Daily
1. Went to Richmond this evening to 1) pick up some matboard; 2) go to Home Depot (the Lowe’s boycott joyfully continues); and 3) go to the Apple Store! The “Short Pump Town Center” where it’s located creeps me out big time - it’s just so very faux: Faux town, faux community, faux everything - not to mention the overflowing yup-white commercialism seeping from every brick of that place. But having said that, I admit to being an utter and total sucker for the Apple Store. Gawd, that place is sweet. And turns me into a total consumer (or consumer wanna-be anyway). Of course, it’s nowhere near as swanky as Apple Stores in big cities, but even the Richmond version feels like the High Temple of all things MacCool.
I was having a conversation with The Girl last weekend about the circumstances of buying your first iPod - mine came about from the first time I had my hands on one in an Apple Store. I had seen iPods and knew a little about them, but didn’t really think I had much of a use for one. I was in the store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago (the biggest, coolest, Most Holy of the ones I’ve visited), just looking around. I picked one up and played with it. They must have known I was coming - there was a Be Good Tanyas song loaded onto it. The sound, the music, the ease of use, the design, the feel. It was perfect. I didn’t buy one then, but it made for a much appreciated birthday present a few months later. Such is the hypnotic power of the Apple Store.
So today I was in Richmond and got my hands on my first iPhone. I can’t say I have to have one in the same way I felt about the iPod, but I will say it’s an awesome cool device - I can understand why they are selling so fast.
But anyway, the only thing I bought today was a cool little accessory that allows you to connect your digital camera to your iPod and transfer all the photos on the memory card to the iPod’s hard drive, allowing you to reuse the card. I have a portable card hard drive now that serves the same purpose, but the battery (which doesn’t seem to be replaceable) is almost dead to the point of it being not reliable, plus this will let me carry one less thing around.
2. This deserves to be passed along: Doug Thompson’s American gestapo: Abuse of power by National Park Service police. I thought about going to Floyd Fest last weekend. The Patriot Act comes to our own back yard.
3. This just made me laugh.
