Matt Stempeck

Matt

  • New Toys

    Tuesday is Macworld, meaning Apple will be releasing some new products. I’m pretty excited. The iPhone and “true video” (full screen) iPod are both rumored to be imminent.

    videoipod.jpg

    People have all kinds of wild expectations for both, but I think the key to the iPhone will be far more subtle than doing everything for everyone. Apple will make it easy to use with your computer. Companies like Verizon cripple the file transferring features in their phones so that they can charge you $4 for a 30 second clip of a song you’ve already purchased three different ways. They lost a class-action lawsuit over this, but their philosophy is still backwards. It’s my phone, it’s my data, I shouldn’t have to buy some $40 cable to connect the two. There’s still plenty of room for innovation, and hopefully Apple will be the one to pull it off.

    iphone.JPG

    Apple gave away a great audio player, iTunes, completely free. Except that once you’ve used iTunes to manage your 65 gig MP3 library, you just can’t go back to Winamp. And so you buy an iPod. And suddenly that free program made you excited to buy a $250 MP3 player. CNET predicts Apple will do the same thing with the iPhone.Another cool toy is the iTV, which will let you watch all your pirated video on the TV in your living room, just like the iPod let you listen to all your pirated audio.

    Anyway, I want a new cellphone and I’m going to hold out and see what this iPhone looks like, if it exists. I don’t use the word ‘need’, because my old phone works perfectly well, but given the looks I’m getting lately when I pull it out I should probably upgrade. The dream of carrying just my cellphone with me, instead of a cellphone, MP3 player, and camera, is so close, yet so far.

    I’m a pretty big believer in Apple and always have been (or at least since the original iMac). That being said, I’ve been using an iBook at work (is it even possible for liberal creative types to use anything else?) and I’m really not that impressed. Part of the problem is that I know how to do everything I want to on a PC and I feel like an idiot on an Apple when I can’t get a screenshot or print double-sided paper, but even after I found out how to do those things, they’re still kind of a pain in the ass. To someone who has never used a computer before, an Apple makes way more sense. To someone who has, a PC does.

    The other thing I hate about Apple is their new commercials. The hipster represents everything people hate about Mac users and you wish you could reach into the screen and smack the smug out of his face. The format has led to some entertaining parodies, however, such as the one below that pretty accurately compares the PS3 and the Wii and helps explain why the Wii’s kicking ass.

  • ps3 vs wii

  • Children of Men

    I saw this last week and it was amazing. The director, Alfonso Cuaron, is the guy who did Y Tu Mama Tambien (the first movie with subtitles I really liked) and Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban (the first really good Harry Potter movie).

    Slate calls it the movie of the millennium, because…it’s about our millennium:

    Though it’s set in the London of 2027, Cuarón’s film isn’t some high-tech, futuristic fantasy. It takes place in a grimly familiar location: the hell we are currently making for ourselves.

    The scariest thing about the movie was its plausibility. That, and the amazing camera angles and scenes shot like the cinematic clips interspersed throughout video games (specifically Half Life 2) that completely reset your expectations of how action flows:

    The sound and production design lay the groundwork for a convincing dystopia, but it’s Cuarón’s daring, fluid camera that brings this terrible world to life.

    But it’s emotionally powerful too. We take for granted the hope for the future that children provide, especially when you’re not around them for months on end, but this film reminds us how important they are to our nature. There’s one scene where raw humanity momentarily overcomes the din of battle that will stir anyone alive. I agree that Christmas day was an appropriate release date:

    Children of Men is a modern-day nativity story that’s far more moving and even, in its way, reverent than the current film by that name.

    This is definitely one of those movies that leaves you wanting an epilogue, and maybe also a prequel and sequel, but while Cuaron creates such rich worlds he also respects the audience enough to leave things open-ended.

    I clearly can’t write movie reviews, so go see it.

    Oh, and bonus points for using one of the most tragically beautiful songs I have ever heard, Sigur Ros’ Hoppipolla, in the trailer:
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=cwsgkurfCjE

  • Smoke free, DC

    Today, bars, restaurants, and workplaces across DC are at last smoke-free.

    No longer will Garret and Gwen come home with random burns on their skin from drunk girls waving fire around with reckless abandon.

    No longer will carcinogenic secondhand smoke be blown in our faces.

    But most importantly, this is a victory in the battle against unnecessary laundering. No longer will a perfectly clean sweatshirt or pair of jeans have to be washed simply because I spent twenty minutes at a happy hour.

    From the Smokefree DC FAQ:

    What’s wrong with smoking and non-smoking sections? Isn’t that a good way to make everybody happy?
    No. Smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants are misnomers. Smoke travels; it knows no boundaries. Having smoking and non-smoking sections is like have peeing and non-peeing sections in a swimming pool – it doesn’t work. Like that yellow substance in the water, smoke circulates, and everybody is exposed to it.
    Won’t bars and restaurants lose business if they go smokefree?
    No. Every reliable study of sales tax data shows that in localities that have gone smokefree, business is just as good – if not better – than when smoking was permitted.

  • The President’s Dead

    Probably going to go see Ford lying in state this weekend, if only out of pity. The poor guy was chosen for his bland loyalty and every newscast I’ve seen covering his life has included a shot of him falling down stairs, being impersonated by Chevy Chase, or both. Meanwhile, they practically canonized Reagan this summer. Do you think when Bush dies they’ll replay every line he flubbed?

    Ford’s death reminded me of a great song I’ve been meaning to share. It applies more to the way people remember JFK than Ford, but it’s pretty apolitical.

    Okkervil River – The President’s Dead (mp3)

    Let’s imagine the way, let’s say 30 years in,
    How somebody will say, “What you were doing when…?”
    On a beautiful day, I was waking up and
    I was lying in bed with my girlfriend
    And the eggs on the plate, and the bacon hissin’
    And the coffee was great, there was spring on the wind.

    If you don’t live through a day for the littlest things,
    And the littlest ways made you feel you were blessed
    If you died right then, well you know you’d be missed,
    But there’s no better state to cease to exist.

    More year-end music from Salon

  • Spam Subject Lines in My Inbox

    • impale Westchester
    • Celebrity Baby Naked Ambition
    • He said she won’t even show him her ass.
    • Christmas are coming!

    There are actually a number of tributes to the sentient / poetic nature of these randomized lines, such as the Spam Subject Line Museum.

    Remember when spam actually tried to sell you something, and didn’t focus on just getting through your spam filter?

    Cartoons inspired by spam subjects: Spamusement.

    spamuse.gif

    (She has a surprise in her pants!)

  • Memories advertising has perverted for me this week

    (in order of outrage)

    1. A Christmas Story – Cingular

    2. “Something to Talk About”, Badly Drawn Boy, from the About a Boy soundtrack – Hummer

    3. The Apollo moon landing – Red Bull

  • Liberate the People’s Republic of Cambridge

    From: Justin

    Justin’s birthday gift to me was better late than never, and actually pretty sweet. He got me two shirts from a company called Brandwashed. The company prints all of its invoices, etc. on looseleaf paper, and sent along about 20 stickers of other shirt designs in a fresh-scented “sanitary napkin” bag. Below are some of the more entertaining t-shirts available. They also have a few other cities available, in case you’re not from metropolitan Boston.

    Justin got me this one:

    defend_boston_01_lg.gif

    and it also came with this one free:

    fenway_01_lg.gif

    Other fun shirts:

    liberate_01_lg.gif
    nuke_newbury_st_01_lg.gif
    worcester_01_lg.gifallston_offend_01_lg.gifdorchester_02_lg.gifdefend_brighton_01_lg.gif

  • I’ve got a problem with you people!

    “At the Festivus dinner, you gather your family around…and tell them all the ways they disappointed you in the last year”

    My friends and I have been celebrating Festivus for years, first encouraged by Mr. Croft in Idea of Man, and then on our own. We focus primarily on the Airing of Greivances. The contributions have grown a little weak as we spend less and less time annoying each other (it’s particularly sad when the most contact you’ve had someone is reading their away message), but alcohol can usually be counted on to bring out some old pet peeves.

    One of my all-time favorite grievances (against me) was when Chris launched a passionate attack about how I misled elementary school classmates about the name-brand quality of the cereal his mom bought. I don’t remember doing this, but I do remember that she bought Hydrox instead of Oreos, which is one of those substitutions you just can’t make in life. Of course, the Tringale household benefitted from a liberal 3-cookies-each policy, while my parents stuck to an authoritarian limit of two cookies per serving.

    And apparently we’re not alone in celebrating a holiday that originated in a mid-90’s sitcom: Sales of aluminum poles are skyrocketing.

    So whatever your holiday, I hope it’s a good one.  And a merry one, if it’s tomorrow.

    Festivus video below…YouTube makes you do it this way now.  Nice purchase, Google.

  • It’s a Festivus miracle!

  • FIRED

    Cool by association?

    It’s getting to the point where even if I haven’t done anything all that screamingly cool with my life, at least I know people who have. Or know people who know people that have.

    One example is my coworker Jason’s friend, who got fired from a play by Woody Allen (I’m pretty sure he told her she “looked retarded”) and managed to parlay it into what looks to be an entertaining film that features David Cross, Sarah Silverman, Andy Dick, and other comedians.  It also explores the nature of downsizing and the culture of firing in the U.S.

    This is the really cool thing about the age we’re living in. For all its excesses and lame reality TV stars, there are also smart, creative people who turn getting canned into a big success.

    Anyway, check it out: FIRED

  • You’re the person of the year. Now do something with your life.

    I guess no one told at Time filled in their sponsor, Chrysler, who was going to win Person of the Year, because their ad starts with “You might not be the Person of the Year” and then links to a cover story titled: Time’s Person of the Year: You.  Chrysler’s folly aside, Time’s pick was pretty weak.

    I buy a lot of the hype about how the Internet has revolutionized life as we know it and will continue to do so (especially the worlds of politics and traditional media), but I gotta say that Time’s stunt is just that: a trick to sell magazines.  It might be clever if this was the first time they messed with the idea that it normally goes to an individual, but they just gave it to “the American soldier” in 2003.  Even that wasn’t new, seeing as they gave it to “the American fighting man” in 1950.  Plus, they already gave it to the computer in 1982.  I guess that didn’t include people who use computers, and now they’re making up for it?  Oh, and George W. Bush has won it twice, in 1990 with his father and on his own in 2004.  Hat trick, anyone?

    From: Justin
    Anyway, Justin looks at CollegeHumor more than anyone I know, despite being like three years out of college, but he found a good video honoring those Time deemed worthy of its highest honor.

    2006: Year of the Crotch-Shot