Showing posts with label iPad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iPad. Show all posts

Saturday, July 31, 2010

very little ado about nothing

the ipad and blogger.com don't get along.

it's one of the few things an ipad won't do elegantly, conveniently, and better than anything originating in redmond, wa.

like many things in this life, however, there are workarounds. in this case, it's the ability to put up a blog post straight from email. i compose said email, send it to a specific blogger.com address, and viola. instapost.

* * * * *

the excruciating, months-long implosion of the seattle mariners continues with nauseating predictability. it goes like this: the starting pitching is stellar, giving up two or three runs. the offense doesn't score at all. mariners lose.

in the alternative, the starting pitching gives up bunches of runs, but the offense accidently puts up bunches plus one. the bullpen then blows the lead in gut-wrenching walk-off fashion. mariners lose.

another, less frequent, aberration: in a riveting pitchers duel, the game goes into extra innings. seattle puts hundreds of runners in scoring position in every frame, but can't push anybody across. eventually, inevitably, mariners lose.

today, seattle ace felix hernandez gave up three runs in the first inning, then dug in and allowed nothing through the next six innings. the offense responded with familiar futility, picking up their teammate by scoring...zero runs. mariners lose.

somewhere in the middle of a 6-23 july, a player went berserk in the dugout and showed up the manager on national tv. the front office responded by saying...nothing. the player wasn't even reprimanded, let alone suspended. the manager, we assume, isn't long for his job.

i know: it's only excruciating if you let it be. still...damn.

* * * * *

the seafair torchlight parade made its way through downtown seattle tonight. the highlight of the evening was the seafair pirates, who glowered and waved swords and fired their cannon and said "arrrgh!" in a pirate-y way.

the crowd applauded loudly for the police, fire department, and military drill units that went by. oddly, they cheered the guys cleaning up after the horses just as loudly. no idea what to make of that. the mayor of seattle was neither cheered nor jeered as he rolled by in a red corvette. given his environmentalist credentials, he must've been conflicted about riding in a corvette. given that he's a politician, he must've felt odd about the total apathy he inspired.

* * * * *

it's late. mrs. spaceneedl is asleep on the couch. the dogs are snoozing in their various spots around the living room. the little needls are asleep, finally, after spending last night at a "lock-in" sleepover at boys and girls club...where they apparently slept not at all. not coincidently, they were surly all day today.

* * * * *

tomorrow: a walk to the village for coffee, followed by yoga, laundry, grocery shopping, and listening to new music (downloaded to the ipad) while cooking dinner.

lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

Sent from my iPad

Sunday, June 20, 2010

iown. ilike.


i've never been a gadget guy.

i've never felt the need to be the first on the block to own the latest widget.

that said, i'm prepared to be insufferably pleased with my new ipad.

it was a birthday/father's day/pick a holiday gift, and i'm typing on it right.this.second.

standing here on the end of technology's diving board, with billions of life-enhancing apps a short download away, i have just a whisper of remorse about this amazing toy: i wish the geniuses at apple had named it something else.

"ipad" sounds like a feminine hygiene product.

they could've gone with itablet or islate or irobot. something. anything. ipad? you can't tell me the focus groups were excited about that one.

but iquibble. the folks in cupertino got so much else right. the unpleasantness with adobe notwithstanding, of course. and the unfortunate lack of USB connectivity. and the strange absence of a web camera.

besides that, i mean.

first task at hand: getting off the work computer.

the thing's a piece of PC junk. compared to an apple product, it's awkward and inelegant and uninspiring. not to mention the fact it doesn't belong to me. that makes it a bad place for vacation photos, the music library and other nonwork stuff.

once that transmogrification is done, there's lots of exploring to do. i'm not big on user's manuals, but then again the ipad doesn't have one. not an old-media version, anyway. so i guess i'll just have to dive in and swim around awhile.

what will it do? is there an app for yoga and wine and travel and novel-writing and boat-buying? sure there is. i just have to go find it.

what won't it do? tsk, silly question. it'll do anything clever people can imagine. if developers were into such things, it'd probably cap the deepwater horizon well, clean up the gulf, and convert the world to a rainbows and faeries-based power supply.

it'd cure cancer, locate missing children and put the 'yes we can' back into barack obama.

it'd find god, ask her if she has any good app suggestions, and implement them with a couple subtle improvements.

it might even bring summer to the pacific northwest. nah, let's not get crazy here.

sidebar: it just occurred to me that the spaceneedl family is getting all appled up. between us, in the last year or so we have acquired a macbook pro, an iphone, an ipod touch, a nano, a shuffle and this ipad. it happened over time, so gradually that we didn't even notice.

but here we are. it's an apple world. and we're living in it. what happens now?

no, don't tell me.

like this new device, let it be a pleasant surprise.