Well, I can’t copy exactly what I said, but check out this entry and this entry on mac.blorge.com for all the details.

Rumors are abounding, but Apple has announced one of their big press events for August 7th. This always means new products, but it seems it will be Mac centric and this means the new retooling of the iMacs are almost certain, but the iPods are the big question.

Time is running out for the holiday shopping season, and I find it highly doubtful Steve Jobs is going to allow Apple to go into the all important fourth quarter without a new “hot item”, and that’s not going to be a shiny new iMac.

So, next Wednesday, since I have to cover the story for MAC.Blorge.com, I will post a link here to the story instead of my usual rundown. Oh how I love these “Come to God” events.

Director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp are once again teaming up on screen. I know, you’re all shocked, this only makes the sixth time by my count. This time it’s the musical, Sweeney Todd.

Yes, you read that correctly… it’s a musical.

So far, this poster is the only image that’s been released, (click it for a larger version) and it looks like we can expect more of the trademark Burton wackiness, which, oddly enough, is fine by me.

While I get bored with most directors using the same styles and trademarks over and over, there are certain ones you would beat around the head if they ever changed. Burton is one, Martin Scorsese also comes to mind.

With Burton, I think he represents something Hollywood is too often missing anymore: Whimsy.

What happened to the idea that films were supposed to fill you with wonder? Yes, they need to make money to keep the machine oiled, but it’s nice to every once in awhile sit down, watch a movie that throws all the current standards out the window and goes “You know, we really have no clue how this even got greenlighted, so, please, sit back, enjoy, and we’ll just pretend this is our little secret.”

To me, this is what Tim Burton represents. Who in their right mind gave this project a green light? It’s Johnny Depp… singing… in a musical… directed by Tim Burton. While it fills me with a boyish glee I can’t exactly describe, I don’t see this being a huge hit at the box office in the traditional sense. I quite frankly don’t care so long as I get to see it, grin broadly as I do at all Burton/Depp projects, and walk away saying “Please, sir… may I have some more?”

As the poster says, look for this at Christmas time… I know I’ll be there.

I love my Thunderbird mail client, it’s actually the first mail client I’ve even LIKED let alone loved.

Now it seems that Mozilla, the same group that develops Firefox, is looking to dump Thunderbird, and the mail client’s future is uncertain at best. According to this blog post, and several that follow it, Mozilla is going to stop work on Thunderbird, but they are making this announcement with no firm plans in place.

Well… that’s not bright.

Many of us have come to depend on the mail reader just as we have on Firefox, and if they want to dump it, fine, but make sure you have some sort of plans you can tell your loyal users in place instead of going “Oh, we’re done with it… fend for yourselves.” True, this is a non-profit, open source project, but when you become one of the leading software utilities on the Internet, don’t you have some form of obligation to your user base? I would think so.

Mozilla says they are looking at seveal options such as forming their own new non-profit, handing it off to another group, or a couple of other things.

All I know is, I’m depressed.

Didn’t The Da Vinci Code already play the subject of hidden messages in The Last Supper to death? According to this story, an information technologist and amateur scholar, named Slavisa Pesci, somehow got the idea to place a reversed copy of the image over the regular copy and wackiness ensued!

Okay, on the left side, he claims that first off, Judas appears in a gap, and in the center section, a baby is seen being held.

So?

I don’t see a baby, I see a mess, and so what if Judas appears in a gap? That means what? Nothing.

I am not sure why this guy even thought of this, he claims it was an accident, but, honestly, how do you “accidentally” place a reversed copy of of one of the world’s most famous paintings over the original? You don’t.

This second picture is slightly more interesting, but I still call “BS!” on it. On the far right, one of the figured looks like he may be wearing armor, which of course makes people say “It’s the Knights Templar!”… yeah… we’ve all been reading Dan Brown haven’t we? I thought so.

Leonard Da Vinci was a fascinating and brilliant man, but that doesn’t mean there are hidden codes in everything he did. Heck, it doesn’t even guarantee that ANYTHING he did had a hidden code in it!

So, look at these pictures all you want, but I honestly think there is nothing to all of this, but you never know, you might see something I don’t.

***MAJOR SPOILERS***

Continue Reading ->

Well… now I work for two more parts of the Blorge.com family of blogs.

Yes Luis, Shari, and Roy… I now write Apple related news… try not to pass out.

So, yes, all part of the same family, but I am now eligible for working on all three of the sites. This little “side project” of mine has turned in to more of a second full time job. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to be writing professionally again, but wowzers, I have a lot more work than I could have hoped for… and I’m thrilled by it all!

Well, I can dovetail from one of my paid pieces today in to my own blog with this story. MySpace has booted 29,000 registered sex offenders off their site, this accounts for approx .o16% of the 180,000,000 million registered accounts with the social networking giant. Well… that’s still too many for Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

See, Richard hear feels that social networks should require age verification and/or parental permission for each and every person on a social network to protect them from predators.

…

Is he insane?

Let me ask you this: Have you done this with AOL? Other types of websites? Every IM Program? How about we even go local? Are you going to verify all this info at malls? Playgrounds? No no, just at social networking sites because it makes you look like you’re actually up on the latest advances in the world of technology. Actually, you are coming off as a sad little man desperately grasping at straws to make your self sound relevant in the modern age.

I am all for protecting children, but this is not a government regulation type situation. This is a “Patents… know what your kids are doing” situation… AGAIN! I am not going to link to the umpteen stories I have done about how parents have to be responsible for what goes on in their house, but this is another example of it.

Why is this still so hard for people to grasp? Why do people not comprehend that the ultimate authority in situations such as this resides with the parents? Why do they have to have their JOB (yes folks, it is a job) handled for them by the legislators? Parents need to keep computers in a common area where they can monitor what their children are doing, but it’s too easy to let them have it in their room and that way Bobby and Susie stay in their rooms, out f their lazy-ass parents way.

Can you tell this subject pisses me off? It really does.

.016% of the total MySpace population and that means it requires the government stepping in? No, it doesn’t. Killing people with paperwork isn’t the answer. Doing the job of the parents isn’t the answer. There is no universal answer, there is no “one-size-fits-all” band-aid for this situation beyond PARENTS being more responsible. Why punish everyone because of some lazy parents?

This boggles my mind to no end.

Okay, maybe not good things, but things still end. CBS has yanked the craptastic Pirate Master with five episodes unaired. The remaining episodes will be burned off on the CBS website over the next five Tuesdays.

I talked about this suck-fest when it first aired, and I did catch it here and there afterwards; it got no better. I think the format is what tanked it. With only one challenge per episode, there were long periods of nothing but talking that amounted to nothing. It also didn’t help that the host had the personality of a stale biscuit… heck, I can’t even remember his name, he was that boring.

You know if you can’t keep a reality series going in the middle of summer, when the airwaves are devoid of fresh programming, you have some serious problems.

In a more shocking turn of events, the Weekly World News has called it quits after 28 years of publication. Not even three weeks ago I was in Wal-Mart with my Mother, laughed about “babies alive on the Titanic” being the headline, and wondered how in the world this rag stayed in print. Gee, guess I got my answer.

For those three of you who have not heard of this pillar of the “news” community… well, I have included one of their most famous covers for you to enjoy. “BAT CHILD FOUND IN CAVE” is the first time I really remember ever noticing the magazine, and, oddly, most people also point to that cover as the one they remember.

I think the idea of writing real news was beyond them, though they always claimed all their stories were researched. My suspicion is they were researched with out-patients of a mental hospital, but what do I know?

So, why do I include these two stories in the same post? Well, I am sure it is a coincidence they happened on the same day, but my hope would be it is an indicator of improving tastes of the general USA consumer market, but somehow I doubt that. One only needs to look at the box office tallies from this summer’s movie to see we still love our schlock.

It also doesn’t help I can’t escape the news today of Lindsay Lohan being charged with DUI and possession of cocaine. Yep… two pinnacles of stupidity gone… eight million to go.

Tonight on The Late Show with David Letterman, Drew Carey is going to announce there he is going to take over the hosting duties on The Price Is Right.

While I have had mixed feelings about the show continuing without Bob Barker, I really, REALLY like this choice. Drew is personable, not afraid to mock himself, and thinks on his feet. Which, with the type of people that typically end up on that show… he’s going to need it.

And, if he keeps the glasses, which I suspect he will, he’s about the most non-threatening looking guy ever.

So, I say good choice! And as much as I like him, I’ll probably actually check the show out when he starts in the fall.

Almost two weeks ago I asked RSS - Is it for me?, and now I’m back with an answer…

It is.

I have NO clue why I didn’t see how much it would speed up my life. Add in that since that time I landed two more writing jobs, I have next to no time to visit sites for fun right now. I simply leave Google Reader open in one of my Firefox tabs, and it handily tells me when there’s a new post. I can keep up with the sites I’m working on, my friends, and… well, I was an idiot. I admit it. I wish I had started using it ages ago, but for whatever reason, I didn’t.

So, if you’ve been on the fence post, get off of it, RSS WILL simplify your day immensely! (and while you’re at it, you could always subscribe to my feed… pretty please…)

You know, I give up.

Back in March I mentioned that barring any major changes, I would be taking a vacation in October. In May I updated you that it was up in the air.

Well, it’s dead sadly. (to those who know more about where I was going and doing, it was truly unavoidable, and there are NO hard feelings at all) So, back to the grindstone, and we’ll see if something happens that actually prompts me to make plans again, but for now I’m not going anywhere. Japan got killed off for August also due to shifting things here at home.

Mind you, I’m not angry with anyone involved in changing plans, but sometimes I just have to wonder why I ever think my plans will come together. Japan has ended up being canceled for two years running now, who knows when I’ll ever get back there. And even when I plan a day trip, those end up dying too.

I swear, I am never making plans again for anything. September, 1996 was my last true “vacation”, so I am beginning to think I’m cursed… maybe that’s just me.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is finally out, and all I can say is “Thank goodness.”

Like Shari, J.K. Rowling’s non-stop harping about the release date, and no spoilers, really turned me off from caring about this installment.

I got my copy today, and it also carried the stupid notice about not opening until the 21st, and that just irked me even more. This is the last book in a mediocre series of books. (Yes, you heard me, “mediocre”) This is not the second coming, it is not a top secret document… it’s a book.

And for all of her whining, I read the epilogue several days ago online in what is referred to as “the carpet book”. For those of you unaware of it, someone got a hold of a copy of the book approximately a week early and took pictures of every page. As they were somewhat blurry, and my eye-sight sucks, I only read the epilogue.

Funny, I knew the ending early, and the world didn’t end… no children cried… the Earth did not stop rotating. That appears to be only J.K. who thinks it would have.

I wish her all the best, I wish her no ill-will, but with the series now over, I won’t be crying any tears at the thought of her not showing up every couple years and whining about evil people who get the book early. And, someday, I might even read the book, but for now, it sits next to me, unread, and with very little interest in it for the moment.

While I don’t really like pimping my pieces here, this one seems to have a universal appeal to everyone out there. 70+ Tools For Job Hunting 2.0. Frankly, I was amazed how specific some of the sites can get! I mean, who would have ever thought there is a job sites JUST for nannies?

I had no clue Dinner For Five was getting a complete DVD set until last night! Best.Birthday.Present.To.Myself.EVER!

If you aren’t familiar with this series, it aired for four seasons on IFC. The premise was simple: Jon Favreau would invite four people from various parts of the entertainment industry to have dinner, and it was filmed. While this sounds odd, it was the most brilliant “talk show” ever.

Everyone has had those dinner conversations where topics just naturally flow one in to the other , you open, you discuss things you might not in any other setting, this just happened to be caught by cameras. Never once did Iget the feeling anyone was overly aware of the cameras, they were just five people having amazing conversations about the things they loved, and sharing anecdotes you would never hear on late night talk shows. (Sarah Silverman and Rod Steiger discussing smoking pot comes to mind.)

If you look through the episode guide, you’ll see that some of the invited guests are people you would never imagine being in the same room together, but food is such a common bonding element, they would all seem like old friends by the end of the episode. The only time you could tell things didn’t go as planned was the numerous appearances of Faizon Love, a close friend of Favreau’s. He was hilarious, and I always enjoyed him, but you could also tell it was an “Oh crap, someone can’t make it… call Faizon!” moment.

Amazon is selling it for $41.99, and it contains 49 episodes. Seriously, I know this sounds like a very odd show, and it was, but if you love movies, if you love dinner with good friends, there is no DVD set more deserving of your money.

And how did I ring in my 36th birthday? Why, by writing blogs abouts WordPress plugins. Good signs for my new year on Earth!

Happy birthday to my birthday buddy, Isabella, too!

Well… this feels odd making another post like this, but…

I got another job.

I know, I just posted yesterday about joining tech.blorge.com, and now, I’ve joined up with Mashable.com, another tech blog, but different in its own ways. Not sure what all this writing will do to my everyday blogging, but we’ll see.

My first post on Mashable is here.

Well, it’s kinda close, but not quite. Head over to Simpsonize Me and upload a picture of yourself to get going.

A little while back I made a post about having joined the website SeeJackShop.com as a writer. Well, I’m still there, but now I can announce I have also joined the staff of Tech.Blorge.com. You can check out my very first post here, it’s about the new BlackBerry 8820 that was just announced. (I want this SO bad)

This is going to be a daily gig, but the pieces are fairly short, so it shouldn’t be much of a strain. I am also in talks with another site that I just sent a sample piece to. If I get that one, I’m going to stop looking around as I think three sites will be enough work on top of my day job!

I have to admit I am a little shocked at how well this has fallen together. I’ve been looking for a little less than a month for professional writing jobs, and I’ve landed two for sure. Color me surprised.

And, by the way, Shari asked me in her comments if these were “real jobs” where I am actually handed money… yes… they are.

Portions of the blogosphere are buzzing with the prospect of a move away from traditional email services, to a more enclosed messaging system like the one Facebook offers.

Jeremiah Owyang, a web strategist from the Bay Area, did a recent write-up on the possibility of Facebook messaging being an email replacement. He notes two other bloggers saying the same, and they all sing the praises of the beauty of Facebook being the next killer system of communication.

They are correct on the lack of spam, but that is about where their correctness ends.

It is quite possible that Facebook could replace the one-line emails we all receive from friends, but that is probably where it will end. The corporate world will never embrace such a system, and unless you can get big business behind a technology push, it never has more hope than becoming a niche product.

They all tout the fact it is a closed system, and while that’s nice, it also has some severe drawbacks. Are you going to tell a potential client or employer, “Yes, you can reach me, but first you need to login to Facebook… oh, you don’t have an account? Okay, well first you need to create one, and then…”. No, this scenario will never happen.

Email, for all its follies and faults, is still going to be around for a long time to come just due to it’s prominence and ease of use. It is far to easy to tell someone to reach me at myname@myemployer.com, then tell them they have to go login to a third party system that they don’t personally have any security control over.

Go, enjoy your Facebook messaging. Remember this though; it’s not the second coming, but instead, just another new toy you will grow bored with when the next shiny new thing comes along.

A little while ago I made a post that I would be doing sponsored posts every now and then. Don’t bother looking for it, I deleted it. This is not revisionist history as I am admitting here I did it, but, when the time came to pull the trigger and do my first one… I couldn’t.

Now, let me state, I am not slamming people who do them, more power to you, but I came to the conclusion it was not the right thing for THIS blog. I write many reviews on various forms of media, and if I started selling off such things, it would make all of my content questionable.  When I make a post like the Uniden Cordless Phones commentary, I want you to know I posted that out of a sincere love for the product, and not because someone paid me to do it.

Obviously I have no problem with monetizing a blog, as evidenced by the ads in my right column. They bring in next to no revenue, to be honest, if I get a sale a month, I’m amazed, but I believe in those merchants, so I have their ads up. If I start letting in any old advertisement, especially in the form of a post, it will cheapen my entire blog.

I also came to some conclusions about my feelings on blogging as of late, mainly due to my involvement in the Blog Project:Three contest; I need to take this more seriously. After four years of doing this, floundering for a direction, I have come to a point I need to add a more serious tone. Does this mean no more humor? Please, it’s me, do you think I can go more than a day without cracking wise? No, I can’t. I will, however, strive to sprinkle more posts of relevance here and there.

Another deciding factor for me was adding my Feedburner RSS Feed, showing me just how many people are subscribing to my feed. While the number is low currently, is it fair to them to fill their RSS inbox with what amounts to spam? No, it’s not. We all hate spam in the various forms it takes, and this would have been no better.

So, in short, it was silly of me to have even considered it, and it will not be happening on this blog at any point in the future.