Sent from my iPhone

-- A.

Sent from my iPhone

You hear it from the more militant atheists out there. "Freedom OF religion?" they sneer. "I want freedom FROM religion!!!"
 
I certainly understand the sentiment, and appreciate its correctness. They're not offended by religion per se; they just don't understand why other people's belief in God should in any way affect their ability to buy a case of Bud Light on a Sunday morning.
 
It also crystallizes my feelings about football perfectly. I think football is boring as hell and borderline unwatchable. It's like watching a YouTube video when you have way too many browser windows open. You get a few seconds of action and then everything STOPS for an unpredictable span of time. Then more action and just when you're getting into it things STOP again for several minutes.
 
The advantage of the YouTube video, of course, is that it only lasts a maximum of ten minutes. Not four hours.
 
And incidentally: no, it isn't like when there's no action in a baseball game. When a pitcher is sizing up a batter and trying to figure out how to intimidate the runner on first into staying close to the bag, things are happening. If only that were so during a timeout in football. If you weren't familiar with the rules of football, any random twenty minutes of viewing would leave you with the impression that points are scored based on the style and technique of individual players' Milling About.
 
But hey, if you choose to spend your Sundays sitting down and standing up and saying the right things in the right places, that's your business. I simply ask you: when do I get Freedom From Football?
 
I was urged to finally speak of this by the "trending topics" on Twitter a moment ago:

Granted, this Twitter feature stopped being useful at least a year ago. I'd like to write a Firefox plugin that automatically changes the label from "Trending Topics" to "Movies, TV Shows, Products, Or Services That Have Included Social Networks In Their Marketing Plans."
 
But it makes a point, anyway. I don't care about football. I can take it or leave it and I'm not being given the option of Leaving It. Football crowds out everything else on Sunday. Particularly TV shows.
 
"The Simpsons Treehouse Of Horror" Halloween specials might air in mid-November, or not at all. New seasons of many shows now have to start in October. Any show I like is absolutely impossible to record, if it airs on a Sunday night. Will it start at 7:12? 7:43? 8:23? Honest to God, I fell out of the habit of watching "The Simpsons" and "60 Minutes" solely because I got sick and tired of clicking Play on my DVR menu and seeing the Rams Versus University Of Wyoming In Pre-Season Exhibition Game in the middle of the third quarter of regulation play, and the fourth hour since kickoff.
 
Yes, part of the responsibility lies with those two shows themselves. They've been on for so many seasons that they lose their sense of "see it now" urgency. I do manage to watch nearly every episode of "The Amazing Race" when it airs on Sunday, by padding the recording time to double or even triple what's technically required. Probably because I know that if I miss this episode, I won't get another chance and I'll start off next week's show by desperately freeze-framing Phil's lightning-fast recap.
 
Still, when I become Chairman of the FCC, this all ends.
 
"Screw you," -- yes, that's how the official regulation will begin -- "your little action-reality-gameshow AND THAT'S ALL IT IS, LET'S BE HONEST HERE must END at 7 PM. At that instant, the network moves to its normal programming. And no freaking whining, either. If you're scared about missing the end of the game, just tune back in after the 11 PM local newscast. They ought to be starting the fourth quarter by then."
 
It's clear that the NFL doesn't give a damn about this stuff any more. Things were bad enough already. Then they gave teams the ability to STOP EVERYTHING and make the referees go watch TV. It's like the fee that your bank charges you to make a withdrawal. Its true purpose is to allow them to underscore the point that they just don't care and there's nothing you can do about it.
 
No longer. Under my reign, it's 7 PM and GOODBYE.
 
I anticipate whining.

Oh, just stop: your tears are making your facepaint run. If you care so damned much about seeing the game, then buy a freaking ticket and go. If you're angry that it costs so much, hey, simple solution: attack the stadium en masse and pull down the gates and flood the seats. If filthy stinking stoned hippies could do it at Woodstock, then you Packers and Jets fans have absolutely no excuse. Or are you not REAL fans? I understand that the Lions fans had the whole stadium torn down and in their pickups before the singing of the National Anthem. Are you willing to live with the knowledge that Lions fans are better than YOUR team's fans?
 
Or you could finally hold the NFL accountable. "We're not here to watch millionaires milling around, doing nothing!" you should shout to the players. "Put down the Blackberry and freaking HIT SOMEBODY, already!!!"
 
God bless America.

Oook ook oop OOK ook ook
 
I'm starting to suspect that they only give us the bananas that don't pass quality-control for supermarket sale.
 
ookookook
 
Hey, cool...a tire on a heavy chain, suspended from a thick iron pipe, over a barren concrete floor. Just like I used to have back in the jungle, the place from which you stole me when I was an infant after you shot my mother. Thanks. Thanks ever so ****ING much. (Jerks.)
 
I'm not the least bit envious. What the hell would I do with an opposable thumb? Bowl?
 
She IS great. Jane Goodall has a true love and respect for our kind. But let's not just gloss over the horrible things she does to meerkats. The woman has a real issue or something with those things.
 
ookOOKookookook
 
Mister, I was smuggled across the ocean and into the US tied inside a burlap sack with eleven other baby chimps. We were packed in like laundry. Five of us died; the smugglers didn't care...it was factored into their budget. It was nine years ago but many nights I still wake up shrieking. So, yes. Yes. YES. I imagine that the day you spent inner-tubing during your vacation WAS "more fun than a barrel full of monkeys." It would pretty much HAVE to be. Do you understand why you should never -- NEVER -- use that expression again?
 
Now the guys are going to call me "Mr. Lavender-Smell Butt" all day. I really wish the handlers wouldn't wash my fur with Suave.
 
No, honestly. If I _wanted_ an opposable thumb, I would have attacked one of the trainers and bitten one off a long, long time ago.
 
Oh, honey, you don't even know the half of it. My greatgreatgreatgreatGREATgreatgreatgreatgreatgreat-grampa Earl would hook up with _anything._ We share common ancestors with the Humans, giraffes, bears, dolphins...you name it, he'd put the moves on it.
 
Well, maybe if you gave us a few Frisbees we wouldn't HAVE to fling our poo around! Did you ever think of THAT?
 
Kid, it may have been an accident but I think we both know you're not getting your iPod back. So you might as well just be a good sport and drop us the earphones and the charger, too.
 
It sucks having electrodes drilled into my skull and getting shocked several times an hour. I hate it here. But what can I do? It would totally break my Mom and Dad's hearts if I decided to leave college.
 
ookookOOKookoopook
 
For God's sake, Dale, don't give up so quickly. For once, try to be an oranguTAN, not an oranguTAN'T.
 
So he puts me through FOUR callback auditions and I'm thinking "I nailed it. I've totally got this in the bag" and what does Kubrick do? He decides to use humans in ape costumes. I swear, two years in Hollywood made me appreciate just how good I have it here in live theater.
 
Well, I happen to _be_ a 900-pound gorilla. Do I _look_ like I get to do whatever I want?
 
(Sigh). Yeah, I guess Debbie and I are coming to the Halloween party dressed as Chewbacca and Mala from the Star Wars Holiday Special. _Again._
 
Man, I really, really want to try on the cowboy hat that fell into the enclosure. But if I put it on, the video is probably going to be all over the Internet and then the keepers will make me wear it all the time.
 
Surrrre. Go ahead. Keep rapping on the glass and making stupid faces, mister. One day I'm going to smash out of here and ram this tire so far up your ass that every time you smile it'll say "Goodyear."
 
You know, if you'd started off by teaching me the sign language for "Shut up and leave me the hell alone" we could have ended this research project three years ago.

No, I guess that joke ISN'T so damn funny. Obviously that's NOT why their arms are so long. Jeez, I'm sorry, I didn't know that your husband is a gibbon...I'm not a RACIST or anything...honestly, ask around...
 
I suppose my problems relating with other apes go back to my Mom, doc. She was cold, hard, rough; she really didn't give me any affection. I don't know if it's because she resented having to drop out of school to take care of the kids, or the fact that she was just a tube of chicken wire with a bottle jammed in the middle, set up in a psychology lab.
 
 
...huh?
 
"Talk like a PIRATE" day?
 
Oh.
 
How embarrassing. I thought you said it was "Talk like a PRIMATE day." My bad.

So. I'm at The Bagel Place With The WiFi, because I've been working all day and I try very, very hard to go out among the Hu-Mans at least once a day. The Pogues are on my iPhone and as I tend to my MacBook I'm bobbing my head in serene sympathy with whatever was going through Shane MacGowan's head when he recorded "Fairytale Of New York," besides the contents of the bottle of window cleaner he found in the janitor's closer right before the recording session.

I notice that the little girl in the armchair is looking at me and her father seems to be saying something. I unplug a headphone. They notice me noticing them noticing me. Conversation ensues.

"We were just talking about how you're enjoying your music," the father (a very normal, professional-looking dad) says.

I smile. "It's The Pogues. It's involuntary."

"You know, Shane MacGowan threw up on a friend of mine once, back in the 80's," he says.

"I suppose that isn't statistically unlikely, given the man's history," I reply, but I'm impressed.

"That's nothing," he says, and proceeds to tell me briefly of his time as a club promoter and sound man in New York City. Mostly: friends of his getting vomited on by some of the leading creative lights of that musical era.

"Wow," I finally say. "You totally didn't waste the 80's, did you?"

Set up in the Public Garden, sending live video to MacBreak podcast. MiFi wins again!

I love and hate this element of my job: I think I have a handle on my day, I've got my schedule all planned out, and then there's a piece of news that makes everything go all catty-wampus. I had a moment like that a few minutes ago, when I came across this article on TechCrunch:

 http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/08/did-yoko-ono-and-sky-news-just-ruin-appl...

 Apparently, Yoko Ono was talking to Sky News, and blabbed that the entire Beatles catalogue would be going up on iTunes tomorrow...same day as "Beatles: Rock Band" and the remastered CDs. The article itself was pulled down, according to TechCrunch, and I can't find anyone who happened to have cached or captured it. So it's hard to know how to treat this news.

 ...If it's "news" at all. If Sky developed the information in a hinky fashion (if they persuaded someone to violate an NDA) or used copyrighted materials, their lawyers and their editors might have decided to exercise the better part of valor, particularly if Apple got involved. But if the bones of the story are true -- Yoko spoke to Sky News -- then they have the story COLD, and any news site (any that doesn't use LiveJournal as a host, I mean) would be savvy enough to know that they're untouchable. Why would they pull down a huge, traffic-boosting scoop? Did Yoko really say it, belatedly realize her error, and then play the "it's your reporter's word against mine what I may or may not have said" card?

 So I'm suspicious of the original story. If the story's true, then I'm suspicious of Sky News as a news source in general.

 I've said all along that I don't see any upside to the profit participants putting the Beatles catalogue on iTunes day-and-date with the remastered CDs. The tracks are going to become huge sellers whenever they're added to iTunes; 09/09/09 is no better than 01/01/10. But on that date, consumers will have an opportunity to purchase "improved" articulations of the Beatles catalogue for the first time in twenty years. Whether you bought your first Beatles album in 1968, '78, '88, or '98, there's a certain thrill to that. It's like buying it for the first time all over again. I know; I bought the soundtrack to "Love," the Beatles Cirque du Soleil show, mostly for that reason.

 Some people will buy the $250 sets. Some will buy just one or two $15 CDs. Anyone likely to purchase a digital download is likely to buy a CD and rip it, if that's their only option. Therefore (so my logic goes): there's no upside to putting these tracks on iTunes on the 9th. All you're doing is giving consumers the option of buying only the "White Album" tracks they like, instead of making them spring for the whole uneven pile.

 To be fair, if the Beatles catalogue WERE going up on iTunes on Wednesday, this is exactly how it'd happen. Apple would insist on full control of the announcement and demand that it happens during one of their own events. You wouldn't hear boo about it until there's a top-level Apple executive on a keynote stage with dozens of cameras on him. It'd also be a smart PR move for Apple. I'm convinced that their announcements on Wednesday will be fairly routine and announcing the acquisition of the Beatles catalogue would allow them to harness all of the Beatlemania that's taking place tomorrow and get some attention for (theoretically) the latest rounds of iPods and a new version of iTunes.

 I could be wrong, natcherly. But there are two things I'm not expecting Apple to talk about during their big event on Wednesday: a tablet (you were going to ask about that, weren't you? I could tell), and Beatles tracks on iTunes.

-- A.
 
Sent from my iPhone