Author: John Moltz

Live. Live! LIVE! LIIIIIIIVE! Coverage.

9:55 AM: Goooood morning, suckahs! Taking a break from the Entity hunt (which is turning out to be much like a snipe hunt) to bring you live coverage of the Apple event.

The things I do for you.

10:02 AM: Steve takes the stage! “Today we’re going to talk about music…”

No.

Way.

Yes, way!

10:04 AM: Just noticed that Apple Insider says Paul McCartney will be on BBC 1 to give a special announcement after the show.

On BBC 2 there’s cricket – Papua New Guinea vs. Bangladesh – and on BBC 3 it’s a classic episode of Fawlty Towers.

Ringo, meanwhile, is having a routine prostate exam.

10:10 AM: New version of iTunes tonight with ringtones.

Am I the only person the planet who doesn’t give a crap about ringtones? I mean, really, if the baby Jesus had wanted me to listen to Smoke On The Water when my wife calls he would have put it on my iPhone when it shipped!

10:13 AM: OK, you build your ringtones yourself from the songs you’ve downloaded and then it’s an extra 99 cents to put it on you iPhone as a ringtone.

And that’s it! Steve’s leaving the stage! Have a great day everyone! Enjoy your ringtones!

Oh, wait, no, he’s not done.

Sorry.

My bad.

10:17 AM: Ooh, refreshing every iPod! Each and every unit will have a lemony fresh scent! The shuffle will be an actual breath mint!

10:20 AM: Fat nano! Fat nano confirmed! We have fat nano! Repeat: we have fat nano!

Oh, wait. I’m sorry. Steve says it “has a glandular problem.” I’m sorry.

Weight-challenged nano confirmed.

10:25 AM: Well, now he’s sending mixed messages because it will come in several different types: pork fat nano, chicken fat nano, beef fat nano…

And for some reason they’re all really greasy and will slide right out of your hand.

Who wants that? Am I missing something?

10:30 AM: 4 GB for $149 and 8 GB for $199. Available May 2009.

What?

10:32 AM: Just realized he’s wearing a maroon turtleneck.

Hmm. Maroon. Maroon. Red. Apple red. Apple in Japanese is “ringo”.

OH, MY GOD, BEATLES MUSIC IS COMING TO ITUNES!

Or something. I don’t know.

10:35 AM: IPOD TOUCH! IPOD TOUCH! IDPID TODOSDCH!1!!!

DKJDI IDFLDi DOIlkd klDfoid !!!!!

AAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!

OMFG! OMFG!

Eh, I’m just kidding. I mean, we all knew it was coming to this, right?

10:40 AM: Looks like an iPhone, but without AT&T! “Fuck you, AT&T! Ah-ha-ha-ha!”

Not sure why he’s doing that. He’s now suggesting people just get an iPod touch and a cheap cell phone with the provider of their choice.

“Fucking Stan Sigman. Pff. Don’t get me started on that jackhole.”

Wow. Weird. Why so much anger? I mean, I know why we hate AT&T, but why would Steve?

10:45 AM: The iPod touch has Wifi, Safari and YouTube.

Hmm.

That’s nice and all, but you know what would make it really boss?

If they added a phone…

That’d be cool.

They should totally look into that.

10:50 AM: One more thing!

10:53 AM: Oh, my god, it’s the ghost of John Lennon!

Oh, no, wait…

It’s wireless downloading of songs!

10:55 AM: OK, that better get added to the iPhone or, god as my witness, I will pants Steve Jobs!

11:00 AM: Yeah, damn skippy you’ll bring it to the iPhone, Jobs!

Now, dance, monkey! Dance to the Beatles, now available on iTunes!

OK, he hasn’t gotten there yet. But has Apple Insider ever been wrong?!

I mean other than all those times they’ve been wrong.

11:05 AM: And free coffee for everyone!

Actually, I’ve been unconscious on the floor for the last five minutes so I may have missed something. I just saw Howard Shultz up there and assumed everyone would be getting free coffee.

Oh, maybe it’s streaming coffee? I don’t know.

11:15 AM: iPhone announcement?

What’s next? Tablet device? Slim notebook?

Sex.

Bots?

Hey, save a little for Macworld, Steve!

11:17 AM: 8 GB iPhone now $399.

Is the 4 GB discontinued? Is my 4 GB now a collector’s item?! Awesome!

Well…

Er…

Sort of.

11:22 AM: Steve interrupts KT Tunstall’s performance to say “And, by popular demand… iPod shuffle socklets!”

Say it with me!

Technology! Whiskey! Sexy!

11:25 AM: That’s it. No Beatles.

You know, Steve is just punking us now. Just because he can.

Guess Sir Paul’s going on BBC 1 to announce that Ringo’s prostate is A-O-K.

CARS Announces LolPogues.

You’re probably wondering why I’m taking a break from scouring the waffle establishments of this fair nation in an effort to find the Entity and save us all from robot annihilation. I’m sad to say that it’s because I’ve been forced to respond to the juvenile antics of David Pogue and his cabana boy, Shawn King.

After a Twitter exchange with Mr. King in which I commented on Mr. Pogue’s lackluster level of outreach to the rest of the Apple web, King posted this image to his Flickr account.

Ha-ha. That’s very funny. I’m out here busting my hump trying to save everyone from killer robots and…

Whatever.

Now, while that is Pogue in the picture, the sign is clearly the work of King (little known fact, Pogue is actually illiterate and dictates all of his columns and books, probably what he’s doing on the phone there).

But despite King being to blame, he’s so easy to make fun of that I thought it would be more fun to mock Pogue. Plus, the glory of this is using something that King created to mock me as a means of mocking someone else, thereby doubling his bad karma.

Sweet.

So, who wants to make some lolPogues?

Here’s the lolPogues template to which you can easily add your own text using any half-decent image editor. Then just upload the image to Flickr and add it to the lolPogues group.

I’ve even put together a couple of samples to show you how easy it is.

Hey, if I can do this with my iPhone and the top-secret version of Photoshop for iPhone while riding down I-95 in a car being driven by a talking dog, you can surely do it in the comfort of your home with your Performa and copy of PhotoDeluxe.

Now get cracking!

A week off.

With every day we draw closer to our prey. When we last reported in, we were working our way to the Waffle Triangle. It was there that we caught our first glimpse of the Entity attempting to reenter our dimension.

He was just a ghostly form, floating above the syrup bar. Kind of like Shatner in “The Tholian Web”. Except without the truss. I started to reach out for him but just then Madge came back with my side order of bacon and I was like “Ooh, bacon!” And then I looked up and he was gone.

But since then we’ve seen him five other times and we’ve identified a pattern to his appearances. It’s a swirling pattern coming out from the Waffle Triangle, like a great spiral galaxy.

Or, like water going down the toilet bowl.

Anyway, I’ve asked the staff to take the rest of the week off from the serious business of rumors to evaluate the pattern and plot the waffle restaurants in his path.

You know, you might think that after all these weeks I’d be tired of waffles and greasy pork products but, well, you’d be wrong.

So far the metal monstrosities that threaten the human race have yet to attack the top-secret Crazy Apple Rumors Site headquarters (and they laughed at me when I insisted it be top-secret!). But my understanding is they’ve already begun their horrific rampage, so surely some of you have seen these dreadful creatures. Please tell your stories of your encounters in the comments.

CARS will return on Monday the 20th.

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: I was listening to the audio of Jobs’ presentation on Tuesday and I kept hearing him talk about how things were going to happen “otomatically”. I haven’t noticed this getting coverage anywhere else, but is he talking about some cool new Apple technology? What is this “otomatically”?

A: Oh, no, no, no. I believe this is just a simple misunderstanding having to do with the fact that Jobs pronounces that word oddly.

Q: Oh. Oh! So he was trying to say “automatically”?

A: No, no, no. The word he was trying to say was “Odomatically”?

Q: What’s “Odomatically” mean?

A: Odomatically means something happens like Odo from Deep Space 9.

Q: Huh?

A: It’s a new shape-shifting technology Apple’s been developing. It’s going to be in all Apple products soon.

Q: Hmm. I dunno. I still think he was saying “otomatically”.

A: But that’s stupid! You mean it would happen “of the ear”? Ha-ha! That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! “Of the ear”! Ha-ha!

Q: How is that any stupider than your Odo idea?

A: Uh… well… because we’re the ones with the Apple web site and you’re just someone calling in.

Q: Well, fine! I’ll just go off and start my own Apple web site!

A: Ha-ha! Good luck with that! I think you’ll find all the good site names are taken, my friend!

—————

Q: I read this whole thing about Sticker Guy and I was rather appalled at the way he was treated by the Mac community.

A: What?! C’mon, it was a stupid question. And if the guy can’t stand a little heat for it, he should get out of the kitchen that is the Internet.

Q: But it wasn’t unreasonable at all! Intel pays companies a lot of money to put those stickers on.

A: But the basic premise – putting tacky stickers on a Mac – is so out of place! It’s like you’re watching Leave it to Beaver and, though you’ve seen every episode and know them by heart, all of a sudden you hear June tell Ward she’s leaving him to get into competitive goatse.

Q: Uh… wow. I’m so stunned by that image I forgot what the hell we were arguing about.

A: Ha! Yeah. You like that? I thought of that earlier today and was laughing myself silly over it!

—————

Q: I have a MacBook that I want to use to manage a large collection of images I’m going to scan in. I need to hook it up to an external monitor and I’m hoping to get a good recommendation for a flat-panel display that’s cheaper than what Apple offers, but all I can think of now is… “competitive goatse”? C’mon. There is no such thing. Is there?

A: Ooh, dude, you really don’t want to go asking questions you don’t want the answers to.

Q: Unnn…

A: Yeah, just don’t Google it. Don’t do it.

Q: I’m… not.

A: Yes, you are! You’re doing it right now, I can tell!

Q: No, I’m… AAAAAGH! I’M BLIND!

A: Ah. See? I told you not to Google it.