Dudley the Snow Pug

Snow Bunnies, Don Your Apparel

Looks like the Burning Dog: Pray for Snow Party had it's message heard. There's at least 5 inches of snow outside.

A big first snow is always nice.

Optical Media is Dead

And Steve Jobs has declared it so. Or at least he will in January.

Rumors abound that an ultra-light notebook is coming from Apple in January. Certainly intriguing, as I'd really like a tiny laptop just to surf the Internet on the couch or when I'm on the go.

The big news here is that they will be excluding an optical drive for CD/DVD use. Sounds kooky to most. I'm unsure of exact dates, but I recall that Apple was the first computer company to ship a computer without a floppy drive on the original iMac. I can't even remember the last time I've seen a floppy disk. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing the DVD go the way of the floppy, though I think this will take many years longer. In some ways, I still like the idea of a physical DVD to take home and watch.

As one poster from the linked site above put it:

That's why there will not be any Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drives on any Mac Pro. The HD format war is over before a winner has been declared.

Optical media is SO 1990's.

This is Apple's trojan horse for their idea of completely removing any optical drive and distributing everything via digital download. They will be the pioneers of yet another kooky idea that in ten years people will proclaim as genius. I just feel sorry for all the movie rental employees, though I don't feel sorry for the companies themselves. For too long, DVDs have been too costly to rent. $4+ to rent a new release? Are you kidding me?

Another Tease

A behind the scenes preview of season 5 of The Wire:

October, Where Have Ye Gone?

Only two more days left. You were just here. Where did you go? Can we freeze time so it's October every day?

Summer is hot and sticky. People are generally irritable. Summer does have one thing that no other season has...females in scant clothing. Winter brings the depressing holidays and massive germ infections. Spring brings allergies and an obligation to clean something.

October, by all measures, is nearly perfect.

It happens every year: it goes by too fast. My birthday is smack dab in the middle of it. A lot of my major life events happened in October, both good and bad. I joined the Navy in October, got married the first time in October, and my grandma passed away in October. Well, those are all bad. I almost forgot: the divorce from my first marriage was in October, so there is something good.

October brings pumpkins, raking leaves in the yard, cinnamon cappucinos, cooking that first pot of chili of the season, and the winter beers starting to populate store shelves around town. No other time of year comes close. October is as good as it gets.

What other month has a 'fest and type of beer named after it?

In Missoula, there are some streets you can drive down and see nothing but sidewalks covered with leaves all the way to the edge of Mt. Sentinel.

It can't last forever, but at least there are 31 days.

October, won't you stay a little longer? I really don't like December.