How do people buy the iPhone 4 and not feel INSULTED by Apple?

And I thought Mets fans were loyal... talk about customer loyalty... what does Apple have to do to lose a customer these days? Apparently, there is absolutely nothing that Jobs and company can do that will hurt customers enough not to buy an iPhone. It's scary!

For years, the worst part of the iPhone has been the service - not by its own fault but rather because AT&T is the sole carrier for the iPhone and it has horrendous service. Now, in addition to a terrible carrier, the new iPhone also suffers from its own reception issues. There is a tiny band on the left side of the phone that if touched by your hand reduced the signal significantly. How significantly? Scientifically, it's 20 decibels. For those of you (including myself) who don't understand what that means, it basically means that if you're in the middle of a call and you cover that spot, there's a very high chance that your call will get dropped. How a company can produce a product with such a glaring technical flaw is scary, but...

...how anyone can buy an iPhone4 and not feel like they are having the piss taken out of them by Apple is beyond me!

First, Steve Jobs tells us that we're holding it wrong. He claims that all cell phones lose reception when gripped and suggests that we hold in a particular way that doesn't interfere with the little strip of metal on the bottom left corner of the phone. How is that not one of the most offensive things anyone has ever said? Thanks, Steve, I know how to hold a phone. I've been doing it for a good... I don't know... 22 years now. How the hell do you suggest I hold the phone? Barbequing tools? Pliers? I can put my Blackberry on speakerphone and literally grip the entire surface area of the phone with my hands and I won't lose service, yet all I have to do is gently rest the iPhone 4 on my left palm and watch as full bars go to zero.

This isn't a fluke. Independent testing group Consumer Reports isolated the phone in a room with perfect reception and scientifically observed reception fade as the bottom left part of the phone was covered. This does not happen with other phones.

@Steve - there is an accepted standard of how phones are held. If you are making a slightly upgraded version of an existing product, you should probably still be able to hold it the same way... when I went from a BlackBerry Storm to a BlackBerry Tour, I didn't all of a sudden have to hold it with my left foot in order to get service.

Then , Apple announced that it has fixed a glitch that caused the iPhone to report more bars than it should. They claimed that the problem wasn't that clients were losing reception because of their faulty antenna, but rather that they never had service to begin with because their phone was mistakenly reporting service. So once again there is nothing wrong with the antenna.

Hmm... I smell fish.

@Steve - okay, never mind that you are lying about the antenna, because lab tests show that it actually is flawed, but did you just admit to us that you've been lying about how much reception your phone gets? That seems really really convenient, since most people who didn't buy iPhones did so because they heard people got poor reception. In fact, AT&T has been heavily advertising how good its reception is, which means it is bad, because if it were good, it wouldn't need to advertise so much to convince people otherwise!

So far, Apple customers have been lied to about the fact that there is nothing wrong with the antenna, and have been lied to about how much service is actually available on their phones. Let's continue.

Apple suggests that anyone experiencing problems with service (either because their phone is mistakenly reporting too much service or because they aren't holding it correctly) purchase a $29 rubber case that prevents the hand from touching the sensitive lower left side. Really Apple? Really? As if buying a $400 phone (or a $400 iPod touch with a camera if you're left handed) wasn't enough, in order to make it properly work you need to buy a $29 condom for it? If I were an Apple customer I would unbutton my shirt and begin to look for my udders at this point because that is called MILKING clients for money. It's not even done in a classy way. Apple... if you want your customers not to resent you after all you've done, you could at least bundle the rubber case with the phone, even if you charge an extra $30 for the whole thing.

Then, Consumer Reports publishes its findings on the iPhone 4, and when owners try to discuss these issues on the Apple forums, Apple responds by systematically deleting every post regarding the report. Apparently the solution to a problem is to convince everyone there is no problem.

@Steve - Have you read 1984? Have you seen V for Vendetta? They don't end well!

Apple then posts job listings on its websites to hire fucking iPHONE ANTENNA ENGINEERS!!!!!! All while continuing to deny that there is anything wrong with their phone! Are you fucking kidding me?

I return to my original point: how can you possibly buy the iPhone 4 and not feel like the laughing stock of an entire corporation? It's almost like Apple is daring people to buy its phone. I no joke saw an ad for the iPhone 4 that said "this changes everything, again." (which reminded me of Ben Stiller's character in "Scorcher" cooly saying "who left the fridge open?")

Why not buy something like an HTC Evo. A phone that has all the same features as the iPhone 4 but is better in every single way. It runs on Sprint, which is a better carrier, and has 4G technology as opposed to Apple's 3G. It's got a camera on front and back just like the iPhone, and you can even use it to video chat using a 4G connection (as opposed to Apple's service which only works on WiFi, because AT&T is too crappy a provider to support it). It even costs less to own. You can hold it however the hell you want! You don't need to put it in bright pink rubber case for it to work! In the end though, the HTC Evo is not an iPhone. And to some folks, just that is enough to make the difference.

If you feel no shame at being ridiculed and abused by a company after handing them hundreds of your dollars, prefer a phone that is inferior and more expensive than the competition, and are otherwise a mindless lemming who puts brand fashionability ahead of common sense, then by all means, go ahead and purchase an iPhone 4. Otherwise, I really don't see how anyone could do it. I just doesn't make any sense.

Mo out.

A few mildly amusing observations by a New Yorker (not all New York specific)

1) Who follows up with people who are paid to hand out flyers on the street - you know, to make sure that they're actually handing out flyers and not just throwing them in the garbage and taking the rest of the day off. Do they ask them: "Hey John, how many did you give out today? Did they seem interested?" Do they check the nearest trash bins on either side for big stacks of flyers? How about the sidewalk?

And while I'm on the topic of handing out flyers on the street, I have some very good advice for anyone whose job that is: if you're handing out flyers, at least tell passers-by what your flyers are about, in the rare case that they are interested in acai berries, or a comedy club, or whatever... you can't force someone to take a flyer, and unless they're actually interested in the subject matter, no one will want to take a flyer.

If you're being handed out flyers, you don't want to feel that the flyer person is saying: "Hey, you throw this shit away..." (as Mitch Hedberg brilliantly put it)

2) If you've never seen people from New York react to someone telling them that they're into metal (music), then you're in for a treat. Here's a play by play:

-Question is asked: "So what kind of music are you into?"
-Person attempt not to delay the answer as much as possible in order to avoid having to answer the question: "Yeah, I'm a big music guy, you know, I listen to a lot of different kinds of music...mostly rock and stuff like that."
-Inquisitive New Yorker is obviously not satisfied with this response: "What kind of rock music?"
-Same reaction, but only this time person being questioned has a lot less rope to hold on by: "Well you know... I listen to a lot of harder stuff, like.. you know, heavy metal (INTERUPTED)"
-New Yorker: "Oh.........."
-Slowly nods and then kind of stops with their head still tilted up a little
-Ever so discretely rolls eyes
-Slowly tries to disintegrate themselves from the conversation with said metalhead...

Such is the curse of a metalhead.

3) New York is known for having lots of good restaurants. It's also known for having lots of terrible street food carts. These are basically metal boxes with wheels and a grill that are rolled out every morning and gathered every night (some stay open 24 hours). There are also little trucks, similar to ice cream trucks, that serve food. These can actually move on their own (because they are trucks) and usually provide higher quality food.

I tried in my mind to imagine what a graph of "food quality vs restaurant mobility" would look like, but failed miserably. Here's how this breaks down. Ideally, you don't want your restaurant to be mobile. However, if they are mobile, then usually the more mobile the restaurant, the better the food quality.

Needless to say, it's a very dumb looking graph, if you've figured it out by now.

4) If there is a major sporting event that you want to see, avoid sports bars that mix HD and non HD TVs. This may seem a little odd, but let me explain. Typically these kinds of places have a few, small, non-HD TVs hanging over the bar, and a few larger HD TVs hanging in the corners for people sitting down to watch. Their goal is to try and make the game as visible as possible (and who can blame them). However, HD TV typically lags standard definition television by 2-3 seconds... meaning that when you're watching the World Cup finals on the big TV, you hear people's reactions to every play before it happens because invariably SOMEONE is watching the small TV.

THIS FORCES EVERYONE IN THE BAR TO WATCH THE TWO SMALLEST TVs IN THE PLACE!!!! EPIC FAIL!!!!!

(Sorry, this last one was very frustrating)

Mo out.

PS

5) Since I started blogging (in Internet Explorer, which doesn't have any spell checking like Firefox), my spelling has gotten much better! I typed this whole piece without a single typo. My grammar, however, is questionable.

That tennis match was longer than my...

...road to maturity?

I know I've been slacking, so here's my effort to catch up on another thing I missed. In case you missed it, possibly because you live under a rock or because you were in a basement somewhere playing World of Warcraft, John Isner of the United States and Nicolas Mahut of France played the world's longest professional tennis match on record this past Wimbeldon. The final score was 6-4/3-6/6-7/7-6/70-68 for the American.

For those of you wondering, that is not a typo. They played a 5th set with a total of 138 games. The match lasted over 11 hours and had to be played over three days due to poor visibility at night and scheduling issues.

Let's assume the final set ended 8-6, as a normal set might have ended (mind you even that would have been a long game). This means that the match would have lasted 59 games total. In reality it lasted 183 games. I am now going to put the length of that game into perspective for you by comparing it to other things.

Baseball - a game that goes on for roughly 28 innings: ok, games have gone that long in basebal fare more frequently that in tennis, but that's because in tennis every point has a winner. In baseball, an inning can go 0-0 and then the teams just play another inning. I'd like to point out that at least in New York, they stop selling beer at the seventh inning. All of a sudden, baseball just got VERY boring.

NASCAR - 1500 laps at the Daytona 500, or roughly 9 hours of going around in a circle (oval) plus the additional pit stops it would take. I can hardly think of anything more boring than NASCAR to watch, and frankly, the only benefit of such a long race is that since they cut out the race itself and show only the crashes in the highlights, there would be more crashes to watch!

Soccer - 4 hours and 30 minutes of soccer, with only three substitutions allowed: Many players get tired before the full 90 minutes... In a match that long I'm pretty sure the French would demand overtime pay or stop playing.

Ironman triathlon - 421 miles combined of swimming, cycling, and running: this is roughly 10% more than the distance from New York to Boston and back. Imagine how much your balls and nipples would hurt after that???

Boxing - 36 rounds of Boxing! In the 1980s the max number of rounds in professional boxing was reduced from 15 to 12 because someone actually died in the ring. Could you imagine a fight that went on for almost two hours? Finally, pay per view is worth it.

Mo out.

My blog is the coolest thing on the street, and Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz can go re-oil their joints

Is your blog the unpopular kid?

I stumbled upon this article on CNN today hoping to find some cool tips and tricks on how to make my blog slightly more successful (aka get more people to read it). Instead, all I got was a few bits of advice on how I can remove all originality and excitement from my blog and turn it into a cookie cutter, one-trick pony whose sole purpose is to get big, make a quick appearance on MTV, and then disappear quietly into the night (actually that doesn't sound so bad). Alrighty let's see here. First up:

[Problem: Your blog is a Spaz]
"Imma review this movie!" "Obama is mishandling the oil spill!" "Today I saw a horse!"
"General interest" content is generally uninteresting, and making like a digital dilettante means no one will take you seriously or see you as an expert in your domain.]

What.... me? a spaz? No way. And to be fair I reviewed a CD and a website. Movie reviewing is totally not cool.
 
Okay fine... but come on. What am I supposed to do. Blog about the same thing every single day? What's the fun in that. Is eMo's fate to become a simple single subject notebook full with so much repetitive crap that you can't even tell what page you're on anymore? I mean seriously, how many times can you blog about different flavors of muffins, or about your pet cat, or about people on the street with mustaches? Isn't it a lot more fun to read about all the things that are important in life? I mean after all, when you go to CNN, do they tell you about all the news or just the news that occured while someone was filming it on a bicycle (or some other random blog theme). And yes, I did just come up with these blog themes randomly and then find matching blogs online.

I think my blog being a Spaz gives it character, and makes it unique. Where else can you read about Tiger Woods, Warhammer 40,000, BP, The World Cup, AND look at pictures of hot chicks?

I'm not even going to continue with the rest of the article because I've pretty much figured out the divergence in my thinking and Brenna and Andrea's. I think we differ on what the point of blogging is!

See, if you're really good about writing about your pet cat, and all you do is write about just your pet cat, and lots of curious people come to your website to read about your pet cat, in the end all you've done is managed to afford yourself the lifestyle that a regular person with a regular job can have while still having the ability to write about whatever the hell it is they want. Also you're a person who's going to have no career when your cat dies, because surely nobody's going to want to stick around for your next cat when they've been so loyal to the first.

Writing a blog should be fun, but then as with anything if you're going to do it as a career then there are ways to fast-track it to "success," such as writing about things that people want to hear about that aren't necessarily as fun as exciting as other things that you could write about. It's kind of like with music. Sure you can make cookie cutter boring music that always plays in the same key and always goes verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus chorus, but what's the fun in that??? I think it's much more worth it in life to get a real job, write fun blog posts and make original music, and then, if you're lucky become a crazy blogger or a rock star doing what you want, and having fun doing it.

So a final note to Brenna and Andrea:

Okay, so my blog is not the coolest thing on the street. At least it has some originality, you fucking robots! Keep reading, and stay tuned for my EP due, as I promised, this month sometime.

Mo out.

My opinion on various pieces of news - a makeup blog post of sorts...

So it's been a while since I wrote anything. I was reminded of this yesterday when one of my followers asked me if I was going to write again soon. It's kind of weird getting a message like that because I wasn't really under the impression that my blog was ever missed. I guess like Dutch soccer though, I have an extremely small but very dedicated fanbase (more on that later).

For today's post I thought I would try a new approach. I'm just going to put up headlines (or make up headlines about things that have happened) and then comment on them. These are not necessarily in chronological order.. just the order that I decide to write about them in. I'll try to cover lots of things so try to keep up.

U.S. loses to Ghana, American World Cup dreams shattered:
Really? Why was losing to Ghana a surprise to anyone? I'm all for going out to bars and rooting for my country, and I was just as happy to see team USA do "well" as the next guy, but any team that considers getting through the group stage to be a huge accomplishment (especially when two of the other teams are Algeria and Slovenia) really shouldn't be that disappointed when it's sent home.

Foxconn increases salaries for workers at its factories and installs "safety nets" to prevent more suicides:
Foxconn is the largest (or one of the largest, but I'm pretty sure it's the largest) producer of electronics in China - they make the iPod and iPhone, among other things. The company has been hit with a string of suicides now in the double digits - you know, because you would kill yourself too if your job was to put together a 1/16th of a MacBook Pro for 23.5 hours a day for minimal pay and benefits. Foxconn has responded by increasing the salary of its workers from $0.005 to $0.0055 per day and forcing its employees to sign a no-suicide contract as part of their employment offers. They've also installed safety nets between their own buildings to catch jumpers (who by the way still have 3/4 sides of the buildings to jump off).

Okay most of the numbers in there are made up and Foxconn didn't actually do the suicide contract thing (although they actually did consider it) but it's still pretty bad. Also I think it's pretty funny that Foxconn installed "safety nets" because seriously who would look down from the top of the building, see a net, and then throw themselves down anyway?? The nets are NEON ORANGE. You can't miss them. Besides we all know that this is pointless because Foxconn workers are shot if they step away from the assembly line anyway.

Luis Suarez is a total douchebag:
Okay that's not really a headline, more of a personal opinion. Unfortunately his handball proved to the world that sportsmanship knows no floor, and that FIFA needs to either:

1) Implement a punishment system for players who are consistent douchebags - if you commit an intentional handball in the box, for example, you are banned from playing for a given amount of time both at the club and international level.

2) Implement a goaltending rule: Suarez did what any other player would have done, because in that situation the player has absolutely nothing to lose. If the goal had gone in Uruguay would have been eliminated so Suarez could only improve his team's chances of advancing with a goaltend. A goaltending rule would ensure that close games end fairly and without cheating (or fairly, despite cheating).

Sure Ghana was granted a penalty and missed it. But they shouldn't even have to shoot a penalty (which statistically has an 84% of going in during regular time play at the World Cup) when they had already made a great header with a 100% chance of going in (according to principles set forth by a certain Isaac Newton). The fact that Ghana was cheated out of a spot in the semi-finals in front of billions of people, especially with the whole Africa thing (come on....), is unacceptable, FIFA. The African-American in me is crying sympathy tears. On the inside.

Paul the Psychic Cephalopod's Streak Survives Spain Securely:
There's not much to the story so I thought I would make the headline fun. Paul the psychic octopus (from western Germany, not to be confused with West Germany) has predicted with 100% accuracy every Germany game this world cup. That's amazing! Let's see if he can correctly predict the winner of the third place game this Saturday.

Also, if he is not too tired, and still hungry (I'm not kidding) he will have a shot at predicting the winner of the Spain/Netherlands game. Personally, I think that's out of his area of expertise and he should stick to Germany games. I fear the outcome may be similar to when Chris Cornell made a solo album with Timbaland and it SUCKED MAJORLY.

Dutch fans are insane/a reporter is retarded:

I heard yesterday on TV that some of them DROVE to South Africa. Either these are the world's best fans or one reporter is now the laughing stock of a few billion people. Here's a map with three possible routes. The red and blue routes are the most probable routes. There are ferries at each of the water crossings. The green route is the most direct, and is probably the one James Bond would have chosen in his trusty Lotus Esprit.

Lindsay Lohan fails to attend her alcohol management meetings (again) and is sent to jail (again):

Aha! That explains it! I'm finally glad that someone in Hollywood is being treated kind of remotely like a regular person. If I had god-knows-how-many DUIs, I would not go to rehab, I would go straight to jail, and I would not collect $200.

Actually, I, would probably go to Guantanamo...

Mo out.

Some fairly logical and concise whining about why soccer needs video replay

I know, I know, it's not my usual style... after all I think part of what makes this blog so entertaining is my ability to just rant and be my own A.D.D.ed-out self. However, in order to try and stop the spread of the whiny European soccer fan stereotype, I'm going to write a short and to-the-point piece about why we need video replay in soccer.

Sports are played for fans. They're played as entertainment for crowds. There would be no Manchester United or Chelsea or Barcelona if not for the millions of people watching them. I think it's fair to say that most people watching every game are doing so on television, and not actually at the stadium - so pleasing the television audience should be FIFA's number one concern.

As we become more technologically advanced, and add more and more cameras to the field, television audiences are able to watch the game in ways that they never have before. We're also able to see the game better than the referees can - which leads to the question. What is the point of the referee? Is it for him to make calls for his own self serving purpose? Or is it to make calls in a game whose principal purpose is to entertain a TV audience? After all, if a ref blows a call and the TV audience is clearly able to notice the blown call, the overall entertainment value of the match is reduced (except when Cristiano Ronaldo is playing and the camera catches him blatantly diving - then it's funny).

Some people have argued that referees are not held to the high standard that they historically have been. I say this is complete BS and in fact, would argue the opposite - refs are actually graded and selected to officiate games based on tests done using video replays ("players" stage an offsides situation on a field while the ref attemps to make the right call, for example).

I think the obvious point here is that reffing needs to be able to keep up with the people watching the game... especially when it significantly affects the outcome of the game in arguably the most important sporting event on the planet. I can't remember a single match in the last few days that didn't have a terrible blown call:

USA - Slovenia: USA's go-ahead goal (after coming back from a 2-0 deficit) was disallowed on a foul call when clearly the Slovenian players were the ones at fault

USA - Algeria: USA's goal was again disallowed when there was clearly nothing wrong with it

Brazil - Ivory Coast: Kaka was sent off for.... nothing. A CIV player ran into him and then faked being elbowed in the face

Germany - England: Lampard's equalizing goal was not counted after the ball bounced past the line and back over into the hands of the German keeper - Germany's own coach admitted that it should have been a goal

Argentina - Mexico: Argentina's first goal was allowed after television replay showed Tevez clearly offsides

Although these bad calls only impacted the final outcome of one of the games (US - Slovenia), it's important to note that conceding an early goal can be a big mental blow to an underdog team such as Mexico or the United States. Even in the Germany - England game, I think it's fair to say that an English equalizer would have impacted the way that both teams continued to play for the rest of the match.

I honestly don't care if video replay ruins the "flow" of the game - when significant bad calls are made, television stations will typically interrupt the game to show a video replay ANYWAY. Also I think that implementing video replay will make players think twice before they fake an injury or handle the ball. Like nuclear missiles during the Cold War, video replay doesn't actually have to be used in order to be useful - its presence on the sidelines alone will prevent a lot of the things that we need it for (although Cristiano Ronaldo may subsequently lose his job). As for offsides and other line calls, tennis (even at conservative Wimbeldon where there is a strict dress code, mind you) has been using technology for YEARS to assist the linesmen in making correct calls.

So in conclusion, FIFA needs to get off its high horse and start meeting the demand of the people who allow it to exist as an entity - the fans watching at home on television.

This wasn't as short as I wanted it to be, but I think it's fairly lean. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this (you can leave comments or e-mail me).

 Mo out.

Why Obama needs to stop chasing guys with titles that begin with C and end in O

If someone mishandles your package at the post office, do you go to the Postmaster General?

If you get a parking ticket, do you take your appeal to the Supreme Court?

If they forget to prepare your order at McDonalds, and then prepare it wrong.... twice... would you pick up the phone and ask to speak to Jim Skinner? (He's the CEO of McDonalds)

No, you wouldn't. Why not? It's a pretty simple question really. That's not the type of thing that they're in charge of handling. So when healthcare companies / financial companies / BP make mistakes, why is it that our fearless leader always goes straight to the top?

So an oil rig blew up. Why the heck would Tony Hayward know anything? He's the CEO. Do you know how many oil rigs BP has? It would be ridiculous for him to know exactly everything that's going on on every oil rig all the time. I mean, asking the CEO of BP what exactly caused an explosion on one of their oil rigs would be like asking Jerry Manuel what Jose Reyes had for breakfast last Sunday (assuming they don't have organized team breakfasts...). It would be a lot more productive to interview... I don't know... maybe the Chief of Gulf of Mexico Drilling Safety (I made that title up, but you can bet your behind they have a position like that).

Instead Obama once again proves that he's all talk and very little action by parading every top executive of every firm on TV in front of a select panel of the biggest assholes in Congress and asking them ridiculous rhetoric questions that are completely irrelevant to their day to day jobs. Way to go. Now you will look like a superhero just in time for the next elections. Obama the CEO bounty hunter. We can call him Obama Fett.

Until people realize that oil is still gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and that the top 15 guys at BP have been locked in a room with congressmen rather than trying to solve the problem.

You know, Obama makes me miss Bush.... just a little. At least Bush made us laugh.

Mo out.