James McNally – Page 178 – Consolation Champs

Macworld SF 2002

Mondays are my day off, and so I curled up in front of my computer screen today to watch Steve work his magic. And, though there were some interesting announcements, I was a little underwhelmed. I kept waiting for his trademark, “Oh, and one more thing…” but it never came. The iMacs are funny looking, but they’ll grow on me, and iPhoto is a great idea (though runs pretty slow on my computer, 1000+ photos notwithstanding), but I was expecting more.

Though that’s probably not to blame, I’ve just been feeling sad all day. So I went out and finally found the soundtrack CD for The Royal Tenenbaums, which is just perfect bittersweet music for nursing a sad mood. Listen to me: ignore the sudden swarm of war movies, which glorify violence and blind patriotism, and go see this movie, instead. You’ll be glad you did.

New Writing

The new issue of Digital Web is out, and in it I review Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler‘s fine book Web ReDesign: Workflow That Works. I’ve also added that review plus one called 9/11: How We Used the Web to my table of CONTENT section. It was something I wrote a few weeks after the events commenting on how we used the web to cope in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Mac Rumours

I’m a Mac user, less fanatical than some, but still pretty excited by the upcoming Macworld conference in San Francisco next week. One of the rumour sites is reporting that Apple will announce the availability of a new PDA device called iWalk. From the pictures and video on the site (which many believe are fake), it looks bulky and large. Still, I can’t help but get excited. What other computer maker is innovating like this? Even Apple’s own site can’t help getting excited. The front page has been teasing us with hype for the past few days. This had better be good.

Interesting Critique

Interesting critique of Wes Anderson’s films, though I happen to love the Futura! (via Haughey)

Stuart Adamson R.I.P.

Sorry to start the year off on a downer, but I just found out that Stuart Adamson, lead singer of Scottish band Big Country, was found dead in a hotel room in Honolulu on December 20. He’d struggled with alcoholism but until recently had been sober for more than a decade. Big Country were always considered a bit of a one hit wonder here in North America, but in reality they had a string of solid albums and Adamson was clearly a gifted songwriter. What is it about the music industry that chews people up so predictably?