June 01, 2004

iPod, annotated. For all the Monkeys who played the Blogstop games- come up with you own "i"- word. Other New Yorkers have used the Apple campaign for more pointed commentary. [via Gizmodo]
posted by ambrosia 20 years ago
  • infestation
  • Illiterate. holds his 40 gig close
  • All my girlfriends say that my 10 gig is plenty big enough...
  • It's all about I, I, I!
  • The i stands for "I want to listen to music instead of your problems because I really fail to see when and how your problems suddenly became my problems and feel free to explain it sometime when I'm not listening to something considerably more important, you stupid tit." Or something like that. Probalby should be a bit more concise.
  • I've been listening to music on the subway for years, this is just the latest conveyance of said music. or I couldn't give two shits what you think of me. I've had one since day three and if anything, I started this bandwagon.
  • Surlyboi, you are my Self Esteem Role Model Employee of the Month Personal God of Thunder. I wanna send you some Pop-Tarts, bro.
  • There is an ad, in the latest issue of Scientific American, for the Bose
  • It was very... telling, I think. Is it true that New Yorkers don't make eye contact on the subway? And why are they so crabby? Maybe I would need a mute button, too, if I lived with 20 million other people in stacked boxes... in a loud, dirty, ornery city. It seems so Orwellian. And robotic. Perhaps the "i" stands for, "I'm glad I live in the Midwest". People are friendly here: strangers say 'hello' and 'thank you'; they push your car out of the snow if you get stuck. Our houses are unlocked and we leave our cars running. New Yorkers are crabby because it's efficient. Tuning out the world helps us get through our day faster. And actually, if you really need it, a New Yorker will usually help you in a heartbeat. One needs only to look at how we pulled together after 9/11 or during last summer's blackout for examples of that. Does it take a major disaster to get us off our jaded asses? No, but those are two easy examples. Forgive my ignorance, but the iPod is just an MP3 player, right? And Apple sells songs for 99 cents? Why is any of that such a big deal? We've had (free) mp3s -- as well as mp3 players -- for years, now. Is this just an overzealous Mac people thing? No, it's not an overzealous Mac people thing, as there are probably more PC users with them now than Mac users. It's yet another fad thing. You should get it in the midwest next year sometime. =) (Insert other insensitive New Yorker vs flyover country joke here.)
  • And as for you Diz, bring on the tarts, mah buddah. =)
  • Innagaddadavida?
  • pointed commentary Shit, didn't click through to that one. Ouch!!!
  • I'm going to put in a copy of my July 16, 2002 entry from my weblog, on account of it being relevant to the discussion. The entry is titled, "Potential Energy": There's been a lot of people who have made note of the attitudes of New Yorkers, especially in relation to LA attitudes. After about 28 hours continuous hours in New York City, I have a theory about it. It must be a solid and well-researched theory, you may be thinking, for me to have waited 28 whole hours before coming up with it. Certainly, you may add, not just some pop-philosophy that you've written just because you have a web site. And you know what? I'm going to let you keep thinking that. It all has to do with Potential Energy. In Physics, Potential Energy is the amount of energy an object will have if you stop it from doing whatever it is it would like to do. For example, a ball that is held off of the ground at a height of 3 feet has a certain amount of Potential Energy, and a ball held over the ground from the top of the Statue of Liberty has more Potential Energy. Same goes with a spring that is in its tightly-coiled state. If you release the spring, then all the energy it has from being coiled (its Potential Energy) is released. In Charlottesville, you have very little Potential Energy. It's not as low as, say, Manhattan, KS, but it's not what one would call a hotbed of activity. There's enough to do (depending on your preferences), but the potential is limited. New York City, on the other hand, is a hotbed of potential. Unlike most cities, which are spread out over a decent amount of land, NYC is very compact. Everything you could want to do, you could do without travelling very far at all. LA, on the other hand, has just about everything you could want to do, but you usually have to drive a long way to do it. So you know you can, but you don't necessarily need to. In New York City, you kind of need to. With everything that is possible to do so closely, you are like a beach ball in low-earth orbit. Once it loses the power to keep it coasting in orbit, it drops to the earth in a blinding flash of light and heat. NYC residents, by the same token, seem to find that they have to spend effort to keep from doing things; they have to work to relax. Witness crossing the street in Manhattan. You could easily wait until the walk light comes on, and cross the street at that time There's plenty of time to cross the street when the walk light comes on, even at a busy time, so waiting for the walk light wouldn't really cost you much. This is not what happens, though. People spend time watching the street and waiting for a point where there are no cars coming. This usually happens about 5 to 10 seconds before the wait light comes on. When the street is clear, they cross. They don't want to waste the potential that the time savings will give them, even though it's very little time in any given instance.
  • Heh, I like that theory. =)