Iterating on Light and Dark

I hate shilling, and I’m not.

I also hate this concept that’s been thrown about that the iPhone is a gaming platform.  It’s not.  Let me repeat this again, so that everyone can understand (including the iPhone fanatics / fanboys out there):

The iPhone, while a passable communications device shrouded in “the shiny”, is not a gaming platform, and lacks the most basic of controls to appropriately, effectively provide a solid gaming experience, mobile or not.

There.  I said it.  There’s nothing wrong with this fact.  The sorts of games you can get on the iPhone that play the best are simplistic games like Bejeweled that require little in the way of precise controls and more about providing momentary diversions.

That said, I found a game that I can absolutely recommend from here on out till all of eternity:  “Fieldrunners”.  (continue reading…)

We’re actually at the end of the break period now for my office.  I can tell because last night I basically had nothing but stress dreams.

Stress dreams are a forte of mine I do quite well.  They’re almost always about work, and almost always about something I can’t quite fix or didn’t quite get done.  My dreams last night were all stress dreams (one actually “followed” me through several interruptions of awakenness.

This one signaled what I knew was impending but hadn’t managed to think about:  today is Sunday, and it’s the day before I have to go to work again.  This is not a bad thing per se:  work is actually something I enjoy a lot.  Instead, it simply means that I’m going to be going back to my regular routine which I’ve somehow managed to have forgotten entirely (or so it seems).

(continue reading…)

So, yeah.

(many of my posts will start off this way - not particularly well spoken, but beggars can’t be choosers)

My MacBook Pro was delivered while I was at the gym.  This is not a bad thing.  I come home and a tidy little package was waiting right there for me, which is fantastic.

One of the things I think Apple really does well is creating a gestalt - everything about the unboxing process, about the materials you get, all of it - it’s done in such a way to make the user feel like they’re getting something special.  I can’t imagine this doesn’t in some way aide in generating the “Macolyte” behavior / fan-boy-ism that is oft associated with the Apple brand.

(continue reading…)

Anyone who’s known me for about 30 seconds knows that, for the longest time, I’ve been a hard-core advocate of not-Apple products.

I know, I know - how is it that one can legitimately hold such a stance? They’re almost always beautiful. They almost always have some sort of “experience” wrapped around them. And Justin Long is dreamy in ways that no one else can truly be.

(no, he’s not)

Much of my irritation with Apple devices have been of the sort that obstinate geeks such as myself have with technology. Certain types of people, myself included, dislike when choices are explicitly made for you and configurations are obfuscated from you in the interest of “protecting” a user from themselves. I consider myself in that odd nether-area of pro-sumer and professional when it comes to my tech toys, and Apple in many ways does not talk to me as almost a philosophy.

(continue reading…)