I am leaning bent,
a heavy wall pushing me upright
in a flowing crowd.
I drink from a cup as big and white
as stacked toilet paper.
My eyes fill with wine,
lids floating shut.

The charred and chipped
building holding me
sways
threatening to fall with me into the square.

It is soiled with moist shrapnel
from a dirt bomb,
splotches of brown merging
and dripping down the walls
into the hair of the partygoers.

The crowd flows like a wine river
around a tall fountain
pointed blunt like a beer bottle.
People swirl past me,
laughing like vapor,
all teeth and rapid blur.

Wet from Champagne and urine,
cobblestones float under my feet.
I trap them down,
the wall holding me
and I holding the stones.

Attention
is turned from faces
to the fountain.
The wine river flows faster.
Now back on itself
as if from sudden tide.

A man stands alone,
conqueror of the fountain,
above the crowd.
His arms perpendicular like a cross
he seems to meditate.
Suddenly he is flying.
The river shakes,
boiling with tension.
The man makes no splash;
he is inhaled gracefully.

Crawling unsteady
another climbs
like a spindly insect
to the top.
A momentary victor
waving like a pond weed.
But its as if a firm hand
pushes him,
he topples
wrongly
softly and slow,
grinning
down into cement.

My cobblestones energize
and escape
in a sudden throb;
my wall softens
tilts
releasing me
to hold the soft cobblestones
with my face,
my cup drifting away.

I see the river suddenly dry
into grains of standing people
as white hat men take the dead away.

First off, I was immediately struck by how think the borders are around the device. Is this so I can race matchbox cars around it and pretend I’m Dale Earnhardt, Jr.? (Of course, this would be counter-clock wise only).

Maybe it’s for big greasy fingers to hold the thing? Or vise grip robotic arms to hold it (controlled by SkyNet)?

Second off, people are blabbering on about how the Kindle is dead. Au contraire mon frere. Nay. Not. Nada.

Here’s why.

The Kindle uses the liquid ink technology which is easy on the eyes, like an actual book. The iPad is going to be bright and not well suited for sitting down and reading a novel for hours. Apples and Oranges (er, no pun intended) . Sure the technology is awesome, and I eagerly anticipate using it to read technical or photography books, but novels? Probably not.

Also, regarding reading books. Content. Content. Content. Amazon is still the center of the book universe. If Apple locks out the Kindle app from the device, this will be a big problem. If not, it’s a non issue, and I’ll probably continue to buy my books from Amazon. Somehow I doubt I’ll be finding Neal Asher or Ian M. Banks novels on the Apple store.

Also, as an aside, all the animation in the demos of the book reading app annoyed the poo out of me, and I haven’t even used it yet. I hope you can turn off all that fluffy demo chrome and just use it. The same goes with the rest of the device.

By the way, I read a lot.

Some omissions:

1. no mention of Verizon.

2. maybe I missed it, but no handwriting app? Maybe the whole stylus thing made it a non-starter. To Newton-esc?

3. it would be nice if it had an iChat camera. But I can see why it doesn’t. Where to put it? Streaming video over At&t? Er, epic fail waiting to happen. Maybe v2 will have it.

Other than that, as a iPhone developer, I’m super excited because of the product development possibilities. Especially for someone like me who specializes in photography and web services and all that kind of thing. Rubs his hands together and grins. Pinky, it’s time to take over the world!

I’m glad it will be released in a few months, this gives me time to save my pennies to buy one. The 3g version of course.

Apple’s iPad.

I have several accounts with them, including a savings account. My saving account happened to have only a couple of dollars in it. They charged me a fee (perhaps for taking a walk on a nice sunny day, or eating a bagel) and it went negative.

Then they started charging me five dollars a day for being overdrawn.

This went on for like a week over the holidays when I wasn’t paying attention. Soon I owed like $35 to get it back in the positive again. I sent them an email asking them to consider removing the late fees and they sent me back an email with instructions on how to set up automatic transfers. That, my friends, is a big “eff you” from them to me. I’ve been a customer of Wells Fargo Bank since the mid eighties. That’s how you treat a long time customer?

There are a few companies I despise, like Sony and Block Buster Video, and now I’m going to have to add Wells Fargo Bank to this list. This type of thing has been going on for years with them. I’ve put up with it, to my embarrassment. Can’t do it anymore.

Time to try the new generation of banking. I want a try a more cutting edge bank or credit union that is more customer oriented and doesn’t stick sharp pointed fees in my eyeballs every-time I turn around.

Any suggestions?

District 9 is a fantastic movie but you might not enjoy it. You should see it anyway. I think this is an important movie.

Now, those of you that know me know that I’m a big science fiction fan. I’ve read countless books and stories and watched everything. I’m a hard sell. I think this is one of those movies that truly transcends the genre. The thing about great sci-fi is that it is always about much more than is on the surface, it challenges you, it makes you think. But it’s not always fun.

District 9 is a hard movie to watch because it really touches on significant and painful social issues. I think it hits a nerve. Or three. I understand why you may not enjoy it, but you can’t say isn’t a fantastic movie. Well, you could, but you’d be wrong.

I think that District 9 isn’t an enjoyable movie in the same way most enjoyable movies are enjoyable. It’s not really escapist entertainment. District 9 stabs you right in the eye with sharp scissors right out of the gate. The way it’s shot, with the flat colors, in hand-held documentary style, definitely didn’t produce a lot of eye candy. In fact, I was a bit off-put by this. At first.

Right away it ripped me out of my comfort zone. It’s not pretty or glamorous. It’s not an idealized version of Hollywood reality. It says something about us, our fears, our flaws, our culture. It makes a painful point about who we are.

This could really happen.

That said (the part about it being harder to enjoy than a normal movie I mean) – I enjoyed the hell out of it. I enjoy a well crafted story. Great dialog. Great plot. I actually was surprised a few times by what happened (which, sadly for me, hardly ever happens). There was a couple of times I wanted to stand up and shout, did you see that? Did you? There’s actually a character arc in this movie, the main character learns, and changes, and surprises. He transforms. Don’t see that too often. The character even has a specific moment of epiphany. And I was loving it.

The attention to detail was staggering. I wanted to rewind and watch some parts again. The special effects may be the best I’ve every seen. I forgot about them and just enjoyed the movie. I forgot that the aliens and spaceship were computer generated. Normally, in other movies where there are virtual characters, I never quite forget they’re computer generated. I did in this movie. Probably the only other time that’s happened for me is Gollum in Lord of the Rings.

I’m still thinking about the movie. That never happens to me. (Nearly) ever.

There’s my thoughts on it. So there.

This is an awesome Mexican restaurant called El Rancho Grande. It was recommended by the Apple Store’s Luigi from Venezuela, as we swapped in a new, unshattered, iPhone.

Our server made the guacamole right at the table. Possibly, the best I’ve ever had.

The margarita’s were massive, tasty, and knife to the eyeball cold.

What’s not to love? And, yes, there are many things to love in this photo.

You’ve got to undersand here – you can’t see the ocean, or ANYTHING, on the beach. I mean nothing. It’s a big black void. You can see the trees, where the lights are, but that’s it. The shot was practically a misfire I had so little expectation of anything at all coming out.

In the picture, you can see the color of the water, the lifeguard stand, and people walking. Unbelievable.

Truly, the d700 is mind boggling. Right when I was thinking of downgrading to something that doesn’t weight more than an Escalade, it goes and slaps me up the side of the head, and I’m like, oh yeah. THAT’S why I have this camera.

Keep in mind it’s frickin’ dark out and these people are down 15 floors and on the other side of the hotel! You can see way more in this picture than you can with your eyeballs. This is with a Nikon d700 and a 70-200 2.8 Zoom lens, hand held, with VR on.

This camera is unbelievable. I can’t believe this came close to coming out. I have a couple like this.

Or not.

A lot has happened in the last few months. My apologies for ignoring you – you pack of snarling, vicious interwebulitees. Yes, that’s my word. Print it out in a really big sans-serif font. Study it. Learn to spell it. Scan it back in. Make it your desktop picture. Print it out again. Frame it. Repeat.

Here’s what’s up with me. The short version.

I quit Microsoft and started a new company.

Well, two companies.

First, GreenTongue Software. See that wheeled contraption over there? That’s the iPhone app bandwagon. See that goofy guy climbing hand over hand up the wagon wheel and perching himself on top of it? That’s me. I will now proceed to drink a Mai-Tai and start complaining about XCode.

Second, Slam Dunk Consulting. We help micro businesses get on the web. Fast. A micro business is a very small company. Like one to five people. Or less. Yes, less than zero, wise ass. The company has negative one people. Can I continue now? Anyway… lots of these micro business have no expertise in internet technology, and they don’t know how to get it, or don’t want to get it, or they don’t know who to trust. Many of these folks can barely get their e-mail, much less know what SEO or social networking is. And they’ve likely had bad experiences and lost lots of money with shady goombas and shysters selling .com juice. And, of course, everyone needs to be on the web. Now. And likely they need to be on the first page of google or bing or yahoo searches. They depend on it. What Slam Dunk Consulting offers is prepackaged solutions to solve all these problems at reasonable prices, with quick delivery, all done by trustworthy and ethical people, e.g. me and other folks I’m working with. Including my dogs, who are getting pretty good at editing MX records (cheap labor paid in bacon strips per hour).

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Timmy got stuck in a well. Er, I mean, since I left the mothership, the stock price has gone up. Random uncorrelated fact. Also, I’ve been working hard under contract writing a really really cool iPhone app. I can’t tell you what it is, but I will. At some point. And you’ll want it. And you’ll get it.

Of course also I’ve been learning about running a small business. Lot’s to learn. Who knew accounting was so annoying?

Stay tuned. Radio silence has now be broken, and stay tuned for regular broadcasts on this frequency. Frequency Mike.

Over and out.

(Yeah, yeah, photography blog FAIL. Move on.)

Here’s a shot of Julia’s banana bread stand on north Maui. Home of the best banana bread on the planet. And I had some. And it’s pretty damn good. My mouth is getting frisky remembering it. Saliva glands activating. I think I’ll go eat a banana. I have a sudden craving. For a banana.