Picture #203: "Best toy ever. Thanks, Steve."

I was a PC guy.

I'd used both PC's and Apples growing up. I remember playing Temple of Asphai on my dad's Apple IIe when I was a kid, and I remember when my mother brought home that first boxy Macintosh home from her university to write her thesis; Lode Runner, good times... good, frustrating times.

But after college, I'd pretty much had it in my head that PC's and Windows were the place for me.

"What do you MEAN there's no second mouse button?"

"What do you MEAN there's no eject button?"

"Why can't I...etc?"

Macintoshes, to my mind, were idiot boxes, for people who were afraid of hidden files and MS DOS. And once web browsing became part and parcel of having a home computer, there was no question - let's face it, Macs SUCKED at web browsing pre-Intel chip. I could never understand why they loaded pages so slowly. There was nothing an Apple could do that a PC couldn't do better.

Then Steve Jobs came back on board at Apple. Gone were the ugly tan boxes and, in their place, something... intriguing. And EXPENSIVE. So no way, Jobs, I'll stick to my functional, fast and cheap PCs. Occasionally, there'd be a bit of Mac functionality, aesthetics or software that I admired, but for the most part there was nothing a Mac could do that I couldn't find for PC. For a while, anyway.

Slowly, Macs began becoming more and more robust, and I found myself struggling to emulate in Windows what I could get automatically with Mac OS; Adobe Premiere did pretty much what Final Cut did, and with Audacity and about a dozen other freeware downloads I could approximate GarageBand... but not really. But it was fine, because Macs, despite their much vaunted benchmark testing, still felt slow - they still sucked at web browsing. But there was... yearning.

Then three things happened. Apple dispensed with the PPC chips and switched to Intel. Microsoft released Vista. And finally, my workhorse of a laptop, the Dell Inspiron, finally died. But even then, I still bought another PC.

My new Dell arrived, powerful, stacked, shiny, bulky, covered with packaging. And it SUCKED. I would plug this thing in while it was running and it would, inexplicably, shut down. Vista was awful, stopping me every 5 seconds to ask me a question about what I was doing, like an over-protective, religious-crackpot parent. After 10 days of this nonsense, I was done. I sent it back, and bought my first Macbook Pro. Which was promptly stolen 6 months later. But then I bought another, which I'm typing on right now.

Sure there have been problems. These late-2008 models have notoriously awful batteries (I'm on my third one now, down to 20-minutes of life, if I'm lucky), and Apple's customer service blow-off of "water damage" is one of the biggest scams in the computer industry. I've had workers at the Genius Bar actually break my computer while opening it up and then try to blame it on said water damage.

"What's that? It rained in an adjacent state? Clearly your computer has been exposed to moisture, which cancels out the Apple Care warranty."

But those morons aren't what Apple's about. Those are the kind of idiots that Steve Jobs ignored, chose to never work for, chose to walk away from, to do his own thing. There are going to be people and problems like those at every company and field, in every walk of life - the rat race, the status quo, the conventional wisdom.

And then there are the Steve Jobs of the world, who, in the words of his own ad campaign, choose to "Think different," and drag the rest, kicking and screaming, into the future.

So thanks for the lesson, Steve. I'll work on it. Rest in peace.

Picture #196: "What are you... BAD DOG!"

Google "dog porn" and you will get a slew of really awful visuals. Google "dogs humping" and you will get, unsurprisingly, a bunch of dogs humping... AND this thing; The Hot Doll, the self-proclaimed first sex toy for dogs. From France. Because apparently, French dogs are just more worldly than American ones.

Or ARE they? Apparently a Brazilian company is manufacturing another toy, the Doggie Love Doll, which they claim is also the world's first dog toy.

Which came first? And more importantly, who gets to clean these toys out afterwards?

Picture #185: Rubber Duckie Tea Infuser

"Rubber duckie tea infuser, you're the one.

You make tea time lots of fun!

Rubber duckie tea infuser, I'm awfully fond of you!"

There's a very dangerous store on the outskirts of Chinatown called Pearl River. It is dangerous because they have all manner of devilishly intriguing knick knacks, clothes and home furnishings. Things such as robot-shaped ice cube trays, bio-degradable bamboo dishware and... this. A floating, rubber-duckie-shaped, tea infuser.

Did I need it? No. I even told the person I was shopping with NOT to let me buy the thing. And yet, somehow, it ended up in my shopping bag. Because it was meant to be.

Halfway There/Picture 183: "Smart-assed trivia"

It's weird to realize that the 90's have a Trivial Pursuit edition dedicated to them. And that it was long enough ago to be slightly arcane knowledge. It's also weird to realize that no one plays Trivial Pursuit anymore.

On a separate note, this picture marks just passing the halfway point of this little year-long Toy a Day project. The original purpose, to sort of exercise my creative muscles daily to develop self discipline in creative and other areas hasn't quite kicked in as much as I'd like it to, but I am seeing some small changes. I suppose it's like losing weight - maybe you're not dropping 5 pounds a week as though you're on some reality game show, but even if it's just a few ounces here and there, it's still progress.

Memories of September 11th, 2001

It's hard to believe 10 years have passed since the planes, since we ran down 6th Avenue towards the crumbling spires, into a cloud of dust, death and despair, even when the ache in my limbs and lines in my face remind me that it's true. I find myself in South Street Seaport, in the downtown area of Manhattan, a lot these days, and when I glance down Fulton I see the "Freedom" Tower slowly, finally, rising into the sky, and it seems to me that the thing should have been completed YEARS ago, not, appallingly, still in the midst of construction 10 years later.

But here it is, and rather than allow myself to be consumed in morbid

memorials and maudlin shows of sentimentality as the 24-hour news networks, politicians and, ultimately, our enemies would have us do, I'm going to go on about my life, thankful for it and trying to make the most of it.

That said, a tribute is necessary, a moment of remembrance and a bow to the heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed to help the people of this city and country in those shocking times. There have been some touching ones, simple and poignant, and I'm glad for them. This is mine, or rather, ours:

Back in 2001, my friend and now roommate, Luke Crane, was publishing a magazine called "New York Fucking City," or "NYfC," and for that month's issue, he collected all the emails and messages from our circle of friends from that day, that we had sent out to friends and family to let them know we were okay and what was going on in the city. He also included pictures taken that day, while we went down and tried to help. And he crossed out the "F" on the cover, making it NYfC, which I've always thought was just right.

So here, in tribute to that time, is that issue. There's a lot there - my own entry starts on Page 25 - but it is what it is.

New York fucking City

Best wishes,

Shy

Picture #174: "Damned zombie stormtroopers..."

These telescoping lightsabers came out with the re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy back in the late 90's. Aside from the awful Lucas' tweeks (e.g. Greedo shooting first, etc...), it was great seeing the original films on a big screen again, especially at the Ziegfeld here in NYC, a gorgeous old movie house, which for many years was the largest screen in NYC and by far the best sound system. And the digital restoration really did improve the movies visually in many ways. Add to that the release of what is one of the BEST TOYS EVER MADE, and it was a grand time for the Star Wars franchise.

And then Phantom Menace came out... ugh.

Midnight in Paris, Picture #151, and Rememberence of Things Past

Picture #151: "... and may we always keep in mind, that the remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they wer... Wait, remind me, what the hell are you supposed to be again?"
Last night I went to see Woody Allen's latest flick, "Midnight in Paris." It's one of his best in years, and I continue to marvel at his prolific imagination and gift for whimsy. Not wanting to give anything away, as I went in knowing very little and was very happily surprised by the twists and turns the movie took, I'll just say it's a film about our perception of the past in relation to the present. The protagonist in "Midnight" romanticizes the past, relegating his present to the far back seat like an unwanted child. I'm quite the opposite, myself; I tend to take a very dim view of the past and find more hope, however unfulfilled, in the possibilities of the present and the future.

I went into the movie with a certain amount of dread. I had been to Paris for the first time in my life just over a year ago with my now ex-girlfriend, where we had what might be honestly remembered as a mixed and bittersweet experience. I was a mite leery of being reminded of that time by the setting of the movie. On top of that, this was my ex's birthday weekend, so she had already been on my mind before I decided to go see "Midnight" (in our few years together, we'd had some rather unfortunate birthday communication, or lack thereof).

Fortunately, the film was so thoroughly charming and clever that it did what movies are supposed to do; it provided an escape from the worries of the past and present, and gave me hope for the future.

Still, as the actual birthday came and went, I was left at the end of the night with a bit of melancholy. I hadn't contacted her, not wanting to disturb her on her special day, even delaying sending a gift (that I hope will give her a chuckle) until after it had passed. Things had not ended well, and no one should be reminded of such things on their birthday.

But amidst all this Francophilia and angst, I was reminded, appropriately, of a quote by Marcel Proust (an author whose works I've never been able to stomach in their long, long entirety): "Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were." As I said before, I tend to take a very stark view of the past. I'm glacially slow to forgive and have a very long memory. But that said, I am very acutely aware that I, with very few exceptions, definitely give more weight to the bad than the good in my recollection of things.

And so I thought, on her birthday, I'd toast one of the good things. She had knitted this Godzilla doll for me one Christmas years ago; I believe I actually may have blogged about it at the time. It remains one of the finest presents I've ever received, imbued with thoughtfulness and love, if perhaps not proportion. And, in fact, that lack of proportion was the source of much shared laughter and joy between us. There were lots of those moments, lots of good memories.

Does this change things between us? Not really; I still hold a lot of resentment over a number of things that went on, but that's something that aging will deal with - and after those waves of time wash over and over the rocks of my memory, I can only hope that wisdom's waters leave shiny, happy pebbles on the beach of my mind.

Anyway, go see the movie, it's a great little flick.