Lemurs

Mike Lee of Delicious Monster fame is trying to save the lemur and needs your help.

When you first read something like this at a site with “motherfucker” in the URL, you’re likely to think “Is this a joke? Is he punking me? Does he care about lemurs or is he just trying to see how many rubes he can fit into a VW Beetle? Wait, is he just ‘saving’ lemurs so he can later cook them and eat them? What gives?”

No, Mike’s really trying to save the fucking lemur, OK?

As lemurs are cute and furry this is a great way to finish off 2007 or kick off 2008 (but donate before midnight tonight and you get into the Founding Troop).

And, let’s face it, you could use some good karma.

Look at you.

Sitting there.

Stuffing stale gingerbread men into your face, guzzling huge quantities of expired egg nog and watching that “Who’s The Boss?” boxed set your mother bought you for Christmas off your Amazon wish list.

You disgust me.

But I’m willing to put that all behind us if you’ll help save the lemur.

So…

…think about it.

UPDATE: Need more incentive? Well, how often do you get to make a noted Mac developer cry?

Oh…

We’ll be back on the 2nd.

Or 3rd.

Sometime before Macworld.

Or not.

Whatever.

In the comments, let’s hear what you got for Solstice.

I’m sorry. Buddhamas.

Wait, that’s not right either.

Um…

Well, the thing with Charlie Brown and Frosty and Rudolf.

Oh, and hey, did everyone know that Rudolf was all about puberty? I’m serious. What. The. Hell? If you haven’t seen it in a while, watch it again. I’m telling you, puberty. It’s like a great big early ’60s morality play about puberty. Puberty, puberty, puberty.

Isn’t that weird? Do you think the people who made it did that deliberately or was it some post-’50s repression thing?

And I don’t think I have to tell you what Freud would say the giant snow monster means.

No sir.

Of course, he said that about everything.

Anyway, hope you had a happy Pube-mas.

Friday Feature: Crazy Apple Help Desk

Every Friday, the staff at Crazy Apple Rumors Site answers common help questions based on our vast experience with Apple products and our fervent belief that we know more than you do.
________________

Q: Do you have any last-minute gift suggestions for the Mac-using members of my family? I’m having trouble thinking of what to get my brother.

A: A sweater.

Q: A sweater?

A: Yeah. Everybody needs a sweater.

Q: Um, yeah, well I was really thinking of something more Mac-related. You are an Apple-related help desk after all.

A: Maybe it could have an Apple logo on it.

Q: That’s not really doing it for me.

A: Oh, fine, princess. I see what your game is. Don’t get him something he wants, get him something that you want.

Q: I want what’s best for him and what’s best for him is to be able to enjoy a superior user experience. See, he’s… he’s… [sigh]… a Linux user.

A: OK, but, see, he’s not going to use OS X so what’s the point? Even if you buy him an 8-core Mac Pro, he’s going to junk it up by putting fricking Ubuntu or some shit on it.

Q: Don’t you think I know that?! Well, it doesn’t matter. I can’t afford to get him an 8-core Mac Pro anyway.

A: No, and Linux people don’t want that shit. Shit that’s all cool and shiny and shit. He wants a “challenge”. Give him a toaster and tell him it runs Windows Mobile. He’ll spend the rest of the year trying to install Debian on it.

Q: Hey, it’s the gift that keeps on giving! To me!

A: Which is what you wanted in the first place!

Q: Yay!
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Q: Hey, I don’t have a question, but I just wanted tell you to have a merry Christmas.

A: Oh, well, thanks.

Q: A very merry Christmas.

A: That’s nice.

Q: Yeah. Let the yule be gay!

A: Are you… hitting on me?

Q: From OS X on, your restarts have been miles away!

A: Oh, no, no, no! No way. You’re not doing some fucking Apple-themed Christmas carol on my site!

Q: So, have yourself a Cupertino Christmas…

A: Really, I’d much rather you were hitting on me.

Q: Startup sounds ring! Are you list-ening!

A: I swear to god, I will beat you to death with Michael Spindler and whip your dead body with the cord of a hockey puck mouse.

Q: OK, I’m done.
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Q: Hey, did you see this bullshit?

A: I did! What the hell? Who does that jackass think he is?

Q: I have no idea. You should read John Welch’s take. He rightly really ripped that Rixstep guy a new one.

A: I did read that and… Hey, wait a minute! You’re not a caller. You’re just me! This is just exposition!

Q: Ah, but isn’t that what Christmas is about? Exposition?

A: What?! No!

Q: Oh. Huh. Are you sure? There’s an awful lot of exposition in those holiday specials.

A: Fairly certain.

Q: OK, then maybe it’s just about making jackasses see the error in their ways. Like the Grinch.

A: Yeah! And Scrooge!

Q: And the magician in Frosty!

A: And that snow beast in Rudolph!

Q: And, uh, Jesus!

A: Um…

Q: OK, maybe less so that one.

A: What do you mean “less so”?! And why are we still talking?!

Oh, My God, They Got Nicky!

The Apple rumors community was thrown into tumult today as Think Secret announced that as part of an agreement with Apple, it would be closing its doors. Today will be known as “the Day the Rumors Died”.

Except for those from this site, of course.

And Apple Insider.

And, well, Mac Rumors.

And…

… the rest.

But this monumental event simply serves to drive home that the Apple rumors world is shrinking. Every day, or every 200 to 700 days, another Apple rumor site is felled as a mighty oak falls in, um, Oak… land.

How could this happen?

Many Apple followers were quick to jump to one of two conclusions – that Think Secret was either forced out of business or bought out of business.

But it takes the trained eye of a rumors site editor to note certain tell-tale signs. Signs that point to one conclusion and on conclusion only.

Nick Ciarelli (né “dePlume”) was coerced against his will to shut down Think Secret by killer robots bent on destroying the Apple ecosystem.

What?

No. No. No.

No, look, any reputable naturalist will tell you that things that feed off of other things, or even the waste of other things, things that actually do things as opposed to the things that are feeding off of them, yes, even these things are part of the ecosystem.

They’re called para… Um, para…

Well, I forget what they’re called.

Anyway, let’s take a look at not just what Think Secret said in its press release, but what it didn’t say. What you notice immediately is they didn’t say anything about killer robots.

Don’t you think that’s odd?

I think it’s odd.

It all becomes clear when you look at the subtext.

Apple and Think Secret have settled their lawsuit, reaching an agreement that results in a positive solution for both sides.

Subtext: “HELP! I’m being held hostage by killer robots!”

As part of the confidential settlement, no sources were revealed and Think Secret will no longer be published.

Subtext: “OH, DEAR GOD, THEIR PINCERS ARE DIGGING INTO MY FLESH! I MUST DO THEIR EVIL BIDDING!”

Nick Ciarelli, Think Secret’s publisher, said “I’m pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits.”

Subtext: “MY ONLY HOPE IS TO ACCEDE TO THE DEMANDS OF MY CRUEL METAL CAPTORS AND ASSIST THEM IN IMPLEMENTING THEIR VICIOUS, CALCULATED PLAN!”

I just don’t see how you could read it any different than that.

No, rumoristas, do not blame Apple for the death of Think Secret. Blame the clanking metal terrors that are the architects and executors of the Cyber Apocalypse.

But on the outside chance that it wasn’t them and Apple really did buy Think Secret off, I haven’t made a secret of fact that we’d be willing to stop publishing for a Cinema Display.

In case anyone wants to make us an offer.

CARS Presents: The Indeterminately Periodic Apple Community Wedgie Awards!

ANNOUNCER: Live, ANNOUNCER: And now, Michael Dell and George Ou. The award is determined by secret ballot by a secret committee of Apple community luminaries and can take place at any time. The committee is convened when a klieg light that sits atop the super-secret CARS headquarters is lit, shining the outline of a pair of men’s briefs in the sky. The process is both thoughtful and deliberate. When a pundit is nominated, the process can take days or minutes, but is audited by the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers. If a pundit is selected, a pair of briefs is hoisted on the CARS flagpole and the wedgie is delivered immediately and with extreme prejudice by several pre-selected members of the Apple community on call in the nominee’s geographic area.

[APPLAUSE AS MASAKO LEAVES THE STAGE.]

THOR: Thank you, Masako. Now, tonight’s award is a bit of a surprise. Who could have expected in the waning days of 2007, staring down the barrel at another exciting Macworld keynote, with Apple firing on all cylinders, that we’d see a work of such jackassitude that it would bring us all together here tonight. To present tonight’s award, I’d like to turn the stage over to CARS Editor-In-Chief John Moltz. John?

[MOLTZ APPEARS WEARING A GREY SUIT WITH FLOOD PANTS, WHITE BUCKS AND A RED BOW TIE.]

MOLTZ: Thor, when I first read about tonight’s late entrant, I believe Screaming Yellow Zonkers literally came flying out of my nose. I was eating Screaming Yellow Zonkers at the time and such was the force of my astonishment that the screen of my PowerBook will never be the same.

Rarely is a work so breathtakingly blinkered, so astoundingly ill-timed and yet still so fucking long. But even more rarely is it also keyed with the rhetorical reserve of a junior high school English Composition student.

Let’s take just a small look at some of this entrant’s work that has earned him this award.

Yet this is also a dangerous moment for Apple. In a way the company has never seen, the barbarians are massing at the gates. From hardware to software to services, major competitors with serious R&D and marketing budgets are laying siege to the House of Jobs.

In an age increasingly defined by interoperability and technical collaboration, Jobs still refuses to license Apple’s operating system.

He won’t allow music and videos downloaded from iTunes to be played on other MP3 players.

… MacWorld [sic] …

And there’s so much more. So, it is with great pleasure that I announce that this indeterminately periodic Apple Community Wedgie goes to…

Fast Company’s Adam L. Penenberg!

[THE CROWD ERUPTS IN APPLAUSE. AS THE CROWD APPLAUDS, A VIDEO MONITOR DESCENDS FROM THE CEILING ABOVE THE STAGE. IT SHOWS PENENBERG HANGING DEJECTEDLY FROM A COAT HOOK BY HIS UNDERWEAR, WHICH APPEARS TO BE A PAIR OF WHITE BOXERS WITH LITTLE RED HEARTS ON THEM. PENENBERG WAVES UNCOMFORTABLY, WINCING.]

Isn’t that great? It truly is a sign of a community coming together and saying “Holy fucking hell, you really are one tremendous jackass.”

Back to you, Thor.

THOR: Thank you, John! Well, I’d just like say what a privilege it’s been to MC this event tonight. It’s gratifying when the Apple community comes together and we here at CARS are pleased that even during the Cyber Apocalypse, we can all take the time to make a difference in someone’s life. By hoisting them up by their U-trow.

I want to thank you again for coming out. You’ve been a great audience. And now, I’ll leave you with…

THE SOLID GOLD CARS DANCERS!

[THE SOLID GOLD CARS DANCERS TAKE THE STAGE. LIGHTS SWEEP THE AUDIENCE AND PENENBERG CONTINUES TO WAVE UNCOMFORTABLY. MUSIC PLAYS. PAN OUT AND CUE COMMERCIAL.]