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No interns, so today is ‘work all day’ without goofing off day. ‘Cept when I go see Leesie for lunch…. and when I leave real early cuz I can.

Just kidding. Not really.

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So the Phillies have a fire sale and get rid of a bunch of losers, most notably Bobby Abreu. Since then, the Phillies have been on fire. Why? Ask Mr. Rollins, who said (paraphrasing) ‘some people are used to playing a certain way… and by getting rid of them, you open up spots for people who play hard’.

Go figure! Did it not click in anyone’s mind that Abreu simply does not hustle on defense? This is a shock?

I’m telling you, Abreu was the NL’s A-Rod. And now he’s in the AL.

Don’t get me confused for being excited about the Phillies. I’m not. I think teams playing .500 ball still in the playoff race indicates a very, very sad state of affairs. And that’s the league’s fault.

Much like the East in basketball, but the East won the Championship last year (whereas the NL will likely not win the world series in the next 5 to 10 years).

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I’m sick of people. Ok, that’s not true. There are exceptions, and you know who you are. I’m sick of the friends who get wrapped up in their own worlds and then forget about forget about other people. I’m especially sick that I get wrapped up in their worlds and try to help, but it’s all a pointless exercise.

In any event, those people I’m talking about, you’re on notice.

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If you were wondering why bin Laden hasn’t been caught for his actions in the 9/11 attacks, wonder no more – it’s because the FBI doesn’t link him to 9/11. Link to the FBI’s website/most wanted poster here.

Worse still, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has still not been tried, even though he’s been detained since 2002. If you’re wondering who HE is, he’s the organizer for 9/11. No trial, no justice.

I only mention these two because of the recent Republican attacks on Democrats stating that Dems are soft on terror. Well, to me it seems that the Republican controlled House/Senate/Executive/Judical branches are being pretty soft on terror – and they don’t have an excuse.

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Turbo Kits – The very notion that that ZPI bolt on kit produces 180 WHP (wheel horsepower or true usable horsepower) makes me froth at the mouth. To give you an idea, Lisa’s car is rated at 160hp, at the crank, not at the wheels, so is likely producing somewhere between 135-150WHP (differs between manuals and autos).

So, at 180WHP it’d be at the same sort of power as the toyota matrix XRS.

Although, I agree with you, I’d sooner trade in my car for an XRS than buy a turbo kit (maybe I’m just agreeing with myself?). However… Toyota is no longer selling the XRS, another addition on the growing list of things that Toyota is doing to tick me the hell off. First they ruined the Matrix, then they got rid of the XRS, and somewhere in between the quality of car dropped off, and now the recalls are piling up.

For those who missed it, Lisa’s car was recalled too, out of safety concerns (the sunroof could spontaneously, um, shatter).

I’m at a loss. I like certain models of hondas, but not as a brand as a whole (every brand has a personality – my parents/sister love honda personalities, but I think it’s too – rounded?). I like Nissans, but not quite as much as circa 1997-2002 Toyota.

So now what?

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So, Apple batteries are being recalled, ala Dell. But they are totally botching it.

With the latest Macbooks, I thought Apple was ready to really give Microsoft / Dell / IBM / HP a run for its money. But now we have the laptop casing issue, the overheating issue (resolved with a patch… that keeps the fan running constantly), the battery issue, and oh Apple being investigated by the SEC for incorrectly reporting profits since 2002.

It’s a selfish reason to want Apple to succeed – with every Apple push, companies like Dell and HP have to think outside the box. Dell has signed a contract with AMD, a company that I love and whose products I’ve been using since the mid 90s (the PR in PR 133 means ‘performance rated’).

Ultimately it means the consumer wins on the PC front with more innovation. And with Linux becoming more and more polished, it could very well be soon when we see Ubuntu or Mepis or Linspire or Xandros on a desktop, shipped from the OEM directly, and supported by them.

But every time Apple falters, it dooms them to be a niche player. The one thing Apple doesn’t have in its favor is that it is spread out over many, many enterprises – and they are the beginning and end of every product. Apple is a hardware company – developing the Macbook, the G5, and the Xserver. They are a software company, developing OSX. And they are an entertainment company in both hardware and software, managing both iPod and iTunes.

There isn’t anything like that in the PC world. MS makes the OS, Dell/HP make the hardware, Yahoo/Real/etc. do music and creative does mp3 hardware.

Yes, apple products are VERY tightly integrated. But Apple historically has not been able to keep up with demand.

In supply side economics, these consumers won’t wait around forever, and that means lost business for Apple. It also means, in the strain to meet demand, quality is sacrificed for quantity.

Perhaps Apple could take a page out of IBM’s playbook – IBM spun off its desktop and laptop business to Chinese giant Lenovo, while IBM focused on their servers. In the meantime, Lenovo kept IBM’s name on the product – and kept up the quality of machine.

Again, I want to see Apple get a bigger marketshare. I have stated in the past that Windows isn’t as poor in security as the media makes it out to be – but Apple is definitely better security wise soley because of default administrator privileges. As a former comcast employee, I’d love to see some of the internet ‘newbies’ test drive the internet on a mac.

But Apple’s worst enemy is Apple itself. And at the current juncture, no matter how great the product, if they can’t get the product in consumers’ hands, they’re going to forever be a niche player.

By the way, Apple’s technical support is crap. Having spoken to them directly, they a) do not know how to solve problems and b) don’t know their own hardware/software. Worse so than Dell. That needs to be resolved asap.

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Time to get something done. Shoot.

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