that I've already got links to in the links section. It seems, like GeoCities, Tripod has second rate security holes that allows even the most lackluster Machackers out there to break in and insure that anyone with a difference of opinion will be jackbooted into oblivion. It's ironic that the people, who had been lampooned for months at the site, would coin a parallel behind the US Millitary which - last I checked - not only defended the US principles of free speech - but were prone to putting bullets into the heads of Nazis and their ilk who had other ideas pertaining speach, and way of life stuff. Well the fascists are not only still around baby - but the Hitler set are well in force wearing the sheeps clothing of those that set their lives and limb to total commitment in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. Of course I'm sure any self-respecting Marine would just ache to get a chance to put on a flack-jacket and put an AK-47 right up the ass of the nearest swastika set. Well, I've got a hint where they can dispatch some cruise missles - complete with video camera tips for all of us - to watch them blow up the shit out of a new totalerian regime. Just point those bitchen warheads at some wonderful millitant fucks that have gone Sadam Hussien all over the American Constitution - and are just as nutty a cult as anything torched in Waco Texas - or San Diego for that matter. Even better - the ilk are actually throwing lies and insulting the honor of the USMC worse than Gomer Pile. It's the MacMarines, and boy could they use a patriot missle enema. Go nuts grunts! Give em-hell! I'll keep a cold one in the fridge for ya once you kick some nazi nerd ass back to Germany, Vietnam, Iraq, North Korea, or Califonia as the case may be.

June 27

The week of the Microsoft news roundup is at hand - and of course it comes all at the cost of any PR that Apple could use tword their cause as the media limelight shines high for the people in Redmond Washington. Lessie what the press covered this week. Well, looks like the DOJ is getting stomped and so is Judge Jackson (Ms. Jackson if you're nasty) who was overruled by an appeals court for bascially being a dumbshit and empowering a nerd who is a frigging MacFreak. Well the freak is dead - long live the freak! So is the injunction that says Microsoft can't integrate the browser and the OS as well as terse words for Judge Jackson who overstepped his legal bounderies and court precidence in front of an army of legal attornies out for blood. Now that they've thrashed Jackson - on to Janet Reno! Windows 98 ships - and even though I won't be getting this upgrade until I drop another grand in 2000 or 2002 for a new ThinkPad, it's nice to know that the free advertising flowed for Microsoft - not Apple - for more than a week without narry a commercial expense while Apple flips dimes into the media coffers trying to get a splinter of attention. Lastly, if you didn't already know, the only thing worse than a Republican - is a Mormon Republican. Well this denizen of the state that lost a few more thousand WordPerfect employees this week is pissed that he can't hold a candle to the state of Washington and is spitting holy bile and brimstone of the church of the boobs who enjoy multiple spouses. Well go forth and multiply this one on for size - Sen. Orin Hatch wants to spend more money chasing geese for more MacArthyesque style witch hunt reviews so he can vent all the frustrations becoming a representative of the largest amount of consituents of total loosers in the information economy. I guess after the space shuttle Challenger blew up - just being a whipping boy for Nasa wasn't good enough for him or Morton Thiokol. Going after Bill Gates is just what he needs to distract the world's attention from the last time his ilk got involved with high technology. Well they blew it bigtime before - what do you think he'll do with our tax dollars this time around eh? Let's just say the fireworks are going to cost more than 7 lives and a few billion dollars worth of space hardware - perhaps this time he'll stop pulling punches and get us to really bleed hardcore for Utah. Smokin - without O-rings! Lastly, one non-Microsoft tidbit to keep the masthead above in check. The Detroit free press has sided with other journalists who have been spammed silly by the MacJihad for saying dick-one bad about Apple. Paraphrasing (wildly) Fuck off and die, and shut the hell up. They're tired of your shit and won't say anything about Apple ever again since not only isn't there anything to report on anymore - there's no point in wasting their time with your ilk. Good job MacJihad and MacMarines! You've made another buddy for the PR people in Cuppertino to deal with. Put-er-there!