I love football. I hate football. I love football.

So, it was a Sunday afternoon, and I turn on the TV, pop open a Yuengling, and settle in for an entire day of NFL goodness. The Eagles were playing the Titans at 1pm, and I was looking forward to McNabb and crew finally getting back on track after a lousy three game stretch. I flipped to the local FOX affiliate and discover they’re showing a Redskins game instead of the Eagles. Despite my initial anger, this was probably the best thing that happened all day.
If you follow football at all, you know that during the Eagles/Titans game, Donovan McNabb went down with a torn ACL. That’s bad. The collision that led to the injury didn’t even look like a bad one, but as soon as I saw the replay of it during a game break, I knew McNabb would be on the shelf for a while. When you’re an Eagles fan (or a Phillies, Flyers or Sixers fan, for that matter), you always expect the worst.
With McNabb out for the rest of the season, and possible a good chunk of next season, there was no hope for my beloved Eagles to even come close to competing for a wild card spot in the playoffs, right? Wrong. This past Monday night, the Eagles, led by former pro-bowler, Jeff Garcia, beat the Panthers to pull into a tie with everyone else in the NFC for a wild card spot. Hope lingers on in the city of Philadelphia. Thank goodness the NFC really stinks.
The funny thing about sports in Philly, is that there’s always a glimmer of hope. A small, frustrating, excruciating glimmer, when the Eagles look like a Super Bowl team for a four game stretch, or the Phillies put together a run at a wild card spot that falls short. It would almost be better if there was NO hope, year after year. Then there would be no inevitable let-down.
But watching sports is more fun when you think your team could win it all. Even though a Philadelphia pro-sports team hasn’t won a championship since 1983, the longest drought of any city with all four pro-sports (football, baseball, basketball and hockey) franchises, there’s always a little bit of hope that this might be the year. That hope keeps me glued to the TV on Sunday, yelling, swearing and occasionally doing a little victory dance.
The Eagles won’t win the Super Bowl this season. But, there’s always next year when, hopefully, a healthy McNabb will return, and the defense will be shored up a bit. And the Phillies, with young MVP Ryan Howard slugging away, might be able to break through one of these years. And the Sixers and the Flyers … uh … well … ummmmm …
So, how ’bout them Eagles?

Here they come …

The Zune is coming out tomorrow, and I could really care less about it. Some people think it looks like a cool device. Me? Not so much. Nothing against Microsoft or their ability to do the consumer electronics thing (I wouldn’t mind owning an Xbox), I just don’t think they hit the nail on the head with the Zune.

For starters, they’re hitting up the wrong market. If you want to take on the iPod, you’ve got to move in on territory that it doesn’t already dominate. To me, it would have made more sense for Microsoft to come out with a really slick music-playing cell phone and beat Apple to that market. The cell-phone-as-a-music-player market has a lot of entries, but very few that are really compelling. The “best” so far is probably considered to be LG’s Chocolate. And that’s not so good.

And, stop me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t the best selling iPod model the nano? I believe it used to be, if it isn’t still. The Shuffle is also pretty popular. The young crowd (high school and college age kids), which Microsoft covets, tend to lean more towards the smaller, sexier music players. The bigger iPod might hold more songs and play videos, but there’s just something irresistible about the tiny nano and even tinier shuffle. And the Zune is even larger than the video iPod. Features are important, and the Zune has a few that the iPod (currently) does not, but sleek design sells.

While I’m on the topic of music, I saw Primus over the weekend in Philly. For those in the know, the title of my blog comes from a Les Claypool song. So you could say I’m a bit of a Primus fan. The concert was really good. The band was tight and they played the songs that you would expect them to play. But there was something kind of weird about the show. Yes, it was good, and I enjoyed it a great deal, but it ended rather abruptly and it seemed as if the band was talking with the sound guys an awful lot. Were there technical difficulties? Was something going on off-stage? I don’t know. I just left feeling a bit unfulfilled; as if there was supposed to be more to the show, but it got cut off short. Oh well. It was still a good time.

Rasputina was the opening act. I knew of them before the show, but had never really heard much of their music. I was impressed. Great musicianship, smart lyrics … there wasn’t much not to like. Now, chicks playing distorted cellos might not do it for everyone, but it sure won me over. If you’re adventurous, check ‘em out. If you only listen to the top 40, check ‘em out anyway. It might be the first music that wasn’t a steaming pile of ear feces that you’ve probably heard in a while.

Mac Developers Thinking Different

I got my invitation to MacHeist yesterday and I gotta say, I’m pretty stoked.

If you don’t know what MacHeist is, go here.

I’ve been using Macs since the early 90’s, when I was just a kid (I’m 25, for the record). I remember “The Dark Times;” that horrible stretch between 1995 and 1999 when it looked like Apple was going to die a pitiful death. During that time, you were probably pretty lucky that ANYONE was developing software for the MacOS. It certainly wasn’t like today, when you can go to Versiontracker or MacUpdate and find all kinds of great shareware and freeware apps. At no point that I can remember has there been such a vast catalog of Mac software. Marketing stunts like MacHeist and it’s predecessor, My Dream App, are proving that not only is there a very active and growing base of talented Mac developers, but those developers are willing to use creative methods to draw attention to their products.

Of course, not everyone is all about these elaborate publicity stunts. Paul of Rogue Amoeba posted a very well thought out article arguing that “The Delicious Generation” as he calls this new wave of Mac developers, is mostly style with very little substance.

To a certain extent, he’s right. Some of the apps out there look really cool, but do basically nothing. The thing is, I don’t see where slick marketing and a focus on aesthetics is a bad thing. Of course, functionality isn’t something that should be sacrificed, but why can’t an application be functional AND beautiful?

The current poster child for hype and glitz totally overpowering actual usefulness is the new disc burning app, Disco. Is it nice to look at? Yes. Does it do everything a disc burning app that claims to “Have Toast for breakfast” should do? Uhh … No, not really. The thing to keep in mind here is that this application is still in beta. It might still turn into a killer app that’s fun and easy to use. It might become a cautionary tale. Time will tell.

The point is, the new generation of Mac developers is coming up with some pretty innovative ideas in interface design and guerrilla marketing. Some of what they’re doing might be half baked, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re generating excitement where, not too very long ago, there was none.

Paul makes the point near the end of his article that the new ideas the “Delicious Generation” is bringing to the table shouldn’t be ignored by the members of the “old school” of Mac developers. Sounds sensible to me.

Image where the Mac platform could go with developers picking up the best that the new school has to offer and combining that with old school functionality and ease of use. The Mac already seems to be entering into what I’d call a “Sliver Age.” Market share is on the rise; Mac OS X is currently the best commercial operating system out there; and there’s a growing crowd of young, ambitious developers out to change the game. For a Mac geek like myself, it’s all pretty exciting to think about.

Introducing The Phantom Patriot

I’d like to kick this thing off with a little background information.
I’m a graphic designer who worked for a small newspaper in a small town for more than two years. I mostly did page layouts, but I was also called upon to do some reporting and copy editing. Having been a part of the inner workings of a small paper (and seeing that our parent company’s much larger, flagship paper worked in pretty much the same way) I now don’t fully trust the news media.
I’m not saying everyone should get out their tinfoil hats and hunker down in the basement. Tinfoil’s itchy, and there’s only so long you can relieve yourself in an old pickle jar before things start getting messy. I just think everyone should think twice before believing everything they see, hear or read.
OK, so I’m cynical. Is that really so bad?
Right now, I’m working for a trade magazine doing cover designs and ads. I use Macs exclusively at work and at home. Let me just say that there’s never been a better time to be a Mac user. I’ll have more to say on that subject later.
If you’re wonder what to expect to read here on a regular basis, I’ll be honest with you …  I don’t really know for sure. There’s a lot of topics that interest me. I’m sure I’ll touch on all of them eventually, but for now, I’ll keep you in suspense.
So that’s pretty much it for now. I’ll have more to post in the coming days.