Fran's Blog

I’ve just been having a discussion here. Do you remember when itunes first came out for the PC? about a 4MB download, maybe 6. It worked ok, typically, like any mac product for the PC, it was quite slow, but ok, not half as bad as what we have now in itunes 7. Don’t get me wrong, I love itunes, I’d find it difficult to move, which is why I won’t, but bulkiness is a problem with all software.

I’ve never particularly liked Apple, they do great product design, now, granted, a nice looking OS, but that’s about it. The quality is decidedly shoddy, from terrible iPod and iPhone batteries to power cables melting, so not even shoddy in a “feels cheap” kind of way, but dangerous shoddy. Yet the fan base is constant, and Steve Jobs is well popular. Yet our Bill Gates, with his charity foundation is almost spat on (I no longer compare the 2 as Microsoft don’t make hardware as such).

My attitude to Apple has changed through the years, I do have an ipod (on my second, the last one broke down) and have considered a mac book as they are very nice. Which, many will tell you is a start for me. But each time I am ready to stop challenging the corporation, I read an article which makes me further wonder. And today it happened again, this time it’s with the iPhone and the European deals that are being struck.

10% of all data and voice calls? So now, it is a full priced phone, subsidised by the mobile companies (hence an extra long contract to have one), but every time you use it, Steve gets a nice cut, not even a small cut.

I’ve tried the iphone, loved it, but this is too far, surely? Next comes the slam from mac fans.

A few years back now (ok 10 years back) I bought a brilliant DVD. I had to buy it from the States. It was The Grinch. Not the Jim Carrey one, but the original animated one with the song that makes my year every time “You’re a mean one Mr. Grinch”. My friends and I have now made quite a tradition of watching this, singing and drinking port in the festive season. I was gutted when they made a feature film, but also intrigued. “How can they pan this one out into a feature length movie?” I asked. The managed, pretty badly, in fact terribly. I stick to the animated version.

This is a popular one, and kind of follows from my last post about tech hype. But I have to rant about this one.

Will Gillette ever stop adding more blades? Wilkinson sword, you’re no better. Ok, ok, I know, grooming products have to move on so you can sell more new products. But you got a good deal with the old 1950s style razor which would cut a face to shreds, make a man out of boys of 16-18. That lasted for, well, probably 20 years or so. That was made safe by putting the blades “behind bars”. Thanks Wilkinson, a fine next step.

“XOHM is official, is coming, is already overrated” is what I read this morning. “the internet is on the verge of another revolution” is what marketing people are saying. XOHM is Sprint’s (a mobile provider in the States) WiMax service, which has had its fair share of hype.

I’m actually not hugely interested in this though, what I am interested in is the refusal to just accept new technology and wait for it to grow before telling people we’re about to reach new heights of being human. So, in memory of tech that has been overhyped, here is my top 5.

Ok, I’m sure there are plenty of sites, blogs, and people in general slating hip hop. I like hip hop, I have done since I was quite young (admittedly I considered good hip hop being MC Hammer at that time, so I can’t lay claim to being a connoisseur).

However, over the last 10 years it has become a bit formulaic. Life is hard, yes, and there are guns, yes. Hip hop is storming the charts with more and more generic beats and lazy samples (I recently heard a new Kanye West song which lifts Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. Fine, that’s ok, but it’s hardly crate digging, is it cashing in on the recent hit? It used to be about breaking apart songs and making them sound your own).

Anyway, more recently I have been overlooking the genre and opting for the other types of music. Till I decided to try out a British rapper called Ty. I’ve had “Upwards” for a while and quite liked it. I saw him perform at a festival and was hooked. Intelligent, funny, even self-deprecating sometimes. I’d highly recommend listening, then listening again. It grows on you. A sign of a mature artist that.

As I walked to lunch today, I passed a McDonalds. I saw a queue of school kids getting their daily fix and a proud looking school girl walk out with her big mac, or happy meal, or whatever it was.

I have to say, before the rant starts. I’m not going to complain about the state of society today as I can’t really do that till I’m at least 35.

Anyway, I wondered, a lot of kids now get pocket money nowadays, leaving them with free reign on what they need. A bad idea. As a kid, McDonalds was an end of term treat. And if I could have had McDonalds, I would have been there everyday.

So, what happened to school dinners I now wonder? Do kids still have them? But more importantly, has the song gone completely out of the window now? You know the one “schoo-ool dinners schoo-ool dinners, mushy peas, mushy peas, soggy semolina, soggy semolina, I feel sick” etc. Any responses would be gladly received.