Changes

I'm making some changes to Artifical Night, so over the next couple of days, things might be out of place, or missing, or just plain awful.

Ignore it.


More soon.

JS

The Magic Mouse: Is It Really Magic?

When I first heard about the Magic Mouse, I thought it was a joke.

I didn’t think the name could be real, especially coming from a company that already offers a product that many sarcastically refer to as “The Jesus Phone.”

But the Magic Mouse is real—and I have one—and after a weekend of use, I’m ready to decide if other people should take the plunge. I won’t go over the specs/basics of the Magic Mouse. We all know—it’s touch capacitive. Read Gizmodo or Apple to get the finer details. What I can share is the experiences of an everyday user.

Also, I was going to overload this post with pictures, but uploading them is a pain in the ass, so I finally started a Flickr stream. Be sure to check out:

The Magic Mouse: Unboxed and In Its Element

and also check out:

Apple Store, Upper West Side Opening

for some pictures of the, well, yeah, you guessed it.

Anyway, let the reviewing commence:

-The design of the MM makes sense. It’s both longer and wider than I expected it to be, yet it’s quite small in your hand. Almost too small, actually, but it truly feels like it couldn’t be any other size, which I like.

-“Yeah, it’s pretty fantastic looking.” Those were Danielle’s first words when I showed it to her on Friday, and I can’t think of a better way to sum up the MM, visually. It looks like something you’d be using in 2029, forget about 2009. Aesthetically, it matches the white/aluminum iMac and keyboard perfectly.

-The click action is responsive. Solid. I enjoyed it more as the weekend went on. The Mighty Mouse felt like you were pressing down the casing, which I hated. The Magic Mouse feels like you’re pressing down a button, which you are, except you--aren’t. It makes using it with the right-click turned on feel more organic, a big bonus for me.

-This may just be my desk, but when moving it, it still has some noise to it, hence the mouse pad you see in the pictures, which I really don’t mind. If that’s going to be a deal breaker for you, you probably didn’t want it anyway.



-For iPhone users—prepare to fall in love with, and then hate, the Magic Mouse. Think about it—your scrolling action is always swipe/flick based! It’s amazing! The MM totally simulates the feel of the iPhone, which I loved at first. Until I picked up my iPhone, and it felt like it weighed ten pounds in my hand. It was downright—chunky. I kept looking at the bottom of the MM and wondering what it would look like with my home screen on it. In the future? Maybe? Please?

-“Scrolling is money.” Those are from my notes that I took down on Friday when I wanted to capture my initial impression. And my affection only grew as the weekend went on. Scrolling with one finger is perfectly executed. You can adjust how responsive the surface is, although I have it turned up to full responsiveness, and I never overshot anything. I love it. I don’t want any trackballs, or nipples, or rubber wheels ever again. This is the future.

-Ah—the two-fingered swipe. I didn’t really understand from the videos and reviews what the two-fingered swipe would be used for. So far, all I’ve found is: a) to scroll through photos in iPhoto, b)to scroll through cover flow in iTunes (or at least try to), and c) to page back and forward in an Internet browser. To be honest, this is one of the two areas where the MM gets failing marks from me. First of all, the physics behind the two-fingered swipe are boinked from the start, and I’ll explain why in the next bullet. Second, it doesn’t always work. You can’t swipe too slow, but you can’t swipe too fast. You can’t start too far to the side of the mouse, but you can’t start too close to the middle either. You’ve got to nail it just right, and the payoff isn’t really all that big, because there are simpler ways to achieve the three things I listed, and frankly, I’ve done those three things the same way for so long that I don’t see myself investing the time to re-learn how to do them the MM’s way. I wouldn't be surprised to see this feature dropped in the future, unless by some miracle it can be refined a great deal.

-The MM is not ergonomic, although part of me wants to follow that with "whatever the hell that means." It’s height off the table is really low, and what happens, because of the touch-based gestures, is you wind up holding around the mouse, rather than holding the mouse itself. This will be the greatest challenge for people, especially those moving from some clunky Logitech number. And as I mentioned before, holding the sides of the mouse, rather than resting your palm on its butt, is exactly why two-fingered swipe doesn’t work—you don’t have the fingers readily available.

--



While I ended on two negative notes, I’m giving the Magic Mouse an enthusiastic endorsement. The touch-based scrolling is reason enough--a huge reason, actually--to buy this mouse, and then take into account the design, the look, the feel, and for Mac users, the grace with which it completes a recent Mac setup, and it all adds up to a mouse that may not be magic, but is certainly worth your money.

More soon.

JS

AT&T, I Hate You

So, my Magic Mouse arrived this morning. Expect the full review on Monday morning--complete with unboxing shots, pictures, and maybe some video of it in action.


I'm currently (like, literally right now as I type this) on the phone with AT&T trying to figure out why they just won't admit there's a 3G outage in the area,* so in the spirit of that, thanks to Petey, I'll post something I laughed quite hard at a few minutes ago (click to get a bigger version):






More soon.

JS

*I, along with the eight other iPhone owners I know who happen to live with/near me, haven't had any type of service since Wednesday. First there was no outage in the area, then there was, and now there isn't again. AT&T keeps 'troubleshooting' with me on the phone, which basically involves them telling me to turn the phone off and turn the phone on again. I happily pay $200 a month for me and Danielle to use the best phone currently on the market, but when it gets fucked by the network, well, that really sucks, both for me, and the provider. Verizon, I implore you--get the iPhone. I will come back. I will give you my $200 a month. I will even take back all the nasty things I told poor Kathy when I terminated my contract so many months ago. Just get it, please.

Finding The Angles

Since Robinson Cano fielded Shane Victorino's ground ball last night and threw to Mark Teixeira to record the final out of Game 6, giving the New York Yankees their 27th World Series, I've been thinking about finding an angle. This is a post that many (I hope) expected I'd write, and I didn't want to let anyone down.

But I had nothing.

It's all been said before--how great of a group this is, how A-Rod finally forgot about the calendar, how the Fab 4 returned for one more, how they won one more for the Boss, how the new stadium fit like a glove--

All old news.

I posted a picture of the trophy celebration and figured that singular expression of joy would be enough to get across my excitement over the fact that the team I love so dearly are once again on top of the world.

But writers--we have this thing.

We have to write.

We wake up wanting to write, and if we don't, we go to bed wishing we had.

And so the itch was not scratched.

--

Around 10:15 this morning, I tweeted:

Does 2 WS victories, 4 AL Pennants, 4 ALDS appearances, and 1 ALCS appearance officially make the Yankees the team of the 2000's?

My gut response was, of course, yes. I followed up that tweet with:

That was a rhetorical question, by the way--of course it does. Write a book about it, Buster Olney!

And I thought that would be the end of it.

But then, a friend commented that he was pretty sure that the Yankees held the best overall record of the decade, another jewel in the "Best of the 2000's" crown.

It wasn't enough for me to assume he was right--I needed to know. Baseball provides a healthy outlet for those of us with a slight dusting of the OCD. I love finding and compiling numbers, and when those numbers are linked to athletics, well, color me a shade of terrific.

So I started digging and adding and then I found some more stuff and well, I found my angle.

Let me tell you why the Yankees are the team of the 2000's.

--

A couple of things to remember:

-I put all of this together in about 2 hours, while at work. I'm sure I made some oversights, bad calculations, and mistakes. My bad.
-I am a Yankees fan.
-I have a fierce belief that the American League is vastly superior to the National League, and that the American League East is the toughest division in the league.

--

So what I looked at first was 2000-2009 records. There was no convenient spot for this, so doing it for every team was not an option, or really necessary for that matter. I decided to go with the:

New York Yankees
Boston Red Sox
Los Angeles Angels
St. Louis Cardinals
Philadelphia Phillies
Los Angeles Dodgers
New York Mets

Yes, I know the AL Central isn't there. The Twins, Tigers, Royals, Indians, and White Sox should win more. Moving on.

Here's what the record breakdown came out to:

New York Yankees: 965 & 651
Boston Red Sox: 920 & 699
St. Louis Cardinals: 913 & 706
Los Angeles Angels: 900 & 720
Los Angeles Dodgers: 862 & 758
Philadelphia Phillies: 850 & 769
New York Mets: 815 & 803

In the interest of time--and my sanity--I decided that any further analysis should be limited to the top 4, and it seemed fitting that that decision limited the group to 900 wins or more.

What I looked at next was the outcomes of each season for the four teams:

New York Yankees
2000: WS Win
2001: WS Loss
2002: ALDS Loss (Lost to the Angels #1)
2003: WS Loss
2004: ALCS Loss (Lost to the Red Sox)
2005: ALDS Loss (Lost to the Angels #2)
2006: ALDS Loss
2007: ALDS Loss (Wild Card Team)
2008: Did not make the playoffs
2009: WS Win

Boston Red Sox
2000: Did not make the playoffs
2001: Did not make the playoffs
2002: Did not make the playoffs
2003: ALCS Loss (Wild Card Team--Lost to the Yankees in ALCS)
2004: WS Win (Wild Card Team--Beat the Yankees down 3-0)
2005: ALDS Loss (Wild Card Team)
2006: Did not make the playoffs
2007: WS Win (ALE Winner)
2008: ALCS Loss (Wild Card Team)
2009: ALDS Loss (Wild Card Team)

St. Louis Cardinals
2000: NLCS Loss
2001: NLDS Loss
2002: NLCS Loss
2003: Did not make the playoffs
2004: WS Loss
2005: NLCS Loss
2006: WS Win
2007: Did not make the playoffs
2008: Did not make the playoffs
2009: ALDS Loss

Los Angeles Angels
2000: Did not make the playoffs
2001: Did not make the playoffs
2002: WS Win (Wild Card Team--Beat the Yankees in the ALDS)
2003: Did not make the playoffs
2004: ALDS Loss (Lost to the Red Sox #1)
2005: ALCS Loss (Beat the Yankees in the ALDS)
2006: Did not make the playoffs
2007: ALDS Loss (Lost to the Red Sox #2)
2008: ALDS Loss (Lost to the Red Sox #3)
2009: ALCS Loss (Lost to the Yankees)

So what can we take from all of this?

-The Angels are the only team of the 4 that did not make it to more than 1 World Series.

-The Yankees missed the playoffs only once. The Cardinals--3 times. The Red Sox and The Angels? 4.

-The Yankees won 4 Pennants--nobody else won more than 2.

-Of the Red Sox 6 playoff appearances, 5 were as the Wild Card team. The Yankees and Angels, only once. The Cardinals--never.

-While the numbers keep the top 3 teams (Yankees, Red Sox, and Cardinals) close, for me, it comes down to the Yankees and Red Sox.

The Cardinals play in a clinically weak National League Central, while the Red Sox and Yankees faced each other over 200 times during 2000-2009, and that's not taking into account the seasons filled with match-ups against the Blue Jays, Orioles, and Rays, all 3 of which are teams that are far better than the records account for.

Deciding between the Yankees and the Red Sox is hard. While the numbers sway towards the Yankees, it's impossible to account for what the 2004 ALCS meant to the rivalry. That Sunday night, coming off a 19-8 victory, nobody in the world thought the Red Sox had any chance of coming back.

And they did.

I still get physically sick thinking about it, actually.

Now, I think that the Yankees may have finally gotten back on equal footing, mentally, but they are nowhere near the dominant older brother that they once were when the decade began.

That being said, the numbers and the immeasurables are clear (to me, at least):

The Yankees are the best team of the 2000's.

Let the arguing begin.

--

No wrap-up is complete without casting an eye towards the future. Here's some random thoughts:

-The debate has already begun about who should be brought back for 2010--Matsui or Damon. Matsui now has a WS MVP under his belt, one that he deserved. But Matsui went through long stretches this year where he didn't hit for shit.

Damon certainly brings more athletic prowess to the table, although it wouldn't be a shock to see his defense fall off rather quickly (as if it has too far to go). And the reality is that once Damon's legs go, he'll be worthless in the field. My answer is this:

Don't sign either of them.

The Yankees want to get younger. They want talent. They love big names and big headlines.

There's only one logical choice:

Matt Holliday.

I know. I know.

The rich keep getting richer!

Just spend more money!

To the naysayers, I'll paraphrase Patrick Roy:

"I'm sorry, but I can't hear you. My 27 World Championships are clogging up my ears."

Seriously though, Holliday is the answer. The Yankees have said that they are not looking to expand payroll for 2010. Except, that was before they were the Defending World Series Champions. Matsui and Damon made a combined $26 million dollars in 2009. I would think that Holliday, who will certainly be overpaid, would come here for less than that. It's overestimating, but I'd say $20 million/per is the magic number.

Holliday is 29. He's a doubles machine--since '06, he has 45, 50, 38, and 39. He is the perfect add-on player--a guy who will thrive at being the third or fourth (or fifth) best player on the Yankees. Bonus--he plays the position that Damon currently inhabits, except about a million times better. Best of all, he's on record as saying that his two choices of where to go are the Yankees and the Mets. A six year/$120 million contract will wrap him up, and I believe the Yankees need to--and will--do it.

-The Yankees should re-sign Andy Pettitte. One of the main reasons I wasn't too too nervous going into Game 6 was because he was pitching. Sure, started to wonder if the 3 days rest thing would bite him, or if he was just too old, or tired, but then I remembered--

this is Andy-fucking-Pettitte.

The guy has seen it all before, and more often than not, come out on top. And he proved why once again.

The Yankees should sign him because he will be the perfect fifth starter--he'll get extra days to rest, he'll be able to rely on brains just as much as stuff, and he'll be an outstanding presence with the younger pitchers on the team, which brings me to my next point--

-The Yankees are set, pitching-wise, for the next five years. We know who's already penciled in for the 1 and 2 spots. But let's not forget--we have a pool of MLB-ready talent that includes Joba, Hughes, Wang (who won't be rushed back from injury again), and Kennedy. They will be able to get two starters from that pool, no doubt about it. In a perfect world, my choice would be Hughes and Wang, leaving Joba as the heir to Mariano and Kennedy to develop more, which means the Yankee rotation would be:

Sabbathia
Burnett
Hughes
Wang
Pettitte

Everyone made a big deal this postseason (myself included) out of the fact that the Yankees only had 3 reliable starting pitchers. Well you know what--the Phillies only had 1. Look at the group of 5 up there--you wouldn't sign up for that right now?

-The Holliday signing is important because it brings some stability to the Yankees outfield. I still believe that Melky is just good enough to trade and Gardener, as fast as he is, just can't hit on the major league level. That in mind, I would be thrilled with an outfield of Holliday/Melky/Nady with Swisher and Gardener playing slightly more than support roles. How could you not be?

--

Exhale.

Smile.

Ballgame over.

World Series over.

The--well you know how it goes.

This is why we we get sick for these guys, and their pinstriped-laundry.

And there's always more sports to watch, always more angles to pursue, but I think I'm going to sit back and enjoy this one for a bit.

I'm an unapologetic fan of the best team of the 2000's.



Itch--scratched.


More soon.

JS

27!

That Cobain Pussy

There's a scene in Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler" where Mickey Rourke and Marissa Tomei are on an impromptu date--sitting in a dark bar in the middle of the day, both looking pretty beaten down by life. Suddenly Ratt's "Round and Round" comes on the bar's jukebox and Mickey Rourke decides to live in the moment:



It would be better if that clip wasn't in overdubbed Italian, but here's what they say after they stop laughing:

Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Goddamn they don't make em' like they used to.
Cassidy: Fuckin' 80's man, best shit ever !
Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Bet'chr ass man, Guns N' Roses! Rules.
Cassidy: Crue!
Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Yeah!
Cassidy: Def Lep!
Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Then that Cobain pussy had to come around & ruin it all.
Cassidy: Like theres something wrong with just wanting to have a good time?
Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: I'll tell you somethin', I hate the fuckin' 90's.
Cassidy: Fuckin' 90's sucked.
Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Fuckin' 90's sucked.

That scene always cracks me up, because it highlights an important aspect of history--perspective. For me and so many people my age, Nirvana represented something pretty significant in the cultural landscape. But where did it leave the displaced? Relegated to the position of butt-of-jokes, involving hairspray and leather pants. No longer an angsty teen (well, maybe still angsty, but definitely not a teen), it's strange to think about how my personal music revolution came along and destroyed what had been established before it.

--

I wasn't old enough to ever fully appreciate Nirvana. Kurt Cobain had killed himself almost two years prior to my discovering his band's music, but I quickly made up for lost time. I read every book that was out there, memorized all of the stories, bought all the t-shirts I could find, hung up the posters, and bought all the music. It all spoke to me on a level like nothing had before. Nirvana's music had the kind of hold on me that the preachers and parents of yesteryear warned against when hand-wringing over the effects of rock 'n' roll.

And remember--this was pre-Internet. No iTunes. No torrents. No Amazon. No eBay. It was so long ago that I actually had to get "From The Muddy Banks of The Wishkah" on cassette because Sam Goody had already sold out of the CD and I didn't know when the next chance would come around to buy it.

--

Eventually, I moved on from Nirvana. Sure, I still remember all of the lyrics, still have my worn copy of the Michael Azerrad book "Come As You Are," but the fascination is no longer there. I didn't even bother to buy "With The Lights Out" when it came out, didn't bother to buy Frances Cobain-approved "Sliver: The Best of the Box". I downloaded the Greatest Hits CD, though, if only for "You Know You're Right," a song that will always give me goosebumps, no matter how many times I hear it, as it will always be a chilling reminder of what could have been.

It's funny--maybe two years ago, I even sat down and read Everett True's massive biography of Nirvana. British music journalism is unlike anything, anywhere, and while the book was good, something strange happened:

I wound up wondering what I had seen in Kurt Cobain ten years ago.

It hurt, but I didn't like Kurt anymore. I found his gripes to be petty and put forth in a inarticulate and narcissistic way. He didn't seem to be nearly as smart anymore. He seemed downright--immature.

I remember laying awake one night, wondering if he would have approved of my putting sports, music, and technology on equal footing in terms of personal devotion, and then getting mad at myself for even thinking about it in the first place.

--

I've been thinking about all of this because of an article by Seth Colter Walls in Newsweek:

Nirvana Heaven, And Hell

Walls talks about two new just-in-time-for-the-holidays Nirvana releases--a reissue of "Bleach" and a CD/DVD of their '92 performance at the Reading festival. He talks about the editing of the CD version of the Reading performance compared to the DVD. On the CD, some of the on-stage banter and posturing is left out in order to stick to the 80 minute CD time limits, and he feels that it changes the emotional weight of the performance as a whole.

Regarding the reissue of their first album, he sarcastically quips how their tiny budget ($600) forced them to record over their outtakes, which left nothing in the vaults to include inside the 2009 reissue--a remastering of a show that took place at the time would have to suffice.

Walls also talks about recent battles by the Cobain camp to keep Activision from including a Cobain avatar in the next Guitar Hero--a move that I swiftly applauded.

At first.

But now, I'm having trouble.

I'm having trouble deciding what makes the Guitar Hero avatar all that different from any of the other stuff that's been released--the books and the bios and the journal reproductions and the box sets--shit, look at the picture that leads this post. That's one of two Nirvana-tribute shoes designed by Converse, intentionally made to look like Kurt's beat up Chucks.

I didn't know Kurt Cobain, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty that he would not have signed off on a signature shoe.

It's fun to think that preserving the legacy of someone involves keeping true to their ethics and their beliefs, but how realistic is it? If it is the music that will live on--and it will--and Guitar Hero is just another medium in a long line of innovations that gives impressionable kids a chance to blow the doors off of their boundaries, how can it be wrong?

--

So where will I be in twenty years?

Will I be in a bar like Mickey Rourke in "The Wrestler," putting "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle," on the jukebox, reminiscing about life before music sucked?

And what level of Nirvana reissues will we have reached by then?

Will there be theme park rides? Oliver Stone movies? Virtual Reality tours of his Olympia, WA home?

I don't know--even in Walls's seemingly indignant article, he writes about how the Reading CD is, "a Nirvana live show you could listen to while working out at the gym."

Ten years ago, that statement would have drawn every ounce of my ire.

Twenty years from now--will I agree?


More soon.

JS