Thoughts While Mindlessly Moving Snow

I’m sure that there are some very good employees at Circuit City, and I hate to see anyone lose their job, but I think one of the main reasons that they’re going out of business is customer service. Every time I go in there and need help, I can’t get anyone to even acknowledge my existence, and I am not shy. There always seems to be plenty of sales associates, it’s just that they’re gathered in little clumps, deep in important conversations, working overtime at not making eye contact. I’ve never understood this, especially when there’s always a Best Buy within a mile that sells the same stuff for the same price.


Winter sucks.


People should stop demanding to know what’s wrong with Steve Jobs and let the man have some peace. I know he’s a huge part of the whole Apple mystique, and everyone is afraid that without him the company may stumble and fall, but come on people, get over it. He’s a large part of a small subset of people who are responsible for bringing us all into the digital age, changing the way we do business and how we interact with each other. He’s certainly earned my respect, and hopefully yours. I say if you’re concerned about his health, you should send him a get well card, or even just some good thoughts or a few prayers.


I LOVE my Toro Power Throw!


How about that, the craptastic Cardinals are headed to the Super Bowl. It kills me that a 9 and 7 team is off to the big dance, especially since they rolled over against our Pats just weeks ago, but I have to admit that I’m happy for Kurt Warner. Hopefully his wife has gotten over her feathered boa stage. I don’t think I could take seeing that again.


My back hurts.


Although I often feel overworked and underpaid, I’m really glad I have a job, and I really like what I do. A lot of people I talk to lately seem to feel the same way, and I think this bodes well for the future. When things are good, people move around from job to job, always looking for that next big pay increase. For quite a while now, loyalty and continuity have been kind of frowned upon. In the high tech world it’s almost a badge of honor to have a huge list of past employers, but to me, there’s no reward in that. If you’re changing jobs every few years, you’re definitely not focused on the long range plans of your company, and without people pushing and shoving their organizations into the future, nothing much happens, and consequently both business and the economy suffers.


My gloves are soaked through. I probably should stop and change them.


Tomorrow it will be one year since my Dad passed away, and the day after that, the country’s first black president will be sworn in. I really wish he was here to see it. He lived through a lot of changes in his 84 years; The Great Depression, World War II, television, space exploration, computers and cell phones, but with all the change he saw, he was still convinced that the country wasn’t ready for a black president. We started this debate in 2006 after my youngest son’s graduation. Barack Obama was the commencement speaker, and when he finished and walked off the stage, I said that the Democrats would be crazy not to nominate this man in ’08, that he represented their best shot at getting back to Pennsylvania Avenue because he had that indefinable power to move and unite people. Although my Dad agreed that he very well could be the right man for the job, he felt that people weren’t ready for it. He grew up in a very different world, a world in which racism was always present, and he just couldn’t see it happening. I think he would have really dug it.


S#*t, I can’t feel my fingers. Should a changed my gloves. Gotta go, but I'll leave you with one more thought:


Only 4 more weeks until pitchers and catchers show up at Spring Training!

Apple Gives Us A Reason To Whistle A Happy Tune In The Post Holiday Season

Earlier this week at Macworld, Apple announced that they would now be offering iTunes Plus versions of their music, which are better quality and DRM free, as their standard 99¢ download, and that starting in April they would be shifting to a tiered pricing structure, 69¢, 99¢ and $1.29 per song.

This is great news for me. Santa brought me a fresh iTunes card, and I’m snagging tracks as I type. DRM-less, 256kbs tracks. Sweet. iTunes also gave me the opportunity to upgrade some of my existing library, for a fee, to Plus, but I passed for now.

While this is a big deal for me, and from what I read in the forums, for a lot of you out here on the interwebs also, the major tech sites have been bemoaning what a drag Macworld was. It’s a veritable chorus of “I flew all the way here and there was no unveiling of the Next Best Thing, no Steve Jobs. What a drag, man.”

You know what? I don’t care. Boo hoo. Apple just had a major product release in September. The accessory manufacturers can’t keep up with all the product changes, and people don’t have the inclination or the disposable income to swap out devices every 6 months when the economy sucks. I say this was another great example of Apple understanding what the market can bear, and what the public wants.

So, hopefully these reviewers have refueled their company jets and bopped on over to the CES to drink their fill at the trough of excess. I hate to see them so unhappy. As for me, I got what I wanted, and I’ll be doing the iPod happy dance (when no one’s looking, of course) throughout the long cold winter months. Thanks Steve. Much love.

That is all.