The shock of the Patriots loss still hangs heavy in Boston. As one of the wrap-ups in the Boston Globe noted, this year’s Super Bowl marked the sixth world championship game for New England teams in the last six years, but was the only one “we” didn’t win.
The Boston Globe’s Dan Shaugnessey had the best lead of the day, stealing an appropriate line from Don McLean’s “American Pie”.
There’ll be no Hub parade on Super Tuesday. No commemorative books about “Path to Perfection.” In New England, the church bells all are broken.
The newest free daily newspaper in town, Boston Now, apparently didn’t care enough to wait for the game to be over to print their newspaper, making it a waste of time even picking it up Monday. They managed to get a full spread color picture of Laurence Maroney’s second quarter touchdown on their front page, but the stories inside were all game-day previews. And this is isn’t the first time that they’ve gone to bed (as it’s called) too early. The day after last month’s New Hampshire presidential primary, which Hillary Clinton won despite the early polls predicting otherwise, the Now lead with a full page Barak Obama photo and had none of the previous night’s results. Newspapers need deadlines to function, but going to press so early as to make the newspaper irrelevant the next day doesn’t make much sense.
When Steve Jobs introduced the new ultra-thin MacBook Air at MacWorld two weeks ago, he pulled it out of a standard inter-office manila envelope. Apple’s television ad campaign uses that same imagery. Taking that concept to the next level, a couple of people have come up with protective sleeves for the new laptop that mimic the envelope’s stylings. The first is a sleek black bag with a limited production run (50!). Then there is the AirMail, which is already in production and promises to be delivered to your door before your MacBook Air does (which could be any day now). (via TUAW)
My good friend Ray Sullivan and I took a day trip to New Hampshire just ahead of their presidential primary a couple weeks back. We made a similar trip in 2004, visiting a bunch of the candidates headquarters and attending a Joe Leiberman speech. (The 2004 trip video is here and “Joementum” video here.)
This time out we had the day’s agendas for Clinton, Edwards and Obama and were aiming to hit a couple of events. We started with an Obama event and ended up dedicating most of the day to it. The speech was at a public high school and the initial line of people stretched down one side of the building, through a parking lot and out onto the sidewalk, where we joined it. The auditorium filled up fast and the organizers setup an overflow room in the school’s cafeteria (that’s where we were). The place was pretty chaotic: along with the hundreds of folks waiting to see Obama, there was a girls basketball game going on in an adjacent gymnasium and a youth wrestling tournament somewhere down the hall. Obama was uncharacteristically late and the speech started almost three hours after it was scheduled. Obama spoke for almost 30 minutes and then made a stop in the cafeteria to shake some hands and say a quick thank you.
It’s about time to get this site going again. Sticking with this layout for now, but look for some changes and additions as time goes on. Already updated the links on the right and will be adding more to the “about” page. And I’ve got a long post-MacWorld trip wrapup under construction. It should be up soon.
SOME HALF-DOZEN years after assuming the anchor desk at The Daily Show and transforming what had been a celebrity-driven yukfest into biting political satire, the 42-year-old Stewart and his fellow performers and writers have reached the top of the heap. Stewart was named 2004 Entertainer of the Year by Entertainment Weekly. Stewart and company’s America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction — banned by Wal-Mart for its stunningly real-looking photographs of naked Supreme Court justices — remains near the top of the bestseller lists months after it was published. Last year, surveys showed that The Daily Show was the top news source for young viewers, and that Stewart’s audience was remarkably well-informed about current events. Recently Stewart signed a new, long-term contract that will carry him through the 2008 presidential campaign.
It’s hard to imagine a brand having a shinier year than Apple. Notably punctuated with iMacs, iPods and iTunes, Apple’s 2004 presence was felt in the press, in ads and on the streets, with iPod coming to define the word “ubiquitous.†Coupled with strong revenue, Apple reported a net profit of US$ 295 million in the last quarter of 2004 alone and a 2004 overall net income growth of 300 percent. Yes, 300 percent.
At Apple’s core is great innovation, beautiful design and an ability to bring warmth and passion to those who may be completely incurious about technical gadgetry but need it nonetheless to survive in today’s world.
From U2 to “You too?,†the iPod alone sold 4.6 million units in the last quarter, practically doubling sales since its launch. (There are now about 10 million pod-addicts on the planet.) Meanwhile, iMac sales tripled as Apple’s overall computer sales rose by 26 percent over 2003 sales. Music division iTunes became the blueprint for Napster-alternative online music sales. And swanky retail outlets gave Apple enthusiasts a chance to worship or interact directly with the company as well as each other.
Apparently, I missed out on the auction for the M&M that looks like Jesus. You can’t go wrong with a description that says “other people have viewed the item and thought it looked more like Jay Leno, Elvis or other images”. And someone picked it up for $102.50. (via mightygirl.net.)
Going way back to the 80s for some early Macintosh fun. Simpsons creator Matt Groening brought his “Life in Hell” characters to an 20 page Apple sales booklet. I remember seeing them on campus in 1989 and they may have even been inserted in the campus newspaper.
Finally, the lights dimmed, and Steve Jobs appeared at a podium on the left side of the stage. He was resplendent in a finely tailored black suit complete with a prominent bow tie, looking more like a Las Vegas impresario than a computer industry executive. You could tell that he was nervous as he quieted the rousing applause and began to speak.
“Welcome to Apple’s 1984 Annual Shareholders meeting. I’d like to begin by reading part of an old poem by Dylan, that’s Bob Dylan”, Steve flashed a big smile as he started to recite the second verse of “The Times They Are A-Changin’”…
The speech is very similar to Steve’s recent keynote addresses, except that Steve hadn’t started wearing the mock turtlenecks yet.
anchor desk at The Daily Show and transforming what had been a celebrity-driven yukfest into biting political satire, the 42-year-old Stewart and his fellow performers and writers have reached the top of the heap. Stewart was named 2004 Entertainer of the Year by Entertainment Weekly. Stewart and company’s America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction — banned by Wal-Mart for its stunningly real-looking photographs of naked Supreme Court justices — remains near the top of the bestseller lists months after it was published. Last year, surveys showed that The Daily Show was the top news source for young viewers, and that Stewart’s audience was remarkably well-informed about current events. Recently Stewart signed a new, long-term contract that will carry him through the 2008 presidential campaign.
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