"a strange fellow here" pt. 2 troilus and cressida: iii, iii

On Friday V. asked me if I could take care of going down to the Apple store near us and picking up the new OS, Leopard, for our computers. No problem. It's a little bit of a big deal, I thought, so I'll get there a touch before it becomes available at six, like at 5:45.

So I arrive at 5:45 to find a line of people that is no joke like 200 people long. At first I thought it was only 50 people long until I looked a little more carefully to see that it had wound its way around a mall kiosk selling Dead Sea Salt beauty products (their employees' sales tactic seems to be to wait until a girl walks by and then timidly approach her, saying "Can I ask you a question?" I've never found out what the question they want to ask is because I usually say something like "oh, no, sorry, I'm in a big hurry," even if I'm walking at a snail's pace).

But I digress. So I join this line and stand there for a few minutes. The dude in front of me turns around and looks at me a couple times and gives me a little smile; I respond with a polite tight-lipped smile of my own. Finally, he addresses me.

"Here to buy the new OS?"

I look at him for a moment to see if he's for real. I am, after all, standing in a line fully 200 fricking people long, a line of people who are ostensibly all here for the same, single purpose of purchasing the new OS.

"Well, yeah. I mean, I'm standing in line," I say, finally.

He nods. Then a moment of silence, and then it suddenly strikes me to return the question. "Are you?"

"No," he says, matter-of-factly. "I'm gonna check it out, but I'm not going to buy it tonight."

I look at him for a moment in bewilderment.

"I'm just here for the experience," he explains.

Right, of course. The experience of standing in a line of 200 people for 45 minutes on a Friday night. What else is there to do?

"o brave new world" the tempest: v, i

So I absolutely must have the new iPhone.

Oh, I know, I know, it's $499 - $599; it's an unecessary commodity; it's replacing items I already have.

Did you catch the important letter in that last clause? I'll give you a hint. The letter is "s".

It's replacing itemS I already have.

Holy Mother of God -- this thing is fucking amazing!!!! When I first read the story on it on CNN, my attitude was that, yeah, it's cool, but something I could live without. I mean, I have a phone I like already (I even get complements on it - it's tiny and it slides open), and I am also lucky enough to have an iPod already, and it's only a year old.

But oh my gosh the iPhone is SO AWESOME. Check out the specs on the site, seriously. And, truly, please believe me when I say I am not someone who usually jumps up at every new gadget and must have it. I mean, I like my technology and all, but I try to be reasonable. But this little beauty allows you to talk on the phone, or listen to music, or browse the internet and access email using a real web browser - and there aren't any fucking buttons! It's all touch-screeen, but a new touch-screen technology that disregards unintended motions. Oh, and it has a proximity sensor that tells it when you put the phone to your ear so you don't make erroneous selections with the side of your face while talking. Oh, and also, it has a sensor that tells it when you turn it on its side and flips to landscape view automatically. And check out the new music browsing interface, in which you actually flip through album cover art in the same way you would look at a record collection.

If you have like an hour to spare, check out the video of Steve Jobs introducing it. I intended to watch only a moment of it, but I was sucked in, watching Steve Jobs work his voodoo mojo on the salivating hippie geeks at the MacWorld conference. They could barely contain themselves, and, boy, did Steve know how to work it. The whole thing was a masterpiece. I actually couldn't watch the whole thing - there were too many other people trying to watch the video at the same time and my connection was lost. I'm telling you, this thing is about to blow wide open -- this is the wave of the fricking future. I think that with this invention, we might be able to achieve world peace.


***

In other news, Paris Hilton is a fucking dumbass. Muchos muchos gracias to the lovely and talented Katie Schwartz for being an alert reader of pop culture and making me aware of this fucking gem. It's positively breathtaking on so many levels. If you want to feel good about yourself today for not being a dumbass, this video is sure to do the trick.