I have a lot of people emailing me links to the site www.ipodsdirtysecret.com. I understand it has something to do with the iPod's horrible battery life or something (ha! battery life is the least of it's problems). I only ask that you please refrain from sending me links containing QuickSlime content. While I suppose I could open the .MOV file in MPlayer, doing so would only promote Apple's agenda to destroy open standards even further. Why oh why would Apple protestors be using that non-standard excuse for a media format anyway? This is undoubtedly a subtle attempt by Apple apologists to garnish sympathy for the floundering iPod device. Scratch me from your list of bleeding hearts.

Speaking of non-standard file formats. My friend Dave sent me a link over GAIM of someone beating my childhood favorite game Super Mario Brothers 3 in 11 minutes. As excited as I was to view this video, it is in the cursed M$ .WMV format. There is no doubt this video contains countless viruses and security holes, not to mention DRM and spyware. No thank you David. Perhaps if you re-encode the video using VP3 I will bother to open it next time.

After promptly compiling and installing 2.6.0-test10 I attempted to install the Deus Ex 2: Invisible War demo on my system. Lo and behold I cannot get it to run under Wine. Perhaps Warren Spector should peddle his Microshaft-laced sequel to people who give a damn. I for one will not waste my time on any game that will not run under a standard, open operating system such as Linux. Sales of this game will undoubtedly suffer if this situation is not corrected PRONTO.

I decided to have some fun yesterday at the expense of my local Apple Store. They opened one of those golddarn yuppie troves at my local mall last year. Occasionally I walk by and flip them the bird but on this particular day I looked forward to something more satisfying.

I walked in and pretended to browse their crappy iCraps and lickable notebooks, ha, what a laugh. One of the Apple whipping boys asked if I needed help. I said I was interested in an iPod, but first, I would like to know -- does it support open file formats, such as Ogg Vorbis??? His answer was an obvious, "No." He did claim the iPod supports MPEG-4 AAC which is technically open, but combined with Apple's proprietary DRM it's like getting a birthday present locked in a fireproof vault and the gift-giver refuses to give you the key.

So naturally, I said, "no thank you" and as I walked out I made an effort to drop a copy of Office:Mac on the floor. I bet the Mr. Steve Jobs Jr. who "helped" me has never been challenged in such a fashion. I just laugh at anyone walking around with an iPod, knowing they are using a non-open file format such as MP3 or even worse, Apple AAC. Cattle will be cattle I suppose.

A fun day at the mall I must say.

Color me unimpressed by the new Apple 20" iCrap. I for one would have expected better from a $1,300 machine. Perhaps if running Yellow Dog Linux is your forte, your money will be well spent (NOT). OS X however is vastly inferiour to even the weakest of Linux distros *cough*REDHAT*cough*.

If it will not run Gentoo it is hardly worth my time. In fact, I can find an operable used notebook for much less that will undoubtable be more powerful. Then, I will be able to run all of my Linux software at a decent speed unlike on the iCrap and OS X.

I lost all respect for Apple when the signed the deal with the devil back in 1987. Perhaps if they have used Open Office over that lame collection of buggy applications called M$ Office, they would not be owned by Satan as we speak. Even their claim-to-fame application Photoshop is being leapfrogged by Gimp every day.

So Chairman Jobs, take your over-priced, under-powered crap and sell it to iPod-owning yuppies. I for one see through you sir, you are quite naked.