They Love Boys...

Who knew that the GOP had an active NAMBLA wing? To start, Dennis Hastert and John A. Boehner did.

Trader Joe's Midtown Atlanta

has finally made TJ's coming soon list. In fact, the facade is almost done at the Midtown Promanade shopping center, former home of the sketchtastic Save-Rite store. I'm as excited as a little girl. Really.

Colbert on Macaca

My Own iTV Experiment...

Yesterday, I hooked up our new MacBook to the second HDMI input on the plasma (I knew I needed a second digital input!) for the first time.

I just watched the Illinois-Louisville Final Four game, which I had downloaded from IlliniTorrent and transcoded to H.264 MPEG-4. The video was streamed from my G5 PowerMac to my MacBook in 480p over my Airport network. It was just a test, to see how well this all works.

Bottom Line: If the iTV is even close to my little experiment in quality and experience as the experiment, it's going to be a success.

There was more than enough bandwidth to FF/REW without buffer lag and I was able to watch the whole thing without any sort of clunkiness. This is over a 801.11g network. Imagine if Apple installs 801.11n hardware into the thing (which is probably why Apple is delaying the thing anyway). You're looking at 720p (or better) movies that you own, streamed over a home network to a STB attached to your projector or TV.

:drool

In Trial Prep Mode

so updates will be few and far between for the next ten days. But check this out.

Awwww....Snap!

PC Magazine's laptop and desktop reliability studies are in....

Desktop:

Look no further than Apple, the leader of the pack, whose overall score holds steady at 9.1. Last year, Apple's score on units needing repair was an impressive 11 percent—well below that of any other company in the survey. But according to readers, the company has managed to cut repair rates even further over the past 12 months. This year, Apple's score on units needing repair drops to 8 percent. Among first-year systems, it's only 5 percent. That's nothing less than astonishing.

As we've said in the past, Mac owners are unusually passionate about their machines, and this may have had an effect on the company's unusually high Service and Reliability scores. But the score for percentage needing repair is less subjective than others. Either Apple is doing something right when it comes to quality control, or its restrictive warranty makes people less likely to have their systems repaired.

Just how satisfied are Mac owners? That 9.1 overall score is significantly better than the average for Windows PCs. And the same can be said of the company's scores for reliability and the likelihood of recommending. It should be noted, however, that Apple's score on technical support is down this year (from 8.4 to 8.1).

Laptop:

Why do we separate notebooks from desktops? Well, in terms of service and reliability, the best desktop companies don't always manufacture the best notebook computers, and vice versa. Yes, Apple gets it right on both counts. This year, yet again, the Mac is a Readers' Choice for notebooks as well as desktops. But the other Readers' Choice for notebooks, Lenovo/IBM, receives some of the lowest desktop scores. And Sony, so ­impressive on the desktop side, is merely aver­age when it comes to notebooks.

...

Once again, Apple is at the top. Its overall score, 9.1, is significantly better than the average for Windows notebooks—and a full seven-tenths of a point better than Lenovo's overall score, 8.4. Its scores for reliability (9.2), tech support (8.5), and likelihood of recommending (9.4) are also significantly better than average. Yes, its score on percentage needing repair is merely average, but at 16 percent, it's the lowest of the survey (alongside Sony's 16 percent).

Is this a function of that unique passion Apple users have for the company's products? Perhaps. But, again, it's hard to question the number of units needing repair. Among first-year systems, only 7 percent needed repair—2 points better than Sony.

Offered Without Comment

Pour a 40 Out on the Curb

for my 4G iPod. I think it's dead after two years. That's really too bad, it was a trooper and went through a lot.

Osama and Whitney Sitting in a Tree....

Osama apparently "had a crush on singer-cum-actress Whitney Houston and wanted to make her his wife after killing her husband Bobby Brown." I knew it, the world would be a better place if Osama's power were harnessed for good things (like offing Bobby Brown).

Condi: UN's Job Not to Disarm Hezbollah

"I don't think there is an expectation that this (U.N.) force is going to physically disarm Hezbollah," Rice said. "I think it's a little bit of a misreading about how you disarm a militia. You have to have a plan, first of all, for the disarmament of the militia, and then the hope is that some people lay down their arms voluntarily."

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. was heard saying "This is exactly the type of can-do, get-tough, my-way-or-the-highway attitude I was talking about." Also, the obligatory John "I am the walrus" Bolton picture:



Complimentary obligatory Dieter Zetsche picture: