Obama and the Apple iPad

Anyone else notice a lot of funny parallels between Obama’s first year as President and the unveiling of the Apple iPad last week? Both faced unreasonable expectations for success, and neither one has truly delivered on those expectations… yet.

But the structure is there, and with a few tweaks, both still have amazing potential.

Reality

*Sigh*

I was highly involved in music and theater in both high school and college. Heck, I even got a Master’s Degree in playwriting. But through all of that, I never once lost sight of reality and expected to make my living doing that stuff. It was fun, and I’m glad I did it. But I also grew up.

Through the invention of Facebook, I have been catching up with a lot of people from my high school and college days. I’m shocked at how many of them never let those dreams go. Some are actually getting work as actors or musicians, and I’m happy for them. But some are waiting tables or working crappy retail jobs and still waiting for that “big break” that never comes. This makes me sad, but I also kind of wonder what went wrong.

I think our education system sometimes encourages this kind of thing. The activities kids do in high school like sports, music, speech, drama, and so forth are all great. But kids form their identities at that age, and there are very few people who actually have careers in sports and entertainment.

So reach for your dreams, kids. But don’t lose sight of the ground, or you’ll fall on your ass. And also, never make a Facebook page and ask all your friends to become your “fans”. Wait until you have actual fans, or people are just going to laugh at you.

Seriously.

Stress

I had a weirdly stressful day today. I’m so glad it’s over. The dregs of 2009 are still lingering, and I wish they would just go away already.

For the last time, I don’t like Mudkips!

Have you ever had someone try and explain a meme to you exhaustively, hoping at any minute, you’ll actually laugh? And then when you don’t, they assume you don’t get it? And the whole time you’re thinking, “That meme hasn’t been funny for years. Where has this guy been?”

Or maybe it’s a brand new meme, but you just don’t find it particularly funny. You still have to endure it, or abstain from the internet. (And let’s face it, that’s not really an option for any of us.)

I hate to say it, but the meme meme is starting to get old, my friends. Or maybe I am. *sigh*

Netflix

Alas, how I will miss your 8-at-a-time plan, but winter break is over, and I must return to reality. See you again this summer, maybe.

Over 9TB

So my server got a Blu-Ray drive for Christmas. As of tonight, the videos folder sits at 4.5 TB. How long will it take to get to 9 TB?

A Christmas Wish

Dear God,

I have only one wish this Christmas. Let tomorrow be the crappiest Christmas I’ll ever have. I realize this is a strange request, so allow me to explain. Never before have I felt so broke, stressed, and unprepared for the holidays. I have very little to offer friends and family in the way of gifts this year. I am ashamed of this, and only hope they can accept our love instead.

But all of my friends and family are healthy and well. We’ve managed to weather the economic storm of 2009 without any major setbacks. We still have our home, our cars, our clothes, and our sanity. We haven’t gone hungry for even one day.

So even though this Christmas is kind of a bummer, I can only sincerely hope this is the worst I’ll ever face.

Amen.

Avatar

There are no words. Just go see it.

The eBook Situation

So I’ve got Kindle for iPhone, and I absolutely love reading books on it. But I’ve held off on buying very many because I wanted to play the “wait and see” game with the Nook, etc. Since the devices themselves hold very little interest for me (why would I carry around another device when my iPhone works great?), it’s the distribution platforms they’re based on that I’m most interested in.

So far, Amazon seems to have the best deal going, and I’m just about to pull the trigger on a whole bunch of books. I’m mainly worried about Kindle for PC and the upcoming Kindle for Mac. They look nice, but I’m not sure how the whole DRM thing works. I reinstall my operating systems with a blistering frequency, and I don’t want to end up with unreadable books.

Forgive me if I’m the only one with a memory, but I went through this whole mess years ago with Microsoft Reader. I bought a bunch of books to read on my computer and Pocket PC, but I can’t read ANY of them anymore because I “activated” them on “too many devices”, so they will no longer open.

I really hope that doesn’t happen again. Ugh. I hate DRM.

A Taste of Their Own Medicine

It seems that a lot of guys are now openly trashing New Moon. I think I know why. This movie was enjoyed by females in overwhelming numbers. Most of them went to ogle Jacob with his shirt off and/or drool over Edward’s brooding good looks. Women were openly giggling, screaming, drooling, and fainting over these hot guys. And I think the rest of you don’t like the competition.

Guess what, gentlemen? YOU’VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR YEARS. Every action movie released EVER has hot chicks, quite often taking their clothes off. So deal with it, and let us enjoy our moment for once.