Less Than Two Days Away

I went to the first Texas Latin Dance practice today and it was a lot of fun (after they were done lecturing about why the club is so great for a while). I can't blame them for trying to build up the club's reputation, but I think everyone was ancy to get started, and it made me feel really good to dance one-on-one with women again and know what I was doing. I have high hopes for this semester in many ways. Anyway, what I also wanted to talk about today was Apple's special event on Tuesday, and their theme for it is, "It's Showtime," which is a pretty lucid sign that they'll be opening the movie store at the very least. What else will they release though? A number of sources seem to be hammering a new AirPort Express device to stream encrypted video content in addition to the existing audio functionality, which would do wonders for your living room. I can totally see this happening though, and it would give them a much needed edge over Amazon. The only drawback will be pricing, and I hope that they'll manage to crunch some numbers there. There's also been strong buzz of a new iPod that's not touchscreen but is higher capacity, and I can see that happening as well, especially with the Nano. It would actually be stupid if Apple didn't upgrade them given that iPod sales have begun to taper off, and they're clearly overpriced right now when you look at that NAND flash memory market. What's exciting about this event is that they haven't used any keywords to signify that it's minor, and it's not the keynote of some conference, which means that these new things are big enough to warrant their own special event. I'm sure that we'll see more than any of us are expecting, and I'd be shocked if we didn't (I knew WWDC was going to be minor stuff, so don't use that against me here, that was just a keynote address for developers, not consumers). Oh, and if you wonder what Jobs will wear, this will give you a push in the right direction.

As a follow up to my last post: I just found out that you shouldn't clear out your prefetch folder to speed up your boot-up time, so forget that you ever learned that and read this to find out more on why. Business 2.0 has a concise article about the reality of Vista, which is that people really aren't going to care about it much. Sure, it'll make money just because it's a new version of the biggest OS in the world, but they've failed to invigorate the franchise, and I think it'll hurt them in the long run. There's no quantum leap here, and the neat things it does have shouldn't have taken 5 years to develop. Plus, will people spring for the extra features on the super-duper editions? Probably not, because people like to simplify their computing. Google Maps/Earth has received a pretty decent upgrade in satellite photos, so take a look at your local areas and see if you notice places on there now that should've been there before. Lastly, if you're interested in checking out music from artists you may randomly hear about, a situation I find myself in often, then you'll love Blogmusik. It's a very simple little Flash page that allows you to search for artists/songs and play them on an iPod-like interface.

The box office this weekend was pretty horrible with the #1 movie being The Covenant at a pitiful $9 million. I guess not enough people were interested in the movies out now? I thought Hollywoodland looked pretty decent though, and shouldn't have made 2/3 of The Covenant's grosses. Also, do people not like action anymore? What's up with The Protector getting just $5 million?! The only good news what the second Pirates of the Caribbean breaking the $1 billion mark. The only other thing to talk about is that Grind House now has a few more cast members, including horror director Eli Roth.



Oh yeah, anything little thing I forgot to mention, Texas lost to Ohio State on Saturday, 24-7. It was heart-wrenching, but we had quite an amazing first half. As I see it, the two biggest mistakes of the game caused irreparable damage to the team's confidence: the first quarter fumble and the third (I think?) quarter interception. I'm proud of McCoy's showing early on though and only wish that he hadn't lost heart in the fourth quarter. It wasn't his fault that receivers were dropping the balls or that the defense was having a hard time gauging Troy Smith's passes. OSU won fair and square in a remarkably well-officiated match, and I salute them for that. We can't win them all though, and we can't win a national championship every year. I think our team has a great foundation to be trained up for a bowl game this year and a championship run next year.

Now for some Unconscious Mutterings:

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. True love :: Romance


2. Age :: Sex (I'm thinking Age/Sex/Location from way back when)


3. Stern :: Howard


4. Elastic :: Band


5. Rustic :: Pastoral


6. Enhance :: Augmentation


7. Jackson :: Janet


8. Inherit :: the Earth (according to the Bible, the meek will do this)


9. Devious :: Dubious


10. Scapegoat :: Blame