Practicalmadness

There are some (well, many, if not most) of us on the political left (and the center-left, and the center, and the center-right, and maybe also the right) who quietly (or vocally) are wishing we could hold some kind of magical referendum (or pitchfork-mob protest) and remove President George W. Bush from power, like today. There simply aren’t that many informed, engaged people left who unequivically support the President and his policies, and a majority of Americans think we’ll be better off when he’s out of office.

But lest we slip into a coma of naïve reverie, a comforting delusion that absolutely no one still likes the guy, we should remember that the same crazy people who pushed for the crazed Bush foreign policy still walk among us, and many of them have not stopped being crazy.

To wit, we have a new essay by neoconservative writer Philip Atkinson that is so whacked, the far-right Center for Security Policy (who originally published it) have totally disavowed it.

Some choice snippets:

The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed. But if he did this, his cowardly electorate would have instantly ended his term of office, if not his freedom or his life. The simple truth that modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide.

…

If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies.

He could then follow Caesar’s example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.

President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming ex-president Bush or he can become President-for-Life Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.

This is one of those things where you don’t know whether to laugh because the ideas espoused in the essay are so crazy, or cry because someone actually, seriously believes them. I don’t mean to imply that I think any non-liberal viewpoint is insane. I think pro-lifers are misguided and maybe a little cruel, but their beliefs at least follow some semblance of logic. Likewise I would say that to believe in intelligent design is solipsistic at best and bloody ignorant at worst, but it’s not insane.

Even the hawks and Bush supporters who believe failure to win in Iraq will result in a military conquest of the American heartland by the Islamo-fascists are simply trying their best to make sense of the intentionally confusing and manipulative information that our government has put out to bamboozle the American people into supporting an idiotic war in Iraq. After all, conquest is historically the objective in warfare; a nation goes to war not just to bomb your shit and leave, but to rape your women, steal your bibles and sit in your Barcaloungers. And the Arab terrorists are at war with us, they must have the same objective as the Nazis or the Soviets, right?

Atkinson’s essay is not simply misguided or putting forth an unpopular viewpoint. He’s repudiating the most basic American values (not to mention a sixth-grader’s understanding of world history and geopolitics) to find the shortest, easiest path to a solution only Adolf Hitler could love.

Even the neocons think this guy is nuts, so I won’t waste any more words arguing with a lunatic. However, I do want to point out a couple of things I learned in 7th grade social studies:

• While Caesar did slaughter his share of the Gauls, he didn’t kill so many of them as to be at all comparable with the devastation to be caused if America were to use its nuclear arsenal on Iraq.

  And not only did Caesar not kill all the Gauls, Mr. Atkinson may be surprised to learn their descendants are still bopping around. They’re called the French.

• The crushing of “all political opposition” didn’t exactly end the personal threat to Caesar. In fact, he was murdered by a passel of Senators including some of his closest friends and supposed allies, precisely because he was a tyrant. I know this because a little-known English playwright named William Shakespeare wrote a little play about it. It’s also been mentioned in a couple of obscure movies and TV shows.

• Caesar didn’t have “newfound” popularity with the military, nor was he a civilian ruler like the U.S. president. He was a leading general who already had the support of his own army. And when he seized absolute power, he was opposed by other generals and their armies, not to mention the Roman equivalents to the “continually squabbling Congress and out-of-control Supreme Court.” (See above notes about the Senate literally fucking killing him.)

• I shouldn’t have to point this out to anyone, and certainly not to anyone who’s seen a Terminator movie, but you can’t nuke a country and then immediately repopulate it. This is one reason why nuclear weapons are evil — they not only kill the living, they ruin the landscape for years afterward. This isn’t a moral issue, it’s simple physics.

  At the time of this writing, George W. Bush has about 15 months left in office. It takes more than 15 months for an irradiated nuclear wasteland to become usable liebensraüm for American oil derricks, freeways, subdivisions and strip malls. So Atkinson’s modest proposal is not only abhorrent, it’s also more than a little impractical.

• Back to the Caesar thing, as I’ve mentioned once or twice, Caesar was not welcomed as Rome’s first fascist ruler with candy and a stripper. In fact, he was killed. Therefore, there is no historical precedent for someone seizing absolute power and then “emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world”.

  Granted, Caesar Augustus — Julius Caesar’s adopted son and the first actual Roman emperor — was an absolute ruler, and generally the people who become absolute rulers of the world are first absolute rulers of their own nations. But that’s not what Atkinson is saying. He’s saying Bush should emulate Julius Caesar, then emulate Augustus, while sidestepping the part about 37 stab wounds in the back.

Oh my stars and garters, this is upsetting: Mac nerd blogger “Drunkenbatman” moderated a developer panel at “Wolf” Rentzsch’s C4[1] conference this past weekend, and he apparently thought it would be a good idea to ask his panelists to respond to the following incredibly stupid thesis: black people don’t use Macs.

And lest anyone think he was trying to gently get into a serious discussion about the matter, he’s quoted (by John Gruber) as also saying “the only black people at Macworld are outside begging for change.”

First let me be clear: I wasn’t there, and I’m getting this information third-hand through the blogs just like most of you. However, the most important fact — that Drunkenbatman used valuable panel time at a very lovely conference to ask some very talented developers why they think blacks don’t use their products — is not under dispute. And with statements like the aforementioned, it seems clear to me that at best he was trying to stir up some needless controversy in a gross, ham-fisted way that stifled discussion more than stimulated it.

The thing is, generally Drunkenbatman is probably right — it would not surprise me to find Mac ownership is statistically lower among black households than white ones. But that’s far from the whole story, and while D.B. may be in the same time zone as truth, he didn’t provide any numbers to demonstrate his point as anything but his own impression.

If we really wanted to understand this issue rather than just start using a bunch of impressions, conjectures and hearsay as the basis for talking about why an entire huge subset of the population don’t use the same computers as we do, we might start by asking a few simple questions:

Do black people use PCs?

I’m talking everything from eMachines to Dells to Macs to those free PeoplePC boxes. Those of us in the techno-elite tend to assume that literally everyone has a computer these days, and it’s simply not true. Many people, especially in economically depressed areas, don’t have computers in their home. If they use PCs, it’s at a school or library, and these days those institutions are more apt to purchase Windows boxes.

I don’t mean to say — and I’ll be offering this disclaimer a lot — that all black people are poor. But many of them are, in greater numbers and to a greater extent than white people. And computers, while an extremely fun and useful tool, are definitely a first-world concern if you’re having trouble buying bread.

And if (relative) poverty is a factor, then if blacks are less apt to use Macs then there may be a reason beyond anything at a software conference is in a position to discuss: price. Just last week at the Mac media event, Steve Jobs pointed out that Apple chooses not to compete in the super-low end of the market. That’s all well and good for those of us who have more money to spend on computers, but if money is tight and you need a computer, even I would have trouble telling someone not to go for a $400 PC bundle from Wal-Mart. I absolutely believe Macs are worth the extra money, but that matters less if there is no extra money to spend.

Drunkenbatman posed the question as if it were a given that it’s just a matter of choice (or else why talk about it at C4[1]?), and clearly it ain’t necessarily so.

Where are black people buying PCs?

Ever noticed that almost every Apple retail store is in a well-heeled, mostly white shopping district? And that many upper middle class white communities don’t even have them yet?

And has anyone perhaps noticed that there’s a strong correlation between Apple’s significantly improved retail presence this decade and their significantly improved market share?

The lack of Apple Stores in predominantly black areas of course wouldn’t stop someone from driving over to their closest location to check out and purchase a computer. But it’s definitely the case that affluent whites in urban areas have easier access to Mac products than anyone else, and a lot of people make purchasing decisions by visiting a store and test-driving the product even if they plan to make the final purchase online. And if black consumers are anything like me, they aren’t going to want to drop $1,000 or more on an item they’ve never seen or touched in real life.

Of course, the lack of retail presence hasn’t seemed to hurt Dell very much, but that’s because unlike the Mac their product is similar enough to a Gateway or HP machine on sale at Best Buy that people feel like they can make an informed decision without having to touch the physical item. Basically, if it runs Windows and comes with Office and is $100 cheaper, it’s got the edge.

The Mac, on the other hand, has started climbing its way out of the nerd ghetto due to Apple’s aggressive push to get their computers out into world so people can see for themselves why they’re great. And even I admit that some Apple designs, like the new keyboards, can be alienating until you use them and can understand the logic behind them.

My point here is that even if blacks are no less likely to buy Windows PCs, and are equally able to buy Macs, it’s not yet clear to what extent they would prefer Windows just because they’re what’s for sale in their neighborhoods. And just to be clear, I’m not basing this on the assumption that all black neighborhoods are cracked out ghettos. I’m saying that Macs still have a relatively light retail presence even in predominantly white neighborhoods. And this too might be a factor.

Is this just about the conferences?

Did Drunkenbatman really mean to say that black people don’t use Macs? Or did he mean that black people don’t go to conferences or become rockstar indie Mac developers? Because by that metric, we’re also really way low on women in the Mac community too, even though no one in their right mind would say women don’t use Macs.

In a way, this makes this whole thing even worse. If Drunkenbatman had wanted to get into a broader discussion of why black users are less likely to be Mac users, that’s fine. But I don’t think that’s where he was coming from. I think the question he meant to ask of the panel and audience at C4[1] was: why aren’t more of you black? On that basis, it’s not clear which is worse: being passive-aggressively racist, or also passive-aggressively accusing everyone else of being racist.

Racism is not just burning a cross or wearing a white sheet. The more insidious racism is the belief that one can make broad generalizations about an entire people and not be racist, because you’re obviously objectively right and therefore cannot possibly be racist.

Maybe if Drunkenbatman asked some better questions, he wouldn’t come off sounding so much like a nerdy Klansman.

• 3:30-4:00 AM: Wake up grudgingly, due to (a) bedroom being too warm, (b) bedroom being too cold, (c) bedroom being too dark, (d) bedroom being too bright, (e) me needing to pee really badly, (f) a nightmare about dead orphans or (g) some combination of the above, before fixing whatever’s wrong (except for the dead orphan nightmare, which being a nightmare tends to resolve itself) and going back to sleep.

• 7:30 AM: Woke up grudgingly. Scrounged around for water. Noticed my Camelbak at the foot of the bed. Drank water. Cursed the heavens for poor quality of Chicago tap water. Made mental note to buy, like, a fucking case of SmartWater. Fell asleep again. Forgot mental note.

• 8:00 AM: Woke up for real this time. Got dressed and ride down the street to McDonalds to acquire breakfast, which often as not consists of a steak/egg/cheese bagel, hash browns and a 20-oz iced coffee. Returned home to look at movie showtimes.

• 9:30-10:00 AM: Rode out to see the earliest possible showing of a movie, so as to avoid crowds, traffic and higher evening ticket prices. This week’s matinée: The Bourne Ultimatum (or as it’s called in the original French, Boring Pug-Faced Amnesiac Spy On The Run 3: Electric Boogaloo). Other recent Sunday morning movies have included Harry Potter 5: Yes, We Swear They’re 15 and that one movie with a happy, shiny title that starts out as a compelling sci-fi drama about fixing the Sun, but turns into a slasher movie in space. You know, Sunshine.

• 11:45 AM: Have reached two conclusions: these Bourne movies — and indeed, cinema itself — were better before they killed off Franka Potente’s character. Seriously, in the world is there any cooler, hotter woman with a double chin? I think not, Readers. Also: Matt Damon maiming someone with a ballpoint pen was way cooler than him killing that one guy with a book.

• 12:30 PM: Have reached third conclusion: David Strathairn is like a nuclear weapon of sleazy entrenched power, to be employed only in situations when Chris Cooper and Brian Cox have tried and failed to destroy Bourne with their sleaziness. If there’s a fourth Bourne movie, they’ll have nowhere to turn for a villain but James Cromwell, who not only bested Strathairn in sleaziness in L.A. Confidential but also nearly defeated Jack Bauer himself with the ultimate weapon: a logic bomb that saddled 24 with a moronic evil family-vs-good son plot that not even that show could elevate above stupid cliché.

• 12:54 PM: All kidding aside, I like how The Bourne Ultimatum isn’t a totally new adventure set “three years later,” but rather picks up right where the previous movie left off. And the reason why this is good (and why 24 is very, very bad) is because it neatly sidesteps the issue of how Bourne could just walk away from Bourne Supremacy’s climactic tunnel chase and survive for three years without the CIA managing to find or kill him. There is a jump forward and an entirely new story (which is tied into, but not directly continued from, the last movie), but by starting us out mere moments after the last movie, by the time we’re starting to ask any boring logical questions (like: if various authorities know Marie is dead, why has no one tracked down her brother, either to tell him or as part of the hunt for Bourne?) we’re back in the thick of it.

• 12:57 PM: But they totally lost me by having Moby re-record “Extreme Ways” for the end credits. Not only is the new version overproduced and lame even by Moby standards(!!!!), having that song serve as the de facto theme music for this series was like a nice time capsule of the early 2000s, a reminder that past mistakes (like voting in a government who think waterboarding is an acceptable interrogation procedure, or tying the musical vernacular of an action film series to whatever was hip in the summer of 2002) can sometimes haunt you forever.

• 1:00 PM: Visit Apple Store to check out these new keyboards everybody’s talking about. Like every great Apple design, from the “luxo arm” iMac G4 to the iPhone, the new keyboards — RAZR-thin, made of aluminum and laid out like those weirdo Fisher-Price keys on the MacBooks — are, at first glance, a little bit alienating. I mean, my dinner plates are thicker than these keyboards.

  However, I am now convinced that this is the awesomest keyboard design I have ever seen, and will be buying one of the wireless models as soon as they’re out. I’m usually not a fan of laptop keyboards, but the low-slung profile paired with a wide gap between keys make this design extremely easy to type with.

  And the wireless version, with its teeny laptop-like size and layout, is a good compromise between my current keyboard, which feels great but has no dedicated function keys, and a full-size one that would just crowd my desk.

• 1:35 PM: Success is: spending $135 on sweat pants. I’ve been wearing (and wearing out) the same two pairs of Nike Dri-Fit athletic shorts since the last time I was regularly going to a gym back in 2003. They’re still trucking right along, and I enjoy wearing them even as my doubts about whether they were stitched by child laborers or Chinese political prisoners eat at my soul.

  So I once again set aside my better moral judgement and went into Niketown to buy two pairs of Dri-Fit sweat pants, to augment my workout arsenal. If these last as long as their shorter siblings have, I’ll still be wearing them when I’m, like, 40. Hell, I could be buried in these $55 pairs of sweat pants.

  (Note to family of future self: please do not bury me in sweat pants.)

• 2:20 PM: There was a time — and it was April of this year — when I simply could not imagine riding a bicycle all the way from the Apple Store on Michigan to the Target store I go to at Logan & Elston (roughly a five mile one-way trip). There was even a time (probably in late May or early June) when I’d have remarked on that somewhere nearer the halfway point of the ride, around Lincoln & Webster.

  Today after my keyboard-fondling and sweat pants run, I rode up to Target for some moisture-wicking “tech” t-shirts (which, not being pants, I’m more willing to cheap out on) and remarked on my own awesome bike-riding prowess as I was getting off the bike at Target.

  All that is to say: I’ve gone from my first ride back in April, where I was so winded my ears were ringing(!) after just half a mile, to today when I was able to ride five miles in 90-degree heat and barely even felt it. Your humble narrator, is, in a word, a golden god.

• 3:10 PM: I discovered a new favorite packaged sandwich: a turkey BLT from The Goddess and Grocer. Yesterday around this time I was just finishing a 12-mile circuit up and down the Lakefront Trail and stopped near the Theatre on the Lake to cool down and eat a packaged ham and cheese sandwich I grabbed at Whole Foods on my way to the lakefront. And the Lincoln Park branch of Whole Foods once again betrayed me, selling me the absolute worst $7 sandwich I’ve ever tried and failed to eat in my life. (And I’ve eaten more than a couple Starbucks sandwiches, so this is really saying something.)

  Where that sandwich was foul and wilted, this was fresh, with crisp vegetables and just the right amount of savory, bacony goodness. Granted, I kept the Whole Foods sandwich in my bike basket for the entire 12-mile ride (about an hour in the sun), but I really don’t think it could have gone so far downhill in so short a time if it weren’t well on its way to sucking when I grabbed it from the case at the market.

  This experience combined with the ongoing nastiness of the Hot Bar at that location has left me no choice but to declare them an enemy combatant in the Global War on David, and to impose a trade embargo restricting all commerce between the Practical Nation and the prepared foods department of the Lincoln Park Whole Foods. Whole Foods, consider yourselves “on notice.”

• 3:47 PM: While recapping the day for Practicalmadness — which is both a creative way to squeeze a Bourne Ultimatum review, a note about the new Mac keyboards and some bitching about a bad sandwich into the same single post — realize that yesterday was 2nd anniversary of mother’s death. How ‘bout that.

• 4:30 PM: Scrounged around for water. Noticed my Camelbak at the foot of the bed. Drank water. Cursed the heavens for poor quality of Chicago tap water. Made mental note to buy, like, a fucking case of SmartWater.

• 4:31 PM: Distracted by something shiny. Forgot mental note.

I can no longer sit back and allow David infiltration, David indoctrination, David subversion and the international David conspiracy to sap and impurify all our precious bodily fluids continue eating ice cream without going to the gym.

So today I announce the commencement of a Global War on David, an expansive program of posturing, subterfuge, chicanery and (if necessary) aggressive action to reduce my “David footprint” by, say, 60-90 pounds in the next however-long.

The first stage of this program, the so-called Salad Initiative, has been a mixed success: I am eating and enjoying more salads, vegetables, whole-grain breads and cereals and pure, clear water. However, I am also enjoying hot dogs topped with foie gras, Stephen Colbert-branded ice cream and calorie-riffic fast food breakfasts.

The next step in the Global War on David (GWOD) is a two-part plan to narrow what our policy experts are referring to as the “skinniness gap” between ourselves and the David aggressors.

Step one is an escalation of the Salad Initiative: our defense contractors supermarket shoppers have acquired a small store of weapons-grade plutonium single-serving pouches of bite-size raw carrots, and some recent bad experiences with Caesar dressing have forced me to direct our scientists to begin developing “Balsamic vinegar spritzer” technology. This would be a spritzer bottle filled, yes, with balsamic vinegar. Yes, citizens — we have weaponized condiments.

The second phase involves a strategic alliance with a local health club (or gym, if you prefer) both to work out various aggressions and to begin converting some of our strategic fat reserves into usable whoop-ass energy to be canned for later use.

We are considering two such partners:

• The massive, colorful, IKEA-furnished Crunch Gym location over on Sheffield is massive, colorful, well equipped and only(!) a mile and a half from my house. They come highly recommended on Yelp, though I suspect these positive reviews are from people who also liked Legally Blonde. While their facilities are indeed very large and come complete with — I kid you not — a giant twirly three-story fun slide, Crunch (which shares a parent company with their much less hip and more evil competitor, Bally’s Total Fitness) has appeared in Consumerist’s “Most Onerous Long-Term Agreements” section more times than I’d like.

• The Cheetah Gym down the street, on the other hand, got mixed reviews, with some people citing snotty service, a cramped space and a $1 towel fee as reasons to stay away.

  So I might bump my elbow into four other people while using their one and only rowing machine. On the other hand, they’re four blocks from my house.

  I might forget to bring a dollar and have to walk home all sweaty and nasty. On the other hand, they’re four blocks from my house.

  I might feel judged as I walk into the door, and their lack of real membership cards (they put a sticker on your driver’s license) might remind me of being back in art school. On the other hand, they’re four blocks from my house, in a city prone to being absolutely fucking frozen two months of the year.

So like most other things, the gym decision will come down to price, amenities and my general mood. As someone who puts a premium on customer service and surface swankiness, Crunch would seem to have the edge with me.

Longtime readers with savant-like memories may recall that I’ve tried this whole gym thing before, and obviously it didn’t take. But there are a few differences that might help tip the scales (or eventually not, if we’re following the pun) in my favor this time. I joined a gym in Alabama four years ago because my mother was pressuring me to lose weight so I could attract a girlfriend she didn’t hate. (In so many words.) Now I’m joining a gym so I can beat stuff up when I’m frustrated (professionally, creatively or sexually) now that I no longer take frustration for granted, and also so I can lose weight so I can look better in those Threadless t-shirts I like so well.

To recap:

• Four years ago: Unfortunate meddling by a parent who was unable to accept your awesome narrator for the nefarious genius that he is, combined with the sweltering Alabama hot, combined with the fact that gyms in Birmingham tend to be glorified basements that play nothing on the TVs but Fox News, and nothing on the sound system but “Eye of the Tiger” on loop. And at that time iPods were still $400, and not having $400 I had to either learn to love Survivor or start hating liberals.

• Today: Boredom, aggression, vanity, four months’ worth of New Yorkers to catch up on and an iPod/iPhone strapped to my arm. Take that, body fat.

Hello, my name is David and I’m addicted to Apple products

The other big thing going on today is an Apple event, which that company has flat-out said would not focus on either iPhones or iPods (leaving Macs and Apple TVs…so in other words, the Mac). This has not stopped certain morons from speculating that today’s product announcements might include a new, lower-cost iPhone or a new touchscreen iPod.

Both of which, by the way, I’m convinced are coming at some point. Just not today.

So let’s talk to Practicalmadness’s Mac rumors correspondent — the Magic 8 Ball, filling in for the Ouija Board — to find out what’s coming down the pipeline in a few short hours:

• New iMacs: Most likely. I’d be more surprised if Apple didn’t announce new iMacs today. (Of course, I said that about them announcing iLife/iWork ‘07 eight months ago and was totally wrong.) They’ll be faster, cheaper and (maybe) will look different from their predecessors. I do rather doubt that they’ll have an aluminum enclosure, though, since Apple markets the iMac to families with kids and to schools, where the white polycarbonate casing tends to be a feature, not a bug.

• New Mac minis: Outlook good. No, I don’t think Apple is going to kill the Mac mini. It fills a small, unglamorous but important niche in the Mac product line, serving as a simple commodity PC/server for folks who (say) already have a display they like, or who just need something bare-bones for e-mail. It’s also the spiritual successor to the Power Mac Cube, which Steve Jobs pushed aggressively until it became obvious that the product was an underpowered failure. The Mini, while not a world-beater, is certainly not a failure on that scale, and I think if anything Jobs would be pushing for smaller, more powerful Minis rather than killing them off entirely.

  In short, I just don’t see them killing it. But the current Mac mini models are still rocking last year’s Core Duo processors and 802.11g Wi-Fi, so if they’re not gonna kill it they’re going to need to roll out a Core 2 Duo version with up-to-date wireless and stuff if it’s going to stay relevant.

  Besides: a Core 2 Duo Mac mini with gigabit Ethernet, by the by, would make an excellent little workgroup server.

• New iLife or iWork: Reply hazy, try again. I’m skeptical about Apple announcing a new release of their flagship software product(s) at a relatively low-key media event. iLife has been announced at MacWorld every year because it’s (in a way) the single most visible point of difference between Macs and other PCs — the big 40-minute iLife demos are Apple’s annual reminder that while Windows PCs can do a bunch of stuff, only Macs come with a whole digital media studio for free.

  Also, if they’re not going to wait until the next Macworld show in January, wouldn’t it make more sense to debut iLife alongside Leopard in October? Maybe even to offer some kind of Leopard/iLife bundle for customers wanting to upgrade all their software in one fell swoop?

  It’s possible Apple’s going to show off iLife today, but announce it for an October release alongside Leopard, now that their longstanding aversion to pre-announcing stuff has been broken (c.f. iPhone). But if they’ve got new iMacs and a cool new operating system on the way, with at least one iPod/iPhone announcement likely before the end of the year, why muddy the message with an iLife release?

• New and improved .Mac: He beat me, but I still love him. Seriously. How many times has the Mac blogosphere gone apeshit over the possibility that .Mac would either stop sucking or just altogether stop, only to find it still trucking along as always?

  I could see Apple upgrading everyone’s storage and making some infrastructure improvements. But I don’t see them killing .Mac, nor do I see them handing it off to an actual web company like Google or Yahoo. And I certainly don’t see any of that happening at today’s Apple Event. I would love to be wrong, but I’m doubtful that .Mac is ever going to improve enough to satisfy its many critics.

  .Mac sucks. They could make it free, or they could make it not suck, but they’ve had years to do one or the other and yet it continues, like a vermin that refuses to eat its poisoned food pellet.

• New iPods: Bitch, what I just say? See above note — this is a Mac event.

• New iPhones, new iPhone software, an iPhone SDK or a new line of iPhone-branded jams and jellies: See above.